Blizzard had announced that the real-money Auction House for Diablo III would be delayed from its 22nd May launch. The publisher has revealed that the Auction House would debut a week later on the 29th. The real-money Auction House will allow players to buy and sell items for actual currency, with Blizzard taking a cut on the sales.
CD Projekt, developer of The Witcher II, has blasted the use of DRM in games such as Diablo III.
Rockstar Games' Max Payne 3 has trumped Blizzard's Diablo III for the UK chart throne as the two debuted last week, as the previous crown bearer Sniper Elite V2 now skulks 4th. FIFA Street and FIFA 12 take 3rd and 5th respectively. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 climbs back into the top 10, as LucasArts' Kinect Star Wars goes from 7th to 14th.
Eurogamer is reporting that multiple users have reported their Diablo III accounts being hacked, and that one of their staff writers even saw his account stolen and transferred to a person calling themself "Anna", who claimed she purchased the account from a third party. According to reports, players have found that their items and gold were missing from their inventory and stash.
Blizzard has addressed reports of Diablo III hacking, as many accounts continue to be stripped of items and gold.
The first blow against a class has been struck by Blizzard and it's the Monk who was on the receiving end as Diablo III gets a hotfix. They go after the Mantra of Healing rune and Boon of Protection. They were overpowered they said. In fact the Boon of Protection was "10 times over its budget" in benefits to the Monk, and was "quite simply a mistake" to let slip.
Blizzard today announced that only 24 hours after release, more than 3.5 million copies of Diablo III had been sold, setting a new all-time record for fastest-selling PC game.
What has Blizzard changed in those sneaky hotfixes for the newly released Diablo III? Have they slammed the nerf hammer too hard on something? Well now we can know. There's an inherent spoiler danger with the changelog as some things refer to the storyline so don't go nosing beneath the spoiler warning if you want to remain ignorant to narrative.
With Diablo III servers intermittently going down, and users finding their accounts compromised, some have accused Blizzard of their servers being hacked. Blizzard denies this flatly, stating that the small number of accounts being stolen are the results of "traditional" methods, such as session spoofing and keylogging.
Ubisoft's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier has debuted number one in the UK, as Rockstar's Max Payne 3 gets nudged down 2nd. Capcom's Dragon's Dogma arrives on the scene 3rd. That's followed by Codemasters' DiRT Showdown trading paint 4th, while Blizzard's Diablo III retreats to the pits of hell 9th. FIFA Street dribbles 10th but FIFA 12 keeps 5th place.
There are some gameplay tweaks in the works at Blizzard HQ for Diablo III with some character classes getting adjusted, "or outright nerf" admits the studio. They explain their philosophy. They also share some stats since launch. 80% are between levels 1 and 30, 1.9% have unlocked Inferno and 54% of hardcore heroes are female. Patch due next week for "service issues."
The dreaded Error 37 has once again struck Diablo III, and Blizzard is scrambling to fix the issue while a number of players have reported that server issues have killed their character in the game's permadeath Hardcore Mode, which does not allow players to resurrect dead players.
Diablo III has been listed for a PS3 release by a German retailer.
The upcoming patch 1.0.3 for Diablo III is going to rock the boat in many good ways. Blizzard is tweaking drop rates in Hell and Inferno, and also plan to beef up Legendaries later. The Inferno balance is also adjusting with Act II, III and IV sticking closer to Act I in difficulty. Repair costs for level 60s will skyrocket, while Blacksmith and Jeweller costs will plummet.
Mother May I?
Activision Blizzard is rolling out a security update ahead of Diablo III's Auction House going live.
Blizzard has sent out a warning to gamers - if they cheat, they'll be permanently banned from Battle.net, which will shut down their ability to play Diablo III.
Diablo III became the first PC game to lead US videogame sales since Starcraft II two years ago, but it wasn't enough to prevent sales from suffering a 28% drop from May 2011 to May 2012, according to the NPD Group. This has been a trend in dipping sales for the past few months, starting with February 2012's 20% drop from February 2011.
Blizzard has issued a press statement for European gamers discussing the stability of servers for Diablo III, as well as the launch of the real money Auction House in North America, and how it relates to European gamers.
