The free-to-play sampler of Diablo III with Blizzard's Starter Edition can now be enjoyed by anyone who wants it. It offers a tasty demo of the action-RPG up to Act I's Skeleton King boss fight. Character levels are also capped at 13. The Starter Edition was previously available only to those given a guest pass by a friend, or awaiting credit payments to clear.
One of the biggest complaints for hardcore Diablo III fans have been that the Legendary Weapons in the game have simply been not worth the effort to get them. Blizzard has fully acknowledged this and has set out to make the Legendary Weapons a lot more powerful, as well as making them look much more badass in the process.
An interesting insight into the office politics of Blizzard has arisen with the reaction of Blizzard South members to former Blizzard North and Diablo II developer David Brevik in an interview with Inc Gamers.
Blizzard has announced a new feature for Diablo III that will be included with the 1.04 update, the Paragon System, which is essentially 100 levels beyond level 60, which will be a visual nerd cred that adds stat buffs and magic and gold find percentages.
Blizzard has announced in its official forum that the 1.04 update for Diablo III goes live later today, as servers will be going down to prep for it.
Blizzard's Jay Wilson has offered an apology for the comments made towards former employee David Brevik.
Gamers in Iran will be disappointed to find they can no longer access World of Warcraft and Battle.net, thanks to US sanctions and trade restrictions. The games weren't released in Iran, but gamers in the country have accessed the game via virtual private networks.
Thanks to the US sanctions and Blizzard's always online DRM, Iranian gamers won't be getting refunds for Starcraft II, Diablo III or World of Warcraft, and worse yet, won't get refunds on preorders of Mists of Pandaria.
Blizzard has revealed that patch 1.0.5 will crush the bug that grants the Trail of Cinders rune "five times more damage than intended" as the team drop it from 1500% over 3 secs to 300%. The issue was spotted shortly after 1.0.4 went live but Blizzard didn't want to hotfix but instead await a full patch release to give players "proper notice" as it will render some builds weak.
Stay Awhile and Listen is an unauthorized book by David Craddock which has been four years in the making. The book covers interviews of nearly 80 former Blizzard employees, including Condor (which became Blizzard North), and Silicon & Synapse (Blizzard's original name), as well as those who had regular contact with Blizzard bigwigs.
Blizzard has posted the 1.0.5 patch changelog for Diablo III, which features the previously outlined nerfing of the Trail of Cinders rune as its damage bonus drops from 1500% to 300%. A new system is introduced with Monster Power, which is "similar" to the 'Players 8' command in Diablo II. We can choose the 'power level' of monsters and receive "scaling bonuses" in return.
Starting with the Diablo III 1.05 patch, Blizzard is introducing an "appear offline" feature to its games. Starcraft II and World of Warcraft will add the feature in the near future.
The next big patch for Diablo III won't be adding player vs. player content in an active sense, but Blizzard have begun to insert PvP related code to the action RPG, reveal avid Diablo fans. Winning PvP matches earns gold, XP and tokens. 'Gryffith the Warmaster' will handle the PvP vendor duties, and will be found in New Tristram's Slaughtered Calf Inn. Ranks and arenas?
Blizzard introduced Monster Power in the 1.0.5 patch for Diablo III, which was intended to make monsters more difficult on Inferno difficulty. The monsters became a little too powerful, and a new hotfix will be bringing them down to earth.
Blizzard had other galactic plans in motion outside of StarCraft, reveals Stay Awhile and Listen author David Craddock, whose book explores former devs time at Blizzard Entertainment. The studio split into two teams after Diablo 2, reveals Craddock, and one "started and scrapped" many ideas. Someone came up with a Diablo sci-fi clone, codenamed 'Starblo'.
Activision has announced in its investor call that the publisher enjoyed $226M in profit for the fiscal quarter just past, up from the $148M during the same period in 2011. Much of it is thanks to a rise in paid subscriptions for World of Warcraft.
Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime has confirmed that there will be an expansion for Diablo III coming. He announced this during the Activision-Blizzard investor call covering the fiscal quarter ending on the 30th September.
Two gamers have filed a class action suit on Blizzard, aimed at the company's alleged poor security and its profiting on the sale of Authenticators, which are used to combat keylogging.
Blizzard has reacted to the class-action lawsuit aimed at the company accusing it of profiteering off Battle.net's insecurity by selling $6.50 Authenticators, and mandating online access to non-MMOs. Predictably, the studio is calling the suit "frivolous", dismissing it out of hand.
The recent NPD Group Australia figures on videogame sales have shown that Diablo III is Australia's best-selling title of 2012 to date, surprising overtaking such mega-blockbusters as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3, and Mass Effect 3.