Diablo: Still in Hiding

Diablo III

After two Blizzcons there is still not a mention of Diablo at all. I suppose it makes sense though, Starcraft II is the major attraction, as well as the devoted WoW fans.

However I’m still holding out hope that Diablo III is in the works. Here are the things I know, or suspect…

Blizzard North (these are the people behind the Diablo Universe) was closed down by Blizzard HQ (in Irvine, WoW/Starcraft teams). All the employees were offered to continue working at HQ, but some chose to leave, such as Roper, to form their own studios — such as Flagship Studios — During this time, when these different studios were starting up, and their websites we put up, they included biographies of the staff members, including their past projects.

What we know from these tidbits that were later removed, is that some of these people were working on a 3d project for Blizzard at Blizzard North. We know that it was neither SC2 nor was it WoW (both teams were at Blizz HQ). So from this we can conclude that they were working on a new Diablo title.

Since then there have been many rumours and semi-leaks, the most interesting one has come from the Diablo Book author, who said that he was not writing for a dead universe.

Conclude what you wish, but I will continue to hold out hope.

Blizzcon ‘07

Diablo III

So Blizzcon is going on right now, Day II. I eagerly watched the coverage of Day 1 until they cut out (which hasn’t been fixed yet) and now apparently want you to register and pay to view the feed (?) — I don’t read the language on Giga2’s site.

So bad news for those of wanting Diablo III, it looks like a no go for now. The major announcement was for World of Warcraft. The new expansion Wrath of the Lich King.

We know that the team from Blizzard North (now in Irvine) are working on something. We just don’t know what it is. Though it’s a pretty good wager to bet it’s something related to the Diablo Universe.

Some of our staff is at Blizzcon currently, so if there is any major Diablo announcement, we are sure to have some good coverage of it. However it seems for now that SC2 and WoW are on stage.

Blizzard’s Unnannounced Project

Diablo III

According to Gamasutra in a recent article discussing Blizzard at E3 they mention that Blizzard is indeed working on a 3rd project.

The smart money on this as-of-yet unnannounced project will be Diablo III. Rumours have been floating around for awhile now, early ones from music composers, others come from the people who left Blizzard to join new game developers…

Blizzard’s own event Blizzcon is coming up in August. Many are speculating they will be announcing this new title there. Couple that with the ability for visitors to check out SC2, this will be a most memorable Blizzcon.

What do you think? Diablo III? A new game altogether? An expansion to an existing game? Another WoW expansion?

Discuss this in our forum…

Diablo II Ladder Reset, June 25th!

Battle.net

This just in…

We will be resetting the Diablo II ladder on June 25, 2007, beginning a new ladder season and providing a fresh start for those participating on the ladder realms. All current ladder characters will be moved to the non-ladder realm, and the ladder realm will re-open as a blank slate where all-new heroes can make their mark. Try out a new character idea, adventure with your friends, and race to be the first on your realm to reach level 99. The realms will be offline for approximately four hours during the ladder reset. Once the specific schedule for the reset has been determined, well post that information in the Battle.net Status Forum.

Secret Project

Site News

I would like to invite everyone to read about the secret project…

It started a few weeks ago when AJ asked me about d2p, of course I complained about Drupal, and its instability, not to mention the difficult method with which to add content to it. He asked me about alternatives, and I made an offhand comment at first about a wiki-based site. A few days later I thought more about it and realized that a good wiki is something the Diablo community doesn’t have.

So I asked AJ to help setup a wiki. I decided to use MediaWiki as the backend, most likely you know this from perusing Wikipedia. My next goal was to give it a new color scheme, and decide on a layout. The basic layout, I decided, was best left untouched, seeing as most people see “wiki” and think of Wikipedia’s layout. However when it came to the various colors, I decided that it should look like a true d2p site. Therefore I spent the first day or so modifying its stylesheets, setting of basic templates, and making sure various leftovers got recolored properly.

From there, I had a choice, I wanted to keep the Wiki a secret, until it had some content first. Unlike d2p’s launch I wanted there to be something to see. So I had my goal. Because of this, I decided I would not put an offer out for new staff, like I have in the past, but wait until the launch to do so.

I set an arbitrary date, which happened to be today, April Fool’s. I even went all out and redid my signature with a d2p-motif:

Neo's Signature

However, Warboards isn’t as into Diablo as I’d hoped, garnering little attention except for a couple curious posters.

I decided that, unlike d2p’s Item Database I tried to do, I would focus instead on Skills, Skill Data, and Characters. Which would give the Wiki a starting off point. It would let people fill in pages, especially ones relating to their favorite character build. However, my goal was to complete a skills section. And I finished it by the date I had set, today.

I’ve been wondering how to announce this, since we’re still doing some fun name-swapping over on Warboards between the staff members, causing all kinds of havoc. Though Warboards decided to stop loading for me, which happens occasionally because of my ISP, or Warboards’ DNS, who knows.

You’ll notice that d2players.org itself has gone through a change, AJ decided to drop Drupal, and go with a different Content System, since the scope of the site is changing (the main content being on the Wiki, rather then the front site). We’ve decided to keep d2p.org as a hub for ORG Network Diablo related projects. I’m also considering doing a sort of “Featured Wiki” content on the main site here. Though mostly this will serve as a news site, were we will gather various news relating to Diablo, and most importantly tidbits about Diablo III or any new book releases.

Anyways, enough rambling on about that stuff, lets get to the juicy info here… I’d like to introduce everyone to the newest addition to the ORG Network, the d2p wiki!

Visit d2p