My Estimated Release

[guyver009]

Xmas of 09'? Possible or still asking too much considering this is Blizzard? I know the whole " we will release it when its done "..

Thoughts anyone?

-G

[SuggestiveName]

"Twenty years after the events of Diablo 2."

So, 2020, give or take.

[guyver009]

lol :cloud9:

[CarUnderwater]

yeah I was thinking the christmas holidays of 09 or the next one would be summer of 2010

[Vanilla Coke]

"Twenty years after the events of Diablo 2."

So, 2020, give or take.

LOL, sounds about right! It's only been 10 (TEN!) years since I picked up D2 the day it came out. That game ruined my grades in high school.

[chevyadio]

LOL, sounds about right! It's only been 10 (TEN!) years since I picked up D2 the day it came out. That game ruined my grades in high school.

hhaha QFT!! :thumbup:

[Valamyr]

"Twenty years after the events of Diablo 2."

So, 2020, give or take.

QFT. :D

That one got an honest laugh out of me.

[KingAmazon]

LOL, sounds about right! It's only been 10 (TEN!) years since I picked up D2 the day it came out. That game ruined my grades in high school.

How does that work? The game came out 8 years ago.

[sbn]

In my opinion, the "we will release it when it's done" makes for nice marketing, but the reality of software is most often released before it's ready. Really grievous example would be Battlefield 2 which took multiple patches before it was considered by many to be ready.

If I remember correctly D2 came out in September or October of 2000. My thinking is they will release it next Fall/Winter. Which would be great as that is the time I would have to play it. One thing that bugs me about reset of the ladder in June is I do not have the time to start new. I really hope it comes out in November or December when it's freezing cold here in Minnesota (who am I kidding, it is cold in September!)

[Intolerance]

In my opinion, the "we will release it when it's done" makes for nice marketing, but the reality of software is most often released before it's ready. Really grievous example would be Battlefield 2 which took multiple patches before it was considered by many to be ready.

If I remember correctly D2 came out in September or October of 2000. My thinking is they will release it next Fall/Winter. Which would be great as that is the time I would have to play it. One thing that bugs me about reset of the ladder in June is I do not have the time to start new. I really hope it comes out in November or December when it's freezing cold here in Minnesota (who am I kidding, it is cold in September!)


D2 came out right around June 29 2000 and I firmly believe that the game was rushed/incomplete. Do you really think they panned a4 to be so small? I;m sure that was an issue of "We're running out of time- wrap it up." There were major balance issues, too. WW and CE were hugely overpowered and had to be severely nerfed in the 1.03 patch

On one hand I want a sooner release, but on the other hand I want the game finished before i start playing it.

[YSM]

How does that work? The game came out 8 years ago.

Shhh. Blizzard ruined his grades in High School, remember?

Joking... joking...

[YSM]

D2 came out right around June 29 2000 and I firmly believe that the game was rushed/incomplete. Do you really think they panned a4 to be so small? I;m sure that was an issue of "We're running out of time- wrap it up." There were major balance issues, too. WW and CE were hugely overpowered and had to be severely nerfed in the 1.03 patch

On one hand I want a sooner release, but on the other hand I want the game finished before i start playing it.

To be honest, I thought that was pretty cool how Diablo II went through so many balancing phases. There was the WW-lance-barb era, the WW-sword/shield-barb era, etc. When you look back, Diablo II has changed tremendously over the years.

[Sokar Rostau]

I believe sometime around Christmas '09 to be the most likely date, but June '10 is also a very good possibility. Blizzard is in a position to dominate the software market for the next three years by releasing two games that are guaranteed, possibly record-breaking, instant best-sellers and their expansions.

I heard somewhere that SC2 is due for release in December, whether that's true or not, I'll start from there:

Dec 08: Starcraft 2
Jun 09: WoW:X
Dec 09: Diablo 3
Jun 10: SC2:X
Dec 10: WoW:X/Other product (Warcraft IV?)
Jun 11: D3:X

In a perfect world, SC2 and D3 would be released 6 months apart with their expansions coming a year later, but I highly doubt that when they also have WoW to take into account. Whatever the exact order of the games, I think this is pretty close to what will happen because it makes the most sense from a business perspective - every six months they release a best selling game so they will have a steady, and enormous, cashflow for a few years, rather than a couple of spikes. Blizzard customers are well known for buying all of their products (even the 10 Day WoW Trial is still a purchase) so they need to give people time to play the games before they release the next one, they also need to ensure their customers don't need to make a choice between two games.

[jamesisbest]

I think Diablo 3 will come out around in 2010 possibly even 2011. They still need to fix things, beta test, and who knows how far along they really are, they didn't give us any indication how much is completed. I remember Diablo 2 kept getting delayed for quality assurance reasons so I wouldn't be surprised that Diablo 3 gets a release date in late 2009 and then get pushed back several times. Blizzard wants people to be happy before they release so you know they won't rush the release on this game.

[mjharper]

A pessimistic view:

WOW:X late 2008
Starcraft II: mid 2009
Starcraft II X: mid 2010
Diablo III: mid 2011
Diablo III X: mid 2012

Why? Because in recent history (like the last 10 years) Blizzard have never had two games on the go at once. Remember:

Diablo II: 2000
Diablo II X: 2001
Warcraft III: 2002
Warcraft III X: 2003
WOW: 2004

So although I don't really like that scenario—three years to wait will drive me insane—I think that it would be a major strategic shift to have two games going through major releases at the same time. I just can't see them releasing S3, then D3, then S3X, then D3X, or someting like that. They'd be competing with themselves.

[Zarniwoop]

Summer 2010 is my guess.

Content generation takes a long, long time.

And the impression they gave is having a LOT to work out.

I would not be at all surprised to see it slip to Xmas 2010.

[DANIEL3RD]

One of the questions asked at the show as why nothing rekated to LOD had been released since 2001 and the aswer was they had been working. On this basis D3 has been in development for around 6-7 years. The video of the barb and the WD looks finished to me. The lead developer also said there would be much more info released in the coming months so that takes us up to Xmas 2008.

I reckon this game could is well on its way to completeion and could possibly be released as early as June next year. June being the 6th month.

[sarnsereg]

well.. just wait until blizzard tells us the game will be release "soon" and then wait 1 year and 9 months from that day and you'll have the game.. sort of like that patch for diablo 2 they were gonna give us and said "soon" because only blizzard can say something will be "soon" and take that long.

anyways, but seriously my guess is they are aiming for late next year to fill the void between SC2 expansion, wow exp 3, and their unanounced mmo which would be in 2010.

that's my hope but if it takes another year or four from blizzard i wouldn't be surprised. even though they give us the quality it sure does get old waiting around for it to ever show up.

[sarnsereg]

One of the questions asked at the show as why nothing rekated to LOD had been released since 2001 and the aswer was they had been working. On this basis D3 has been in development for around 6-7 years. The video of the barb and the WD looks finished to me. The lead developer also said there would be much more info released in the coming months so that takes us up to Xmas 2008.

I reckon this game could is well on its way to completeion and could possibly be released as early as June next year. June being the 6th month.

star craft 2 was announced when with gameplay video and it's still not out and i don't think they have a release date yet. although we expect it this year it might not be until next year. oh and the offical word is diablo 3 started development in 2005 but blizzard north dissolved and th devs left and made flagship studios. this at least stopped D3 for a while and for all we know everything done there was scrapped and started all over with a new team. and seeing as it took 11 years for SC 2 it could mean we don't see D3 until like 2012.

as for my guesses right now based on what i've seen

Nov 08 - WOW:WotLK expansion
dec 08 - SC 2
nov/dec 09 - Diablo 3
nov/dec 10 - new MMO they've been working on
jun/july 11 - WOW:expansion 3
nov/dec 11 - SC 2 expansion
jun/july 12 diablo 3 expansion

[AbrielNei]

SC2 is not coming at the end of this year. Rob Pardo (Blizzard Executive Vice President) said on WWI that they were "about a third of the way through" (the campaign).

So this makes SC2 2009 and D3 2010-ish. But then again I don't think they would purposedly wait with the release if the game was finished sooner just to have only one game "on the go" as someone said earlier.

Oh and D3 has been in development "only" about 4 years overall.

[ThulRasha]

Some phrases grabbed from the movie interviews:

1. In the Design Fundamentals Movie they talk about their work for the comming months.
Starting from 24 months and more, you would start to speak about years. So this particular developer thinks they have 23 or less months to go before D3 is complete. (yes, this is pretty weak, for all we know he would speak about the comming months even if it were 100).

2. Rob Pardo thinks that ideally games should be announced 1.5 years before they are finally finished, however, he also mentions that up till now this has more been like 3 years, but that conversation was a bit vague to me.
Lets see how they do with StarCraft2, and we will have an idea if they manage to do the same for Diablo3. (Starcraft2 was announced May 2007 if I remember correctly). Again, this is not much to go on, Rob is evil :wink: so nothing he says can be taken for granted and the teams working on both projects are different enough to make it impossible to judge that D3 development will go the same as SC2s.

3. Rob says that Diablo3 is pretty far along, most of the 5 classes are playable. Act1 is playable.
I find this a bit contradicting. Playable is far from complete. And it is only 1 act. Since it is also said that D3 will be more and have a larger world, I guess there will be more than 3 acts. That still leaves a lot of work to be done. Including cinematics between each act, and those take a very long time to make and be satisfied with.
There are a lot of job openings for D3, most related to creating content (the other acts that still need to be done).

My guess would be somewhere mid to late 2010.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to see more info about the other classes and the development, wich will most likely be fed to us in the comming months.

[mouseman]

The important parts of the game are complete, like the engine, physics and all the fundamental parts. Adding content and balancing are all pretty straight-forward thing to do, really (compared to programming engine, crashing issues, randomization of the areas and all that fundamental stuff underneath the game that we see). Cinematics, lore, content and that is done separately and they're hiring more to the team and they have 55 guys working already.

So the game is pretty far along. Looks like it's more complete than HG:L in the time of its release :)

All Diablo games have been really rushed. Did you know:

1) The multiplayer option was added just a week before the release in Diablo 1. That's why most of the quests are just SP, MP content was unbalanced (PK, friendlyfire, etc) and dupes were so easy (character stashed in the player's computer).

2) D2:LoD was supposed to be the real deal. They run out of time and released D2 and continued to add the stuff they really wanted in the full game and released an expansion pack afterwards. That's why act4 is so short and why Diablo dies before Baal. And why LoD came so soon after D2.

Of course Blizzard is in a different position now, but "releasing a game when its ready" might be the advertise team talking.

My own guess is that something big will happen at blizzcon. At least playable demo for some lucky press guys. I'm hoping closed alpha, though :) I'm putting my money to summer 2009, but then again, I suck at gambling.

[Davidus]

xmas is possible if they dont want people to buy SC2 exp
so its not possible:P its late 2010 guys face it

[guyver009]

Gamestop is posting Christmas of this year! As well as Wrath and SC2 in October and November.. three games in the sequence of three months? I do not believe it but its great to hope!!!

-G

[guyver009]

gamespot rather...