In a new video from Blizzard which was posted on the Playstation Youtube channel, the development team discuss the challenges they face with the control system doe the Playstation 4 Diablo 3 version. Does it look easy to you?
The night Hardcore lived up to its name, left comrades dead and my nerves in shreds.
Observations on changes coming in 1.0.8 and the effect of an increased monster density
Latest Diablo 3 News
Blizzard discuss the Playstation 4 Control System of Diablo 3 in new Developer Video
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Latest Diablo 3 News
Diablo Fan Art Watch #193: The Anniversary Part II – Villains
Posted 16 May 2013 by Holyknight3000 at 15:00 GMT
Welcome everyone to the second part of this special Diablo Fan Art Watch. This time I have collected my favorite pieces of artwork for Diablo and his minions.
Here’s to many, many more pieces of artwork in the next year and years to come.
Artwork by SeungHwan Jang, Liyao Yang, Peter Stapleton, Rafael Grassetti, and Justin Bechtold.
If you enjoy Fan art and want to contribute to this growing community, please stop by the Fan Creations Forum. Many artists visit frequently, posting works in progress looking for feedback and conversation. You don’t have to be “arty” to join in. If you have any questions, comments or have some fan art related news on the web please send me a PM and I’ll get back to you.
Tagged As: 1 year anniversary, diablo 3 anniversary, Diablo Fan Art | Categories: Fan Art, Fan Stuff | No Comments
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The Diablo 3 Podcast #92: D3 Year One — The Diablo Community
Posted 15 May 2013 by Flux at 20:48 GMT
Flux, Neinball, and Wolfpaq discuss the Diablo community and speculate on why passions often run so high, and why so many self-professed “haters” stick around to complain and troll, rather than moving on with their lives.
This is the second half of the show begun with TDP #91, but you need not listen to that one first since the topics are entirely separate between the shows.
Approximate segment starting times:
- 0:10 — Intro and Diablo 3 community overview.
- 4:40 — Is the Diablo 3 community really that much more negative than other gaming communities? Why do people who claim not to like Diablo 3 stick around to troll people who do play it and to say that every other upcoming ARPG will be 10x better? Why does this not occur with WoW and Starcraft, even in the downtimes for those games? Is it a testimony to the enduring enjoyment (and rose-tinted glasses) of Diablo 2?
- 12:00 — Diablo 3 didn’t live up to impossibly-high expectations? Would Diablo 2.5 have been more popular? An update rather than a full sequel?
- 20:10 — Expectations for upcoming changes to Diablo 3? Anything big coming up before the expansion adds massive content and changes everything?
- 25:00 — Creepy unicorn sound effects.
The Diablo 3 Podcast Episode Guide in DiabloWiki.net provides links to every show, plus quick summaries.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:30 — 24.3MB)
We have a quick 1 year anniversary vote for our Facebook fans that’s asking How long have you been playing Diablo 3? There are five options from “since release” all the way to “stopped playing” – select your option.
Tagged As: 1 year anniversary, diablo 3 anniversary | Categories: Community Relations, Podcasts | 20 Comments
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Happy Diablo 3 Anniversary: Bonus Magic Find and Experience
Posted 15 May 2013 by Flux at 18:33 GMT
The datamined Anniversary Day special has been activated, and all characters in Diablo 3 are now rolling with a bonus to their Magic Find and Experience. These bonuses are exactly as if you had a permanent 
Fortune Shrine and Enlightened Shrine, adding 25% bonus to both stats.
The Magic Find bonus is 25% added to your total, and since it works like a Fortune Shrine it can exceed the 300% hard cap from Paragon + item bonuses. My Monk was running 425% in an MP1 farming game once I was fully stacked, when the usual max on MP1 is 400%. And I found eleventeen legendaries! (IMHO 25% is a pretty meek bonus. We’ve been waiting all year. Why not 100 or 200%?)
The experience bonus is better. Just like an Enlightened Shrine it’s granted on the Nephalem Valor + Multiplayer side of the newly-multiplicative equation, which and it adds to those and multiplies all of your EXP bonus from Monster Power and equipment.
The screens below show a brand new Wizard I made to test. She was sitting at 25% to Exp and MF on MP0, but when I restarted the game on MP10 she was at 25% MF and all the way up to +275% Exp, thanks to the 1.25% x 200% for the Monster Power setting. (I dinged to level 2 at the start of the zombie fight outside the town gates, and dinged to level 3 after killing two of the zombies in the Inn, putting her already a full level ahead of normal MP0 pace.)
Your character does not show a shrine bonus, just the special buff icon, so presumably you could double either or both bonuses by hitting the appropriate shrines. And then zoom zoom for two minutes of bliss.
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- Monster Power 0.
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- Monster Power 10
Update: Blizzard has updated about this bonus, and there’s good news; it runs until next Tuesday, so you don’t have to sit up playing all night in a mad quest for Paragon 100. Quote:
One year ago today, the gates of the Burning Hells opened and Diablo III was unleashed onto the world. Since then, millions of heroes have been created, billions of hours have been spent in games, and trillions of demons have been slaughtered without mercy. We’ve grown and improved a lot since release, both as a game team and as a community, and thanks to your feedback, passion, and unquenchable bloodlust, we expect the next year to be even more epic.
To celebrate this milestone and the community that made it possible, we’re giving away free buffs! (Who doesn’t like free buffs?) Players who log in to defend Sanctuary between May 15 and May 21 will receive a 25% boost to their Magic Find and +EXP stats. The buff is only available while logged in to the game, but it will apply to all characters as well as stack with other similar bonuses — the +EXP bonus will stack multiplicatively and the Magic Find bonus will stack above the 300% cap!
Tagged As: 1 year anniversary, diablo 3 anniversary | Categories: Blue Posts, Experience, Magic Find | 28 Comments
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Blizzard on Diablo 3 Monster Density
Posted 15 May 2013 by Flux at 14:18 GMT
A couple of informative Blue posts about the increased Diablo 3 Monster Density monster density that all decent people are enjoying in v1.08.
But if I use MP10, will that grant me MORE density than MP5?
Vaeflare: In patch 1.0.8 we adjusted the monster density of various areas of the game for players playing on Inferno on Monster Power 1 through MP10. While Monster Power offers some added perks to those willing to tackle the challenge of playing on higher MP levels, the monster density of areas does not scale upwards as you increase your MP level.
Vaeflare: In patch 1.0.8 we adjusted the monster density of various areas of the game for players playing on Inferno on Monster Power 1 through MP10. While Monster Power offers some added perks to those willing to tackle the challenge of playing on higher MP levels, the monster density of areas does not scale upwards as you increase your MP level.
Leveling up a new character is one of the most boring parts of this game. So much time spent running through dead zones. Why did they only apply this change to Inferno? I was planning on leveling up some of my other champs after 1.08, but now I don’t know.
Lylirra: The reason we didn’t apply monster density changes to Normal, Nightmare, and Hell difficulties is because we felt this would be detrimental to the new player experience. Players who are just entering Sanctuary for the very first time have different needs and less skills and tools at their disposal, and they require the opportunity to get their feet wet before being assaulted with the additional challenges that higher monster density offers. At the same time, we also agree that this isn’t ideal for players who have already gone through the game and are looking to start up new characters and are ready to take on additional challenges and faster pacing from the get-go.
Along these lines, we’ve considered ideas such as enabling the higher density for MP1 and higher, or simply making higher density a checkbox option. We’re currently working on some other concrete ideas, but we don’t have anything to share just yet, but this is definitely an aspect of Diablo III that we’d like to improve in the long-term.
As we’ve talked about on the Year One podcasts this week, Diablo 3 was really hard in the early days. That was mostly because the game was nerfed quite a bit in Patch 1.0.4 and Patch 1.0.5, but the fact that we were all noobs who were using horrible builds and strategies was certainly a contributing factor. If the v1.08 Increased Monster Density had been in place last May and June, it would have been traumatic. Not to mention unbalanced, since characters would have leveled well above the designed experience curve. (As most of us do intentionally these days, via +experience gear and Monster Power.)
Perhaps the IMD could be a check box a bit like Hardcore. It’s reasonable to keep a brand new player from enabling it since they’ll just hurt themselves, but once you know what you’re doing you should be able to choose your own poison.
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Diablo III Wallpaper Watch #128: Diablo 3, Year One
Posted 15 May 2013 by Flux at 08:59 GMT
Along with the “Best of” Fan Art posts Holyknight is honoring us with this week, I thought we should offer a selection of the year’s best Diablo III wallpapers. We may yet, but today we’ve got some new pieces.
Holyknight unlimbered his Photoshop skillz and created a new wallpaper for the anniversary occasion. I think it’s one of his better creations, with a cool wagon spokes format as the characters face off against the loot sacks monsters. For a second I thought I saw Magda in there, but then I remembered that we’d all agreed to feign collective, selective amnesia about her and the unfortunate plot events she led to. You know, like how diehard Star Wars fans give a twitch and shake their heads, then look at you blankly if you mention JarJar Binks.
The Blizzard anniversary pieces are nice as well, featuring new artwork stamped with a very minimal logo. It’s great art and a a welcome departure from their usual, rigidly-traditional rectangular box formatting. Click any of the thumbs to see the images in super desktop size via our Diablo 3 Wallpaper gallery, which holds more than 500 desktop options, if none of these quite float your proverbial boat.
Tagged As: 1 year anniversary, diablo 3 anniversary | Categories: Artwork, Fan Stuff, Wallpapers | No Comments
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Diablo III Patch 1.0.8a Notes
Posted 14 May 2013 by Flux at 20:14 GMT
This week’s regularly-scheduled maintenance has concluded and a new small patch was included at no extra charge. Here are the Diablo III Patch 1.0.8a notes. There are some potentially huge market ramifications from the change to the Auction House gold listing price, so see below for comments on that.
Diablo III Patch 1.0.8a – v.1.0.8.16603
General
* Made improvements to address “rubberbanding” issues encountered when using movement-based abilities like Tempest Rush, Strafe, and Whirlwind
Auction House
* The stack size of gold on the real-money auction house has been increased again to 10 million (up from 1 million)
Classes
* Barbarian
* * Passive Skills
* * * Inspiring Presence
* * * * Will once again be displayed under Life per Second on the character sheet
User Interface
Bug Fixes
* Fixed an issue introduced in Patch 1.0.8 that prevented Item Label Display preferences from being saved
Bug Fixes
* Fixed an issue introduced in Patch 1.0.8 causing dungeon exits to sometimes be placed in abnormally close proximity to the entrance
* Fixed an issue introduced in Patch 1.0.8 that prevented players with Starter Edition accounts from being upgraded when playing in an IGR.
A bug in the code for the 1m > 10m RMAH change was what caused the gold dupe bug last week. I think we can assume that bug won’t reappear today, but it’s going to be interesting to see what happens with the prices in the softcore Auction House. In theory this should lead to a major shift in prices, since gold is probably going to start selling for much less in the RMAH. For example, 100m gold previously cost $25.00, while it could now sell for as little as $2.50.
Furthermore, there has *not* been an adjustment to the maximum price (two billion gold) an item can be listed for on the GAH, which might drive all top end item sales to the RMAH. Why? The RMAH has a max price of $250. Previously, a player could purchase about 1 billion gold for $250, which meant that an item selling for 2 billion was worth about $500, or double the price cap on the RMAH. Thus it made no sense to sell a top end item on the RMAH at the $250 cap when a player could sell that item for gold on the GAH, then sell that gold for more $. (Ignoring transaction fees and the fact that gold was not selling well via the RMAH, since it was much cheaper via third party sites.)
Now that gold can be sold for 1/10th the previous price, a billion gold may drop in value to as low as $25. At that value, a top end item listed for the GAH max of 2 billion gold is selling for the equivalent of $50 in gold. And a top end item selling for $250 on the RMAH is worth the equivalent of 10 billion gold.
That’s all ignoring transaction fees for the sake of simplicity and because math is hard. It’s also assuming that gold actually will start selling at 10m = $0.25. It might not drop that far, at least not any time soon, and thus prices might not shoot up 10x. If you notice any big market price fluctuations, in the RMAH or GAH, do drop a note in comments. I’m curious how this will play out, and I’m sure other players are as well.
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Diablo 3 Gold Duping Ban Victims Plead Innocence
Posted 14 May 2013 by Flux at 17:19 GMT
If you’re the sort of person who likes to read despairing forum posts from Diablo 3 Gold Duping
people who were banned for cheating at Diablo 3, then you’ve come to the right place. There are lots of such posts in the B.net forums of late, all boldly proclaiming their innocence and the injustice of their bans.
To be clear, I don’t know if these guys are guilty of anything, and none of them seem to be amongst the infamous “415″ gold dupers. They all say they’re innocent, that they only sold some gems, etc. Maybe that’s true, but if you’re anti-duping and you want to scrape some of the digital tears off the screen to savor them in your leisure, I’m not going to stop you. All the following are partial quotes because TLDR, and they all got form letter Blue replies.
This is not a reasonable banned on my account, Blizzard company has not stated by receiving gold from others players is against violation, if it does then please banned all players out there that has also done so ( which i believe you won’t have anymore players left by then )
This account has not done any sort of duping/gems selling and violate to Auction House and i have the transactions logs to proof it, My friend trade me free gold for 30bill before he quits and i didn’t realized until the trade is completed that i have received 300bill instead I have played diablo since the very first day and there were no commas on trade menu and i have suggest this issue but none of the blues ever reply so i don’t think i should take the blame.
Got rolled back since I sold radiant star gems at GAH when I saw high prices… Now all my gear is BOA. I have very high end gear on my char. What am I suppose to do with it now?? If I wanna upgrade a 1b piece for 2b one? just throw it away? I got screwed without even knowing there was a dupe bug at that time.. Im pissed off at point I might just stop playing now. Anyone experience similar situation? Sent a ticket 3 days ago and never got answer, blizzard really cares about customers apparently
Hi all, I just wanted to jump in the thread here and let you know that we’re still in the process of reviewing some aspects of the RMAH issues for accounts that were affected by the audit. If you have any specific questions or concerns about where we’re at with an auction on your account, or why a specific course of action was taken, please feel free to message us. Please keep in mind that due to the high volume of inquiries surrounding this issue, we may not be able to immediately respond. During the normal phone hours for our various support regions, we do offer live web chat which you can use to chat with us directly.
Thank you for your patience and for your understanding 
Regards,
Araxom
Blizzard Customer Support
Click through for more schadenfreude-dripping tales of woe, if that’s the sort of thing you enjoy.
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Diablo Fan Art Watch #192: The Anniversary Part I – Heroes
Posted 14 May 2013 by Holyknight3000 at 08:00 GMT
Welcome everyone to a special Diablo Fan Art Watch. This week we celebrate the one year anniversary of the release of Diablo 3. This time around I’ve brought forth a collection of my favorite pieces of artwork representing one from each class.
There has been a plethora of amazing works over this last year and I hope in the future to see even more amazing pieces.
If you enjoy Fan art and want to contribute to this growing community, please stop by the Fan Creations Forum. Many artists visit frequently, posting works in progress looking for feedback and conversation. You don’t have to be “arty” to join in. If you have any questions, comments or have some fan art related news on the web please send me a PM and I’ll get back to you.
Tagged As: 1 year anniversary, diablo 3 anniversary, Diablo Fan Art | Categories: Fan Art, Fan Stuff | 3 Comments
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One life to live: A bad day to die
Posted 14 May 2013 by Xanth at 03:12 GMT
It had been a few patches but I finally died last Thursday, as I was about to ding paragon 72. Needless to say it wasn’t a great time to die. Not to say that there is a good day to die, but with the recent auction house shutdown a death is a bit more devastating. The Post-mortum after the bump!
