yay
Diablo III PvP Update – No PVP Arena at Launch
Blizzard recently posted on their Diablo III blog:
As we’re counting down the days until we’re ready to announce a release date for Diablo III, we’ve come to realize that the PvP game and systems aren’t yet living up to our standards. Today, we wanted to let you know that we’ve made the difficult decision to hold back the PvP Arena system and release it in a patch following the game’s launch. After a lot of consideration and discussion, we ultimately felt that delaying the whole game purely for PvP would just be punishing to everyone who’s waiting to enjoy the campaign and core solo/co-op content, all of which is just about complete.
Not terrible news. Actually it will benefit PK-ing noobs in the PVE areas. Low level PVP is a joke too kinda… based on how long it took to max-out level characters in World of Warcraft, hopefully they sort out PVP by the time people level their characters up.
So the launch date is about to be announced. What do you want to bet it will be Winter 2012? Big game launches usually happen just before Christmas so all the kiddies can beg for them for Christmas.
The news comes the same day that the company held a panel about the game’s art, reiterating during the Game Developer Conference talk that the game would ship when it’s done. During an earnings call last month, an executive at Blizzard parent company Activision Blizzard said the game would hit in the second quarter of this year, which runs from April to June. The news is an apparent push back from earlier rumblings that the game would hit in “early 2012.”
Just last week Blizzard president Mike Morhaime took to the forums to assure fans that layoffs at the company wouldn’t impact the development of any of their games, including Diablo III. An angry commenter responded:
So tragic. Rarely are layoffs a good sign, and even with this positive spin it’s hard to not think this is the obvious “profits over people” type decisions that frequently get made in modern American-style business.
The sad thing it’s generally short term profits too. Yeah Blizz, you’re riding out a bad last year. You didn’t release any games and subs dropped from WoW significantly, and you failed to capture many new paying customers with the silly “free to 20″ deal. You’ll do better this year, law of averages, regression to the mean, etc.
It’s hard to not see this as something motivated primarily by the links to Activision also.
Once the PvP Arena is complete it will be added to the game as a patch. That patch will include multiple Arena maps with themed locations and layouts, PVP-centric achievements, a “personal progression system” and a matchmaking system.
“We know a lot of you are looking forward to PvP, and we’ll be focusing our post-launch efforts on making sure the Arenas are as brutal, bloody, fast-paced, and awesome as we know they can be,” he wrote. “In the meantime, we’re in the process of putting the finishing touches on what we think is a truly epic campaign and co-op experience for launch.”
Gee I wish I could put off work with the words “It’s going to be epic boss.”
“You will die, we promise.” BRINGGG IT ONNNNNN!!!!!
We’ll be good at Speed Runs. We promise.
No Diablo III till early 2012… This will be a long winter.
The word is that Diablo III won’t be out until early 2012.
This is unfortunate. Not only because Diablo III would have taken up a large amount of winter for many North Americans, but also because many adults won’t have an easy gifting idea for kids.
Brrrr...
Generally parents don’t care anymore what video games their kids play, do they? I predict a Mature (17+) rating for Diablo III. But pretty much all fun games have that now… people don’t want to watch cartoons in HD. They want realism. People get hurt in video games and you can see it. Does this cause violence in the real world? I doubt it, now anyways. Kids grow up with viewing violence now, just like they grow up with technology. It doesn’t mean they’re going to apply violence they witness in video games to their own behaviour. This behaviour needs to be tought in the real world. I would compare this with how baby boomers need to be tought how to use technology. Had they grown up and learned these skills, they would not need to learn how to insert the technology into their own lives. If kids grow up seeing violence on TV and learn early on that what’s on TV isn’t ok in real life (instead of having to figure it out on their own), then violence in the real world probably won’t result.
I bet a lot of people will disagree with this. But the games will come out anyways, kids will buy them. It’s kind of like how kids can use the internet to find information on any adult content they want. If you don’t teach your kids about it, they’ll find it and do what they will with it. Unless you homeschool them and avoid electricity.
So my game isn’t out till early 2012, and I have all winter to stew about how cold it is and how traffic is so, so, so terrible. By the way, I found an awesome app for Android showing the cameras on the QEW Toronto. Here’s hoping people see traffic is always terrible on the QEW during the day and just take the frigging train. It will help settle my troubled mind 
Blizzard Awards its employees with shields and swords… cool.
The Swords and Shields ceremony is an important Blizzard tradition that began fifteen years ago in 1996. With this ceremony, Blizzard recognizes the years of dedication and commitment of those who help Blizzard create the most epic entertainment experiences ever. Several times a year, Blizzard employees around the world gather to celebrate the five-, ten-, and fifteen-year milestones of their friends and colleagues with a ceremony where each recipient is honored with their service award. Five years of service are awarded a sword; ten year veterans receive a shield; fifteen years of service is recognized with a special ring; and this year marks the first time Blizzard employees will celebrate twenty years of service.
Considering most Blizzard employees are probably pretty nerdy, well paid, and all up in the “lore” and medieval theming of most Blizzard games, I guess they’d be pretty excited to receive swords and/or shields to commend their service. I’ve seen them in the House of Knives and those big ancient looking ones can get pretty expensive. It’d be pretty balling to have one of those hanging inside my door… or above the fireplace… or anywhere. Above my bed? Nice.
Anyways, here’s a sample of the gallery you can find there. You can see the complete list of awards here.
