Diablo III release date announced!

15th May is the magical date where Diablo III is finally ready and will be released for all Diablo fans to enjoy, finally! It will be coming to stores internationally on 15th May, or you can pre-order it online on Battle.Net. There is however, no mention of the release date for the consoles, which probably means it will be arriving to the consoles in the near future. 

If you're a hardcore fan, there is the collector's edition you can purchase for $99.99. It includes a behind-the-scenes blu-ray documentary, a 208 page art book, a soundtrack CD, a 4GB USB drive that comes with Diablo II and its expansion, Lord of Destruction, as well as various cosmetics bonuses for your characters in Diablo III.

So finally, Diablo III is ready, despite having various features such as PvP to be cut out from the game at the last minute. The core campaign and co-op should be solid, seeing how much time Blizzard has put into this game. What I'm interested to find out more is the real-money auction house, and whether it will make or break the game. I guess we'll find out on 15th May.

Image source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5680/diablo-iii-coming-may-15

PvP removed from Diablo III for launch!

Blizzard have recently decided to remove PvP from Diablo III so that it can be released earlier. They stated that the PvP game and systems were not living up to their standards, and hence decided to hold it back an release it at a later time as a patch and hopefully not a DLC. Cutting features off Diablo III to push it out quicker probably means the release date is just around the corner, but Diablo fans probably will not be too happy about that

For a game that has been in development for so long, not being able to nail down PvP really says something about the development team. And so much for being a "We'll release it when it's ready" company. This announcement probably means that Blizzard is just removing certain features just so that it can be labeled as "ready". Oh Blizzard, what a disappointment. 

Image source: http://mygaming.co.za/news/news/33947-blizzard-removes-pvp-from-diablo-iii.html

Blizzard's desperate attempt!

If you still do play World of Warcraft for whatever reason, you should have already heard of this news. Blizzard is offering players with incentives to bring their old WoW friends back, if a player successfully brings a player back and gets him to get more WoW game time, they are both rewarded with the following benefits:

• Sender
•  Spectral Gryphon for Alliance characters
• Spectral Wind Rider for Horde characters
• Receiver
• A level 80 character
• Free upgrade to Cataclysm
• Free character move
• 7 free days of game time

This really is Blizzard's cry of desperation. Is World of Warcraft finally dying? Or are they just trying to get people hyped for their new "Myst of Pandaria" expansion? Either way, it's probably due to the declining subscribers and they've finally decided to do something about it. If you've been wanting to get back to WoW, now is probably the right time! 

Image source: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/4539329/Earn_Legendary_Rewards_with_the_New_Scroll_of_Resurrection_-3_6_2012#blog

600 Blizzard staff getting laid off!

With the drop of World of Warcraft subscribers, from 12 million to 10.2 million, Blizzard is cutting 600 staff members globally. Most of the staff that are getting fired are not from game development departments, so all the on-going games in development, such as Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 expansions, and Blizzard DOTA, will still be in progress.

Losing your job is never fun, especially not when you were working at Blizzard. I hope that Blizzard will still continue to deliver promising titles. Could the massive drop in WoW subscribers be due to competitive title such as Star Wars: The Old Republic? Or is Activision behind this? Who knows? 

Image source: http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Blizzard_Entertainment

Blizzard versus Valve - Clash of the DOTA trademark

Blizzard is appealing against Valve for the DOTA trademark, and this case has already gone to the courts. Dota 2 is being developed by Valve has already been in beta for quite a while now, and Blizzard has only recently decided to fight for the trademark. I think this whole deal is kind of stupid. Does the name of the game really matter? It could be called something entirely different and the Dota lovers like myself would still play it and love it anyway.

In my opinion, I think that Blizzard is the bad guy here. All these years when the original Dota was free, Blizzard wouldn't have given a rat's ass to anyone who would apply for the trademark. Now that Valve has made Dota into a franchise, Blizzard wants the trademark all to themselves. I understand that the original Dota mod was built and made on Blizzard's Warcraft III engine, but it's Blizzard's fault for not applying for the trademark earlier. What I think is going on is the work of Activision, they've already screwed up games with so much potential, and now they're trying to do it with Blizzard's games.

I'm just gonna hope that this fight for the DOTA trademark wouldn't affect either one of the Dota games. I honestly would still play it even if it's called something else like "Super Fun Time Party of the Ancients". It would suck to see game development being shut down due to something this redundant, why can't game companies just get along?

Image source: http://kotaku.com/5883938/blizzard-and-valve-go-to-war-over-dota-name