diablo posts

While all of us wait patiently for Blizzard to finish Diablo III (even though we know we won't get to play the game until 2011 at the earliest), some fans of the franchise's last outing Diablo II have also been waiting a long time for a new patch. This week Blizzard announced that a beta version of the 1.13 patch is now available on Blizzard's test server.

The patch notes on the Battle.net message board give info on how to access the test server as well as a list of what's new and improved in the patch. In addition to bug fixes and game balance changes the 1.13 patch will give players "new and challenging tests" to deal with.

Fans of the Diablo series know that for the upcoming third installment in Blizzard's action-RPG series the game developers have been working with a tree-style of architecture for their character skill system. Well, that seems to be officially out of the game design now, according to Blizzard's Jay Wilson

Speaking to site Diablo Fans (natch) Wilson states, "About that, we've decided to remove the tree-type architecture and we are moving into a purely skill-based system." Wilson admits that their new skill system is still in the early design stages and that they wanted to try out a few new ideas. He adds, "It differs from the World of Warcraft/Diablo II type hierarchical styles and is more of a skill pool/path than a tree per se." Since Diablo III's release date is at least two years away we think they have some time to come up with something.

[Via Blue's News]

Sometimes you just need to sit down, slide a floppy into your A: drive, and enjoy gaming retro style. We know this all too well! That's why we have a list of the best and brightest from days long gone. These are some of our favorite games of all time, and we're sure that you'll love them as much as we do, if not more. Welcome to Boot Disk, and enjoy the retro ride!

It was mentioned in the All You Need To Know for Diablo III that Diablo was founded upon some simple rogue-like principles. Randomized dungeons, shrines, unidentified equipment, and many other different elements were mixed into a single action-packed experience. However, you shouldn't simply take our word for it. Diablo is still available for purchase over a decade since its release, and is still one of the best games out there. It's also fascinating to see the evolution of the genre it created, as Diablo is very different from other games of its kind such as Dungeon Siege or even its own sequel. While you may have played all the games it inspired, it's always good to get a taste of a classic.

Games that are coming out soon have a lot of unknowns that the average person might not know. Who is this character inspired by? Is all the talk of volumetric fog or cel-shaded graphics really worthwhile? Do the game mechanics really seem solid, or are they lackluster? In All You Need To Know we provide information to help you fully appreciate what these upcoming games have to offer.

Feed your head after the jump.

Check out our collection of Diablo III related downloads here on Big Download!

For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past few years, first of all, welcome back to civilization. Second of all, remember Diablo? Yeah, they're making the third one finally. But we don't know when it's coming out, so to hell with them ... literally. Because third of all, Runic Games's Torchlight is dropping on the 27th! Yes, of this month!

What? You've never heard of Torchlight or Runic Games? Well, then, let me school you big money style. Read on to find out why Torchlight is going to stave off those waiting-for-Diablo 3 jitters.

Amazon.com has the occasional one day sale that might be of interest to our audience. Today their one day sale deals with the "Battle Chest" game collections from Blizzard Entertainment. For today only three of these collections are on sale for 50 percent off.

If you haven't bought these games already you can get the Diablo Battle Chest (Diablo II and its expansion plus strategy guide) for $19.98, the Warcraft III Battle Chest (the original game, the expansion plus strategy guides) for $19.98 and the StarCraft Battle Chest (the original game, the expansion plus strategy guides) for just $9.98. That's 50 percent off their normal price.

A few months ago we reported on the official public launch of the stealth Gazillion Entertainment, a multi-studio developer that worked mostly on MMO games. Today the company announced that one of their various studios, Gargantuan, will be lead by David Brevik who previously was the president of Blizzard North.

Blizzard North, as many of you may know, created the first two games in the Diablo action-RPG series.Brevik and several of the team's members later left the company to form the now defunct Flagship Studios. Brevik will now lead Gargantuan's efforts to make the upcoming Marvel Universe MMO, the long awaited massively multiplayer game based on the Marvel super hero universe. He will also be attending this week's San Diego Comic-Con where he will be participating in an MMO panel on Thursday.

It's good to be working at Blizzard. The massive PC game developer continues to rule as its various games sell, sell and sell more copies. The NPD Group's list of the top 20 best selling PC games for April 2009 (via info from US retail stores) shows that Blizzard-published titles took up a full third of the games on the list

Also of note are two strong debuts for Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor at number four and Demigod at number 6. And an ultra-cheap price point has put Illusion Softworks' 2004 released WWII shooter Hidden And Dangerous II at the number 20 slot.

1. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Blizzard
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
3. World Of Warcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
4. Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor - Relic/THQ
5. Empire: Total War - Creative Assembly/Sega
6. Left 4 Dead - Valve
7. Demigod - Gas Powered Games/Stardock
8. Diablo Battle Chest - Blizzard
9. The Sims 2 Apartment Life - Electronic Arts
10. Spore - Electronic Arts
11. Warcraft III Battle Chest - Blizzard
12. StarCraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
13. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade - Blizzard
14. Warhammer 40, 000: Dawn of War II - Relic/THQ
15. World Of Warcraft - Blizzard
16. The SimCity Box - Electronic Arts
17. Bejeweled Twist - PopCap Games
18. Fallout 3 - Bethesda Softworks
19. The Sims 2 Pets - Electronic Arts
20. Hidden & Dangerous 2 - Illusion Softworks/2K Games

The two year period of 1996 and 1997 was a huge era for the PC gaming. It seemed as if there were a number of things that came together at the right time for PC game developers to take advantage of. One was the success of Windows 95 which quickly became the de facto development platform for titles (good bye MS-DOS). Another was the farewell to 3.5 inch floppy disks for game distribution. It had already started by 1996 but by the end of 1997 nearly all PC games used the CD-ROM format allowing for more content to be crammed into games.

But there were even more developments that occurred, such as the surging popularity of this new-fangled Internet dealie that made online multiplayer much easier to get into. The Internet itself spurred consumers to buy PCs like never before. More powerful processors allowed games to have higher resolutions and perform faster. Finally the 3D acceleration movement popularized by companies like 3dfx allowed games that supported such hardware to look more realistic than ever.

It goes without saying that the 1996-1997 period had some pretty remarkable games come out, and we look back at just 15 of them in our latest feature installment.

Click on the image above to continue reading We Love The 90s (for PC Games): 1996-1997

Blizzard has been hinting about this for some time and tonight the developer/publisher has just launched the new version of its Battle.net web site. The 2.0 version of the site still serves as the multiplayer gaming hub for a number of Blizzard games, including the original Starcraft, their Warcraft RTS game series, the Diablo titles and of course their World of Warcraft MMO.

While the "classic" Battle.net accounts are still around for Blizzard's older games the new 2.0 version will give people who play World of Warcraft and the upcoming Starcraft II and Diablo III a way to sign on via just one Battle.net account. Creating a free Battle.net account also gives anyone an option to beta test upcoming games, including Starcraft II. In fact, Starcraftwire.net states that beta invites for the RTS sequel have already begun to be given out to random Battle.net account holders (it should be noted that these are invites only; the beta test itself has not yet begun).