diablo-3 posts

It was yet another busy day and capped off a very busy first full week of 2011. Oh, and the first big PC game of 2011 is due out next week (DC Universe Online). Geeze:

• Check out some really ShakyCam Diablo III gameplay footage taken at BlizzCon.
• Apple says that over 1 million downloads were registered on the Mac App Store on its first day earlier this week.
• Two Worlds II will now be released on February 4 in the UK; it's still set for a January 25 US release date.
• The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim language puzzle on the new Game Informer cover has been translated (spoilers).

With 2011 still pretty fresh in everyone's mind, it's time to see into Big Download's crystal ball for what's going to happen in the PC game industry in 2011. Looking back at our predictions for what we thought would happen in 2010, we got about 50 percent of our predictions correct. Not bad but not all that great either.

However that track record isn't going to stop us from making our predictions for what might happen in the next 12 months. As we see it, the PC game industry is looking pretty darn good, concerning all of its competition (console games, iPhone and iPad gaming, social network games, etc) and the fact that the overall economy, while better than it was at the beginning of 2010, still isn't the greatest. But will there be any unexpected left field surprises? Read on for what we think might happen:

PC gamers love role playing games in many different forms. Some prefer the huge sprawling single player RPGs while others like the fast pace of action-RPG titles. Still others like to gather with lots of friends and players in massively multiplayer RPGs. As Big Download continues our look into 2011's most anticipated PC games we give our picks for the top 10 RPG and related MMO games that we want most to play in the the next 12 months.

There are tons of sequels to previously released RPGs on this list. One developer, BioWare, has a whopping three games on this list. That includes perhaps the most anticipated MMO game launch in the post World of Warcraft world. Check out our top 10 list in order of their planned release date, plus two games that may or may not actually make it out in 2011, after the jump. You can also go back and check out our most anticipated 2011 games in the FPS and action categories.

Duncan Jones is a UK movie director who got a lot of attention in 2009 with his feature film debut, a low budget sci-fi film called Moon. His next film, yet another sci-fi themed movie called Source Code, is generating a ton of pre-release buzz. But in a new interview with Badassdigest.com, Jones talks about his love of PC gaming.

He states that in his opinion other movie directors who have claimed to be gamers are not really gamers because the fact that they are movie directors means they are mostly working on movies and can't find the time to really play games. But not Jones. He says, "I'm just slightly insane and I stay up all night playing games. In the day I'm working and at night I play games."

He says he's jealous that Sam Raimi is the planned director of the upcoming World of Warcraft movie, saying, "I really believe World of Warcraft could be the launch of computer games as good films." And what about his own gaming habits? Jones says, "I can't wait for Diablo 3. I played through StarCraft 2. I've been playing a lot of Call of Duty: Black Ops lately." Sounds pretty hardcore to us.

On the same day that Blizzard decided to give us a StarCraft II demo the developer also updated its Diablo III web site for what is most likely the last time in 2010. The site gave us a bunch of new screenshots for the long,long awaited fantasy action-RPG sequel (we have put them in our ever growing gallery of shots from the game) along with a new article that gives more info on what kind of "encounters" your player character will have with Diablo III's various creatures.

Blizzard is aiming for combat with the hordes of monsters in the game to be more tactically oriented than in the past. For one thing your decision to either run or fight (and how you fight if you choose the latter) will affect how the pace of combat will be like. Monsters now all have specific ways on how they appear on the screen and how they will try to take you on. Finally each character class will have its own offensive and defensive tactics and if you think the same attack can be used to slay any monster, think again.

All in all we can't wait to be in the battlefields of Diablo III ourselves. We just wish that Blizzard would hurry up with it; it has been about two and a half years since the game was announced, after all.

Diablo III has always been targeted for release for the PC and Mac by developer Blizzard but the action-RPG series certainly has a gameplay design that would be a perfect fit for a console and its controller. Now new job openings on the Blizzard web site suggests that the company is thinking about doing just that.

Under the Diablo III job listings they list a senior producer, lead designer and lead programmer with the "console" label. The game's official web site has posted up a note stating, "We're exploring a Diablo-related concept for consoles." However it added, "Please note that this is not an announcement of a console title. We are first and foremost developing Diablo III for Windows and Mac PCs and don't intend to allow any possibility of a console interpretation to delay or affect the release of the game."

Blizzard is looking to have its biggest sales year in history with the release of StarCraft II back in July and the third expansion for World of Warcraft due out on December 7. So it's not a shocker to hear word that the developer's main offices in Irvine, California will be expanding by a large amount very soon.

The Orange County Business Journal reports that Blizzard, which already occupies an office complex of 235,000 square feet in Irvine, has signed a lease to occupy two more buildings next to its current offices. The space, which will add another 100,000 square feet to Blizzard's offices, is supposed to be ready to move in by the end of 2010.

It's not currently known what departments of Blizzard will be headed to the new facility but the company, which has about 1,100 team members and is hiring for another 150 employees, is already working on four known projects. Of course it continues to expand and support World of Warcraft and it's developing the first of two planned continuations of StarCraft II. It's also making the long-in-development Diablo III and is also deep into making its unannounced next MMO project. There are rumors of even more games that are in the works as well.

[Via Starcraft.org]

There are very few games that we can honestly say excite us as much as Diablo 3. At the latest Blizzcon, the newest title in the venerable hack-'n-slash series was one of the belles of the ball, and a ton of info was released on a new hero: the Demon Hunter. Resembling the Rogue in a lot of ways, and the Sorcerer in others, the Demon Hunter is a throwback to the original Diablo series.

This trailer for the Demon Hunter shows off plenty of gameplay footage and almost no cinematics or scripted events. While there is a lack of UI that the player would normally be using, there's still plenty of information. The Demon hunter appears to primarily use fire and shadow as its elemental types, and can wield almost any ranged weapon, from bows to arrows. It can also dash around to reposition or avoid conflict, which makes it great for those that like to play keepaway with monsters. It does have a few close-range moves, such as the Fan Of Knives move from the Warcraft 3 Warden hero. There's also a few shots of quest acquisition and completion, breaking apart various physics objects, and new environments. The trailer is almost 19 minutes in length, but totally worth your time.

It's all over until, hopefully, next year. BlizzCon 2010 is history but the biggest fan devoted to one game developer will stick with the over 20,000 attendees and the approximately 100,000 people who bought and watched the streaming internet-DirecTV video coverage.

Of course the only place to go for all your BlizzCon 2010 World of WarCraft coverage was over at our sister site WoW Insider. You can head over there now to check out Blizzard'scurrent and future plans for the MMO, including more info on December's upcoming release of the Cataclysm expansion pack. Meanwhile our mothership Joystiq reports on all the Diablo III and StarCraft II action at BlizzCon, including some hands-on time with Diablo III's new Demon Hunter class, the game's PvP arena battles and StarCraft II's upcoming and unique custom maps.

At last year's BlizzCon (held in August 2009) the release of StarCraft II was just under a year away. At BlizzCon 2010 this weekend the release date of Blizzard's next full game, the action-RPG Diablo III, is less clear. VG247.com quotes the game's director Jay Wilson as saying that Diablo III is "way over half-way done."

However he added that the game is still not yet feature complete and Wilson stated, "We're not really close until you're playing it." So it sounds like the game is not likely to be released in 2011. Also G4TV.com confirmed that there will be a beta test for the game at some point but that Diablo III won't have any official mod support.