Diablo 3 internal testing underway, beta scheduled for Q3

Jos

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Finally some good news for fans eagerly awaiting the third installment of Blizzard's Diablo series. During Activision's earnings call today, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime revealed that the developer has started company-wide testing for the upcoming game, but more importantly he said that external beta testing is scheduled to begin in Q3 2011.

Considering that BlizzCon was announced to take place on October 21-22 it's likely that the beta will launch towards the end of the quarter. BlizzCon is a celebration of the global communities surrounding Blizzard's Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft game universes, thus it would be a logical venue for them to announce that the beta is ready to go. There is no official release date yet but the company says it is pushing hard to get the game ready before end of the year.

Diablo 3 takes place in Sanctuary, the dark fantasy world of the series, twenty years after the events of Diablo II. Like its forerunner, Diablo III combines dungeon roaming with hack and slash action, and will introduce several new dimensions to the gameplay as well as a brand-new 3D graphics engine with new visual effects and Havok physics.

Unlike most potion heavy titles in the genre, players will collect orbs from fallen enemies to regenerate health. There will be five character classes (and you'll actually be able to select your gender), including the Barbarian, Witch Doctor, Wizard, Monk, and Demon Hunter – which was shown off at last BlizzCon. Diablo III will also take advantage of the revamped Battle.net, which rolled out last year alongside StarCraft II.

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Never played the 1st 2 or any Blizzard game for that matter, but from what I've seen of this one I'm interested in playing it.
 
D2 best game ever made up to 3 and if you never played it you should.

You might get tired of it after about 5 years of playing but not like most games of one play through and thats it.
 
Glad to see they're going to put it on Battle.net so your account can get hacked in 3 days. *clap*
 
Jesus, you people are depressing on here. Just enjoy it for what it is and shut it!
 
hello ...

OMG, i forgot i pre-ordered that game so long ago :) .. now need to finish D2 as soon as possible now that D3 is near :p

really love Blizzard games & Diablo is one of the best game franchise that exists.

cheers!
 
You've never played the 1st Diablo, 2nd or any Blizzard game before??? You don't know what you're missing! :) Go out and get Diablo 2, NOW! hehe. As well as StarCraft 1 and 2.. and Warcraft.... you see where I'm going with this?
 
That's one hell of a kick-*** trailer. I've never played any Blizzard game but I understand from reading various game reviews over the years that their games represent the gold standard for this genre. Based on what I saw on the Demon Hunter trailer, it just might tempt this FPS gamer to try out this title.
 
Are they talking calendar or fiscal quarters? Which is a big difference. The only reason I ask is it seems it was done during a profit discussion with Activision so perhaps fiscal.
 
Diablo 3, StarCraft 2 are almost the same games as previous version as gameplay but with much better technology.
Why Microsoft didn’t follow that success recipe with Age of Empires 2 ?! :(
 
Concerning the date for the closed beta announced for Q3 2011:

The calendar and the fiscal years are exactly the same for Blizzard/Activision (confirmed by Blizzard's PR spokesperson, Bashiok), so they're saying they hope to have the beta ready between July 1st and September 30th.

Let's just hope there aren't any fiascos like they had with Starcraft 2 and push the beta back six months...
 
Let's just hope that the people who are on the Diablo 3 team loved Diablo 2 for all the same reasons we did.
 
The D3 trailers are total crap, It seems they are trying to kill the game before it even launches.. somewhere mid 2012.
 
Diablo is maybe one of the best games that Blizzard have created! Alongside the Warcraft series and Starcraft series.
It'll be a great help to play Diablo 2 first to get the basic concept of the game style of play, as it's unique in it's own way, but conquers most games trying to keep up with it.

There's a couple of websites that have attempted to show a release date, but doubt they're true...

HMV.com - 04/11/2011
GamePlay.co.uk - 26/08/2011
Zavvi.com - 09/09/2011

So who knows, retailers are hoping between August and November, but everyone else is hoping for it to be sooner, after over 10 years of waiting! :(

Probulary the most wanted game of 2011, Im very eager about this!

-Koopa
 
I cannot wait for D3 release. I really need to play that game, so that I can stop playing WOW. I've been playing wow, wasting time and money for the same strategy for many years. Atleast with D3, I can play that game with any internet connection and monthly fees.
 
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