…at least it looks very, very likely. But there is still that nagging doubt…isn’t there 
Take a look at this page and pay special attention to the second splash screen analysis, i.e. how they point out that one of the runes on there is, in fact, the Hel Rune.
Once again, Blizzard is a frickin marketing genious.
D out.
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June 24th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I respectfully disagree, though I hope I’M wrong. This, in my eyes, coupled with the fact that Blizzard and EAMythic are playing release date chess currently has me thinking it will be a release date and CE details for the Lich King expansion.
http://www.worldofwar.net/n/414868/blizzard-image-solved
Again, I hope you turn out to be right, D.
June 24th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I am not convinced, but if it is, what will the tag line be? For StarCraft it was, “Hell, it’s about time!” Will this be, “Way past time!” or “Whoops, we forgot all about that franchise!” or maybe, “Diablo: The Next Generation (of developers)!”
I still think that Blizzard poured so much of Diablo II into WoW that any attempt to make another Diablo game will either get branded as “WoW with the lights down low” (especially if it is a Diablo MMO) or will have to break new ground dramatically. And Blizzard does a lot of things well, but breaking new ground is not one of them. Diablo was their most innovative game, and they got that by buying the studio that was making it.
But as for marketing genius, they are good. The net is buzzing about this. But sometimes I wonder if they aren’t just the one-eyed man in the land of the blind. It is hard to tell if they are really good when so many of their competitors are so very bad.
June 24th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
I think the tag line should read “Now you have no chance in hell, Mythos”.
June 24th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
LOL! That’s hilarious Keen. I guess you might say that Blizzard is “Flagshipping” Mythos.
June 24th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
The question is… are they the same runes from D2, or are they the runes being used on the Deathknight?
I REALLY hope it’s D3, but at the same time that means we’ve got 3-5 years wait for it still.
June 25th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Honestly If blizzard wastes that much time in effort on D3 instead of WOW 2 they deserve to fail epicly. I loved D2 but there is no way i’ll pay for D3.
I play mythos for free ocassionaly. I’m not paying cash for that kind of game anymore. its 20 years too late for that stuff
June 25th, 2008 at 10:04 am
So, by your logic Sam, the original Diablo was 10 years too late?
WoW2? Let’s hope not. Their next massive title, yes, but not WoW2.
And why not Diablo 3? Non-massive games still make up a good chunk of the PC market. I do not have numbers at hand, but I would guess that such games make up most of the market. Diablo 3, done right would do very well I think.
June 26th, 2008 at 9:26 am
I just don’t want a diablo3 game. 20 years ago it was D1 was awesome. then d2 was good. D3 not really appealing now. Even my kids who’ve never played diablo aren’t impressed with mythos. It’s WOW-lite fun to putz around in but not really worth paying for.
I’m sure some would play it just because it’s d3. But if they give you the ability to have the first person perspective you have in wow and add a few other features it then just becomes WOW2 maybe with random dungeons. That I might try but it would be more like wow than diablo.
I guess what I’m trying to saying is. To make diablo 3 attractive to blizzards core audience they’ll have to make it into WOW 2. If it’s just something like Mythos I dont’ think it’ll be as popular as diablo 2 was. It’ll be like WARCRAFT 3. Not a dud but not a resounding success either. Of course thats using WOW as the yardstick.
Maybe I’ll be wrong and they’ll sell 10 million copies the first month. But I have no interest and I’ve bought and played every blizzard title since 1985. This is the first time i went
June 26th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Meant to say the first time I wasn’t excited a blizzard title was coming out.
June 26th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
You missed my jab there Sam, Diablo came out in 1997, so I don’t know what you were playing twenty years ago, but it wasn’t Diablo. Every title since 1985 eh? (Blizzard, founded in 1991.) A big Lost Vikings fan then? Or was Blackthorne more your thing?
As for core audience, if you look at Xfire’s gaming stats every month, Diablo II is still on the list of games with the most hours played for any given month. There are some dedicated individuals there.
Blizzard cannot make the mistake that so many companies make, which is judging any product that is less successful than their most successful product as a failure. With WoW out there, an anomaly in some ways, Blizzard will have a tough time competing. A WoW 2 would just draw customers away from WoW and split their audience ala EQ and EQ2. I think Blizzard knows that and their next MMO will have to be different enough to stop that from happening. While they shouldn’t make WoW the benchmark for success, they also should kill the goose that lays the golden eggs at such a prodigious rate.
As for Warcraft III being not a resounding success, I have to wonder how you are measuring success. If you’re going to use WoW as your yardstick, then only something like The Sims looks successful. Again, Xfire stats, top RTS every month and on the top 20 over all every month, more than five years after release.
And what Diablo III ought to be… that is a tough one. My personal feeling is that they should keep it simple, upgrade the engine so that it displays at all video resolutions, add some enhancements, put in a new campaign, and then throw an editor on top that lets people create their own campaigns with custom artwork and such and then just let the Diablo community go nuts with it. Wait a year, release an expansion with two new campaigns and enhancements to the editor and let it simmer for another five years.
June 26th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
LOL Thats what I get for posting at work while multitasking. Wow it sure seems longer than 12 years ago that diablo came out. But I’ll take your word for it. Not that I’d ever exagerate. Of course for all the complaining I do, I’m still avidly waiting for SC2. That could easily suck me out of MMO”s for quite awhile. Assuming it plays as good as it looks. I guess there are as many D2 fans as SC fans here in america. As far as Warcraft III as I said I exaggerate but I still think it was the closest thing to a flop blizzard has had. It really wasn’t nearly as good as thier other games. But I’ll admit it wasn’t a flop. I just didn’t like Warcraft III. And most of my friends that played Warcraft II and starcraft for years felt the same way.
But we’ll see how it goes we are analyzing vapors and rumors at this point
June 27th, 2008 at 10:24 am
As far as Warcraft III as I said I exaggerate but I still think it was the closest thing to a flop blizzard has had.
I agree with you, Sam. It?s the least successful of the games by quite a margin. The thing that I think ruined War3 was that people could record and share matches. While that was neat and all, it led to a lot of strategy sites posting the best strategies and then everyone copying it. The match winners became the fastest or most able clickers. This was always an advantage in RTS, but the recordings almost made it the only advantage.
However, War3 had a much better single player experience than any of the other RTS games and the multiplayer gained quite a bit of staying power due to the World Editor and mods like Defense of the Ancients. In fact, DoTA is still very popular.
Their last new IP was Diablo if I remember correctly.
Starcraft (March 98) was released after Diablo (January 97), so that?s the latest original IP. I tested the original Diablo as part of the Battle.Net beta. War2 was not released with a Battle.Net version, so Diablo was the first Battle.Net enabled game from Blizzard.