KLuWolF's Den

DIABLO III Arrives on May 15th!

Found the following news release on Battle.Net this month,

"The End of Days approaches…. Diablo III will be unleashed from the Burning Hells on May 15, 2012, and you can be ready to play the minute the servers go live by pre-purchasing the game digitally on Battle.net today."

Within the bounds of being a professional skeptic, I'd add to this statement, ±1-2 days, just for the right amount of sarcasm that Blizzard probably deserves anyway for axing the Starcraft Ghost project, Grrr :) In what universe has anyone not seen at least one Hollywood plot where the world 'gets connected' all in one momentous occasion. Then everything goes to shit in the next, the servers crash and a superhero rises from the ashes to save us from the ultimate doom that was scheduled to unfold. In one case a certain James Bond epic comes to mind ... Blizzard has already written the fate of Diablo fans and the path to our destruction starts by choking down the $60USD price tag. However there are some pleasant surprises for the fans as well. Including a more effective way to identify items and teleport without wasting inventory slots. If there was one thing I would've wished for in D3, it was definitely the wasted inventory slot Then again you zen out with what you have been given regardless and it could've been just as effective making the scrolls rare to find? Meaning by that, less chance of having them in the inventory.

"Beginning May 15, players around the world will be able to return to Tristram to discover the dark secrets of a fallen star and begin their quest to save Sanctuary from the impending demonic invasion. To secure your place as a barbarian, monk, demon hunter, witch doctor, or wizard right now, simply log in to your Battle.net account, and then purchase and download* Diablo III, and you’ll be ready to play when the game launches."

Apparently I wasn't even ready to get the newsflash about this release. I often rely on my Starcraft Bulletin News for things going on at Blizzard Entertainment. But, a couple of days ago when I tried to launch Starcraft II there was a patch screen which then crashed on an MD5 Mismatch error, programmers know it as possible file corruption which has occurred during transport. However, this was not file corruption, most likely an update was missed that contained a patch to the updater itself. It took me several days and a complete re-install to get Starcraft II working again, as directed by Blizzard Support. Hopefully not the shape of things to come, as I'm sure that thousands, if not millions, of users are going to be online when the switch is turned on. By this moment Blizzard will have already calculated their future with this franchise and, no doubt, how much effort will be put into post launch support.

After visiting the website(s) and seeing the rather awesome movie clip, they have posted, where the grandfather of an innocent young woman, disappears in a great ball of ethereal fire. Thinking the quest probably begins there, more or less, LoL. Glancing over the posted 'new features' also indicates the level of detail they have devoted to the graphic quality. Surprisingly Blizzard has elected to keep the minimum system requirements to a mere Windows XP with a fairly decent video card that could handle a smooth 1024x768 rez. I'm currently benchmarking a new GridBug EGG configuration that'll work nicely, with a cost at < $300 per BuG, going on sale April 1st, at Country Bug Books & Gifts, ask in-store for details.

There's clear indication that Blizzard hopes to achieve a quick enough interface so you'd spend more time in battle. Yet, on the site is a skill calculator, a character building feature that seems wordy and, at times, presents exactly the same text in two places on the screen at once. Twice I had to shake my head, when mousing over a item, new text pops up that immediately gave me a feeling of deja Vu, then realizing I'm reading the same text twice, Grrr :) The stoners are going to have a lot of crazy fun with this one. It's stuff like that which makes anyone go dizzy.

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Here's the Monk I created called, Spirit Walker. Took about a half hour, without going deeply into all possibilities. This dood needs to be 43rd level for all the cool skills I selected. As mostly we all expected not to see this until the 4th Quarter, this better not be a crash and burn for the mighty Blizzard. That will depend on if it's ready and not buggy. My fate has certainly changed now that one of my favourites is back from history.

Now that Diablo III is on the pre-release, expect to see one of our great users from the past, LrTcH, back here on the GameGrid, wiser than he was before. LrTcH read me one of his tales a couple of weeks ago and it was awesome! It has somehow been prophetic that this day was close since he rarely contacts me so regularly. Interesting ...

Title: Diablo III
Genre: Action RPG
Expected Release Date: 15 May 2011
Published by: Blizzard Entertainment
Developed by: Blizzard Entertainment

Blood and Gore, Violence

"For more details on the May 15 release of Diablo III, be sure to hit the official press release, or head to our new Diablo III game page to learn more about the game ..."

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Floating BYTEs

If you'd like to find some great mainstream gaming websites, I would suggest GamePro, IGN or GamersGate! Recently I heard the news that GamePro is no longer going to publish their print magazine. It was a great subscription to have around for reference. Certainly not going back to PCGamer, yuck! Their format changed a few years back and it really sucked. They went weird and started giving high ratings to 'C-D' grade games in their magazine. Granted some Indi games can be fun and enjoyable, but after spending a grand or more on an extreme machine, the last game I want to play is one that still runs on a dinosaur 8086 processor. The recent Tv serial, 'The Big Bang Theory', portrays these geeky four stooges as still playing on the Wii and enjoying a round on a DOS based dungeon game. Not going to happen again in my lifetime even though I'm probably one of the fewer sources around that still has all his DOS software. Grrr !?

We'll be working with the Nvidia 3D Vision Kit on our AMD Phenom™ II X4 955 Black Edition Quad Core processor, Nvidia GeForce 460 GTX 768mb, Asus VG236 3D monitor, Asus M4A79T Deluxe motherboard, G.Skill 6GB Memory and Windows 7 64bit Pro in an Azza Case.

This GridBug was named 'Galactica', after the popular BattleStar from Tv, and provided a baseline for building inexpensive customized gaming units. Everyone can have a Xbox or a Playstation, bah, poodoo! Take a stand against the one world console takeover! Build a personalized Extreme Graphics & Gaming Personal Computer and take advantage of our geek's time right from buying the hardware to tightening the last screw. Anyone wanting to know more can Contact Us about your dream machine or click on any E.G.G. project link.