The Unburied

"Something is dreadfully wrong. Fear is in the air; I can feel it. I was but days out of Tristram when I saw a screaming ball of flame rip across the sky. Surely enough, soon after witnessing this harbinger of doom, I stumbled upon a badly mangled traveler. He was barely able to spit out the tale of the cursed monstrosity responsible for his broken body as his life drifted away. He called his killer "the unburied".

Months ago, when I wrote of the undead blight upon our land, I thought them the gravest of threats. But they are nothing compared to the new undead creature described to me by this poor fellow.

He was a law officer of sorts, a local guard out looking into the depraved handiwork of a crazed individual, the sort we seem to be seeing more and more of in these dark days. When the guard happened upon a mass grave dug by this sick fool, a massive, horned, disgusting behemoth was digging itself out. The dying traveler described this loathsome beast – or, as he termed it, the unburied – as being comprised of bloated parts from many fetid, rotting corpses, with a multitude of disfigured heads and slobbering fanged mouths. He was fortunate that day, but when he returned with several men to help him deal with the creature, they found to their horror that the undead spawn was too much for even their combined efforts. They fought valiantly to the last man, sacrificing themselves to keep the beast from rampaging across the countryside and taking who knows how many innocent lives. He was the last survivor, and before he passed on, he proudly told me that they were successful in eradicating the foul unburied creature.

Being born out of pits of human misery, these beings feed on human suffering. Wherever bodies are dumped together unceremoniously, the unburied may rise. I cannot help but wonder if this be some sort of cosmic justice for our inhumanity to our fellow man. But what is the catalyst? What animates these things? What makes them so horrendously different from the run-of-the-mill zombies or "normal" skeletal undead?

Some days I truly feel that the end of humanity must be at hand. Certainly our world is home to assorted disturbing and unsettling creatures, but every dawn seems to bring news of more wretchedness we must endure as a people. The darkness is coming, my friends: mark my words."
-From the writings of Abd al-Hazir


Bashiok: The Unburied is formed by the fusion of soil, rock, human bodies and angry souls. The spikes that jut from its body are shards of stone ripped from the earth during the development of the creature.

Looks awesome. Wouldn't want to be that guy in the middle of em':

Blizzcon 2009 Has The Green Light

BLIZZCON® 2009 ANNOUNCED

Blizzard Entertainment® gaming celebration to return to Anaheim Convention Center on
August 21-22


PARIS, France -- February 17, 2009 -- Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced plans for its fourth BlizzCon® gaming convention, to be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California on Friday, August 21 and Saturday, August 22. BlizzCon is a celebration of the global player communities surrounding Blizzard Entertainment®’s Warcraft®, StarCraft®, and Diablo® universes. In response to the festival’s increasing popularity, this year’s event has been expanded from three convention halls to four.

“We’ve been amazed by the incredible response to each of our previous BlizzCon events,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We’re pleased to be bringing the convention back to Anaheim this year, and we look forward to this new opportunity to meet Blizzard gamers from around the world.”

BlizzCon will offer a wide variety of activities throughout the two-day event. In addition to serving as a gathering place for Blizzard Entertainment gaming communities, attendees will be able to enjoy:

• Hands-on play time with upcoming Blizzard Entertainment games
• Discussion panels with Blizzard Entertainment developers
• Competitive and casual tournaments for players to showcase their talents
• Community contests with great prizes
• Commemorative merchandise based on Blizzard Entertainment’s game universes
• A silent auction
• More exciting activities and attractions to be announced
Further details, including ticket availability and pricing, will be announced on the official BlizzCon website, http://www.blizzcon.com, as the event draws closer.


To keep pace with the continued growth of World of Warcraft as well as development on other Blizzard Entertainment games, the company is currently hiring for numerous open positions. More information on available career opportunities can be found at http://eu.blizzard.com/en/jobs/.


Pretty exciting. They're having it early so I would imagine that there will be a release date for SC2 (November / December?). Could also have new class(es) for Diablo 3. Maybe even a new WoW Xpak. Should be fun!

Blizzard's Nice Little Gift for $14.99

It has taken months but Blizzard has finally given us some Diablo 3 merchandise! From Small to 3XL, you can get your own Diablo 3 T-Shirt (Mens & Womens). I know I'll be getting myself one. If only they would sign some more posters and put them up... hehehe.

A direct link to the Mens T-Shirt

Bashiok on Auction Houses

"Foremost - spamming is bad. I think trade channels usually suck because of the requirement to spam. The amount of time and effort spent just to get your items noticed borders on brain-explosiony. Throw in the lack of easily gauged economy and you’re usually left out in the dark, laughed at, ripped off, etc. Your suggestion seems to mix the idea of an auction house and trade channel, in that you can use a channel in-game to spam, and then have some sort of UI to trade the item. That definitely solves one issue, which is needing to leave the game and just sit in a chat channel. What it doesn’t solve is needing to sit in a chat channel and spam. Sure, you could probably play and spam the channel every once in a while but it’s really not the cleanest approach. You’re still spamming a chat channel, you’re still limited to the people that want to see that spam (ie not many).

Since you brought it up let’s move on to the World of Warcraft’s auction house. World of Warcraft did not invent the auction house trading system. It may have certainly refined it, but an irrational hatred of the game that some of you seem to have really shouldn’t translate to game systems that aren’t original to it. There are some major advantages to an auction house similar to WoW’s. You don’t have to be present being the biggest and best. You can be playing with friends, PvPing, asleep, at school or work, and someone has the ability to see your items, and you have a greater chance to sell/trade them. You don’t have to spam a channel, you don’t have to even be online and playing. That’s HUGE, and really the main reason so many people use trading systems such as websites and forums for Diablo II. You want to focus on playing the game or not playing the game, not sitting around hoping someone wants your item.

It also helps form a visible and easily identified economy. I’m a new player, I got a sword I think it’s probably pretty nice, I can go on an auction house and search for it or similar swords and get an idea of how much it should sell for. In this case being in a trade channel is no better whether it’s in-game or out of game. What you’d probably end up with is people still going to forums and more static styles of trading found on websites, but even then any unified sense of economy is spread thin. Maybe that’s not such a bad system in itself, and an official trading site could work. Of course what you lose either way though, auction house or website, is in-game player interaction. Which is what I assume you’re striving to keep.

When it comes down to it, any change or addition or removal of any systems have to be weighed. Do the positives outweigh the negatives?

I’ll go back to what I said at the beginning and state we don’t know what if any types of trading systems will be in the final game. Maybe there won’t be, it may be that eventually we settle on leaving it Diablo II style. We have some ideas of what would be cool, but at the end of the day we’re not going to do anything that isn’t far and away a more positive change for the game."


Seems like he either likes the auction house style or just plain hates the Diablo 2 style. I hope it does enter play in D3 but they would need to make sure that gold is used more in trades than items.

Tyrael Has Moved

Blizzard has updated their Diablo3.com website. Tyrael has moved closer to us and his wings have become more like silly string.

Before

After

Looks more evil, don't he? The first think you see when you enter the website is Tyrael. It's not everyday your major logo changes. But maybe this tells us something is coming.

I sawwwy...

I know, it's been a month since the last update. But there is a reason. More like excuses but we'll go with that.

1. Holiday seasons are always busy. I think everyone can agree with that.

2. There has been no new. None, zip, nada. Unless you want Wrath news but I've given up on keeping up with that.

3. Any free time has been spent on the Diablo 2 realms.

So, if you wanna do some Hell Baal runs, hit me up! US-East, Non-Ladder. Whisper *neflight2 or my characters:

Aticus
Whoa_ASorceress
Whoa_ANecro
Whoa_APaladin
Whoa_AHammerdin

When more news come, I'll have it posted.

Can't Quit? Epic Fail.

Here's a little tid-bit for those who want to leave WoW for other MMOs:

1. People who said that they were leaving WoW for another MMO and they left for Age Of Conan, 68% of the players re-subscribed to WoW.

2. People who said that they were leaving WoW for another MMO and they left for Warhammer, 48% of the players re-subscribed to WoW.

It just proves that WoW is like drugs: you can't stop... j/k. But it does ponder the question to those WoW leavers that if these people were tired of WoW and wanted something new or just... well, wanted something new. I knew I didn't want to play anymore but 68% of people returning to a game they left is astonishing.

But, this isn't your typical MMO. Leaving EverQuest was never really an option unless you wanted to stop playing MMOs all together. I mean, it really was the only one out there at the time. And usually, in EQ, you were replaced once you left (in the high end guilds). In WoW, there are so many players that if you were to leave, and lose your spot in a guild, you could find an equal guild doing the same raids.

All of this just proves that this isn't you grandfather's MMO... or for some of you, your older sibling and/or father's MMO.