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.

Vote 08!

Tomorrow is election day in the US. That means that it's now our time to use our right as US citizens to go out and vote for whomever you believe should be our leaders. No matter whether you are a Republican or Democrat, it's time to spend 5 minutes of your day to go and vote.

As much as I would love to spend more time playing Fable 2 for the 2nd time through, I know I'll be spending a few minutes of my day at the polls.

R.I.P. Hellgate London

It only took a year (give or take a few months) but Namco Bandai has announced that as of January 31st, 2009, the game's online servers will be shut off.

It's not like we all saw this coming. The over-hype killed this game. People went into the game thinking it was going to be the best RPG since WoW, but they were only to be hit with bugs. The concept was there and the Diablo guys did a good job with the RPG elements of the game. The problem was technical.

For those who still want to play online, it's free of charge until N/B shuts off the servers. Two good things come out of this: 1.At least there's single player, and 2. You will be able to find it in the bargain bin for $10 pretty soon.