Diablo III was a flawed game at launch and the community at large has made that glaringly obvious. The game's newest patch is slated to release today. Dubbed "Patch 2.0.1" it will introduce changes to the Paragon leveling system in preparation for the launch of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls. The changes included are:
Blizzard Entertainment has recently posted a first-look at a new community focused feature coming to the Diablo III expansion; Reaper of Souls. If you and your demon-slaying buddies needed a common place to talk and coordinate, or if you were just looking for a cool social group to chat with, the game's new Clans and Communities feature is sure to make it easy to fight back the forces of darkness with your allies.
Blizzard Entertainment reminds Diablo III players that the gold and real-money auction houses will shut down next month on March 18, 2014, as was announced last September.
Additional technical details regarding the shutdown including how this will affect active auctions, items in the Completed Tab and existing Battle.net Balance will be provided next week. Meanwhile, the Auction House FAQ can be found here.
Guilhemette "Whilhelmina" Giacopazzi
Blizzard Entertainment gave us a look at the Collector's Edition items for the upcoming Diablo III expansion, Reaper of Souls. Inside this epic CE box comes enough treasure to give even the loot-filled monsters of the Diablo universe a run for their money.
Blizzard has announced the latest Diablo III novel, Storm of Light, set to be released on February 4, 2014. The novel continues the story of Sanctuary, bridging the events of Diablo III and its upcoming expansion, Reaper of Souls. Here is what community manager Vaeflare has to tell us:
Blizzard has finally let the cat out of the bag this week as they announced the release date for the upcoming Diablo III expansion, Reaper of Souls. A brand new evil also means brand new ways to smash the demon horde that follows.
The upcoming expansion for Diablo III, Reaper of Souls, has now entered its closed beta stage. The first invitations were sent worldwide on December 12.
Note that there is no NDA and participants can post screenshots, videos and live streams if they so wish. You can find additional information on how to participate and technical instructions on the Diablo III website.
Guilhemette "Whilhelmina" Giacopazzi
BlizzCon 2013 is over and this year’s event will be remembered for many reasons. Not only did Blizzard announce details of the next World of Warcraft expansion, Warlords of Draenor, but information was also released on future plans for the immensely popular Hearthstone, due to go into open beta next month.
BlizzCon has officially come to a close and over the course of the weekend there were a hefty amount of reveals for Diablo III: Reaper of Souls. The base game was met with critical acclaim, but the games flaws soon became apparent to all that those that played the game. The auction house, the itemization, the difficulty, the loot grind--it all felt half-baked to many gamers.
This afternoon, Blizzard announced that the Diablo III Auction House will close in six months, on March 18th, 2014. Blizzard acknowledges the Auction House ultimately "undermines Diablo's core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot." Josh Mosqueira, Diablo III's Game Director, describes the AH as having "short-circuited (their) core reward-loop." John Hight, Production Director, clarifies that the shutdown will include both the real money and gold transactions.
The move to close the Auction House is part of a bigger overhaul called "Loot 2.0", an extensive effort to remedy player complaints against the item system. Specifically, Loot 2.0 will aim to have "less, better, more epic items," to address concerns of diluted item rarity. It's unclear whether this patch will appear before Reaper of Souls, the 2014 expansion revealed last month at Gamescom. In a Battle.net post, Lylirra hints Loot 2.0 could happen as early as "Winter" – with more official details likely during BlizzCon this November.
Colt "ShdwFlm" Casey
Deputy Editor
