Hasta La Gadget!

One of the major points of contention when Diablo III released on PC and Mac last year was an auction house where you could use real money to buy high-level gear. That’s changing next March 18th when developer Blizzard closes the doors on the controversial feature, as well as the in-game currency auction house. In a post on Battle.net, Blizzard Entertainment Production Director John Hight writes that, despite the auction house’s benefits, it “ultimately undermines Diablo‘s core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot.” In the video embedded below, Hight and Game Director Josh Mosquiera stress that they’re focusing on making murdering nightmare creatures the most satisfying way of getting rad gear — not spending ducats, real or otherwise. If you want a preview of what an auction house-free Diablo III looks like right now, check out the recent PS3 and Xbox 360 ports — they’re super good!

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Via: Joystiq

Source: Battle.net

If you are one of those who tend to follow the Diablo game beyond the dungeon crawling gameplay on your computer or console, and by that I mean reading up additional canon and books on it, then you would be pleased to hear that there is an upcoming novel in the Diablo series which shall be known as Storm of Light. Storm of Light is written by Nate Kenyon, who also happens to be the author of The Order, and it will act as a bridge between the events of Diablo III and the story that is set to unfold in Reaper of Souls, the first expansion of the series.

This will be an all new novel that boast Jacob and Shanar from the Sword of Justice comic series, and if you are interested for an alternative reading material, then you can place a pre-order for it over at Simon and Schuster. In a nutshell, Storm of Light has the following synopsis.

The High Heavens are healing after the fall of the Prime Evil. The Angiris Council has recovered the Black Soulstone and now stands vigil over the cursed artifact deep within the glimmering Silver City. Amid these momentous events, Tyrael struggles with his position as the new Aspect of Wisdom, feeling out of place as a mortal among his angelic brethren and doubting his ability to fully embody his role. As he searches within himself and the Heavens for reassurance, he senses the Black Soulstone’s grim influence on his home. Where harmony of light and sound once reigned, a mounting discord is threatening to shroud the realm in darkness. Imperius and the other archangels vehemently oppose moving or destroying the crystal, leading Tyrael to put Heaven’s fate in the hands of humankind….

Does it sound like a page turner to you?

Diablo 3’s Storm Of Light Novel Coming Your Way original content from Ubergizmo.

With Diablo 3’s Reaper of Souls expansion having been announced last week and with a possible 2014 release, we’re sure there are gamers out there who are looking forward to getting their hands on the game’s beta, which presumably would be released in both closed and open betas, although the question is when? Well the semi-good news is that if you were looking forward to a Reaper of Souls beta in 2013, you might just have your wish come true. This is according to a Korean video interview by Players Cuts in which they asked the game’s director, Josh Mosqueira if there was any hope that a beta could be released this year.

Mosqueira answered with a simple “yes” which seems like good news, although like we said earlier, this beta could be a closed one meaning that it might not be available to the public. Instead a closed beta could mean that only a select few gamers will get to try the game. Of course we expect Blizzard will open up the beta to the public at a later date which they did with Diablo 3, but 2013’s beta could be a closed one, so don’t get your hopes up just yet. In any case we expect more information to be made available during BlizzCon 2013, so if you’re looking forward to more Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls info, check back with us then for the details!

Diablo 3: Reaper Of Souls Beta Could Be Released In 2013 original content from Ubergizmo.

MMOs these days have started to embrace the free-to-play model, with some like SWTOR switching from subscription to F2P, but what about Blizzard’s World of Warcraft? As it stands the game is still a subscription-based MMO where customers shell out $15 a month to enjoy the game, and last we heard Blizzard was not too keen on the idea of taking the free-to-play route, at least until recently. It seems that Blizzard might be having a change of heart and according to the game’s leader designer, Tom Chiton who spoke to Polygon during gamescom in Germany, it looks like Blizzard might slowly be opening themselves up to the idea of F2P.

“For Blizzard it makes sense [to go free-to-play] at some point. But a lot of the risk is in making that transition. You hear stories about developers going free-to-play and getting double the number of players, but you don’t always know it works out that way and how long it stays that way. We really don’t know what the rate is before people drop off and lose interest.” While Chilton did acknowledge the developer’s interest, it is by no means a confirmation and it is unclear if and when Blizzard would implement the change, but what do you guys think? Would you prefer if World of Warcraft went F2P?

Blizzard Not Opposed To Taking World Of Warcraft Free-To-Play original content from Ubergizmo.

One of the features that Blizzard announced for Diablo 3 would be its PVP mode. Unfortunately with several patches later and with the Reaper of Souls expansion being announced, the PVP mode is still a no-show, although Blizzard did attempt to pacify gamers with a dueling mode, which let’s be honest is not quite the same thing. In any case what happened to the feature? Will it ever see the light of day or will it eventually fade away into memory? Well the good news is that it has not been completely abandoned, but the bad news is that Blizzard is still working on it. (more…)

Diablo 3′s PVP Feature Has To Be “Blizzard Quality” Before It Is Released original content from Ubergizmo.