Eurogamer readers are reporting getting kicked out of the game and ultimately locked out due to a game breaking bug. In some cases, it's reported that the user's can't access there Battle.net accounts either.
Apparently if you equip the Templar (a follower) a shield before you accept him as your follower, then the game kicks you out and remains locked for you.
Blizzard is working on a hotfix, so expect that soon, but until then, don't be giving your templar a shield.
Written by HEMAposted in News May 15, 2012, 10:44:26 AM258 ViewsPrint Page
User Yoshichan has managed to play through DIII in less than 13 hours (12 hours and 29 minutes). He managed to reach level 32 with his Barbarian before achieving this great feat.
I don't know how they managed to check he completed normal difficulty from that screenshot, but whatever, the news is all over.
Written by HEMAposted in News May 14, 2012, 12:11:53 PM299 ViewsPrint Page
Blizzard has announced new features for SCII to be released around the same time as the expension pack HOTS. However, most features will be part of the basic game and will not require the expansion pack.
Players will be able to continue to play a game from any given point in a replay. Players will be able to play with people from around the world, and regions will be thrown away.
Clan support is also coming to SCII, but will most likely require the expansion pack HOTS.
Written by HEMAposted in News May 14, 2012, 04:31:53 AM276 ViewsPrint Page
Blizzard and Valve have managed to come to an agreement around the use of the name DOTA. Valve will name their game DOTA 2 and Blizzard will change their AoS game's name to Blizzard Allstars, which according to them is a better name for their game anyway. In Blizzard Allstars gamers can play with the most famous creatures from the major Blizzard games.
Blizzard is allowed to use the name DOTA for non-commercial purposes, such as user generated maps and mods.
I wonder how that is going to work if they are indeed going to sell user generated maps, as they intended to at the launch of SCII. Otherwise this sort of works out pretty well.
Blizzard is cutting out pvp for the launch of Diablo III which they say they will add back in a future patch after the game launch.
When it does get put in, it's going to play arena-style with new added maps and themes etc.
While this is somewhat disheartening, knowing a would-be fun feature is cut from the release, however it if means them getting the single player out faster and giving us something do to while they polish it, then I don't think it's a big deal.
It looks like Blizzard has laid off about 600 employees.
You can check out the original posts here and here.
"Everyone,
We announced today that we’re in the process of cutting a number of active positions, mostly non-development, throughout the company. I'm sure this announcement has sparked some questions from all of you, so I want take this opportunity to address those as best I can. Over the past several years, the company has grown rapidly and evolved to better serve you and the rest of our global community. Thanks to all of your support, we continue to serve by far the biggest subscription-based MMO community, as well as the most passionate eSports and online gaming communities, in the world.
In order to keep making epic game content while serving players effectively, we have to be smart about how we manage our resources. This means we sometimes have to make difficult decisions about how to best maintain the health of the company. We’re in the process of making some of those hard decisions now.
After evaluating our current organizational needs, we determined that while some areas of our business had been operating at the right levels and could benefit from further growth, other areas had become overstaffed. As a result, we need to scale down some of our departments and part with some of our colleagues and friends here at Blizzard. I know that you all understand how difficult this type of situation can be for anyone who might be affected, so I want to assure you that we'll be offering each impacted employee a severance package and other benefits.
I also want to emphasize that we remain committed to shipping multiple games this year, and that our development teams in particular remain largely unaffected by today's announcement. We're continuing to develop, iterate, and polish Blizzard DOTA, Diablo III, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, as well as other, unannounced projects. We'll have exciting news to share in the coming weeks regarding Diablo III's release date, and will soon be holding a private media event to showcase the latest work on Mists of Pandaria. It goes without saying that we're working hard to get all of these games in your hands as soon as possible.
You've all come to expect Blizzard to live up to our mission statement with every game, and deliver the most epic entertainment experiences ever. You can continue to expect that and nothing less from us as we move forward.
