Blizzard Trademark Activity

Blizzard just filed brand new trademarks for "Legacy of the Void" and "Heart of the Swarm". It appears to just be some re-organization, as they already had 3 trademarks filed for each game previously (ie, there were 3 HOTS trademarks and 3 LOTV trademarks for the game itself, merchandise, and online services.)

They have condensed all of the trademarks into 1 single TM per game now, so the old 6 trademarks will probably be cancelled shortly.

Blizzard also just received notification that their "Mists of Pandaria" trademark will be published in the Official Gazette on 2012-03-27 for others to see and oppose if necessary. This doesn't change anything though and it's a standard process, so don't try to use it to predict a release date or anything. :)

New Deus Ex Game in Development

On the trademark maintenance front, Square Enix has also just filed for a new "DEUS EX" trademark. It looks to be a partial replacement for the original DEUS EX trademark. In any case, they're being renewed for another 10 years which means there is most definitely a new Deus Ex in development right now!

Overpowered Classes in Diablo 3

If you've been following any of the polls out there, you'll probably know already that Barbarians and Wizards will be the top classes most played in Diablo 3.

Many gamers view these two classes as the ones that will be most overpowered.. the Wizard with incredible damage and kiting/escape skills, and the Barbarian being able to take a massive amount of damage. The perception is that both of these classes will be the best ones for soloing bosses.

Before you jump on the bandwagon, there are a couple things you should keep in mind; the beta won't tell you anything about how strong they will be later in the game (classes that start out seemingly the strongest end up being the worst), skills and damage numbers will be nerfed and buffed a lot, and Blizzard really doesn't like class favoritism and imbalance.

If Blizzard notices too many people playing Barbarians or Wizards, they'll find a way to balance everything out and "encourage" players to start playing the other 3 classes instead. And by balance, I mean nerfing the Barb/Wiz and buffing the other 3. In particular, the Witch Doctor (which the least number of people want to play.)

Something to remember when you're selecting a class.

Even though, to me, a Wizard or Barbarian makes the most sense for farming, I think players might be in for a little bit of shock when they hit Hell and Inferno.. maybe even Nightmare. I have a feeling that the Wizard will start out very powerful, but end up having a lot of problems in Nightmare/Hell. The Barb problems might be more noticeable (compared to other classes) in Hell.

The recent changes to the Monk (30% reduction in damage) are giving me the impression that they want the Monk to be slightly more powerful than the Barbarian, and the DH will replace the Wizard in power. And, I have a very strong suspicion that the Witch Doctor will probably be the best class for soloing bosses.. maybe even the most overpowered during initial launch.

This is all just in the beginning though, but the first few months will be very critical. You want to level as quickly as possible so that you can farm the best stuff faster than anyone else.

Most players will be creating Wizards and Barbarians, but you might want to consider a Witch Doctor (even if you don't like the class) if you're just interested in farming. They might start off more slowly than the Wizard, but I suspect that things will improve tremendously as the difficulty increases. :)

Miscellaneous Stuff

• There should be an update on the new Alpha Centuari game by/before Q3 this year. I'm hoping to learn something more about it within the next 4-8 weeks to confirm or get an idea of when it will be coming out though.

• Curious what kind of Google Searches the Blizzard headquarters team does? Here are some examples: "Metal Arms 2" Blizzard, South Korea delay, south korea diablo gambling, diablo illegal gambling, diablo gambling laws, mmo gambling law, blizzard leak, blizzard layoffs, blizzard mass layoffs, daeity, daeity blog, digital castration, Blizzard Payscale, Blizzard Pay, new wow hacks. And then there are specific stuff, like looking for the "new X" World of Warcraft hack or exploit.

• I've been thinking a lot about what I am going to write about when Diablo 3 finally comes out. I've discovered a lot of cool things in the beta that I'm hoping haven't been reported and will still be there in retail. The first couple months of release are going to be an excellent time to make some money and being a poor student, it's something I'm looking forwards to. Plus, it's going to be a lot of fun since I've made more WoW gold using paper and pencil techniques than anyone ever did using Auctioneer. So, I think that there will probably be some strategies that I won't be sharing right away. Some RMAH strategies I will probably discuss, there are some really critical things that haven't been posted publicly anywhere yet and I really want to keep them to myself for now. The problem is that once I post them, Blizzard will immediately fix it or make major changes. I can't think of any other nice way of doing it, outside of privatizing the blog.