Yesterday, Blizzard announced their new BattleTag service.

What is a Battle.net BattleTag?
A BattleTag is a unified, player-chosen nickname that will identify you across all of Battle.net – in Blizzard Entertainment games, on our websites, and in our community forums. Similar to Real ID, BattleTags will give players on Battle.net a new way to find and chat with friends they've met in-game, form friendships, form groups, and stay connected across multiple Blizzard Entertainment games. BattleTags will also provide a new option for displaying public profiles.

It sounds all very simple, nothing harmful about it.

Now, internally, this was already being used (every user had a unique ID), but Blizzard had no financial use for this information other than internally to Battle.net. They're making it so that their customers can see this unique identifier for themselves now, use it to communicate, and so that they spread the ID around the internet and to other social sites. :)

Right now it's "optional", but they'll eventually make it mandatory for all players.

It has been received very well, players are saying that it's what Real ID should have been, and many are even calling it "Real ID 2.0".

You'll probably notice a very strong connection of this new development to this older post too: "You Are Being Prepared"

This new service, though, is more of a "Real ID 1.5". It's just another stepping stone for player acceptance, and eventually leading to something even bigger that players aren't aware of.

Having one nick name (across Battle.net, games, Blizzard websites, and community forums) is definitely very useful.. for Blizzard friends only. But remember that there's always another purpose. Even though it's not your real name, you've been handed a mandatory unique identifier that's now public facing. :)

Players, will of course, have fun with their new nickname and also start to use it to identify themselves on webpages and forums that are outside Battle.net. Players will use this "unique code" on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks. Who knows where else this will be shared. (Also, you'll notice in their announcement that Blizzard will be creation optional Public Profiles for users, much like Facebook.)

These are just some of the first steps getting more players integrated with Facebook directly, or more importantly, finding a way to link Battle.net players to external websites and social networks. Don't be surprised if a new application is created for Facebook that displays your Blizzard gaming details using your BattleTag.

And, speaking of Facebook applications, remember that they have full access to everything to type. It doesn't matter what security or privacy settings you have.. if you write a confidential secret message to a friend, Facebook has complete access to it, and their marketing partners (Blizzard) will have access to it.

This BattleTag is useful to some players, but it's even more useful to Blizzard marketing (for the future purposes of targeted advertising) because it acts as a tracking ID: *1-12 max characters* # *4 digits*

Consider how useful that unique identifier is when web crawling or data mining. In Twitter for example, you can search for "@name" to find everything they've posted, who has messaged them, what their Facebook profile site is, what Forums they're on (if they share their Twitter account), if they're on Yelp, if they use those "Check In" services (so that you know where they are, what restaurants they go to), etc.

All of this can be fully automated.

Here's a very simple example too. On the first day of the announcement, several MMO-Champion users already posted their new BattleTags. "buggerlugs#2442" was one of them. There are 60 different players in the US called Buggerlugs and 68 in the EU. Out of 128 players in NA/EU alone, I now know exactly which "Buggerlugs" is the same one who posts on the MMO-Champion forums. Just knowing this alone is scary. But I also know that he's a male, complains about WoW every chance he gets (but can't stop playing), thinks that Blizzard Artists are cheap, I'll know what other games he plays when the service goes fully online, I know that he's very likely from the UK, and he really doesn't like the US (he finds it hilarious to make fun of Americans.)

Now, if he had a FB profile and I had a partnership with Facebook (like Blizzard does), I would also have full access to his profile and every private little message he's ever written (or even deleted). I would know where he lives, other sites he posts on, his family (and how to get his family playing Blizzard games), his likes and dislikes, nearby stores or restaurants, what he wants for Christmas, everything he's said about Blizzard (which he thought was anonymous), etc.

Even without a FB profile (or a partnership), all it takes is one slip up to link together dozens of "anonymous profiles" to one single person. This is what the internet does. So.. really, how is this any better than Real ID?

And all of this was done very smart this time around. Players are very positive towards this new change, they're welcoming it, encouraging others to use it ("BattleTags" sounds awesome), and they'll never be aware of how it will be used eventually to bombard them with suspiciously specific advertisements in the future. :)

I think a lot of this will be very useful for Titan, if they can search for and use this information properly Many companies have tried and failed on this front, and everyone thinks they can do better (things tend to get overcomplicated). There may even be ads on their Blizzard public profiles and remember too that the Blizzard/Facebook partnership goes both ways.. that is, Facebook ads using Blizzard data. Data from either FB or Blizzard can be used by either parties or even by affiliates (in any case, it will always be a win-win situation).

Blizzard (Italy) Confirmation Regarding Delay

Here's a very interesting post in the Italian (Battle.net EU) forums.

Basically, the users are talking about the delay of the game due to the RMAH, and a government in another region causing the delay of the game.

Then, Blue posts the following (translated):

"I can tell you that immediately after the delay of the game, it was decided that we no longer speak about possible release dates until we actually have an exact date with 99.99% confidence.

When we do finally announce the release date, you can be confident that it won't be delayed any longer. (Subject to natural disasters, emergencies, blah blah blah.)"

So, Blizzard has just confirmed what I've been writing about. They have no idea what the release date is yet, that it was put up in the air after the unexpected delay, and they don't know what the release date is because it's based on the decision of another government in another region questioning the RMAH. :)

* UPDATE:

Some more related information has been found thanks to our loyal readers. Here's the specific post, and it's full of interesting (new) information. I really like this Blue. :)

If you go through all of the blue posts in this thread, Zhydaris basically says that because of the Diablo 3 delay, the development team has been given more time to add new features and make changes that weren't supposed to be done until after retail.

Before Gold, there's another very important date, which they internally call the "Content Lock" stage. Simply put, that's the day that they finalize the list of features that are present in the game and complete before Gold.

Because the release date has been moved to an undetermined date, the development team can now add additional features like the Simple Tooltips (which were supposed to be added post-retail), and they can also add new features, new items, updated item affixes, balance skills, change graphics of items, etc. But, all of the changes they're making right now were supposed to be done after launch. :)

Having "more time now means having more content", even though the game was finished.

I talked about this before actually.. like how most player balancing, quest fixes, items, and tuning were done after the WoW Expansion Pack releases, and very little changes were made during the beta.

There's another really fun quote in there too. They are aiming for a global release (like what I speculated) and Zhydaris said that although older Blizzard games (region-locked) may have had regional legal issues, they did not impact other regions. But, he/she never denied that the current Diablo 3 (region-free) is being delayed due to one region. It was actually just like "Tom Chilton's denial"; "Well.. if you look at traditionally (or historically) how we've handled that.." Brilliant. :)

Top Posts on the Diablo Forums

On the major forums (especially the US), you'll notice that Blizzard has been addressing many concerns and questions on the forums.

They'll spend a lot of time defending the new Simple Tool Tips feature, they'll address questions about the Book of Cain delay, they'll talk about how "diablo looks like 2008 game", they get involved in troll posts, they'll keep talking about inferno being soloable, they'll talk to people who are refusing to use the RMAH (on strike), they'll talk about the RMAH or AH bugs, and they'll even address mass layoff rumors on the forums.

But, for some reason they're avoiding the TOP POSTS on the forum that ask if Diablo 3 is being delayed because of Korea.

They'll talk about everything else, even the RMAH, but they're not touching the subject of Korea approvals holding back the game. It's what they're not doing that interests me. :)

Oh, by the way, there are no current plans for Daily Quests in Diablo 3. Something that blue just posted.

Interplay VS Bethesda Progress

The Interplay vs Bethesda trial (fight over rights to Fallout) started yesterday morning, and the trial is expected to last 2 to 2 1/2 days. So, keep watching the headlines on DuckAndCover and we'll probably find out more about the battle either today or tomorrow.

I'm really excited about this. I've been leaning towards Interplay during this battle, but only because I still remember Interplay as the "Brian Fargo Interplay". Unfortunately, it's now the "Caen Brothers Interplay", and knowing their poor decision making skills, I'm inclined to believe that Interplay has just been performing a whole Dog & Pony Show. I think that their real intention is to hold the Fallout IP hostage after winning their legal battle, so that they can sell it back to Bethesda at a substantially higher price (or even sell to a competitor who might be interested in a post-apocalyptic MMO.) :)

I think they'll also sell off all of their other highly valuable IPs too. The next couple days will be very exciting indeed.

Why You No PayPal Blizzard??

Blizzard post regarding payment methods for Digital Downloads, confirming what I wrote the other day. (Thanks Ichigo!)

BlackReaper4: "PAYPAL,Paypal...EU can't use paypal to buy CD keys add subscription etc"

Nakatoir: "We are always looking into new payment methods to use, if a certain payment method is not available in a particular region, there is a reason for it. If we are able to make a certain payment method available, then we will try our best to make it so."

This is their standard response. And they say they're always looking for new payment methods.. and yet, they haven't changed in years. Regarding the "reason for it" (e.g. not using PayPal, even though they're partnered that their systems are fully integrated together), it's because they want players to be restricted to their own regions to buy games where they pay the most. Even for region-free games. So, I'm not going to be shocked if Diablo 3 can't be sent as a gift during the opening month, even though every other game can.

Blizzard/NetEase Rumors

Apparently, there's a rumor going around that Blizzard might be ditching NetEase (whose contract will be expiring next May) and they're shopping around for another service provider in China. (Thanks again Ichigo!)

Tencent, although very big and may have offered a handsome deal to Blizzard, has a lot of competing games, their own (and possible problematic for Blizzard) QQ Coins currency system, and current Chinese players prefer NetEase, so they're not the most ideal candidate. This rumor could just be a power play by Blizzard to update their NetEase contract for a better deal on Blizzard's end. :)

Blog Direction

Just a heads up that when Diablo 3 finally goes live, the blog will be taking a slightly different direction. I intend to focus on practical applications within Diablo 3.. specifically gold making strategies, even though they'll be rather difficult to make. I might take it in some interesting directions though that others might not have considered.. at least I'm hoping.

I'll still have some speculative or theoretical discussions about Titan and their future paid services though. Maybe even some progression into Guild Wars 2 once the game is finally out.

Diablo's New Anniversary

December 31st is Blizzard's "new" Diablo Anniversary, so you can expect something nice to happen that day. Apparently, it was just a coincidence that there was a ton of "Diablo News on November 30". November 30th just happened to coincide with Blizzard receiving a major update from the GRB. Still.. a very nice and convenient coincidence. (Those happen a lot here.) :)

The Blizzard_ANZ Twitter contest also ends on December 31, 2011 at which point the beta key winners will be announced. By then, the D3 beta would have been running for 4 months, and will be running at least another month (for a total of 5) for those beta key winners.

Jay Wilson originally expected that the Diablo 3 beta would run for 6 months ("six months before we release", quoted often by other blogs).. but that was for the FULL game. They changed it into the much shortened tech demo (a fraction of Act 1) that we see now, and planned on a 2-3 month release date so that they could release before Christmas. That's just how excellent the progress on D3 was, why they admitted to their intention for a Christmas release (the game was done), and how their plans were ruined due to the unexpected Korea GRB troubles.

This beta key contest is just another way to keep players busy and occupied until things get settled. (If things are approved by Jan 10th, they'll have a short beta period.) :)

* UPDATE: Bashiok later tweeted that they would have the anniversary activity during the following week, instead of on the anniversary day.

Here's that video from yesterday I mentioned that you should check out. It's called "Unethical Game Design", and it's a pretty good watch whether you apply it to WOW or Diablo 3.



Even Activision and Blizzard have teams of psychologists working for them that perfect methods of behavioral addiction in video games and encourage compulsive behavior. They try to avoid the label "Psychologist" though, often they're grouped into "Marketing & Promotion", "Business Intelligence", or "Statistics and Data Analytics". Internal Psychologists for employees are rare, but they would probably be grouped under "Human Resources" since they would be providing services for employees, rather than analyzing customers.

(Most large game companies do this by the way.)

You can use some of my earlier search methods to find these employees yourself if you want. For example, you'll find employees doing jobs called "Data Visualization Analysis", "Business Intelligence", "Localization Analyst" or "Statistics Analysis" and yet they don't have mathematics or business backgrounds.. but they do have Masters and Ph.D's in behavioral psychology, community/organizational psychology, consumer psychology, and experimental psychology.

They're like the fabled "Fraud Manager" positions (which were renamed to "Finance Services" or something else to cover their purpose). They don't exist. ;)

One day, Achievements won't be enough in Call of Duty and they'll need to come up with new ways to keep players addicted. (Blizzard is introducing "Pokemon" Pets for example.)

Some of you wanted to know why I have been questioning if Digital Downloads will be available for Diablo 3 or not. So, I thought I would explain this further.

At Blizzcon, it was already announced that WOW Annual Pass members will receive a Digital Copy of the game, much like Cataclysm, and they can play it immediately upon the game's launch.

However, this has only been made official for WOW Annual Pass members. There hasn't been any word on a Digital Download for everyone else yet (AFAIK).

Digital Content

Activision Blizzard has heavily been pushing Digital Content delivery and it's critical to their revenue and growth (in less than 5 years, digital revenue could overtake their retail revenue). So, it makes perfect sense for D3 (and all future games) to be available for digital pre-download.

If Digital Downloads are available to all customers, it "should" be announced pretty quickly after the release date announcement (or even on the same day.) And, the Digital Pre-Download "should" be made available at least 1 month before the official release date. (Users will also need at least 1 month to prepare their B.Net/PayPal integration as well. The B.Net Balance will be available towards the end of December and if things go well with the GRB, the B.Net PayPal integration will be announced early-mid January along with the release date.)

On A Related Note..

The new RMAH/B.Net Balance system is currently holding back the announcements of other Digital Content and Paid Services as well. After the RMAH is established, Blizzard will roll out the Map Marketplace (Arcade) where players can also sell maps or mods for "nominal fees."

So, while Diablo 3 users are selling items on the Auction House and building up a B.Net Balance account, Starcraft 2 players will also be doing the same.

After all of this money starts flowing into player's B.Net Balance accounts, that's when Blizzards strikes. :)

Examples include, but are not limited to; new Blizzard Store items, new Paid Services, a lot of new virtual items, Blizzard-made SC2 maps and content, DLC, sale promotions (cheaper games that can only be bought from the Blizzard store), classic games finally available, and eventually a full integration of Activision's suite of games. These announcements are all being saved up for a later time.

Players will be able to make money playing D3 or SC2, and buy the latest COD game from the "Activision Blizzard Store" or whatever they re-brand the Store or Battle.net as. Not only that, but all of Activision's paid services and DLC will also be made available. (They might even have transferable credits between the Activision and Blizzard "Stores", for another "nominal fee".)

Second Guessing Digital Downloads

The reason why I'm second guessing Digital Downloads for Diablo 3 is because it's a delicate and complicated bitch. Diablo 3 is their first "region free" game and they're being really quiet about it.. so there must be a reason.

I think that Blizzard wants Diablo 3 to seem like a normal region-locked game, so that players follow the same purchasing patterns.

You see.. when you buy Diablo 3, you can buy it anywhere in the world, and play it anywhere in the world. This means that Australians could purchase the Digital Copy in the US and save themselves $40 or more. Any other countries with ridiculous prices could also purchase the digital version from the cheapest country they can find. :)

There's a lot about this subject but there's no nice way of organizing it, so I'll just use bullet points for easier reading:

• If Blizzard were to make this publicly known right now, players could just cancel their pre-orders and wait for the Digital Download instead. They would be screwing over their retailers.
• Blizzard also doesn't want WOW Annual Pass members to know this, because they're already "purchasing Diablo 3" based on their own region's monthly fees. These players don't know they can get a much better deal waiting for the Digital Download. Blizzard wants to make sure as many players are locked in as possible before revealing just how cheap Diablo 3 will really be since you can purchase it from any region.
• When (if) Blizzard does announce the full Digital Pre-Download, I suspect that they'll keep it very simple, low key, and leave out certain details. They'll just say "go into your Battle.net account to see the price and order the game", but they won't remind you that it's a Region Free game, they won't share regional prices, and they'll ban discussions about how you could just create a new B.Net account in a different region to buy it.
• This is also why they restrict your purchasing methods. Even with this whole PayPal & Blizzard partnership and systems integration, have you ever asked yourself why they still haven't allowed PayPal for Blizzard Store purchases?
• I'm predicting that the new Battle.net Balance will allow a "wide variety of debit and credit cards", but they still won't let you charge it up with PayPal (under certain conditions). Even though PayPal is fully integrated with their system already. If they prevent you from using a global-friendly payment system, they can charge you extra for "regional purchases".. even though they're not actually region locked games. To bypass this, they could make a deal with PayPal and use their own systems to restrict purchases regionally (even though this isn't the systems original intention), that way PayPal can be used, but heavily restricted.
• I also suspect that you won't be able to purchase and give the gift to a friend. The digital version of Cataclysm (and other games) are transferable right now, meaning that they're not locked to a Battle.net account. Diablo 3 will probably be different on launch day.
• All of this is connected and Blizzard has thought well and hard on this. (I've only thought on it while typing this, so I can only imagine what a team of marketing professionals and seasoned businessmen have considered.)

I suspect that they're going to make it as hard for you as possible to take advantage of this region-free special bonus. There will be restrictions in place for an unrestricted game (yes, that's weird and unfair if true). And, I suspect they won't let people really know about the "region free" aspects of the game until sometime AFTER the launch date.

This is why I'm curious how they're going to handle this. If Digital Downloads are available before the launch, they have to cover up a lot of things.. which is why there's a small part of me questioning DD's even though it makes sense to release them just like Cataclysm. :)

This is why I'm thinking that the Digital Download might be delayed or rushed in the sense that people won't be given the same amount of time they were for the Cataclysm DD. The idea is to give gamers no time to think about it and to act quickly (while also not being told the whole truth.)

It's much like the limited time offer for the WOW Annual Pass. Gamers rushed out to purchase the package without considering the consequences, and now forums are filling up with posts of regret.

If you want to break it all down: I'd say that 80% of me believes that the Digital Pre-Download will be available at least 1 month before the release date but details will be kept very low key, and the region-free aspects will be left out (and moderated on the forums). The other 20% of me suspects that there might be something strange about this release like a condensed "act fast" time frame. It wouldn't make logical sense (for the customer) for the Digital Download to be made available after the launch, after all. I'm certain, though, that there will be some kind of restrictions in place preventing as many users as possible from taking advantage of better pricing.

VGA is tomorrow and many people are expecting that the Diablo 3 release date will be announced. I'm positive, though, that it won't be announced even though it's a big event and three of Blizzard's founders will be attending (Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, and Frank Pearce).

I might make jokes about that 02/23/12 potential release date too, but I honestly don't believe that even Blizzard knows when they'll be releasing the game. :) 02/23/12 could be a tentative date, but they probably have many other tentative dates planned as well.

If Blizzard doesn't even know when the release date will be, there's no way we'll ever be able to make an accurate prediction. If we knew when the announcement for the release date was and with great certainty, though, then we could probably make a reasonable estimation of the release date. Problem is, if they're not doing Digital Downloads for D3 this time, their typical lead time of two months could be shortened. Really, the only thing we can look at is why it's being delayed, what the bottleneck is, and estimate how long after the restriction is removed that they'll make the announcement.

For example, here's what I know:

Based on TOD's March-based information, it was going to be announced at Blizzcon 2011 and would have been released about 1 month before Christmas (November 24). (Including a January 17 backup date for technical or delivery issues.)

On September 22, Blizzard C-Levels rushed to Korea to deal with the fallout of the GRB approval process and their questioning about the gambling aspects of the RMAH.

On September 23, Blizzard immediately published their “Soon” Was Too Soon -- Diablo III to Arrive in Early 2012 announcement. Coincidence? :)

This meant that the surprise announcement would not be made on October 21st after all. Instead, they would have filled that announcement with another backup announcement.. it was either the Diablo 3 CE details or quite possibly the WOW Annual Pass, which they were probably saving up for much later. :)

Right after Blizzcon, even the Book of Cain was suddenly pushed back from it's November 15 release date to an undecided time. (Even though the Book of Cain was fully published, stocked, and ready to ship. Many users were completely baffled as to why it was pushed back.)

Things were pretty quiet in November, and news tidbits were sprinkling out at a very slow pace. Almost as if they were trying to postpone information on purpose.

Although on Nov 21, Rob Pardo tweeted "time to get serious and work hard on Diablo 3" possibly indicating that they were getting close to crunchtime knowing that the GRB's decision was about 1 week away.

On November 30 (or possibly even Nov 29), Blizzard finally received an update from the GRB that they were in deliberations and a decision would probably be made by January.

Suddenly, there was a huge explosion of Diablo information.

On November 30, Blizzard announced the official release date (Dec 13) for the Book of Cain following several date changes over the previous months.

On December 1 (the day after), the Global RMAH testing was announced. Blizzard also started releasing information on items and Artisans, new pages were suddenly published, and the "Day In a Life" series was expanded from 3 employees to 5 employees instead.

On December 5, Blizzard Korea also made an official update about the delays of the game and the status updates on rating approvals.

There has also been a new beta wave, and more news announcements, with even more news announcements coming over the next couple weeks. Important ones too, the ones preparing us for Diablo.

* UPDATE: As I was writing this, Blizzard just announced the "Battle.net Balance" system. This is probably the piece I've been predicting for a while now; initial steps for setting up PayPal accounts and transferring money into your new B.Net credit account. I'm not sure if this has the PayPal D3 integration part yet (I'll read it after finishing this post), but that will happen at least 1 month before the release.

* ANOTHER UPDATE (12/20/11):

New additions to the timeline.

On December 8, AUS Beta Key contest announced.

Contest started Dec 12, first invites went out Dec 18, and contest expires Dec 31.

On Fri Dec 16, Blizzard received notification from the Korean GRB that more information was needed. The hearing was schedule for Dec 21 for their answer, however it was cancelled and postponed until Blizzard could provide proper data. (They were given 7 days to reply.)

On Mon Dec 19, this news made front pages of Korean news sites.

On Mon Dec 19, a major wave of opt-in beta keys went out.

On Tue Dec 20, Blizzard announced the US-based beta key giveaway. The contest started on Dec 20, and expires Jan 23 2012. (More stalling.)

If the game gets delayed any further in January by the GRB, expect the game to be further pushed back to April, May or even June. Blizzard can easily change the "Early 2012" into a very loose definition. (And you might even start seeing some "clarifications" about it if everything is pushed back.) If the GRB comes through, and approves the game in January though, we'll hear something of a release date probably a few days before their quarterly meeting.

And it will be a crazy rush too when it happens. The announcement "should" be made on a non-typical unusual day since they won't want to wait any longer to make the announcement (I'm saying "should" because I'm assuming they're in a rush, but they probably are not.) They might also be saving up other announcements to make around the same time.

So that's pretty much it. Even Blizzard doesn't even know the release date at the moment, and they won't know until they receive a confirmation from the Korean Government. Right now, the game is in excellent shape, and they're just keeping themselves busy with balancing, tuning, and Runes. The same things that they have been discussing for months and months and no one thought it was peculiar. Using player balancing as an excuse is also very bad; Blizzard has been tuning and balancing classes in WoW for 7 years now. That would NEVER hold back a game release and it's something that will always be an ongoing activity. (I suspect it's actually a metagame to keep things changing, keep players interested in the game, and keep them trying the new OP'd classes. Hence, the new talent trees and level creep fixes.) :)

Unfortunately, the game has been pushed back so much that we all missed out on a great surprise announcement at Blizzcon, and we could have been playing the full Diablo 3 for a couple weeks by now.

The beta was only intended to be about a couple months long as well.. that's why it's so short. Are things starting to come into focus now? :)

Second Document

The below document has the only known screenshots of Guerrilla currently in existence. The "Confidential" part, of course, no longer applies since this was from back when they were pitching the game and the IP is not held by any company.

After Ghost, there was also a small period of exploration starting Ghost over in a new direction, or the Blizzard Console team designing other games using Blizzard IPs. During the ramp up to complete SC Ghost, SAS went from a small 12-16 strong company to over 60 people (including artists, programmers, and testers.)

Later, Steve left Blizzard and formed Specular Interactive and returned to his roots, I'd guess you say, working on the arcade title "H2Overdrive" (much like his original "Hydro Thunder" arcade game.) Their most recent arcade title is DIRTY DRIVIN'.

Here's something new that some of you might find interesting. It's a short history about Swingin' Ape Studios, including some information that no one outside of SAS or Blizzard knows about. I've also collected some exclusive information and never before seen images of an unreleased title. I hope you find it as interesting as I did, especially if you were a big fan of Metal Arms (like I am.)

During the course of my investigation, I actually ended up breaking out my XBOX from storage and I'll be playing Metal Arms later tonight. :)

Now.. as many of you know, Blizzard had outsourced the Starcraft Ghost project to Nihilistic and they ended their relationship in mid 2004. The project was then contracted to Swingin' Ape Studios, which was later acquired by Blizzard in May 2005.

According to official documents, Blizzard acquired Swingin' Ape Studios, and Vivendi acquired several other studios around the same time. They paid approximately $71.6 million for all of the acquisitions. (Detailed breakdowns are not publicly available of course.)

The subject of Starcraft Ghost has been talked about so much, it's like beating a dead horse, and you know that those are subjects that I try to avoid. :)

I'm actually surprised that no one has ever focused on Swingin' Ape Studios themselves. It seems that the focus has always been on Ghost, but never on it's other games or the company itself.

The Original Metal Arms

I wanted to start out with a quick description of what SAS originally brainstormed for Metal Arms. This has been brought up in past interviews, but I thought I would re-post because it's very interesting and often overlooked.

Metal Arms: Glitch in the System is Swingin' Ape Studios's first game development project. How did the title come to be? Did Vivendi request your development services, or was this a project that Swingin' Ape Studios took to Vivendi for publishing?

Steve Ranck: In early 2001, Swingin’ Ape Studios was working on a game concept based on a space traveling bounty hunter. We had a rich story, interesting characters, and exciting planets the player could visit. One of these planets was called Iron Star, and it was inhabited entirely by various types of robots. When we learned that two other bounty hunter games were already far into development, we dropped the idea and began experimenting with a game based on the robot world of Iron Star. We replaced the biological bounty hunter character with Glitch, our small but determined robot protagonist. With our robot universe providing a creative springboard, our design document quickly grew to over 200 pages and from there it was easy to develop a playable prototype using a few of the more exciting ideas. At the same time, we were speaking with many publishers about Metal Arms and eventually signed with Vivendi who really understood the potential of the game.

Steve Ranck also posted some fun facts about Metal Arms here back in 2004.

For example,

The initial design for Metal Arms revolved around RTS-style mechanics. Obviously we lost the RTS elements as the game design evolved.

Swingin' Ape pitched the Metal Arms concept to over 12 publishers at E3 2001. Sierra was one of them. The pitch included a design overview, concept art, and the demo movie that you can view in the shipping product after you beat the game.

Swingin' Ape surprised Sierra with a playable demo several months before Sierra decided to fund the game. It demonstrated the various gameplay modes, including the ability to take over and control a Titan.

Other Games After Metal Arms, But Before Ghost

After the Metal Arms project finished, the company pitched several game ideas to various companies before landing the SC Ghost project.

The team worked on Metal Arms 2, a SWAT demo for the PS2, a GI Joe demo, and a game called "Guerrilla: Jungle Revolt" for the X360. The Guerrilla demo actually started out as a Wasteland / Mad Max / post-apocalyptic themed game, but when they showed it to EA, they thought that something more military themed (on an island like Far Cry), would sell better so they encouraged SAS to re-theme and update the proposed design. The new design was pitched to Microsoft, who were interested in it as a X360 launch title, and they were willing to pay SAS for 3 months to make a prototype. They were especially excited about this as a Xenon (X360) launch title, and they were a week away from signing on with Microsoft to develop the Guerrilla prototype when Blizzard approached them with the Ghost opportunity.

There was a discussion about Guerrilla vs Ghost, but Ghost made the most financial sense because Blizzard was committing to years of funding vs the 3 months from Microsoft just for a prototype.

Steve has graciously provided me with the original Power Point Presentation doc (25 pages) that was pitched to Microsoft. He noted that the address at the bottom of the presentation was their old location. They moved into a much larger facility to develop Ghost, but the first site was where they developed Metal Arms and it's now Aliso Viejo's City Hall. (The other documents with in-game screenshots I'll create in a second post.)

Quick post. This one slipped under my radar.

You know how for a while now I've been saying that Blizzard's Next Gen MMO will have In-Game Advertisements?

Well, I have some proof now to back up that claim: Blizzard's Next-Gen MMO Franchise Development Producer position. Here is one of their primary responsibilities:

Work with major consumer brands to facilitate product placement and licensing within the world of Blizzard Entertainment's next-gen MMO that enhances the gameplay experience.

In-game advertisements and product placement are planned for the Next-Gen MMO from "major consumer brands." :)

We also know that Titan will have transmedia, and this position will be responsible for the various "Books / Novels, Action figures, Comics, Short movies & Apparel" related to Titan. Marketing like this confirms Cameron Dayton's tweets about having main Heroes and Villains within the game. This ensures that the game is built within a fixed world with memorable and colorful characters. This all gives more credence to the fact that it will be a general MMO (like World of Warcraft) and not a craftable world where users create their own world or adventures (like Second Life).

"You Are Being Prepared" is a good read, and this just further demonstrates how their Next Gen MMO is actually a repeat of the past. :)

Their Next Gen MMO isn't as new as some people might think, and it's a repeat of the past in more ways than one.... more on this later.

Meanwhile, here are some things to keep in mind which I may need to recycle later:

• Product placement of real world things can only function within certain game genres (i.e. modern world, scifi, post-apocalyptic). :)
• Blizzard will never compete with any Activision Blizzard titles. They won't have a competing genre or setting. For example, while Diablo is active, there won't be another Action RPG. A Diablo MMO would compete with WOW. A new Action RPG will be created, though, once Diablo 3 dies down (7-8 years from now.) While SC2 is active, there won't be another RTS. WC4 will come out when SC2 dies, leaving "Starcraft 3" as a non-RTS game. Activision won't create a fantasy MMO while WOW is popular, and Blizzard won't create a COD modern shooter while COD is popular. (Sony learned this lesson the hard way.)
• Blizzard does NOT innovate; they take from others and improve upon it. (Blizzard themselves have even stated that they never innovate.) Think to yourself; who are Activision Blizzard's biggest competitors and what are their biggest video games (that both Activision and Blizzard are currently not competing against)?

Here's a news item from December 3rd regarding the Korean D3 approval. (Thanks Ichigo.)

Based on my rough translation:

• It appears that the GRB had asked Blizzard Korea for private testing of Diablo 3.
• The GRB confirmed with this news site that certain results from December 2nd were completed, and now they're moving onto the deliberation stage. This confirms Blizzard's post when they had said they "were in deliberations." So that post from a couple days ago were indeed because some progress had been made.
• The GRB officer said that generally it takes two weeks for deliberation, but due to the subject matter in Diablo 3, there's "greater resistance" in reviewing this game so it could take a little bit more.
• I think it says the results of the deliberations are expected to be released in January.
• They did confirm, though, that Diablo 3 was/is being held up due to this private testing by the GRB and that Blizzard Korea applied for consideration using the Global version (which includes cash auctions.)

So, apparently some real progress has been made, and it wasn't just a coincidence that Blizzard Korea released that news announcement, and also not a coincidence that Blizzard HQ started posting all of those Diablo and Blizzard Anniversary related news items this week.

(I posted a theory about news release schedules, and how Blizzard uses them to keep players busy with information until the final release. They'll drag out news posts if they need to extend the release date of games for example, which is why they increased the "Day In A Life" posts from 3 to 5 people, and dragged out all of the D3 information. It also explains why there was a sudden explosion of D3 info releases and game related updates within the past week.)

Blizzard is fully expecting it to be approved (probably by January), and it appears that the Korea launch was (and is) indeed holding back the Global release. As long as there are no problems, I'm expecting that Diablo 3 will be a simultaneous global launch.

The only question now, though, is if Blizzard is going to wait for the results of the deliberation before making the release date announcement. They did, after all, say that they were fully expecting it to be approved with no issue. :)

I will be giving away two Path of Exile keys tomorrow. One at 12:00PM PST and the other at 1:00PM PST.

* UPDATE:

First key: FRY46-LLKEM-BLNQL-U____

Characters: M E L G

Will post the second in 1 hour.

* UPDATE:

Sorry, guys - I fucked up. That was the one from yesterday.

Here's the one for today: FRFCM-T2VNH-5WV5H-6PTVT

No puzzle this time, I still have another coming in 30 minutes though.

* UPDATE:

Second key: FRQGV-DSQH4-W3TVL-G____

Characters: 3 X H H

If you win the POE key, you'll also get a friend invite pretty quickly (you need to check back on your pathofexile.com mail account). If you want, just post it back here as a comment and I'll put it up for another contest. Or, just give it to your friend, whatever you want. Your friend's friend invite can be sent back here too so that we can keep cycling through these for our readers. :)

Apparently, incgamers borrowed some more original content from this blog. Check out their latest post here. This time though, it was an entire copy & paste job from here. :)

Linking the source sure would be nice, rather than just saying "it came from some random internet user". Plus, their readers should be aware that it was an inexperienced translation that I did myself and not an official translation by Blizzard. :)

Azzure doesn't believe the game is delayed due to the RMAH in Korea because it's only one regional server and should not affect any other regions.

However, I wanted to clear this up.

This is the belief of many, and it's the strongest argument being used by forum users; i.e. Blizzard wouldn't just hold back all regions if they could simply turn off the RMAH in Korea or just not release the game there. (This is one item I forgot to mention in the "What's Really Holding Diablo 3 Back" post, but it's so old now, I'm not going to go back and update it when I can just post my thoughts here.)

Before I get started, here's an older post and video with Robert Bridenbecker that might help explain the real issues.

You see.. even though there are regional servers and there is a RMAH for each region, the users themselves are not restricted as to what region they play in or what RMAH they use.

It's not something simple as disabling the RMAH in each region. It's a player issue, and if Korea is not approved, this actually becomes a user account logistical nightmare for both Blizzard and PayPal.

Diablo 3 will be Blizzard's first "region free" game. As Robert explained, "When you buy Diablo 3, you're buying Diablo 3." You can play it anywhere in the world, it's not region locked, and players can select any server they want, any language they want, and play on that region's RMAH. There are no barriers or currency restrictions. Whichever region you play on, you're locked into that region's currency. That's it. :)

(* UPDATE: Just a clarification. When you first install the game, you're "locked" into a specific region's RMAH but you can change it later if you can provide "proof" that you moved.. like a scanned photo ID. You can still play in any region and also use any Gold Auction House, but you're "locked" with the one RMAH that you selected first.)

It's all very cool actually. It means that Australian players can buy D3 from the US Website for a reasonable price and can start playing right away on their own region based servers. (You know.. now that I'm talking about it, this is assuming that Digital Downloads will be made available. I wonder if Blizzard won't have DD's this time around for D3 because of the price point difference in other countries?)

Do you see where this could become a major problem?

Even if the RMAH is disabled in Korea (and they only have a Gold Auction House), what's to stop Korean players from just participating in the Real Money Auction Houses in other regions?

Blizzard needs to have advanced security precautions in place to prevent Korean citizens from accessing ALL RMAH's on all regions. And, what about Americans traveling abroad? They still need to adhere to local laws too! :)

Not just Americans, but I'm talking about ANY nationality that travels to Korea. If they're physically in Korea, they must obey their laws and regulations. And the problem here is that any visitors can use VPN services that makes it look like they're connecting from another country, even though they're physically in Korea.

This... is... HUGE.

Are you beginning to see just how critical it is that they receive approval in Korea? They need approvals in EVERY country too.

Not only that, but there are other factors to consider:

1. If the game is rejected, Blizzard's best option is to simply not allow Korean users to play the game. This makes playing the game illegal in the country, and since Blizzard would not be supporting it, they can't be held liable for Korean players playing the game. It would be the government's responsibility to crack down on it.

2. They would need to make a new D3 game for Korea specifically, pushing back their release date by several months. It would be a region locked version of D3, with Korean-only servers. A different version of D3 that all other countries would be using.

3. PayPal also needs to manage all of this. They need to watch bank accounts, incoming/outgoing transactions to make sure they're not from Korea, monitor visitors logs.. all to make sure D3 isn't being illegally used in Korea. Korean players could easily RMAH-lock themselves onto an outside region. It doesn't matter, though, if they're Korean but located outside of Korea.

4. How can you prevent Korean players or minors from playing the game? Account information can easily be faked (in China, many players just use their relative's ID cards to register so that they avoid the age restrictions). Korean players can simply say they're based in Russia or China, and use any of thousands of proxy/VPN services available.

5. Blizzard wants a simultaneous launch in all regions with the same features. Diablo 3 is the same game everywhere, as Robert explained. You can play it anywhere in the world.

6. There might be other things happening at the same time that coincide with the launch that are important. For example, everyone setting up PayPal accounts in advance or Digital Downloads.

7. They want all players to start using the RMAH immediately upon launch. It's critical to the future success of the game, they want players to start using it right away, they need numbers to prove it's success to their shareholders (and justify why the subscription model was not used), and it's also not a good idea to add it as a new feature in a future content patch.

8. What if a Korean RMAH-locked account is outside of Korea, but they continue to use a Korean-based IP address? :) Will sending in proof of relocation be sufficient, how do they confirm it's real if they're still coming from (what it appears to be) Korea? Managing all of this will be brutal, and probably not something currently prepared for (leaving #1 or #2 above as their best options).

9. One country alone can cause D3 to be completely redesigned from scratch, making Diablo 3 a region-locked game and throwing them back to the drawing board on the Real Money Auction House and their relationship with PayPal.

The big one, though, is restricting users in Korea from accessing any other region.. which is not how the game was designed. Blizzard providing and supporting gambling illegally in another country would be very bad. And, as I've said, the game can only be pushed back so far. If there are more delays in January, expect options #1 or #2. There are substantial pros and cons to having a "region free" game. :)

I hope other publishers or developers are following this. If they intend to create new real money trading systems for their own games, as alternatives to the dying subscription model, they need to consider all of the potential issues.

You've probably already heard about this tweet by now. Blizzard_ANZ is apparently a completely legitimate official Blizzard tweet (from the Australia/NZ team.)

Now that I've had a chance to go over it some more in detail, here's what I think.

Starting from the first tweet:

Should have a nice update for everyone by the end of the week if all goes to plan...

They're referring to the Spike VGA.

So most people are on the right track as it is regarding Diablo3. More details to follow... :)

When he posted his first tweet, he was tweeted back: "Release date?", "Please be the release date", "Finally the D3 release date!", "Better be the release date", etc. And this second Tweet was a RESPONSE to those tweets. "D3 Release Date" was the vast majority (and I mean it's real definition, not the Zarhym definition of 'vast majority') of responses, plus that's what everyone has been speculating since the VGA announcement. (If by some small chance he was not responding to follow up tweets.)

Blizzard is basically CONFIRMING that the Diablo 3 release date will be announced this Saturday (in the US) at the VGA.

...On a semi related note ow.ly/7PIs0 is coming out on the 13th December. I now know what I want for Christmas :)

"On a related note, here's something ELSE being released and here is it's release date.."

None of the other trolling attempts I took very seriously. But this time, it's coming from an official Blizzard only-news-related source, rather than the "semi-official" Twitter pages of employees. It's just a little weird that it's coming from the AU/NZ team though. (Like it's something specific to their region.. better not be RMAH related.)

There's no other way of analyzing this; Blizzard has confirmed that the release date WILL be announced this Saturday (in the US). So, I'll actually be really pissed this time if it's not announced and it was one huge troll.

Some other readers also noted that information is more hastily being released now, in relation to this article. Maybe something happened that has allowed them to firm up a release date now? They were waiting on Korea, but Blizzard Korea just announced major delays in the RMAH approvals and government certification, which I predicted that if it would take too long (they can only push back so far), that they would eventually just say "screw it" and move forwards with implementation everywhere else. This timing seems impeccable. (They were waiting on feedback from the Korean government.)

Assuming the release date is announced this Saturday, what would be really awesome is if the release date is 02/23/2012 like what I originally mentioned. It's really the only prediction I have at the moment, since it times up well with an announcement this month, and also gives enough time in January for Digital Downloads to be made available. :)

Since there's been so much going on today, I'll be saving that other (larger) post for tomorrow. I'm still waiting for some more information about it anyways, but I wanted to get it out there because it's at a point where it can be published. But, if I receive any more details, I can continue developing the posts into others in the series.

tl;dr; It appears that Blizzard will be announcing the D3 release date this Saturday due to major setbacks within the Korean RMAH approval and implementation. February release date expected.

* UPDATE:

I was just thinking, that second tweet said "So most people are on the right track as it is regarding Diablo3."

This could mean, "people are on the right track about this Diablo announcement" (i.e. the release date.) Or he's being a complete smart-ass and just saying "people are right that this has something to do with Diablo 3".

What an asshole.. okay, I'm downgrading from "hopeful optimism" to "expecting disappointment" now. (Maybe they're going to wait a little longer to see if Korean approvals still come through. They still have until January, if they intend on releasing by March.)

* UPDATE:

Based on that "as it is regarding Diablo3" comment, and the "nice update for everyone by the end of the week", it's just not timed with the VGA and he's using trollspeak. So, I'm downgrading this completely to "just another troll attempt by Blizzard."

So..

That Blizzard Tweet is a Confirmation.. of more assholes trolling.

Do other companies, like Valve, do this to their customers.. or is it only Blizzard?

* UPDATE (12/8/11):

Yep, trolling assholes confirmed.

They're giving away 100 beta keys to Aus/NZ players (must follow them on Twitter to be eligible).

What bothers me the most about this is that they said "end of week" which isn't today, and when 99% of users tweeted back saying "Release Date?" he confirmed "So most people are on the right track" but then had to add "as it is regarding Diablo3." Teasing and trolling their customers for cheap laughs I guess.

I'm positive now the release date won't be announced on Saturday, plus everything going on with the Korean RMAH pretty much confirms it. We probably won't get a release date until January, or whenever they get a confirmation from the Korean GRB.

Already discovered elsewhere, but I have new information to share that they don't know about. Here's a link to the Job Listings page that has already been posted by other blogs.

Ubisoft Quebec worked on several Ubisoft Dance titles, Assassin's Creed titles, and most recently PowerUp Heroes this past fall.

Before leaving Ubisoft, Sebastien Samson was working on an Online MMORPG for Kids (prototype stage.) He left Ubisoft to go work for Frima Studios, who were developing Activision Blizzard's Spyro Universe MMO.

Ricardo Ayasta was also working at Ubisoft during this same time, and was an animator on PowerUp Heroes. He also left Ubisoft for Activision Blizzard's Spyro MMO too. :)

Makes sense that Ubisoft is working on a MMORPG for kids though. I'm fully expecting it to be a cross-platform title that will compete with Activision's Spyro Universe.. so expect a pet / Pokemon "Gotta Collect 'Em All" type game.

* UPDATE:

Confirmed. Derek Fortin is the Senior Level Designer for an undisclosed AAA game (XboX 360, PS3, PC) at Ubisoft. They started work on the MMORPG in December 2010.

So, it appears to be a cross-platform AAA MMORPG for kids and they have been working on it since December 2010.

It appears that the SK Ratings Board is still deliberating what to do about Diablo 3. The RMAH is still being held back, and the Blizzard SK team has posted an update about the issue. (It's interesting that they actually had to make an update in the first place.. I guess things are taking much longer than expected.)

One of our readers (lchigo) alerted me to this new post on the Korean Battle.net website. (By the way, receiving updates like these are very helpful.. I can't keep track of everything after all. Keep it up!)

Approvals for new video games are usually pretty short. According to the GRB website, from submission to approval usually takes less than 30 days. I've seen some games approved within 3-5 days for example, with the really long ones taking no more than 1 month. D3 was been waiting for approval for a really long time now (several months at least), and I don't think it's just the GRB holding the approvals back.. it appears that there are other government bodies holding up the GRB before they can make their decisions (e.g. law makers / gambling investigation teams.)

Here's a very rough translation (I did myself) of the Korean Battle.net announcement:

Diablo III Release Readiness Update
Author: Blizzard Entertainment 05 December 2011 08:02 UTC 2

Hello Diablo III community,

Thanks for your enthusiasm and encouragement about Diablo III that was announced at this past Blizzcon, and thanks for your high quality feedback about the game. I want to take this opportunity to give you an update on the Diablo III release. The main issues we're having right now are in regards to Korea's potential real money auction house and associated ratings for the game.

We have recently announced plans to increase the number of Korean players in the Diablo III beta. A specific schedule has not been set yet as we are having a difficult time, but we will update you all as soon as possible once a date is committed. In addition, over the past beta builds of the Korean version of the game, we have received a lot of good feedback. These comments are gathered by the Diablo III team and they will be used to make sure this is an excellent game and meets all of our player's expectations, and we will have more information on the community site with more beta news forthcoming. In addition, you can apply for participation in the beta test on this page.

Diablo III - Korea Ratings Under Consideration

As we approach it's release, players can review the ratings to see if it is within their age group and if the game is suitable for them. We recently contacted the Korea Ratings Board to receive a Diablo III classification. We are aiming for a Mature Adult 18+ rating. The ratings for consideration were based on the latest version of the game and they have been provided a full version with all elements of the game included. We will provide more information and progress of their deliberations sometime at a later date.

The Auction House

As many of you know, Diablo III is introducing a powerful new auction system. Items are collected in the Diablo series, and characters grow through item buying which is an essential element of the game. However, there have been many issues and fraud related to buying items in the past. There are many risks of exposure using third-party merchant sites, and using them is a fairly complex process. But through our new auction house, money and in-game items is safe, fun, and can easily be bought and sold. For more information about the auction house, the information page can be found at: *doesn't matter*

There have been many questions about the currency auction house. An auction system like this is in some ways an unprecedented new effort, and there are different regulations and laws in other regions, which we are working on. After an internal investigation, we concluded that the auction house system is legitimate in Korea. However, we respect and are taking the classification system for each region very seriously. Blizzard has been working closely with the national regulation groups, and we are cooperating fully with the Korea rating committee. We are getting closer to release more information, and we will let you know the status soon.

For now, we want to make sure the community knows what's going on and so that you're not left wondering what's going on. Please continue to leave your comments and questions on the official forums, and we look forward to reading your comments.

Best wishes, Blizzard Korea.

If you speak Korean and can do a much better translation, let me know. :)

There haven't been any other confirmations of the SK approval in Blizzard news, so it looks like nothing has been approved yet and it's still being worked on.

Taking this long though, it must be a pretty serious investigation. In other regions (like NA/EU), the investigations won't happen until AFTER the game is released.. only then, after they see the effects of the game, can they conclude if it's gambling or not. (If could be addressed by any level of the government too.. from gambling law makers to child protection services.)

Sort of a surprise giveaway.

Will be giving away this key in 10AM PST (2.5 hours from now.)

Looks like POE keys are a lot more common now too, especially with the immediate friend invites.

* UPDATE:

Here you go:

FRY46-LLKEM-BLNQL-ULMEG

No puzzle, just copy-and-paste. :) I did this one earlier because I have another large post coming up later today.

Will be posting it here at 1:00PM PST.

Same jumble puzzle as before (4 characters.)

* UPDATE:

FR7RW-V3S4T-BPHYL-M____

Characters: F B 7 Y

• City State Entertainment (which was founded by Mark Jacobs, former CEO of Mythic Entertainment) just registered some trademarks in the OZ universe: "MARCH ON OZ" and "WORLDS OF OZ".


• Lucasfilm Ltd. filed trademarks (first and second) for "RED TAILS". Looks to be mostly online social services, media, and toys for the new movie I'm assuming. Nothing specifically related to video games though.


• Paradox Interactive filed a new trademark for "DUNGEONLAND". Paradox is most well known for historical strategy computer games, and they're the ones currently developing that Salem MMORPG. Dungeonland is probably a new IP, and unrelated to Gary Gygax's (no relation) Dungeonland D&D adventure module.


• UBISOFT has more movement on the Assassin's Creed front. Live streaming and television series, books and comics, audio recordings and live action entertainment. Assassin's Creed: The Opera, anyone? :) With heavy investment into new transmedia, that would mean that the next AC is probably being developed right now. (I don't follow AC though, so this might already be common news; i.e. the new AC is already being worked on or announced already.)


• Nintendo of America has filed a new Pokemon Trademark. "PIKACHU" specific goods and services ("Candies, pasta or rice, breakfast cereals, pastries, chewing gum"). I'll keep my eye on this, this could be the first of a couple more registrations. There's probably some new Pokemon announcement coming soon. But then again, isn't there ALWAYS some kind of new Pokemon announcement coming soon?


• Taito has just filed for a new "DARIUS GAIDEN" trademark. So, if you're interested in those awesome arcade shooters, it looks like they're developing Darius Gaiden for the PC and/or consoles now too.


• World Wrestling Entertainment filed a new trademark for their new "WWE SHOWDOWN" game.


• Finally, looks like EA filed domain registrations for the new Command & Conquer "Alliances" game or social services. (e.g. commandandconqueralliance.com)
  
  Fusible beat me to it though, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Domain registrations are a lot harder to track without a paid account. :)
  
  The reason I'm referencing "social services" is because they also have "alliances" in the Red Alert, Tiberium, and Generals domain names. Perhaps "Alliances" is a new social service for all Command & Conquer games and future games, much like COD Elite. It's rumored that it will be revealed at the VGA this coming Dec 10th.

Blizzard has just updated their "A Day In The Life" page and they have added two more articles on top of the originally planned three.

The most recent one is about Micah Whipple aka Bashiok aka Drysc.

For most, this is no big deal.. it's just another short article. But, this was actually a website I've been watching for a while now. Not for it's content, but rather it's scheduling of releases.

(What I'm about to explain is actually a good example of my thinking process. I'm also going to touch on Bashiok for a bit, and provide some interesting insight on a specific subject.)

About Me

You see, what Blizzard has been doing is releasing small amounts of information at a time and spreading it out to keep people busy with art and information until Diablo's release date.

It's all scheduled ahead of time; the three "Day in the Life" articles, the FB beta key sweepstakes start and end date, D3 followers information, D3 gold and cash auction houses, D3 character reveals and information, D3 item database, etc. They're all released at certain times, just to keep people busy, until the ultimate goal is reach. Makes sense right?

As soon as the three "Day in the Life" articles were completed, that would mean that they would have to move onto new bits of information until the release date.

I was keeping an eye on this schedule, and I was hoping that this wouldn't happen. But, they've now redesigned the website so that they can do 5 articles now instead of 3, meaning that they're dragging everything out even further and pushing back their information release schedule. That means everything else gets pushed back too..

About Bashiok

This is something about Bashiok that's largely unknown by many players. You might find it interesting though.

You might have noticed that Bashiok is very quick to come to the defense of the Cash Auction House. One of the very first, in fact:

We've spent a very long time working with our legal departments around the globe researching regional laws and regulations, if not obtaining government approvals.

.. we know it to be sound from a legal perspective.

If any local or country-specific laws do become an issue we'll of course be sure to let people in those regions know.

As you might have noticed, there's something very wrong with these statements. He claims it's sound from a legal perspective, and the legal team has been working on it for a long time. That means there are no problems. But then he said, if there ARE issues we'll let people know. Didn't he just say it was perfectly acceptable "around the globe"?

This was before the South Korea incident too, meaning that the legal team couldn't have been working around the globe and getting government approvals.. and they still haven't received approvals yet in all countries or regions.

This was a very old example, but even now, he'll be the first to jump on anything related to the RMAH and gambling.

The reason he's so involved and.. intense.. about the RMAH and the gambling issue is because there's something you don't know about Micah.

Jay Wilson said that Micah is "ALL FOR" turning Diablo 3 into a whole PVP / E-Sports game with player wagering and arena gambling. That video is one that has went largely unnoticed by players, but it shows how even Jay knows that he's a big supporter of gambling within the game.

Bashiok can't call it gambling, mind you, because he knows that gambling is illegal.. and I'm sure he doesn't want any players calling it that either.

A little something that I hope you found interesting since it explains why he responds to those posts and why he's an advocate of the RMAH.

Back To Blizzard

In that same interview, Sixen later said:

It's something Force and I brought up at the Press Event back in July... Gambling, Replays, and Observer Mode to PvP. Jay Wilson said they're all cool ideas they want to do at some point in time... Just... Later on down the road.

So, these gambling features might be something later on down the road.. like what I lovingly predicted for Diablo 3 X1. :)

There are probably many other supporters of gambling within the game who also see it's potential, but they all have to be very careful about using "gambling" verbiage. It's not gambling, just "games of chance and using in-game currency". Gambling in D3 is very much possible and perfectly legal because the RMAH allows it to happen through indirect loopholes.

It's one of the reasons they need the RMAH to be successful and active for a very long period of time before before they expand D3 features (like arena wagering) or put RMAH systems into other games. They need to see how the governments react to it after at least a year of activity. If governments don't say anything about it, then they'll know it's safe to proceed because it's the same as giving approval. :)

In a year from now, when players are asking why it's taking Blizzard so long to implement arena wagering, just point them back to this old post. They're simply watching and waiting.

I think it's a very cool and bold idea, and I support the RMAH.. but, I don't support the non-transparency about the whole issue. They should just admit it's gambling, get government approvals, and get it licensed (if it's legal in the region.) Even the South Korean Blizzard employees knew that it was gambling and tried to fight against it, but Blizzard HQ forced them to launch the feature. So, we know for a fact that within Blizzard walls even they know it's gambling.

I've got another PoE Key to giveaway thanks to one of our previous winners.

I don't know the exact time I'll be giving it away, but it will probably be tomorrow some time around 1:00PM PST. I'll update this post earlier in the day with a more firmed up time, once I've worked out my schedule for tomorrow.

It looks like the winners do receive new friend keys pretty quickly. So, if you're a winner, just post in the "Content Submission" area if you want to continue this trend on the site.

* UPDATE:

Looks like I'll probably do it around 2:00PM PST today instead. Will update later today as soon as I have the chance.

* UPDATE:

In 15 minutes I'll post it here, just like usual. It will be another jumble puzzle like last time. It will be 4 characters just like last time too.. 5 characters (120 permutations) is far too annoying.

* UPDATE:

FR83B-B6RQF-M55Q2-L____

Characters: 6 4 G N

Blog trolls, that is, and why they're good for blogs.

Recently, I've come to the decision on changing my policy on trolls. It was due to one troll in particular.

He's been visiting the site for a really long time now, and was around when it was shutdown. In fact, he was the only person to leave a negative comment when the site went down. :)

Well I guess it serves you well. You underestimated me :))).

You have no clue who I really am :))) And that makes me smile.

Here are some other examples of his antics:

1. "lots of conspiricy"
2. "the industrial espionage of EA"."
3. "Did Blizzard rape the wife perhaps ?"
4. "You live in 1980 or in 2010 ??? dude. Do you sleep at night?"
5. "I don't care that some copies were bought on line. We live in 2011."
6. "players all screamed Blizzard murdered their mothers"
7. "The future lays with the mind of Rob Pardo"
8. "mmorpg.com site is collaborating with EA to kill any leaks by banning accounts for life."

He's from the Mechelen region of Belgium, he refuses to give himself an alias (I've asked him many times), and yes.. all of his posts are non-coherent ramblings. Insanity and early onset dementia will do that to you.

I get a kick out of every post he makes. In fact, whenever he writes something, all I can picture is someone sitting at their computer screen and doing this:

So, if you've ever seen me call someone "@prisoncharlie", you now know who I'm talking about; the insane Belgium guy. I'll point him out whenever he posts.

The reason he's so great for this blog (and why trolls are useful in any blog) is due to many reasons:

1. It's great entertainment.

@PrisonCharlie

Mmmm hmm mmm hmmm.. Yes, that's very interesting.

You seem to know a lot on the subject, and you are clearly highly intelligent and handsome. Please tell me more.

2. You don't even need to read what he says. Just agree with what he's saying and compliment him. He keeps coming back.

3. Normal readers like the entertainment, and keep coming back just to hear prisoncharlie's thoughts.

4. He visits A LOT, which drives up traffic.

5. If he complains on other sites about this blog, it just drives up more viewership! There's no such thing as bad publicity.

6. If you read his comments, within one of his insane posts you might see a certain word that triggers a thought, memory, or brainstorm. He can help further ideas for new posts. Just like this one! He gave me the great idea about how useful trolls really are to blogs. :)

7. All of his comments and mispellings actually increase the number of keywords on the site, giving the blog much better search enginge optimization and increased traffic. Nice.

So, if you're a blogger - take note.

* UPDATE:

Oh another idea!

8. It also increases search engine optimization by having common mispellings on your blog. It gives you a better advantage over other blogs especially since the average person mistypes or mispells all the time and large sites are reviewed and edited for content. It pays to have bad grammar on your site! :)

Alternative Title: "Bah. Cookie-cutter gaming sites."

Wow, some amazing new news! CAPCOM Trademarked "E.X. TROOPERS"

Nov 23 - Digital Castration

Dec 1 - First Spotted by Siliconera
Dec 1 - GoNintendo
Dec 2 - Joystiq
Dec 2 - VG247
Dec 2 - Feedthegamer
Dec 2 - Play.tm
Dec 2 - Gamenews
Dec 2 - Gamefront
Dec 2 - Gamingessence
Dec 2 - Play3-live
Dec 2 - Favoniangamers
Dec 2 - Digibutter
Dec 2 - Spaziogames

.. and a hundred more by tomorrow, plus the aggregators.

10 days might as well be a hundred years in internet time. So, consider yourself ahead of the curve. :)

Coincidentally, Siliconera (the gaming site that broke the Capcom news) was the same group that I had actually leaked the Blizzcon imgur link to in August (2-3 months before Blizzcon). It was about 1-2 weeks after TOD's email and I sent them an email to their tip line. They never emailed me back, and they never published the leak so I guess they didn't believe it. They really missed out on something big.

Real Money Auction House

RMAH testing has finally started.

(The EU announcement is still up, but the US RMAH announcement was deleted and Bashiok also deleted his Tweet regarding the announcement.)

They're giving players fake B.Net credits (50 Beta Bucks to be exact) and not using real money, like what I had mentioned last weekend. The money can't be used to purchase Blizzard store items, of course. :)

It's too bad they didn't mention a time frame for this testing (if you hear anything, let me know.) I would love to know when it will be ending, because future D3 players also need enough time to prepare their PayPal accounts for the new system. Hard to say if the PayPal announcement will be happening during the RMAH testing, or if they'll wait until it's completed.

Blizzard is using a $0.15 Listing Fee and $0.65 Successful Sale Charge for every transaction.

"These numbers are not final and are for testing purposes only; they're subject to change."

Still, this is what they're "anticipating" and these prices are very expensive. If $0.80 per sale is expected by Blizzard, apparently they're anticipating that items will easily sell for $10.00 to $50.00.

The number of free listings per week haven't been identified yet, but I'll find out soon enough. I'll update once I find out.

On this current system, minimum bids will be at least $0.90-$1.00 each, so that the users make at least $0.10-$0.20 profit. But there's also the Listing Fee to be really concerned about. $0.15 lost per failed sale is A LOT. So, it's not really worth the risk unless you sell items at a minimum of $3-$4 each.. probably more. Even $3 is really pushing it because you'll probably spend $3 in Listing Fee undercuts before it even successfully sells. There's a lot of risk and random chance involved here.

And also don't forgot about the major cuts that PayPal will be making into your profits. All of this needs to be considered very carefully by RMAH users.

I'm also really interested in finding out the Auction maximum durations. For a long time I theorized that they would want as many transactions as possible from players because of the large amounts of money they would make from every failed Listing Fee. So, I assumed that it would be much shorter than WOW. WOW offers 48, 24, and 12 hour auction lengths for example.. which are still very short for an auction, but with Diablo 3 I was thinking that they might reduce the duration on the RMAH even further.

* UPDATE:

Okay, looks like Blizzard has deleted both the EU and US versions now. All Tweets removed too.

Luckily, I made a copy. Here's the original page:

And here's the interface screenshot:

* UPDATE:

And.. looks like they're back up again.

"Damnit Tim this wasn't supposed to go up until next week! Everyone already knows it by now so we might as well just do it today. Thanks again, Tim. Metzen is fucking pissed."

PayPal Preparations

Although most countries have already had their User Agreements amended to include Blizzard's new "Micropayments for Digital Goods", some specific countries haven't been amended yet.

Singapore, for example, has an upcoming UA amendment effective December 22, 2011.

For micropayments you receive up to $3.99 USD, the buyer can reverse the transaction. Anything over $4 though will be very difficult to ever get a refund.

Considering Blizzard's anticipated fee system, combined with PayPal's UA, average items will probably be selling anywhere between $2-5. That's their belief anyways, players might react differently.

I was hoping for more of a penny system, but apparently this slot machine will be taking $0.80 per pull.

Looking For Clues

This is around the time when you want to start looking for clues on their website (or other media) about potential release dates. Blizzard likes to hint at release dates, if they have them planned that is.

In the RMAH screenshot, Blizzard gave themselves $223.32 Beta Bucks for example. Ooooo.. must be a 02/23 release date! :)

[January 1st is 32 days from now (when the picture was first posted), putting it on the very first day of 2012. Plus, 223.32 = 2 / 23 / 20+12. Perhaps the release date will be announced on Dec 31st to close off the 20th Anniversary or on Jan 1st as part of the new year. That would put the game release about 2 months away, which is normal timing. Sneaky.]

The Book of Cain probably won't have anything, unless the release has been planned for a really long time. Even though the book wasn't supposed to come out until after the VGA (when more lore is leaked), apparently many people have already received review or advanced copies.

Keep your eyes peeled on the website though for any new Diablo lore items that contain numbers or dates. (They might get more tricky with numbers though, since that's what players are looking for now.)

Blizzard first hinted at the Cataclysm release date on October 4, 2010. Remember Mekkatorque predicting a 12.7% chance of the Cataclysm? (Cataclysm came out on December 7, 2010). So, a hint was made a little over 2 months before launch.

Why You Should Never Trust Retail Store Release Dates

Hey, isn't that what I said too? :)

Other Investigations

Now that the RMAH testing is finally live, I wonder how much time is needed to fully test it. The Gold Auction House still has some bugs, but they've taken it offline. The beta has been going on for 3 months now, the Gold Auction House started testing 1.5 months ago.. would the RMAH only need 1 month of additional testing?

I'll have to think about it some more. I can't really see the RMAH taking 2+ months for testing, and the RMAH Testing announcement didn't make it sound like there would be any major server wipes. The success of the RMAH will determine when they make their release date announcement..

Other than that, a lot of my time has been spent on a pretty interesting investigation. Most of my time has been spent on it, and I'm still waiting for some more information to come in. So, if I don't post for a couple days, don't be surprised; I'm still working on something.

I've got another beta key from "Rpgguy", and will be giving it away at 1:00 PM PST today.

(This one will be an annoying puzzle. Check out the last giveaway for clues as to what to expect.)

* UPDATE:

Here you go. Hopefully you prepared (from my last comments) due to this being a jumble puzzle.

FR6Y5-8YZ5Z-WVBMU-B _ _ _ _

Letters are Z A P R

This one is only 24 possibilities.

Next time I might make it a 5 letter jumble. The 5 letter ones are much more brutal though.. that's 120 combinations. :)

Good luck. Please let us know if you got it successfully.

A couple weeks ago, I had said to expect some kind of announcement on November 30th.

Bashiok has recently sent a new Tweet semi-confirming that something will be announced today. Many users are expecting an imminent release date to be announced, but I think it's more of a troll by Blizzard. :)

It's certainly dramatic, but don't get too hyped up. When you say something like, "The Heavens Shall Tremble", that's a pretty huge deal and it means that something really really really really huge is coming. It was also the phrase used in the original Diablo 3 teaser/reveal. It's not a phrase one would just throw around, so it SHOULD be a big announcement.. but, it will probably be various Diablo related information releases, game details, beta keys, Book of Cain information, more street art, Diablo in-game vanity pets, or any of the other possible stuff that I had previously mentioned.

It's certainly being hyped up like it's going to be a release announcement, but prepare for huge disappointment.

Yesterday, the Blizzard store and D3 NA/EU websites underwent some unscheduled maintenance as well. It would be nice to have the Digital Download available, but the release date will be announced before that ever happens.

Strangely, it seems that Diablo's 15th Anniversary might have moved from November 30 to some another date now. For a long time, the Diablo 1 release date was always recognized as November 30. However, it seems to have been moved to December 31st, or maybe January 2, or maybe January 7th. Some sources even have the PC release in 1998. Blizzard also removed previous mentions of the Anniversary Date from their website. :)

I'm going to have to go dig through some old magazines to see when it really came out. Either way, prepare to be trolled by Blizzard today. :)

* Update:

Well, whatever the Anniversary Date really is, expect another announcement on that day too.

The November 1996 issue of PC Gamer had a Diablo review and they said that it was "AVAILABLE NOW" for Windows 95.

Blizzard announced Diablo 1's release on January 3, 1997. Either it was a late response, or retail stores broke the street date on Dec 31st, making that the "official" anniversary date instead. :)

I also discovered Blizzard's early attempts at vanity figures: "BLIZZARD ANNOUNCES OVER 13 MILLION GAMES (played over Battle.net)". Forum users (even now) were taking about this really old announcement and are claiming that Diablo 1 sold "13 million copies."

They didn't read the fine print though, it was 750,000 copies "sold-through" worldwide. It's scary to see how easily they were influenced even now by something so blatantly obvious. Blizzard has gotten even better with their wording since then. :)

* UPDATE:

The D3 website has been updated to announce the new "J!NX Holiday Line". They claimed that "The Burnings [sic] Hells have been unleashed, and the world of Sanctuary requires your aide, brave adventurer." Weren't the Burning Hells already released though.. in the form of street art?

Anyways, I really hope this wasn't their troll attempt. They can do still much better.

* UPDATE:

They did much better, it was a giant troll for the new and improved Diablo intro cinematic v3. It's going to have 17.2 seconds more footage than all of the others that we have already seen! Can't wait!

* UPDATE:

Matais pulled one of the files from the original Diablo 1 disc.

Guess what? It's dated "November 30, 1996". :)

So the game was completed and out (gold) by November 30, 1996 and it hit stores by December 31, 1996. I don't know.. which one would you consider it's real anniversary?