The company's CEO, Mike Griffith said that, in addition to the delayed Singularity, now expected between January and the end of March, the company will publish new games in the James Bond, Tony Hawk and Spider-Man franchises. Griffith also promised tie-ins to Dreamworks movies Shrek 4 and How To Train Your Dragon. More mysterious was his reference to an unnamed "innovative property in the $4 billion action genre."

Later in the call, a financial analyst tried to get top Blizzard exec, Mike Morhaime, to clarify whether the delay of StarCraft II to 2010 would push back an anticipated 2010 release for the studio's Diablo III. The analyst recalled an earlier comment by a Blizzard representative that the studio would release a single major game per year.

"The move of StarCraft into next year does not impact the schedule," Morhaime said. "And so it would be correct to conclude that you could expect two releases of Blizzard for next year. But I would not make any conclusions on what those titles would be."

Activision also announced plans to offer "new releases" in the Call of Duty series next year, though how those releases will mix downloadable map packs for existing games and brand-new games was not specified.

The first prank to come across our desks this morning was the P1mp My Mount feature from the World of Warcraft European website, which while a bit amusing, really didn't seem up to Blizzard's generally high April Fool's standards. Adding racing stripes, neon hooves, and cannons to your mounts might have been funny a few years ago, but now it's a bit stale. Was Blizzard slipping?

No way.

Just as we were asking ourselves that question, the new Archivist character was introduced on the Diablo III website. A frail old man who fights with the power of knowledge, his Lorenado, Quest Bolt, and Shush attacks are as devastating as he is weak, killed by monsters or his own powers at the end of each demonstration video. The only thing more epic than his skills is his Radial Dialogue Tree, featuring such awe-inspiring phrases as "Have you seen my pants?" and "I smell like bacon and summertime." Brilliant.

They could have simply stopped there, but no. On the StarCraft 2 webpage they introduce Terra-Tron, the most powerful Terran unit ever created. With a role listed as "Omega Supreme Defense", Terra-Tron is an entire Terran base that transforms into a giant robot. It is a thing of beauty to behold, sure to bring a tear to the eyes of Transformers, Voltron, and StarCraft 2 fans alike.

So that's two out of three. Not bad, right? Not good enough for Blizzard, however. Just as I was writing this up, the North American World of Warcraft page updated with the new PVP Dance Battle system, complete with custom user interface and crew-based tournaments.

While some of the other April Fool's jokes we've gotten so far have been nice, I'm calling this year for Blizzard once again. Be sure to check out each individual page for videos and hilarious flavor text.

The Diablo series has always had inventory issues. I'd say 90% of "Town Portal" scrolls are used to head back to town and offload your inventory with a merchant. Diablo III was initially going to feature an inventory where all items were icons of the same size, but now they've split them off, with a bag for small items, a bag for large items, and a bag for quest items. It really isn't as confusing as it sounds.

Current design right now is to have bags. You'll get bags and they will expand, you know kind of like in WoW, except you're not going to open up separate windows. You'll start off your inventory with say… you know, eight slots, right, and then you'll get a new bag and that has ten, so two more slots will open up within that tab, but you'll never have multiple tabs. Like you won't have two or three "large" tabs.

Nicholson takes a great deal of inspiration from Blizzard's massively multiplayer online game, citing it as the reason behind Diablo III's more colorful skill system as well.

I am unabashedly a fan of WoW, I'll probably catch flak "oh you're making it look like WoW oh no!" but I love them, I love the WoW icons. And y'know what we're trying to do is see, ok what works about the WoW icons? They're illustrative; is there a way to try to maybe bridge the gap. You know what worked about the more symbolic DII icons, and what works with the WoW icons, and trying to find a way to put the two together. And that's really what I'm trying to do is to try to make them more symbolic, so they're not necessarily little murals, but they are painterly. So they are colorful because you're going to have a lot more of them than you would in DII.

So while it will definitely piss off those Diablo fans that have memorized power symbols using stacks of flash cards, the colored skills were necessary to keep track of all the new and different skills being packed into Diablo III.

Blizzcast Episode 8 [Blizzard via Shacknews]

Roper worked with Blizzard back when there was a Blizzard North. His studio was responsible for the Diablo series, while Blizzard proper in Irvine, California worked on the 'craft' titles - StarCraft and WarCraft. Bill believes the merging of the studios resulted in a more cartoony, less-Diablo version of Diablo III.

"I think that one of the things that we always tried to get across was that Diablo was Gothic fantasy and I think there was just a need that was put in there from the visuals that I didn't necessarily get. I got it from the architecture and to a degree from the character design but not the feeling of the world. I can't say that I dislike it. I didn't look at it and go, oh my God that's horrible. But I looked at it and went, it's not really... to me as a player it just didn't really ring with Diablo."

Cutting words, but you have to put things into perspective with this sort of thing. Bill Roper went on to form Flagship Studios, who created Hellgate London, and we all know how well that game went.

Diablo 3: What Bill Roper thinks [VideoGamer.com]

We've seen quite a bit of Diablo III since the game was announced, so when I was first flipping through the new art I wasn't all that impressed, until I came to that one particular screenshot. That gigantic thing who stole a pair of Voldo's hand weapons from Soulcalibur? Yeah. That's one big sonofabitch, and knowing Blizzard he probably isn't the toughest foe we'll face by far. Sure it isn't as dark as the previous two titles, but hell - you couldn't see most of that guy if the sides of the screen were dimmed, and he's definitely a critter you'd want to keep your eye on.

Update: Now I'm told the big guy has already appeared in gameplay clips, but his size remains the same.

I didn't need to say any more, of course, because Wilson already knew about the fan-fit I was referring to. "It's a complex issue," he said. "It's been a big issue online, but for the most part, the response we've gotten has been very positive. We've got petitions, a few people on forums [who are] very loud, but it's really more of the 'squeaky wheel' syndrome."

"Certainly, internally there's no doubt. I would tell people who don't like the art style that probably, getting the art style was the hardest thing."

But there's a careful method to all of it, Wilson explained:

Wilson said that what we see now is the third iteration on the Diablo III design. As with many of the decisions the developer makes, much of the art design issue was based in gameplay principles.

"Diablo is a game you play for, hopefully, hundreds of hours, and one of the rewards is a variety of different-looking environments." People looking back on old Diablo, he said, may have a selective memory. "People remember the Act I dungeons... but they kind of conveniently forget the green fields of Act I, and all of Act II... and it's palaces, its bright deserts."

Actually, Wilson said the team originally shot for a "very desaturated, very dark" gameworld. "We had all kinds of problems with identification of units... combat wasn't very good, and the worlds got homogeneous very quickly. As we played through it, we didn't like it, or think it was very much fun."

Diablo II, said Wilson, was actually "very saturated, very bright."

What about the complaint, then, that Diablo III may be "too much like WoW" in style and vibe?

"There's a philosophy that goes across all of our games, and that philosophy stays true from game to game... so it probably draws some comparisons," Wilson said. "One philosophy is that our artists feel like if they're just using photorealism, not creating a unique look for the game, not stylizing so that it's uniquely Blizzard, then they're not doing their jobs."

Color choices, he said, promote telling units apart and telling players apart from monsters, philosophies that cross all of Blizzard's titles. "If you do follow those rules, there's going to be some similarities."

And what's so bad about drawing some comparisons to the hugely-successful WoW, anyway? "We definitely learn from all our games," said Wilson. "We don't say, 'oh, we don't want to do anything those games did' — it's all Blizzard, we're all a family. WoW pulled stuff from Diablo II... if we think it's a smart choice, we try to pull stuff from them. We don't really worry about whether it's different. What matters is, does it make the gameplay better? That always wins."

There are some cases, though, where the sharing of art philosophy doesn't always work — WoW game director Jeffrey Kaplan said that the team takes care not to make the gravestones in WoW's pivotal cemeteries too Gothic-looking — those tombstones belong in Diablo.

"Diablo can do a lot of things WoW can't even do," Kaplan said. "We can't do the level of violence that they can do in Diablo III; we would lose our rating if we do the things that Diablo III does. They have a much darker vibe."

In other words, said Wilson, the Blizzard team won't pass over a good idea just because it's not brand-new. "If we're actually making the game worse with no other reason than to be different from WoW, then it's a bad choice. We don't think, when people play, that they'll have any problem telling that it's a different game."

The preliminary art we've seen so far, Wilson said, is from early on in the game. "We want to generate the feeling of everything getting worse... it's part of our narrative. It makes the more gloomy part of the game a place where the stakes get higher."

"If you start out at the apocalypse, and then move to more apocalypse, it's not going to have much of an impression on players."

Kotaku: So, Jay, what can you tell us about the storyline of Diablo III?

Jay Wilson: In the previous two games, Diablo and his two brothers, Mephisto and Baal, were the three Prime Evils of a world called Sanctuary. Where we start off in Diablo III, it’s twenty years later (after Diablo II: Lord of Destruction) and the brothers are gone, they’ve been vanquished. Essentially everyone was kind of geared for Hell to actually invade. At the end of Lord of Destruction, the Worldstone was destroyed, it left a giant crater and everyone was expecting the hordes to come pouring out of it and nothing happened. So, Deckard Cain is one of our main characters from the first two games, he’s spent the last two decades trying to find out where the last two Evils are, what they’re doing and why the invasion didn’t happen. A lot of the rest of the story focuses on Tyrael, the Angel of Justice, and what’s happened to him since that event as he was actually the angel who destroyed the world.

Kotaku: From a lore point of view, the mythology of Diablo seems just as complex as it is for Warcraft or Starcraft, do you think this is important?

Jay Wilson: Yes, absolutely, it’s one of our main focuses of the game. What was funny was that when I gave you the synopsis of the game, it feels so simple! We love the story.

Kotaku: You said earlier that you’d been working on the game for what, four years? Do you think that taking longer over a game improves the final product significantly?

Jay Wilson: Four …. or five, somewhere in that area. I think taking as long as a game needs to take guarantees that it’s a good game. It’s hard to say whether it improves the end product but sometimes it’s necessary. Blizzard only releases great games so if it’s not great we just don’t release it. One of the things I would want to say, especially to our most patient fans – the ones that have been hoping for Diablo III - is that I hope they see it’s a testament of our love for the franchise that we wouldn’t release it before it’s good and ready. We’ve really spent this time trying to make a sequel that was worthy of them.

Kotaku: In the demo you showed during the Opening Ceremony, you gave us a glimpse at the Witch Doctor class which seems to use several spells similar to those found in World of Warcraft. Do you worry that some fans will think you’re just copying aspects of WoW?

Jay Wilson: No. Do I think people will say that? Yes, I think they will. One of the things I like to remind people is that it’s okay to steal from ourselves. A good idea is a good idea and a good skill is a good skill and so when we look across all our games we borrow from each other all of the time. But the really key and important thing is do we play like World of Warcraft? No! We don’t play anything like it, Diablo has a different feel to it and that’s fine. If we look at the history of Blizzard games, at Warcraft I and II, the spell Blizzard appeared, it also appeared in WoW and Diablo II. I almost think it’s more like a signature but as long as a game has enough original stuff that it stands on its own and plays like its own game, that’s what matters.

Kotaku: In that case do you think that this might work in your favour, that WoW players, for example might be persuaded to try Diablo III?

Jay Wilson: Yeah, actually, I do think that. I think players like things that they are familiar with and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them saying: “Oh, this class is like the warrior in WoW. Cool, I wanna play that!” Especially if it’s going to get them into the game. I think we gain as much as we could lose, people love to see something familiar and the reaction to Whirlwind was a great example.

Kotaku: You only joined Blizzard recently, does your passion for Diablo stretch back further than that?

Jay Wilson: Yes, I am a Blizzard fan. My first Blizzard game was Rock N’ Roll Racing so yeah. Warcraft I, II, StarCraft - I’m a huge StarCraft fan, Diablo I and II; Diablo used to be spoken of in hushed tones in my house because I was so excited and I pretty much played Diablo II since the day it came out. It’s one of those games that’s great to go back to.

Kotaku: Why do you think Diablo has captured so much attention?

Jay Wilson: I think you could pick out a lot of things: the setting’s darker and people like that, especially now. I actually think Diablo II wins on the fun scale. All of the Diablo games, they’re fun to play and that’s important. You could take the most flawed game in the world and as long as it’s fun it’s okay. Diablo II’s super easy to play, you could teach your grandmother to play it in five seconds.

Kotaku: With the popularity of WoW and other online games, Battle.net seems to have nearly disappeared into the background. Do you think Diablo III will breathe new life into the service?

Jay Wilson: I can’t really talk about Battle.net but I will say, Battle.net will not be a background. I’ll be huge, the next version will be absolutely Blizzard’s focus. Everyone is going to be thrilled when they see the kind of stuff we have planned! It feeds into our overall focus of providing a really great service for our players.

Wallspace is given to the three major IPs along with Blizzards older games that even the most hardened Diablo fan might not of heard of, titles like The Lost Vikings and Battle Chess II. Between each section are large flat screen TVs showing looped movies for World of Warcraft and their other projects. Everything is here, from the novels to the artbooks and prints of the individual coverart for all their games. There’s even a replica of an orc and wolf statue which fans might recognise as identical to one that appeared on eBay a couple of months ago and a scaled down version of the one on Blizzard’s campus.

If you’re in Paris for the WWI, then this is a booth not to be missed and if you’re not, then feast your eyes on the gallery below to get a taste of what you’re missing.

PC Gamer Squelches Diablo 3 Rumor [Shacknews]

Mockery, the owner of long-lived Diablo fan site Diablo3.com, said today that he sold the domain name to Blizzard and plans to hand it over completely in a few months.

Mockery goes to great lengths in his post to say that Blizzard is not confirming that Diablo 3 is in the works or coming soon:

Secondly, while Blizzard is indeed acquiring the diablo3.com domain name, they told me that this shouldn't be considered an announcement for the Diablo 3 game we've been waiting for all these years. They acquire new domains all the time. While this is true, I personally can't help but think that this is a confirmation of sorts that they're working on the next Diablo game. Sure, they can claim it's because they want to protect their intellectual properties 'n what have you, but I can't imagine they would all of a sudden be so interested in the diablo3.com domain if they weren't working on a new Diablo 3 game behind the scenes.

Full letter on the jump.

Diablo Fans, Formerly Diablo3

Ahoy there, fellow Diablo fans!

Well, there's no point in beating around the bush any longer, so let's get right down to it. A few months ago we were contacted by Blizzard in regards to the Diablo3.com domain name. While they appreciate all the work that's been put into running this big Diablo fan community over the years, they still want the domain name. Hmm, I wonder why? Now before you get all up in arms about it, allow me to explain a few things.

First off, this fan site isn't going anywhere, it's just getting a new name: Diablofans.com! Blizzard is actually being really cool about it, giving us all the time we need to make it a smooth transition before we hand the old domain over to them. So be sure to update all of your bookmarks and point 'em to diablofans.com instead. Your user accounts will all still be perfectly functional and, along with this new site name, we'll soon have a big site redesign up and running as well. A new name, a new look. Huzzah!

Secondly, while Blizzard is indeed acquiring the diablo3.com domain name, they told me that this shouldn't be considered an announcement for the Diablo 3 game we've been waiting for all these years. They acquire new domains all the time. While this is true, I personally can't help but think that this is a confirmation of sorts that they're working on the next Diablo game. Sure, they can claim it's because they want to protect their intellectual properties 'n what have you, but I can't imagine they would all of a sudden be so interested in the diablo3.com domain if they weren't working on a new Diablo 3 game behind the scenes.

On a final note, I want to thank all of you guys who've made this community so strong over the years. It's only going to get better around here and I hope you'll all stick with us. One of the nice things about this whole name-change ordeal is that Blizzard really appreciates the fact that we're a dedicated fan site and we'll be working with them much more closely in the future to bring you the latest Diablo game news.

It's funny, I've had so many offers over the years from people who wanted to pay a lot o' cash for the diablo3.com domain name and I wasn't even willing to consider then. I set out to have a great Diablo fan site because I simply loved the Diablo series. Fortunately, with the help of some great people on the staff and fans like you, we accomplished just that. But when Blizzard came around asking for the domain, I was excited about it both as a Diablo fan and for their recognition of all the work we've put into the site. Fortunately for us, the diablofans.com domain name was available and it fit perfectly in line with the intentions of this site, so I registered it and here we are. Diablo3.com will still be active for a few more months so everybody can have a chance to get used to the new Diablofans.com domain. After that, it will simply point to the Blizzard.com homepage... at least until they're ready to use it for something more worthwhile. One of the nice things about the new diablofans.com domain is that it's all-encompassing. Instead of the site just being for people waiting on Diablo 3, it can serve as the main hub for *all* current and future Diablo games. Isn't it nice to know you'll always have a place online you can call home? Hey, even Diablo's demon minions need a place to hang their hats too.

Alright, that's all the news for now. I'm sure all of this news is gonna get the Diablo 3 rumor mill running like a mad banshee... so have fun discussing the announcement with your fellow Diablo fans!

But after reading that King of Fighers XII was completely hand drawn, the answer to updating a 2D isometric game suddenly felt obvious—just draw it out.

Backtracking for a moment, it's in my humble opinion that Diablo III can't go 3D and maintain its trademark click to kill feel. But even giving the benefit of the doubt to Blizzard that they could deal with this issue (maybe by maintaining the same camera angle), it's hard to imagine such tiny characters on screen in 3D without becoming cartoony. Picture the units in Warcraft 3—there's a reason that the chunky style works for this world—the eye can identify small units that have large, cylindrical arms and giant blocky weapons.

But this art style doesn't match that of the Diablo world. Diablo is carnal in that stereotypical RPG way. If a weapon glows, it's with patina. If a monster is ugly, it's not in the PG Crocks "ugly is beautiful" way. It looks like an ugly monster.

With these boundaries in mind, the solution of hand drawing (and sticking with sprites) seems perfect. Without the limitations of polygons—current screen resolutions combined with Blizzard's artistic talent could create a Diablo that we've only seen in our mind's eye, one that is essentially concept art imported directly into the game without the artistically-limiting technical compromises of 3D modeling. (In short, it'd look a lot like Diablo 2 with the gloves off.)

Granted, KoF's process involved starting with a 3D model, turning it to 2D and then filling in the shading gaps by hand. That's how their animations look 3D and 2D at the same time. So if Blizzard mirrored such a production workflow—and there's absolutely no reason to believe they would—we could have plenty of the 3Desque eye candy in a true isometric world, not compromising Diablo mechanics, but bringing an unmistakable level of greater visual depth to the franchise. (UPDATE: Apparently the 3D to 2D conversion was used in Diablo 2, but it seems the hand-finishing elements of KoF were not.)

Sure, this is just one blogger's opinion. But a hand-drawn Diablo III feels like a Diablo limited only by an artist's pen. And the whole imaginary prospect seems very exciting to me.

It's a short clip, but it gets the point across. Until we see Diablo 3, this is our Diablo 3. On a side note, if Blizzard wants my $15 a month, they officially know how to get it.

New footage from Dialbo-y MMO Mythos [via N4G]

When World of Warcraft came out, I lamented the fact that it wasn't Diablo 3. After all, Diablo 2 is probably still my favorite game of all time: I actually scratched a good chunk of flesh off my face when I missed the 90 day window for logging into B.net by a couple of days and lost three 90+ Hell characters and one 70+ Hard Core Necromancer.

I've been wondering forever when Blizzard would get around to making Diablo 3, simultaneously praying that they would not make it an MMORPG, which would really lose the visceral, quick thrill of Diablo 2. Well, we still don't know when they're doing it, but in a recent interview with Diablo novelist Richard Knaak, he dropped a bunch of strong hints that Diablo as a franchise wasn't dead and that his new novels were setting up the plot for Diablo 3.

Quivering! Florian Eckhardt

Diablo: The Sin War Trilogy - Public Q&A with Richard A. Knaak [Blizzplanet]

All for naught, apparently — IGN has admitted that Diablo 3's placement in their IGN Insider ad was an overzealous mistake. And it doesn't even look like there's a chance of them being accidentally right, since a Blizzard representative told them that they are focusing all their E3 presence on promotion of the upcoming WoW expansion pack, The Burning Crusade.

Everyone in unison now! $#!&#* !

Diablo 3 Not At E3 [IGN]
Previously: Diablo 3 At E3?

Does IGN Insider know something the rest of us don't?

Diablo 3 At E3? [Armleg Forums] (Thanks, Rasmus!)

I just got an interesting update about Diablo 3. Rumor has it that the current work on Diablo 3 was canceled and that the game is going to be completely reworked.

My tipsters tell me that Blizzard North's work on the game was, to put it kindly, below expectations. While this is mildly disappointing, it's nice to know that Blizzard still so zealously guards their name.

This news does help paint a broader picture about the closing of Blizzard North. I'm not saying the two incidents are related, but they may be. The B North folks were all offered a relocation package to move to the motherland, home of World of Warcraft, Warcraft, Starcraft and Starcraft Ghost.

Apparently most of the crew took them up on the offer and are expected to fill the offices left empty by the recent NCSoft raid a few months back.

More Diablo 3 rumors hit the net Thursday night. A Korean site has posted what they claim to be the box art for the game and some details about the classic dungeon-crawler sequel.

According to the site, the game will feature seven boss demons. Some of their names may very well be: Duriel the Lord of Something, Someone the Maiden of Anguish, Belial the Lord of Lies, Mephisto the Lord of Hatred, Someoneinother the Lord of Destruction and Diable the Lord of Terror.

I d tell you more, but Google s beta translator for Korean-to-English is so abysmal that I can t rely on it. It keeps calling the game "D oh the Blow" which, while funny as hell, does very little to inspire trust in the rest of the translation.

One of you multilingual smarty pants need to go read the site for me and send a rough translation for posting.

Update: It looks like there is a link in the bottom right corner of the art to a graphic design group called Yaz Studios. The site is no longer valid, but the studios definitely used to exist. It was for a guy named Michael Yazijian.

Annnnd I've debunked my own story. That's no fun. Apparently the artwork is a self-admitted mock cover design that's been floating around for a bit now. Damn me, damn me to hell!

Diablo 3 [Ruliweb, via Gamebrink Forums]