To say that we've been following the news regarding Diablo III closely is a bit of an understatement.  The game looks to be awesome, no doubt about it, whether you're a fan of rainbows, shadows, or something in between.  Some new information regarding the talent trees for two of the classes has been revealed, and the folks over at Diablo3X have a nice preview for each tree.  The barbarian tree can be found here, and the wizard information is right here.

I get a tremendous World of Warcraft vibe from the talents, but that's likely due to the presentation, not the content.  Some old favorites from Diablo II like Whirlwind, Blizzard, and Teleport appear.  New skills like Disintegrate and Seismic Slam show great promise.  Still no Care Bear stare, but check out this amazing Barbarian talent.

Death Proof

Upon receiving fatal damage, the Barbarian is kept alive and gains XX% of maximum health. This effect cannot occur more than once every XXX seconds.

My feelings about Diablo III can be summed up in three words: WANT WANT WANT.

I'll admit.  I'm a man who craves immediate gratification.  Upon seeing the latest Diablo 3 footage from Blizzcon of the recently announced Wizard class teaming up with the previously announced Barbarian; all I can say is....I WANT IT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!

There's almost 6 minutes of absolutely gorgeous gameplay here.  The Wizard is shown off in all her glory with plenty of pretty spells that cast some gorgeous special effects.  My personal favorite is the lightning attack, and don't even get me started on the awesome fog effects.

Seriously Blizzard, throw us a friggin bone here, give us a hint of when we can team up with 5 of our friends and take down the evil hordes of the underworld.  In the meantime, we'll just have to live with the CT that is this video after the Read More link.

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No cheeky commentary here, folks, we'll just cut to the chase and give you this quote from IGN's interview with Diablo III Head Dude Rob Pardo:

One of the controversies from the announcement in June was a slight backlash against the game's art style, which some of the fans complained about. Pardo said that they're sticking to the art style, and that for the most part it's a pretty moot controversy at this point. The Blizzard designers certainly have a sense of humor about the entire affair; some of them were spotted wearing powder blue t-shirts sporting a Diablo III logo that consists of balloon letters, unicorns, and rainbows.

I'll be maniacally checking Ebay for one of these shirts daily.  The words, they just fail me.  I think we need a "rainbow" tag for posts, Nick, pretty please? 

Ahem.

Back to the co-op, Pardo reveals that five may not be the limit for players in Diablo III, as was reported earlier this year.  The team is currently looking at eight players at a time, but they fear that may be too crowded for co-op.  Pardo also dropped a hint that a console version of Diablo III may work out eventually, though focus is on the PC and Mac versions.  So, dear reader, as far as co-op is concerned, do you think eight is enough? *rim shot*

This week, we'll mix up the Co-Op Classics formula just a bit.  It has certainly been a huge news week, particularly today with the announcement of another class, the Wizard, in Diablo III.  Much as the original announcement of the game did this past summer, this got me to thinking about the original Diablo games.  Obviously, co-op was a huge factor in the success of these games.  So which class combinations are the most effective?  I'll give you my take on a combo from Diablo 2, and we'd love to hear from the Co-Optimus community as well.  Which class combinations do you feel are the best?

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In case you hadn't heard, Blizzcon is going on right now.  That's right, Blizzard is so big and so awesome in their infinite gaming goodness that they have an entire conference in Anaheim California promoting their software.  

On display (and playable) is 5 player co-op friendly Diablo 3.  To celebrate Blizzard has released info on the next official character class, the Wizard.  From what we hear he or she is based a bit on the druid class from Diablo 2, so it looks like he's right out.  That's ok the, the Wizard sound pretty badass to me.  He (or she) is "a wielder of the elements and a master manipulator of time, the wizard can hurl environment-shattering lightning bolts, channel explosive arcane energies, and create pockets of space outside the normal temporal flow."

So now we know about the Barbarian, the Witch Doctor and the Wizard.  But wait, the title of this article said ALL classes were revealed.  They were, in picture form at least.  A clever Blizzcon attendee managed to snatch a screen capture of the character select screen.  

There's a sneaky picture of all 3 classes in both male and female form floating around the internet.

Want to see it?  Hit the read more link.  Want to see 10 new screenshots of the Wizard, you'll find them in the same place.

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The news just keeps on rolling in today.  Between the Tokyo Game Show and this weekend's BlizzCon, it's a busy time for those craving gaming information!  According to the BlizzCon program guide, some new Diablo III information will be revealed today.  The biggest news is the hint of a "new champion" who will join the Witch Doctor and the Barbarian, previously announced.  As soon as the news hits, we'll let you know.  Personally, I am pulling for the Rainbrow Brite class, though I'm not sure that would translate well into a male version.  (Gotta love that mount, though!)  In any event, check back later today for the actual announcement!

Well, Blizzard has done it again folks.  Another new "feature" of Diablo III has been revealed, and if you thought the rainbows and unicorns were bad, you'll hate this.  A checkpoint system will likely be put into place, which means no more totally fun and enjoyable (in a masochistic way) trips with no gear back to retrieve your corpse.  BLIZZARD!  Throw us a bone here!  There is no greater feeling than dying repeatedly to the same monsters over and over, with a long walk in the nude in between each death.  And what about the challenge?  Defeating enemies without any of that overrated gear weighing you down is a nice change of pace. 

In the tradition of other famous fan edits, we've gone ahead and created our own rendering of Diablo III above.  This time, it's not what we want the game to be, but what we fear it will turn out be like.  Rainbows, Care Bears, and EZ MODE.  You heard it here first, folks.  I'm trying to get an internet petition ready, because I know that's the single best way to make our voices heard.  We like our Diablo dark, shady, and mind-numbingly difficult and/or boring, thank you very much!

Creatures of the night and rainbow lovers everywhere are all looking forward to the release of Diablo III.  You also might be anticipating another Blizzard title, a sequel to the largely unknown and very obscure title StarCraft.  As you might expect, then, the online backbone supporting both games, Battle.net, will be getting an overhaul soon.  The new features of Battle.net 2.0 sound fantastic.  DIII.net has some of the details, among which are ingame channels and voice chat, ladders secured against cheating, automatic tournaments, and achievements, similar to those in WoW.  In a move sure to cause many gamers to lose jobs, spouses, etc., a "Blizzard Level" system is also planned.

Kaplan: Your ‘WoW’ score would be just one factor that will go into your Blizzard Level. And rather than call it a ’score,’ we just wanted it to be like you’re leveling up on Blizzard games… You’ll have this Blizzard identity, and you’ll be able to see things like ‘Oh, this guy was great at Diablo III, but he never played Starcraft and he was mediocre in WoW. That sort of thing.

So it appears gamers can level grind in Battle.net now as well as Diablo 3 and World of Warcraft.  That sounds cool, and scary at the same time.  Videogaming247 reports that the Starcraft and Diablo teams are working together to make sure Battle.net 2.0 is a success.  You can expect B.net 2.0 to arrive when Starcraft 2 is released, likely 2009.

Despite the best effort from dedicated fans, the folks at Blizzard keeping churning out colorful and beautiful screenshots for the upcoming 5 player co-op title Diablo 3 on the PC.  The latest set of four screens shows some truly impressive visuals and lighting.  Take the above screenshot of a fire elemental.  Simply gorgeous. 

The other gory shots show explosions of blood, tauren like creatures, and a well endowed female warrior sending shockwaves across a dungeon.  Hit the read more link to check out all 4 screens.

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Sometimes, I love the internet, especially when it shows that real life is so much stranger than fiction.  You may recall all the hullabaloo over the art direction in Diablo 3, particularly the brighter colors and even (the horror!) rainbows.  It appears some fans like their Diablo dark and dingy, thank you very much.  We poked fun at this phenomenon here, and the art director of Diablo 3 responded to some fan altered photoshops here.  Now, the madness has been taken to the next logical level.

One of the infamous Diablo 3 videos has been entirely altered, using the much darker muted color scheme these rabid fans prefer.  Yes, and entire, 12 minute video has been painstakingly changed frame by frame.  I've been trying to think what kind of nutjob the author is.  First of all, how much free time does this person have?  Secondly, what's their life like?  Is their existence is so gloomy and devoid of enjoyment that seeing actual colors and rainbows reminds them of that scary place beyond the front door (AKA outside)?  In any event, you can check the video out here, at Shacknews.  You may want to dye your hair jet black and play some My Chemical Romance first, though.