Diablo III Community Site, Blue Posts, Mobile Armory Update, Video

[chaud]

The moderator recruitment is progressing well and we'll probably do a first batch of replies before the end of the week.

Diablo III: Stay Awhile and Listen
Blizzard just released the new community site for Diablo 3, which explains why the community team has been on and off on WoW for a while while they were finishing it up I guess! It looks pretty nice and is based on the battle.net format of the existing community sites.

Our new Diablo III community site has gone live! This will be your sanctuary for all the latest developments from New Tristram and beyond, featuring community forums and regular blog updates. Just like this site, you can post comments and share Diablo III news items via Twitter, Facebook, and other popular social media outlets. You'll want to check out the new Diablo III news feed regularly. We’ll use it to share everything about Diablo III and to highlight recent community activity, including your most entertaining videos, art, comics, fansites, and much more.
We hope you head over and get acquainted with the new site, and return often. We've got a lot in store leading up to the release of Diablo III, including the launch of the Game Guide section featuring lore, characters, classes, maps, and more. Additionally, you’ll see us on the new Diablo III forums. We look forward to sharing and discussing all the latest Diablo III news, content, and updates with you for a long time to come.

Blog comments, forum posting, and profile management are only available to those with an active StarCraft II, World of Warcraft, or Diablo III beta license.

Also, something interesting turned up on the DiabloFans forums today. When the site went live it seems that Blizzard also included features related to the open beta testing phase. Last time we heard from it, the beta was still supposed to be "soon".

Blue Posts

Character Models Update
We often see people request for model updates. This is something we'd definitely like to do at some point in time, but time is a very limited commodity for our art team. We also have to be very careful about what it means to "update" a model. We've made changes in the past to various characters and had some people be a bit upset that it was changed on them as they had made very specific choices about the look of their character. We try to be as sensitive as possible about these types of things.

I can't give you more information than that, but the idea isn't far from our minds. We just have a lot of things we still want to on multiple levels that we hope enhance the experience of the game for everyone.

There is a lot of new art that was introduced in Cataclysm along with upgrades in things such as water (as a very small example). We have some pretty high standards for ourselves as well and while we can always up the poly count, that only goes so far. We're talking about models that have existed since the beginning of the game and thus, aren't all as advanced as some of the newer models that have been introduced to the game. We've been upping more than the poly counts. We're doing more in the way of animation and the way models are articulated and move within the world.

Now, as for hiring more people, we are always looking for talented people as you can see from our jobs page.We're even currently looking for a 3D character artist among other things.

Again, I think people are taking what I said to mean that there is a lack of desire on our end, and this is far from the truth. We absolutely agree that we could make improvements and would like to do so. It's just a matter of figuring out the "when" that this could be accomplished. There's a whole world (of warcraft) of things that are being worked on and we want to get to everything we can and make it count. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Raid Finder destroys communities
With the current design philosophy of the upcoming Raid Finder, it's not at all intended to serve as a replacement for organized raiding. In fact, it isn't at all being designed to be used as a direct substitute for forming raids the way people do today. The goal is to give people who enjoy the more casual PuG raid environment, or just don't have the schedule to keep up with organized raids, a better way to experience raid content.

We're still solidifying a lot of the details for this feature and look forward to sharing more with you soon. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Mobile Armory App Updated

• Automatic price undercutting: Set the default buyout price of your auctions to match or undercut the current lowest buyout price for an item.
• Aggregated buyout search results: Multiple auctions posted at the same buyout price can now be viewed as a single group.
• Support for the following Guild features: Level, Perks, Rewards, Achievements, News, Events, and MotD.
• Links to items and achievements received in Remote Guild Chat now link to those sections in the app.
• Links to enchants, quests, abilities, talents, and professions received in Remote Guild Chat now display tool tips.
• Improved search technology.
• Search now suggests terms based on previous searches.
• Updated calendar events presentation.
• A character’s talents & glyphs now display on the same page.
• Leaderboard has been removed.
• Realm firsts will no longer appear in the activity feed.
• Bookmarks are now saved locally instead of on the server. All old bookmarks will be lost.
• Various bug fixes

Video: How to Win at PvP 2

[Boubouille]

Dude. You really need to stop stealing my job. This is NOT cool.

[chaud]

You can have it back when you fix the ugly smiles.

[Roscoe]

Boub, umadbro? OT: Looks like we won't be seeing any character model updates anytime soon.

[Boubouille]

@Roscoe: Nah I'm not mad, I mostly yell at chaud and tell him what to do. He's been acting as a backup lately because I spent the last 2-3 weeks being batshit sick (I'm fine now) and I eventually reached the point where I thought it was time to be serious and get some actual rest.

[Raxxed]

lold. 10chars

[Godshot]

Dude. You really need to stop stealing my job. This is NOT cool.

your too slow old man!

[TheJ3ster]

This made me refresh my e-mail over and over for 5 minutes. =\

[Bombkirby]

Dude. You really need to stop stealing my job. This is NOT cool.

"It's just a game, stop taking it so seriously." XD I'm surprised that WoWcrendor video is in an update....

[CherubDown]

The wording there is really confusing "the Diablo III open beta forum" sounds like there's some kind of open beta.

[Expectations]

WoW Crendor is awesome! Glad he got a front page! And I hope the models get updated at some point. Might make me want to roll something other than a Worgen.

[Eleveneleven]

Blizzard trolling with open beta. Jay specifically said closed.

[Explosion_Rex]

I really hope that new/updated character models are a feature of the next expansion, to be honest. They're one of the main things I want to see in the game right about now, especially given how pretty much everything else is being revamped and updated.

Don't hold your breath. What I took from that blue response was pretty much "it's never gonna happen. Stop asking."

[Tygroen]

Chaud's been here about as long as you, give him a break! If he starts posting Garfield pics though, I'm gonna rage.

Edit because I've been here longer than Chaud. WINNING

[Triggered Fridgekin]

This is the same art team which thought the new Garrosh model is acceptable. Think about that...

[LordSothe]

Don't hold your breath. What I took from that blue response was pretty much "it's never gonna happen. Stop asking."

Blizz was pretty adamant about not wanting to do an old world remake right up until Cata was announced, even though they were obviously working on it for most of WotLK.

Not saying next expansion's going to be new models, but I wouldn't say it's never going to happen, either.

[Frumpy Frumpy Frak]

Don't hold your breath. What I took from that blue response was pretty much "it's never gonna happen. Stop asking."

But Blizzard was very opposed to the idea of transmogrification up until recently. Maybe all we'll need is for WoW to lose another million players and we'll get updated player models too.

[Evenios]

what the mobile armory STILL does not have a Ipad version? come on blizzard!

[Rhywolver]

I can't believe what Nethaera just said about the character models. I was expecting something like 'Wait until Blizzcon' or 'we have something to tell soon'. Wasn't there a Q & A some months ago that were like 'We totally feel like we're owing the community better player models compared to the new races'? And I thought this game would get better...

[Narshe]

I can't believe what Nethaera just said about the character models. I was expecting something like 'Wait until Blizzcon' or 'we have something to tell soon'. Wasn't there a Q & A some months ago that were like 'We totally feel like we're owing the community better player models compared to the new races'? And I thought this game would get better...

Were does it say "no we arent going to do new models?" They have been hinting at it for a couple years now, and they dont reveal new feature until theres something to show.

Hoping they stop with the new races and go ahead and use the remodeling of original models as an xpac feature. I think they will finally touch on this at this years Blizzcon.