As expected, we learned a lot of new things about Diablo III at BlizzCon. And as many of these bite-sized details got swept away in all the excitement, I figured it was time to update our massive Diablo III guide.

In addition to tons of new videos and screenshots, we've added plenty of information on the new Wizard class (including her entire current skill tree), details on the newly announced Skill Rune system, and a note on a major change to the attribute system, among many other updates.

Also included is new information on which way Blizzard is leaning on the issue of console ports, subscription fees, and other key development decisions.... Read more

Diablo III director Jay Wilson said today that the company does not have a great desire to charge a subscription fee for the upcoming revision of its multiplayer client Battle.net. However, the developer did note that Blizzard will likely monetize unknown features of the game.

"We are going to monetize features so that we get to make them," said Wilson. "We kind of have to."

Wilson noted that whatever the content would be, it would have an appropriate value to users.

Fans of map hacking and other Diablo II modifications have little to look forward to with the sequel, as Wilson shot down any talk of mod support.

"We don't have a lot of plans to do that. It would make our lives so much harder" he said, adding that despite the fact that he and many other designers got their start in modding, the team takes a strong stance on the hacking of their games.

Wilson also used the panel to reemphasize the trading aspect of Diablo III, saying that no items outside of specific quest rewards will be bound to players.

Though Diablo 3 is currently only confirmed for the PC, Blizzard president Mike Morhaime has once again suggested that the long-awaited action-RPG may end up on consoles as well.

"Every game we have the discussion about which platforms make the most sense," Morhaime stated in an interview at BlizzCon. "As Diablo 3 takes shape, I think we'll do an evaluation."

"I think there is a pretty good argument to be made that that type of game might work very well on consoles," he added. "There might be some technical limitations though that we might need to get past."

Diablo 3 director Jay Wilson also chimed in on the oft-speculated topic, noting that the game's control scheme would work rather well on consoles.

"If we did it, we would want to do a really high quality version--we... Read more

Continuing our ongoing coverage of BlizzCon, we have compiled a complete list of the Wizard class talent trees found in the playable demo of Diablo 3.

As with World of Warcraft, each talent category has multiple tiers, requiring a certain amount of skill points to be spent in the previous tier before the next one is unlocked. For example, 5 skill points must be used in the first tier to access the second.

Along with the below skills, Diablo 3 features a new Skill Rune system, allowing more modification of the talents. For example, adding a Multistrike Rune to the Witch Doctor's Skull of Flame skill splits the lone fireball into multiple splashing attacks.

Be aware that the list below is a work-in-progress, and that some of the details will change before Blizzard's long-awaited PC RPG eventually arrives.

Storm Talents

Level 1
• Charged Bolt
  • Rank 0/1
  • Launch a volley of 3 electric bolts that deal 1-8 lightning damage each. Critical hits from lightning damage stun targets for 2 seconds.
  • Mana Cost: 8
• Thunderstruck
  • Rank 0/15
  • Increases the critical hit chance of all... Read more

Diablo III lead designer Jay Wilson revealed the Skill Rune system of skill modification during his talk at BlizzCon.

Skill Runes are skill-modifying items that are randomly dropped by monsters and used across all classes. They can be attached to each skill like an item, often completely changing the gameplay of each skill.

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The lead designer showed off the Teleport skill with a Striking rune, turning the spell into an offensive skill that can destroy enemies. The Skull of Flame skill was... Read more

Blizzard has opened up a page on the Diablo III website for the Wizard, the new player class announced this morning. Five videos show the class' new effects in action, which we've combined into one trailer below.

Seen in the trailer are the Disintegrate, Electrocute, Teleport, Magic Missile, and Slow Time powers.

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Straight from BlizzCon, we now present you with the new Diablo 3 trailer that was shown moments ago during the BlizzCon opening ceremony.

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Shackvideo users can use the HD Stream. You can also download the original video from FileShack.

Accompanying Blizzard's announcement of the Wizard class and our hands-on impressions of Diablo 3 is about five minutes of gameplay footage, which shows off a Wizard and Barbarian working side-by-side to rid the world of evil.

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The second half of the video follows below ... Read more

Diablo III does look very different from Diablo II. It does. You notice when you're playing. Stylistically, graphically, much has changed.

But after a few seconds of playing, I was back in the same feverish loot-hording mode, locked into a clickfest of nostalgic proportions. Diablo III may look different, but it has the same tactile feel of the original games, the same satisfying feedback of swords and spells.

Starting out in the Tristram Woods, my demonstration began by taking a quest titled the "Return of the Skeleton King." It was my job to make my way through the ghostly woods, enter the old Tristram Church, and destroy the renewed Skeleton King, a throwback to the original Diablo. Playing as a Wizard first, and then a Barbarian, I got... Read more

Update: For more on the Wizard, check out our hands-on impressions of Diablo 3 and the complete Wizard talent tree, direct from the BlizzCon 2008 show floor.

Original Story: The Wizard is the latest addition to the character classes of Diablo 3, Shacknews has learned from the playable Diablo 3 demo at this year's BlizzCon. Joining the previously unveiled Witch Doctor and Barbarian classes, the Wizard is said to "the manipulate primal forces of the universe to vanquish foes."

In the playable BlizzCon demo, which begins in the overgrown and mostly abandoned Tristram Woods before progressing into the Tristram Church Dungeon, the Wizard starts off with the Charged Bolt and fire-ball esque Magic Missile spells.

Frost Nova, Tornado and Blizzard attacks return from past Diablo games, and can be found alongside the new Electrocute attack in the Storm skill tree. The Arcane skill tree sports Teleport, Slow Time, Mana Recovery and the Disintegrate damage spell. The Conjure tree boasts Meteor and Hyrda.

As Tornado was a Druid class skill in Diablo 2, its inclusion in the... Read more

BlizzCon has a Christmastime quality to it. 15,000 children--and child-like adults--have journeyed to Anaheim this year, passing through streets lined with lighted trees on their way in. When they arrive, the first thing they receive is a bag of gifts. And after finding out that Diablo III will be playable, excitement will undoubtedly rob many of their sleep.

Packed into this year's swag bag is a number of free Blizzard-related products. Two that caught my eye instantly are shown below: the official Diablo III stress ball--which turns red upon squeeze--and a simple film canister labeled, "Zerg Creep--DO NOT EAT."

This Creep is horrifying. I anticipated the consistency of Ghostbusters slime, but this is far worse--a chilling, wet ooze that slowly crept from jar to table. Hidden inside the muck was a small figure of a Hydralisk--no doubt a ploy to force timid fans into touching the gross stuff. It worked, but now that I have the prize, I'm nuking this junk from orbit at the next opportunity.

But what of the show? The doors open in the morning around 9:30am PST (12:30pm EST). On hand will be game demo stations, tournaments, art displays, cosplayers--and, of course, Blizzard employees themselves. For the most part, I can only guess at what's in store for each of the company's three known properties.

StarCraft II: It would be unlike Blizzard to announce a hard date... Read more

Blizzard's action RPG sequel Diablo III will be playable for the first time on the show floor of the company's BlizzCon 08 convention, according to the event materials.

The official BlizzCon program lists "Diablo III" under "open gaming," along with upcoming Blizzard titles StarCraft II and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

Check back for immediate impressions of the game as the show gets underway tomorrow morning.

While Blizzard has yet to tell gamers when they can expect Diablo 3 to be released, the studio has provided new screenshots and artwork from the PC action-RPG.

Along with the new media, Blizzard has unveiled the burrowing scavenger enemy. Its official description, pulled from the official site, follows:

As I began to fall, Burroughs grabbed me by the scruff of my collar and shook me violently. "You really want to feed some thresher, don't you, al-Hazir?" he asked. "What, haven't you seen scavengers before?"

I had indeed seen scavengers: small, burrowing creatures that feed upon carrion. Unlike most animals of this type, however, they are extremely aggressive and will not hesitate to attack those unfortunate enough to encounter them. Scavengers have powerful... Read more

Blizzard has released four new screenshots from Diablo III, its highly anticipated hack-and-slasher. There's lots of dungeon-crawling to be had in these shots. Accompanying the screenshots are a few new pieces of concept art as well. The new PC RPG, which will anger lots of people, will be released when it's done.

Diablo III lead designer Jay Wilson has predicted that some fans will inevitably take exception to the next class his team will announce, while adding that the swapping of classes is necessary to establish the game's "identity."

"All the Barbarian players are delighted and all the Necromancers hate us. I understand, I don't begrudge them that," said Wilson to VideoGamer.com. "I would hate me too! But what I would say is that when we announce the next class, which is quite similar to a previous class, then all those players will hate us too."

Blizzard has already confirmed that the Barbarian will be the only class to return from Diablo or Diablo II. The announced Witch Doctor class is largely seen as a replacement of Diablo II's Necromancer.

"You can't make everybody happy," continued Wilson, "but I think when the game finally come out players will find there's a good class for them, one they will love as much as the ones that came before. And if they don't, I absolutely promise that in the expansions we'll consider bringing back old classes. We just don't want to do it with the first release. We want to establish our identity."

Reigniting the "Diablo III is too colorful" controversy, DIII.Net and fan Sozou bring us a Diablo III gameplay trailer meant to show what Blizzard's anticipated PC RPG would look like, in motion, under a desaturated art style.

In Blizzard's previous judgments of darker fan renderings, Diablo III designer Jay Wilson stressed that desaturated color made it more difficult to identify on-screen objects and therefore reduced the ease of play. The author of the video below feels that he addresses these concerns while still giving the game a "darker" ambiance.

Wilson also noted that some other fan renderings sported effects that certainly looked pretty, but aren't possible in the current engine.

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Steve's Take: At this point it is really just getting painful, but for all the nerds in a huff over this stuff, finally seeing the game in motion with these alleged color "improvements" was worth a look.

Diablo 2, which came out about a decade ago, actually has gamma and brightness controls within the video menus. So you can tell even back then Blizzard was dealing with color issues with the franchise. Probably more due to inconsistency in color reproduction of CRTs back then, but they were aware of it and addressed it. It really wouldn't be terribly surprising to see one or two other video options in Diablo 3.

Blizzard has let loose four new screenshots from its hellish hack-and-slasher Diablo III. Included are a number of characters leaping through the air and hitting things.

The new PC RPG, boasting new-and-improved Battle.net functionality, is "heavily in development" and will see release when it's done.

Battle.net--Blizzard's online matchmaking portal and community for games including the Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo series--is getting some modern touch-ups in time for the releases of Diablo III and StarCraft II.

Fan site DIII.net has compiled a list of new features gleaned from statements from Blizzard higher-ups. Among the new expected features are:

• Achievements
• Clan support
• Advanced friends list
• In-game chat and voice chat
• Enhanced cheat detection and punishment
• Web community overhaul
• Avatars
• eSports support and automated tournaments

Most of these features are clearly the result of lessons learned from Blizzard's online juggernaut World of Warcraft, while new eSports features should satiate a competitive following frothing at the mouth for StarCraft II. The revamped Battle.net is expected to premiere with next year's probable release of RTS sequel StarCraft II.

A new set of Diablo 3 (PC) screenshots have emerged, showing male and female Barbarians and Witch Doctors in action.

In the ever-lumbering march towards an eventual release date, Blizzard has released two new screenshots and three new pieces of concept art from its upcoming hack-and-slash sequel, Diablo III (PC).

No release date has yet been announced for the title. For everything we know of Diablo III so far, be sure to check out our exhaustive informational hootenanny.