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Diablo III Patch 1.0.7

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diablo screenshot 1

Well, patch time is upon us yet again and this time Diablo III is getting all of the attention. Blizzard has made patch 1.0.7 live and with it comes some nice features.

The Jeweler and Blacksmith will now possess new recipes which will be account bound and have an iLevel of 63.  A new tier of account-bound gems of has also been added to the game, Marquise. For Players who are looking to fight each other, you will now be able to do just that in a new zone called, “The Scorched Chapel.”  Players can duel with up to four players in a “free-for-all” fighting environment. This addition also comes along with a brand new PvP chat channel, so you can brag about how awesome you are.

As always the patch also contains various tweaks and bug fixes, which you can read a complete list of on Blizzard’s official Diablo III community site.

Here are a few of the major bug fixes introduced in this patch:

  • Fixed an issue where new Hardcore characters were not labeled as Hardcore on the Main Menu
  • Fixed an error that could occur when closing the World of Warcraft client while the Diablo III client was still running
  • Players will now be properly removed from both the party and the game session whenever a Vote Kick has passed
  • Players will no longer be disconnected from the game whenever vote kicked during a boss encounter
  • Legendary items now have a new mini-map icon
  • This icon should now persist properly and be shown on the mini-map so long as the player is in the same zone as the dropped item
  • Rare Sand Dwellers will now spawn in The Forgotten Ruins
  • Champion Plague Swarms will now spawn in Cryder’s Outpost
  • Champion Fallen Cur will now spawn in The Storm Halls
  • Goldskin will no longer proc when attacking monsters that drop no loot
  • Plans: Staff of Herding can now be dropped on the ground, or sold to a vendor for 0 gold
  • All Staves of Herding can now be sold to a vendor for 0 gold

Jay Wilson Moves On From Diablo III

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Jay Wilson has been Game Director for Diablo III for seven years now and has done an amazing job. However, Jay will be leaving Diablo III behind as he moves on to other projects at Blizzard Entertainment. In a post on battle.net, Jay mentions that although he will no longer be working directly on Diablo III, it doesn’t mean that Diablo will be anything less than amazing. He continued on to say that Diablo isn’t the work of just one person and the team who created Diablo III will still continue to support the game.

“I recently celebrated my seven-year anniversary working on Diablo III, and while it’s been one of the most challenging and rewarding periods of my life, I’ve reached a point creatively where I’m looking forward to working on something new. The powers that be at Blizzard have been gracious enough to give me that opportunity. Over the course of the next several weeks, I will be moving off of the Diablo III project and transitioning elsewhere within Blizzard. This decision was not an easy one for me, and not one I made quickly, but ultimately it’s what I feel is right.”

Jay-Wilson
Jay Wilson( Credit: Flux, DiabloWiki)

Jay Wilson is an incredibly talented man with a passion for what he does and it really shows up in his work. Like many others that work at Blizzard, Jay consistently thanks the fans for their support and in his post about leaving Diablo III, he does just that.

If you haven’t watched any of his videos about the Diablo III development process I would encourage you to check them out. You can see an interview with Jay Wilson where he is discussing a bit about Diablo here.

The original post about him leaving the Diablo III team is on battle.net and can be found here.

StarCraft II Heart of the Swarm Beta for Those Who Pre-Ordered

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Starcraft II Heart of the Swarm Logo

If you got onboard early with StarCraft II Heart of the Swarm and pre-ordered the game before December 18th, you will have access to test out the beta version of the game. Amazon will be sending out promotional beta key codes with actual physical pre-orders. That’s a pretty sweet deal. Blizzard Entertainment will be releasing StarCraft II Heart of the Swarm will launch 3-12-2012. You can get more information about the upcoming expansion from our earlier post here.

Update: PCGamesN.

How To Play Diablo II LOD on Windows 8

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Many of us are enjoying the recent release of Diablo III but some of us still love to play Diablo II Lord of Destruction, and with Windows 8, that can be a little problematic.

Diablo II Lord of Destruction is an outstanding game that became an instant classic when it was released on June 29th in North America. Even over a decade later, Diablo fans still play Diablo II LOD on Battle.net and in single player mode. However, the operating systems we use have changed quite dramatically over the years and with each new version usually comes a new set of problems for gamers who enjoy playing classic titles.

DII LOD Cover Art Diablo II Lord Of Destruction
Diablo II Lord of Destruction Cover Art (Blizzard Entertainment®)

If you have attempted to play Diablo II LOD on Windows 8 you will notice many issues, including some serious lag. Here are a few steps you can take to make sure your Diablo II LOD experience in Windows 8 is just as good, if not better, than it was back in 2001.

This quick “how to” assumes that you have already installed and patched the latest version of Diablo II LOD on your system. If you need patch information you can obtain it through Blizzard’s official patch site.

Before launching the game, right click on the game’s shortcut and select “Properties”, then select the “Compatibility” tab.

Once on the Compatibility tab, select the following options:

  • Check “Run this program in compatibility mode for” and set the value to “Windows XP SP 2/3”
  • Check “Reduced Color Mode” and set to “16-bit (65536) Color”
  • Check “Disable display scaling on high DPI settings”
  • Optional “Run this program as administrator”

Once you dial in these settings click Apply and then OK.

The next step is crucial if you want to reduce or eliminate all of the glitching and lagging that is known to plague Diablo II LOD on Windows 8.

Obtain an 3DFX Glide Wrapper, this is a little application that will allow you to use the Glide interface with Diablo II LOD. I have found that GLIDE3-to-OpenGL Wrapper by Sven Labusch seems to work the best out of any I have tried so far.

Download the files from Sven’s site and read the “ReadMe.txt” file. This will contain the most current instructions for installing and setting up the wrapper. Be sure to re-run the video test after the wrapper is installed and set it to use Glide.

** Note: You Will Also Need to apply compatibility settings to run the Diablo II Video Test (D2VidTst.exe) * *

 

That’s it! Hopefully you will be successful in your attempts to get Diablo running smooth. Just follow the directions closely and have fun!

Battle.net World Championship – World of Warcraft

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The Battle.net World Championship – World of Warcraft LIVE!

 

 

Event Schedule:

Friday, November 16

Stream: WOW Main

  • 06:00 p.m. PST – Opening Ceremony
  • 07:00 p.m. PST – Dungeon Challenge with Stars and Supreme Quicksand
  • 08:15 p.m. PST – Team ROCCAT SYI vs. Team Old Boy
  • 09:30 p.m. PST – I’m just being honest vs. Bring It
  • 10:45 p.m. PST – Team Old Boy vs. Yaspresents
  • 12:00 a.m. PST – Delirium Termans vs. Team ROCCAT SYI
  • 01:15 a.m. PST – Evil Geniuses vs. DoubleG
  • 02:30 a.m. PST – AHQ eSports Club vs. Bring It
  • 03:45 a.m. PST – LG-IM vs. Double G

Stream: WOW 02

  • 06:00 p.m. PST – Opening Ceremony
  • 07:00 p.m. PST – Team ROCCAT SYI vs. LG-IM
  • 08:15 p.m. PST – I’m just being honest vs. Evil Geniuses
  • 09:30 p.m. PST – LG-IM vs. Evil Geniuses
  • 10:45 p.m. PST – DoubleG vs. Delirium Termans
  • 12:00 a.m. PST – AHQ eSports Club vs. I’m just being honest
  • 01:15 a.m. PST – Team Old Boy vs. I’m just being honest
  • 02:30 a.m. PST – Delirium Termans vs. Yaspresents
  • 03:45 a.m. PST – Yaspresents vs. Bring It

Saturday, November 17

Stream: WOW Main

  • 05:30 p.m. PST – Live Raid with Stars and Supreme Quicksand
  • 06:45 p.m. PST – Team Old Boy vs. DoubleG
  • 08:00 p.m. PST – WB Semi Final 1
  • 09:30 p.m. PST – WB Final
  • 11:00 p.m. PST – LB Round 2
  • 12:30 a.m. PST – Grand Finals
  • 02:30 a.m. PST – WoW Award Ceremony

Stream: WOW 02

  • 05:30 p.m. PST – Evil Geniuses vs. Yaspresents
  • 06:45 p.m. PST – Evil Geniuses vs. Bring It
  • 08:00 p.m. PST – WB Semi Final 2
  • 09:30 p.m. PST – LB Round 1
  • 02:30 a.m. PST – WoW Award Ceremony

For a complete schedule you can head to Blizzard’s World Championship site here.