Diablo III's Senior World Designer Leonard Boyarsky.

Gameplanet: What do you see as the original Diablo's contribution to gaming?

Leonard Boyarsky: It totally reinvigorated the action RPG genre, there's really nothing like it on the PC for the most part, it really took the world by storm. It was a breath of fresh air. The original, especially, just had this great horror vibe to it that you really didn't get from fantasy RPGs a lot. It was a really different take on the genre.

Gameplanet: How has Diablo influenced you as a developer?

 

Blizzard are such teases.

Upon the announcement of Diablo III at the World Wide Invitational in 2008, it was logical to suspect Blizzard would release the long-awaited sequel around the tenth anniversary of the release of Diablo II. Well, that's today, and Diablo III is still missing in action, along with flying cars, teleporters, and everything else science fiction and an overzealous imagination has taught us to expect by now.

But we're not bitter. We may have destroyed half a dozen mice, spent a couple of thousand hours hunched over our keyboard killing literally millions of creatures, but that won't stop us from celebrating this auspicious occasion with a look back at the game that refined a genre.

 

Blizzard have announced the removal of 320,000 Diablo II and Warcraft III accounts found to be violating the Battle.net Terms of Use.

In a battle.net forum post, a company representative under the profile name "Bashiok" has stated that "We would like all players to remember that abuse of unintended mechanics and/or use of third party programs is a violation of the agreement made when signing on to Battle.net, and can subject your account to disciplinary action up to and including a permanent ban of its access to the service."

"All account ban decisions are final."

 

A watershed moment occurred this weekend past.

At a gathering to celebrate the recent acquisition of a tidy bungalow in Havelock North, of all places, my thirty-something friend admitted to me that Diablo III would compel him to participate in a clan, and even play extensively online. This is a rash and somewhat reckless comment from a man still smarting at the suspension of his WON ID for using coloured models in Counter-Strike eight years ago (he's colour-blind. It was preferable to getting banned for repeatedly shooting his own team mates.)

Still reeling from this revelation, I was unprepared for what followed. Every single member of the group gathered confirmed that they would all be purchasing Diablo III on launch day, and were looking forward to jumping online and battling hordes of demonic creatures. We haven't reached a consensus like this in years, and what's even more impressive is that a lot of these people are married. Some have even acquired offspring.

The announcement at the recent World Wide Invitational that Blizzard are in the process of developing Diablo III seems to have rekindled sales for the Diablo Battle Chest - a compendium consisting of Diablo, Diablo II and Diablo II Lord of Destruction.

Amazon.com public sales figures show that Diablo Battle Chest has hit the top of the PC game charts in North America, and has reached as high as fourth place in the United Kingdom.

Diabloii.net is reporting that Blizzard will indeed announce Diablo III this weekend at the Worldwide Invitational event in Paris.

A statement on the site confirms the rumours and appeals for fans to submit questions to be put to Blizzard.

"This is extremely exciting for all of us here at Diabloii.net. For the past 10 years we have been supporting the Diablo community and to have something completely new to sink our teeth into is fantastic. We will be at the show on Saturday for the announcement and also the press conference which is directly after, so expect reports from the show floor live, interviews and much more."

Blizzard is stirring up speculation with a splash screen on their website, causing many to suspect they are about to announce a new title.

Blizzard's World Wide Invitational convention is this weekend in Paris, and if previous conventions are anything to go by, we may see the title announced around 11.45pm Saturday, NZ time.

Kotaku has published an article which appears to show similarities between the splash screen and runes found in Diablo II, immediately causing a nosebleed for dozens of hardcore fans of the epic franchise.