Diablo III Editorials, 2011 Release Very Unlikely

We have three more Diablo III articles to send you to this afternoon, including a commentary-backed piece on MTV Multiplayer that strongly suggests that the action RPG sequel will slip into 2012:

Rob Pardo, the executive vice president of game design at Blizzard, spoke about the lack of a release date for the full game, saying, “We learned our lesson on ‘Starcraft’…where we set an actual release date and blew by it by like a year or something. Typically nowadays we only release dates when we know we can hit them, so like 3 or 4 months before the game comes out. We are working hard to get to this year, but it’s going to be tough. So either we make this year or it goes into next year.”

The 3 or 4 month time-frame means a 2011 release is extremely unlikely, as “Diablo 3” will have to go through a beta phase before the final game can be released.

As for the beta, Alex Mayberry, a senior producer on “Diablo 3,” confirmed that “I know when the beta’s coming out, I just can’t say. I can say soon.”

Next, we jump to a piece on Tales of the Rampant Coyote that calls the game “Diablo III: Lord of Bling”:

I will say my own interest in the game has waned somewhat in light of this announcement. I’m sure I’d play it the same way I played the other two games. The Diablo games were always much more fun playing with friends, but that was an option only occasionally. Playing solo was almost always superior to playing with a pick-up group, for me. So if I grab it, I’ll probably play it solo or occasionally with close friends, and thus not feel the need to (keep up with the joneses) or thus be tempted by the real-money auction house. So that’s not a big deal.

Being unable to play on those rare occasions I am without online connectivity? Or being unable to play it at all if, at some point down the road, Blizzard / Activision pulls the plug on support? It rubs me the wrong way, but in all honesty it’s also not a huge deal. But while small, it is enough of an issue that I may not bother getting the game. If I was still in the exclusively mainstream game world, facing a dearth of new RPG titles, I’d probably suck it up and get it anyway. I may do that as it is. But as an indie game fan, with a wealth of options and a giant backlog of titles to play, that may have been enough to drop its priority. Earlier, my default decision was to get this game on day one. I really only needed an excuse not to buy it. Blizzard may have provided me with one. We’ll see.

And then Gamasutra returns to embrace yesterday’s announcements after following their more hot-headed piece:

Likely still gun-shy about the always-connected requirement after Ubisoft royally screwed the pooch with it in 2010, players imagined nightmare scenarios and aired grievances about not being able to play the game on planes anymore.

I’ll be the first to admit the DRM is an inconvenience and whether the advantages Blizzard are touting are worth the headaches is something no one will be able to determine until we have the game in our hands. But the folks who are loudly vowing to boycott the game are blowing smoke and we all know it.

I would suggest that their stand in the name of gaming purity will last exactly as long as it takes for several of their friends to tell them how much fun Diablo III is, at which time they’ll cave and buy a copy and will largely forget about their objections within a few hours.