Diablo III is “In the Home Stretch”

Make of it what you will, but that’s the quote made by Diablo III lead designer Jay Wilson in this two-page, commentary-laden preview of the action RPG sequel over at The New York Times.

In Diablo II, released in 2000, you had to sit in any of hundreds of chat channels for hours, advertising the deal you sought. If your prospective partner was in another channel, you might never find him (or, far less likely, her).

Blizzard knows that just won’t cut it anymore. Today’s players will demand simple yet powerful tools to create their own bustling virtual economy without the tedium. Call it an advanced sort of auction house.

Once Diablo III arrives, millions of players will generate items of randomized treasure every day. That can make eBay look like a flea market. Keeping track of it all online and designing trading tools that can handle that kind of volume is a gargantuan programming and design challenge. It is one big reason Blizzard has been working on the game for so long. And it may also be why the company hasn’t detailed or demonstrated Diablo III’s trading systems yet.

It appears distinctly possible that Diablo could be the first Blizzard franchise to make the leap from PCs to consoles like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but Blizzard isn’t talking about that. Blizzard has also not announced a release date or year for Diablo III. But as Mr. Wilson put it: (We’re definitely in the home stretch. We’re crunching. This is when the magic happens.)

Hmm… so will we see it in 2011 yet?