14 DAY TRIAL // Diablo III was long thought to be coming out during March, the fan base eagerly awaiting to finally get to play the game that Blizzard has been creating for the better part of a decade, but it seems that the development team needs some more time to work on the game and a fall launch date is now expected.
The delay seems to be the result of moves made towards the beginning of 2012 when the leading developers working on the hack and slash loot bonanza announcing that they were making major core changes to the game.
Details on the actual changes can be seen in Softpedia articles here and here and a quick perusal of the modifications made and the reasons behind them seems to indicate that Blizzard has become convinced that Diablo III is too complicated and is actively working to make it simpler.
They decided to eliminate some of the character skills and condense their effects and the linked skills into just four for the final game and, furthermore, they have eliminated two of the customization options that I actually liked in Diablo III in order to make the player return to town in order to get rid of unwanted loot and craft better equipment.
I am sure that the development team at Blizzard has good reasons for these changes but I feel that, in their quest to streamline the game and make sure that they draw in newcomers and keep the long term fans interested, they are making Diablo III a game that has no quirks, no anomalies, no charming or annoying little mechanics that stand out.
I was a huge fan of the first Diablo and finished it using all the characters, exploring its every nook and cranny, going so far as to get the armor made out of cow hide introduced in Hellfire.
Much of my love was linked to the weirdness that the game delivered and I fear that Diablo III might ditch it in order to have bigger market appeal.