As we mentioned earlier this week, we’ve decided to move out our target launch for the real-money auction house beyond our original estimated date of May 22. Our new estimated date for the launch of this new system is Tuesday, May 29.

To learn more about the auction house system, have a look at the comprehensive Auction House Guide or check out the updated Auction House FAQ.

Artisans cannot add sockets to items. That information about the jeweler in the game guide of our website is erroneous and we’re in the process of updating it.

Socketing was a feature that was in the game very early on, but ultimately it didn’t end up enhancing the play experience as we had hoped. Instead it just kind of felt like a chore. It’s a really good feeling to see an upgrade drop, equip it, and keep moving on. When adding sockets to items was inserted into that equation, it made it feel mandatory to return to town every time an upgrade dropped to pull the gem from your current item, add a socket to the new one, and carry your gem forward. There’s already a little bit of this in Diablo III with gems, but the fact that you can make a choice in most situations on whether or not to use a socketed item makes a big difference. As another consequence, the ability to add sockets made the random rolling of a socket as an item affix feel kind of crappy. And given the way items and stats are generated in this game anyway–you’ll virtually never get the same item with the same stats twice–we don’t currently feel there’s a major lack of customization depth.

Adding complexity to systems isn’t a problem for us, but it has to enhance the gameplay, not add to it an element of tedium just for the sake of intricacy. Ultimately this is why adding sockets was pulled. Now, if we feel down the road that the item game needs some new flair, we’ll absolutely consider additional customization features (such as enchanting or socketing). But we have to make sure they’re designed in such a way that the game is enriched through the added complexity, without creating a convoluted item system that detracts from the initial excitement you feel when you get an epic new weapon or piece of gear.

Who has Killed Zarhym?
I have! About 5 times now.

And based on Twitter mentions I’ve been receiving via @CM_Zarhym since Tuesday, it seems A LOT of other people have killed me too. It’s kinda morbid to look at dozens of images depicting your own inevitable death.

at least i hope neth is in game im not sure, and i was wrong about bashiok =( i was Baslock the Depraved =( i was denied!
I don’t think I’m in there. But I’m going to have a good time hunting those two down. ;p (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

PvP Voice Over Sessions
Listening in on PVP voice over sessions. Cool stuff! (Source)

Blizzard Still Working Hard
Keep in mind not everyone who’s critical is a hater. There are many people out there making great points, whether their feedback about the game is positive or negative. Whenever reading posts on the forums I try, first and foremost, to determine if it’s clear that the poster genuinely cares about this game and wants to be invested in it, even if it’s because they want to see improvements in specific areas.

This is a really important time for the company, as well as my team specifically. The game is out and in many peoples’ hands. Now we’re just listening carefully to what you think (and spending the hours meant for sleeping blowing up bad guys) — while also doing our best to keep an open line of communication with you about common points of confusion, service issues, etc.

It all boils down to a love for gaming and passion for a franchise. That’s a pot where players maybe the meat, and Blizzard employees maybe the peas and carrots, but it’s all just one collective stew. I’m hungry.

Have a great weekend. <3 (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

With all five classes now unlocked on the “Darkness Falls. Heroes Rise.” launch site, we’d like to draw your attention to the short stories we’ve written for each class. While the heroes you play in Diablo III will have their own destinies, as guided by your hand, these rich and intense short stories will help you to understand what it means to be a barbarian, demon hunter, monk, witch doctor, and wizard.

Barbarian
Wayfarer – by Cameron Dayton

It was a man. A giant of a man who towered over even these hulking things. A man who stood dripping in hot blood that steamed in the cold morning air. He wore a bearskin cloak across mountainous shoulders, and his legs were girded with piecemeal armor of mismatched plate and mail. Heavy oxhide boots. Chest bare and scarred. Thick hands, knotted and rough, were wound around the haft of a terrible weapon that matched his size. It was easily three times the length of Aron’s axe, forged of angry black metal and notched along both sides of its uneven blade. It was a coarse and brutal tool of death, held aloft as though it were part of the man’s own arm.
This could only be a barbarian.

Demon Hunter
Hatred and Discipline – by Micky Neilson

There was a barely discernible, persistent hum. The only signs of life came from Josen and two other hunters, one searching the derelict structures, another standing near a rundown storehouse. Whatever had happened here, they were too late to do anything about it. Now it was a matter of looking for survivors. That was, after all, the second most important thing her people did: feed and shelter those left homeless in the aftermath of unthinkable catastrophe. Guide them, encourage them, heal them, educate and train them… to do the most important thing, should they so choose: become a demon hunter and annihilate the hellspawn responsible for evils like this.

Monk
Unyielding – by Matt Burns

“The Patriarchs ask a hard task of you, one reserved only for the most devout of our order,” the Unyielding had continued. He stared at Zhota for a moment, furrowing his brow. “You have attained the rank of monk, but there are times when I wonder if you are truly ready. There are times when I think you are still that fool boy who first came to the monastery. More beast than man, really… a wild thing with eyes clouded by emotion and intuition and all those other fleeting feelings that change on a whim just as swiftly as the winds. Are you that boy, or are you a monk?”

Witch Doctor
Doubtwalker - by Matt Burns

Each season, after the Igani, the emptied husks of tributes were carefully sewn together in the shapes of dogs, their bodies filled with herbal composts and dried leaves. A boiled skull of a beast was used as the head, attached just above a mane of feathers. With the blessing of the spirits, these zombified beings served as loyal minions at a witch doctor’s beck and call.

Wizard
Firefly – by Michael Chu

That was our first meeting, and I still remember it vividly. Isendra embraced her role in teaching Li-Ming. She became a mentor to the girl, and Li-Ming gained a deep respect for the sorceress. They were more alike than Isendra or I had suspected. But Li-Ming quickly exhausted the extent of Isendra’s knowledge. Their relationship changed, and Li-Ming began to treat the sorceress as an equal rather than a teacher. Isendra was changing too, and that worried me as well. She was far too permissive with Li-Ming’s behavior. With nothing to learn, Li-Ming followed the vein of curiosity that had always driven her, and that was when the trouble started.

Throughout the months of March and April, you sent us entries for our Portrait of a Champion art contest. With prizes from Steelseries, NVIDIA, and Antec on the line, you submitted hundreds of breathtaking original works. It was a very difficult task, but at last, we have chosen the winners.

Thank you all for your participation, and congratulations to the winning artists!

Seriously, people should be banned from this forum if they complain about how easy inferno is before they’ve even beaten nightmare mode.
We definitely don’t want a bunch of threads on this same topic littering up the forum. That said, people are welcome to share their opinions about the game’s difficulty.

Frankly, I’m hoping those who do decide to share such opinions read the responses of so many of their peers. To sit on the sidelines and judge the game based on such a limited perspective is counter-productive. Most of us know the only acceptable solution is to ignore the sideline screamers, jump into the game, and slay some demons… you know, have fun.

Don’t get me wrong, I congratulate those who’ve made it so far already in Inferno. It’s a truly remarkable feat. But the amount of preparation needed, the sheer min-maxing necessary, and the support from other players not in the group (in the form of item farmers, etc.) means I’m not able to relate much to these players at all. In fact, I doubt there are many players out there who can relate to these type of players or their tactics.

And if the majority of us can’t relate to that play experience, why do we care how easy or hard the game is for the people who do?

Wake me up when they have characters with perfect items and gems.

So, in order to defeat inferno they dont need this perfect items and gems? thats pretty sad.
I’m sad you don’t understand the point of Diablo games.

During the Diablo III Open Beta Weekend in April, a number of players opted to use their one free BattleTag nickname change in order to try to participate in the beta test. We recognize that in their excitement to try to get into the game, some players did not fully realize how BattleTags would integrate with Diablo III or that the number of free changes was limited, and they ended up choosing nicknames that they weren’t happy with.

To help address these concerns, we’ve done a one-time refresh of the free BattleTag name change feature on all Battle.net accounts, so that everyone once again has one free BattleTag name change to use at their discretion.

This means that if you already used your original free change, you will now have another opportunity to change your BattleTag nickname. If you did not use your free BattleTag name change or have not yet created a BattleTag, you will still only be able to change your BattleTag once for free.

To set or change your BattleTag nickname, log in to Battle.net Account Management, head to the Account > Summary page, and look for the Create or Change option under Account Details. As a reminder, BattleTags aren’t unique, so you can pick any name you like as long as it adheres to theBattleTag Naming Policy. For more information, see the BattleTag FAQ and Battle.net website page.

Remember, your BattleTag serves as your public identity when playing Diablo III, meaning you’ll be identified in groups and in chat by your BattleTag — choose your BattleTag wisely!

Legendaries and Tier armors
Well there’s no such thing as ‘tier’ armor in Diablo III. We use the term ‘tier’ to refer to the visual cohesiveness of the art of items, not their power.

Legendaries have small drop chances. The game is really about killing monsters over and over for a small chance at very rare items, so yeah, you’re very lucky when you get those good drops. I’d recommend not focusing purely on Legendaries, though, as the end-all items. A perfectly rolled Rare, or even well-rolled rare will be better than a Legendary.

To answer your question though: Anything. Absolutely anything can drop any rarity of item, it’s just about drop chance. Rare and Champion packs have the best drops, though. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Skill System – ‘Simple’
It’s simple on its face, sure. Many of the best experiences are simple at first glance, but if you delve just a little deeper, I think you’ll find that it’s much richer and more complex than you first imagined.

The term ‘forced cookie-cutter skill build’ is flatly incorrect however. It’s a common misconception amongst those have either haven’t played the game, or have only played the first few levels. Builds are actually quite flexible. I’ll give you an example:

I was just recently playing Act III as a monk, along with another monk and a witch doctor.

Except for Dashing Strike, I and the other monk were using completely different abilities. I don’t mean rune variants of the same abilities, I mean completely different abilities (including passives), with very different play styles, as a direct result. Since even more rune variants unlock in the higher levels, that means that build flexibility will simply keep increasing.

Also, because Diablo III isn’t as focused on optimal play as it is on viable play, a great many builds will be possible and viable. That will mean that you’ll be able to find ways to play your hero of choice that might be radically different from the way others play it. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Voice Chat
haha only movies? What happen to voice chat? As much as I like pounding the “7″ key to hear “Time to run!” Lol
People tend not to use our built-in voice chat for SC2 and WoW. No point spending time on something people wouldn’t use. (Source)

Chat Font Size
Hey Bash a ? for you, is there a way to increase the text size for ingame chat in d3 because my fiances father cannot read it.
There is not, but it’s certainly one we have on our list of suggestions. (Source)

Difficult
The game is designed so that the complexity increases incrementally with each difficulty setting. It’s not just about getting better gear and seeing bigger numbers. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Offline to Friends
Okay so I’ve gotten over the launch issues and I love you guys again. But here’s one Q: Why can’t I go offline on my friends list?
It’s a bigger philosophy choice along the thread of http://Battle.net wanting to be more akin to a social network. (Source)

Achievement Issue
Not yet, we have a good handle on what’s going on but we’re still figuring out what action we can take. (Source)

Diablo Players:

We’d like to extend a very sincere thank you to everyone who joined the global Diablo III launch celebrations this week, as well as to everyone who was ready to jump into Sanctuary the moment the game went live.

To that end, we’d also like to say that we’ve been humbled by your enthusiasm — and we sincerely regret that your crusade to bring down the Lord of Terror was thwarted not by mobs of demons, but by mortal infrastructure. As many of you are aware, technical issues occurring within hours after the game’s launch led to players experiencing error messages and difficulty logging in. These issues cropped up again last night for the Americas and Europe servers. Despite very aggressive projections, our preparations for the launch of the game did not go far enough.

We’ve been monitoring the game 24/7 and have applied several optimizations to help our systems better weather the global rush. As of late last night, specifically 11:50 PM PDT on May 15, all systems have been online and running relatively smoothly. We’re continuing to monitor performance globally and will be taking further measures as needed to ensure a positive experience for everyone. This includes some maintenance to implement additional improvements for each region.

In order to make sure everything is continuing to run as it should, we’ve decided to move out our target launch for the real-money auction house beyond our original estimated date of May 22. We’ll post further updates on that in the near future.

Aside from the tremendous number of players simultaneously logging in to the game, one of the launch-day service issues was linked to the achievement system. Some players began to notice early on that achievements were either not being earned properly, or not being saved between multiple logins. We’re investigating this issue and will provide a specific update as soon as possible.

We greatly appreciate everyone’s support, and we want to sincerely apologize for the difficulties many of you encountered on day one. Please visit the Battle.net Support site or Support forums for the latest service-related updates or for help in troubleshooting any technical issues you may be having downloading, installing, or while playing the game.

Thank you again for your patience while we reinforce the gates of Sanctuary and further strengthen it for your onslaught.

Respectfully,
Blizzard Entertainment

We’re working on providing an update regarding issues with achievements. Please stay tuned.

Interisting how the community managers are just playing the game while we cannot because we’re waiting from answers on their part…
Well, the best way to experience what the community is experiencing is to install and play. I do that on my lunch (if I can) and after work. That doesn’t leave me as much time as I’d like. You’ll also note that we’ve been communicating on our end the whole time on a variety of issues. We’ll continue to do so as well as we have information to share. So, no, we’re not “just playing the game”. I’m looking forward to the weekend in the hope that I will be able to do just that though.

We have communicated multiple times that we are aware of the Achievement issues and are still investigating. When we have more information to share, we will. Lack of updates does not mean we’ve forgotten about it.

are you guys going to just throw in the towel on whats already been lost, or can we re-earn the 1 time achievements that are currently unavailable forever to us?
i would be really sad if two days into the game I already have a handful of achievements i can never get
We’re still determining a variety of things in this regard. I can’t answer this any more specifically for you though right now. We are working on an answer though.

1 day after release, and they beat act 1, and act 2 aswellalready on inferno i think.
They have only killed the Skeleton King at this point. Do note that up to the Skeleton king is only part of the first act and they still have lots of the game to go till they complete act 1.

Another point to be made is that this is a group of fully co-ordinated, skilled, dedicated and hardcore gamers who have been playing regularly since the moment of release. It will take quite a while longer for the average player and even most seasoned gamers to reach this point. That being said, it’s amazing to see the speed in which they have reached this stage of the game, but remember that the hardest is yet to come…

Diablo 3 Beaten in 7 Hours
I’m one of those people who likes to explore all of the map, because you never know what might be lurking in that unexplored part, right? I’m in no hurry to rush through because that’s not my play style, but I know we’re all different. Some people love the bragging rights that come with being super quick through a game. Meh, I prefer to take my time, soak up the atmosphere, listen to the story, and loot every single damn barrel I find.

But yeah, as others here have said, completing normal mode is by no means finishing the game… It’s just the start. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Diablo 3 Beaten in 6 Hours
That’s the problem… people are used to playing Skyrim
You can beat Skyrim in a few hours if your intent is to rush to the end of the game as fast as possible.

You can beat the original Super Mario Bros in 5 minutes.

If your intent is to simply race to the end of the game as quickly as possible I’m sure you can complete Normal difficulty in very little time. If your intent is to take your time and enjoy it, stop worrying about what people rushing to the end of the game think.

Luckily, unlike other games, regardless of how quickly you want to rush to the end, the near-limitless content provided through randomized events, dungeons, enemies and items (and their random drop chance) mean that you’ll be able to play for years to come.

Welcome to Diablo III, please enjoy. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Class Sigils
Within the first couple of weeks of Diablo III’s release on May 15, we’ll be processing all of these accounts and flagging them to unlock the appropriate sigils. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

White/Grey Items
t’s OK to leave those behind. Hopefully you’ll be finding better things to fill your inventory space with.

Oh I do. It just seems like a waste to me to make all those items and have them not at least be sellable to where it’s worth your time.
It’s that “clean your plate philosophy” that is a bit hard to break. I have been working on breaking myself of that as well. You’re not alone. When you see things hit the ground, you want to tidy things back up. (Minus the exploded demon bits of course.) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Skills
I come from D2 and know little of D3. Can i reroll skills in the game? Very confusing skill system. Can someone please elaborate?
Skills are now something you unlock at predetermined levels. Depending on your class, you’ll unlock skills at different intervals and in different quantities. Skills will unlock all the way up to level 30. Once a skill is unlocked, you can add it to your build at any time, incurring only a minimal cooldown when you do.

In a similar fashion, skill runes are also something you unlock as you level up (you’ll earn skill runes up to level 60). By the time your character hits level 60, you’ll unlock five skill runes for every skill. Skill runes augment your character’s abilities in various ways — some drastically, some more subtlety. You can also change out your skill runes at any point.

While a little outdated, you might want to read up Jay Wilson’s explanation of the system when it was first introduced in beta:http://us.battle.net…en/blog/4475014

Can someone please elaborate?
Have you checked out the Game Guide? There’s some pretty cool information in there.

Skill Calculator: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/
Skill Progression tabs:

• Barbarian
• Demon Hunter
• Monk
• Witch Doctor
• Wizard

If you go to each class’s Active Skills tab, you also see what skill runes are available for each skill. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

We’re working on providing an update regarding issues with achievements. Please stay tuned.

Interisting how the community managers are just playing the game while we cannot because we’re waiting from answers on their part…
Well, the best way to experience what the community is experiencing is to install and play. I do that on my lunch (if I can) and after work. That doesn’t leave me as much time as I’d like. You’ll also note that we’ve been communicating on our end the whole time on a variety of issues. We’ll continue to do so as well as we have information to share. So, no, we’re not “just playing the game”. I’m looking forward to the weekend in the hope that I will be able to do just that though.

We have communicated multiple times that we are aware of the Achievement issues and are still investigating. When we have more information to share, we will. Lack of updates does not mean we’ve forgotten about it.

are you guys going to just throw in the towel on whats already been lost, or can we re-earn the 1 time achievements that are currently unavailable forever to us?
i would be really sad if two days into the game I already have a handful of achievements i can never get
We’re still determining a variety of things in this regard. I can’t answer this any more specifically for you though right now. We are working on an answer though.

1 day after release, and they beat act 1, and act 2 aswellalready on inferno i think.
They have only killed the Skeleton King at this point. Do note that up to the Skeleton king is only part of the first act and they still have lots of the game to go till they complete act 1.

Another point to be made is that this is a group of fully co-ordinated, skilled, dedicated and hardcore gamers who have been playing regularly since the moment of release. It will take quite a while longer for the average player and even most seasoned gamers to reach this point. That being said, it’s amazing to see the speed in which they have reached this stage of the game, but remember that the hardest is yet to come…

Diablo 3 Beaten in 7 Hours
I’m one of those people who likes to explore all of the map, because you never know what might be lurking in that unexplored part, right? I’m in no hurry to rush through because that’s not my play style, but I know we’re all different. Some people love the bragging rights that come with being super quick through a game. Meh, I prefer to take my time, soak up the atmosphere, listen to the story, and loot every single damn barrel I find.

But yeah, as others here have said, completing normal mode is by no means finishing the game… It’s just the start. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Diablo 3 Beaten in 6 Hours
That’s the problem… people are used to playing Skyrim
You can beat Skyrim in a few hours if your intent is to rush to the end of the game as fast as possible.

You can beat the original Super Mario Bros in 5 minutes.

If your intent is to simply race to the end of the game as quickly as possible I’m sure you can complete Normal difficulty in very little time. If your intent is to take your time and enjoy it, stop worrying about what people rushing to the end of the game think.

Luckily, unlike other games, regardless of how quickly you want to rush to the end, the near-limitless content provided through randomized events, dungeons, enemies and items (and their random drop chance) mean that you’ll be able to play for years to come.

Welcome to Diablo III, please enjoy. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Class Sigils
Within the first couple of weeks of Diablo III’s release on May 15, we’ll be processing all of these accounts and flagging them to unlock the appropriate sigils. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

White/Grey Items
t’s OK to leave those behind. Hopefully you’ll be finding better things to fill your inventory space with.

Oh I do. It just seems like a waste to me to make all those items and have them not at least be sellable to where it’s worth your time.
It’s that “clean your plate philosophy” that is a bit hard to break. I have been working on breaking myself of that as well. You’re not alone. When you see things hit the ground, you want to tidy things back up. (Minus the exploded demon bits of course.) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Skills
I come from D2 and know little of D3. Can i reroll skills in the game? Very confusing skill system. Can someone please elaborate?
Skills are now something you unlock at predetermined levels. Depending on your class, you’ll unlock skills at different intervals and in different quantities. Skills will unlock all the way up to level 30. Once a skill is unlocked, you can add it to your build at any time, incurring only a minimal cooldown when you do.

In a similar fashion, skill runes are also something you unlock as you level up (you’ll earn skill runes up to level 60). By the time your character hits level 60, you’ll unlock five skill runes for every skill. Skill runes augment your character’s abilities in various ways — some drastically, some more subtlety. You can also change out your skill runes at any point.

While a little outdated, you might want to read up Jay Wilson’s explanation of the system when it was first introduced in beta:http://us.battle.net…en/blog/4475014

Can someone please elaborate?
Have you checked out the Game Guide? There’s some pretty cool information in there.

Skill Calculator: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/
Skill Progression tabs:

• Barbarian
• Demon Hunter
• Monk
• Witch Doctor
• Wizard

If you go to each class’s Active Skills tab, you also see what skill runes are available for each skill. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Global Play is now available! To access other game regions via Global Play:

• At the Diablo III login screen, click on “Options”
• Select the “Account” tab
• From the drop-down, choose which region you want to play in and click “Accept”

You will be able to choose from the following regions:

• The Americas (North America, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia)
• Europe (European Union, Eastern Europe, Russia, Africa, and Middle Eastern countries such as Israel and the United Arab Emirates)
• Asia (South Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau)

Please note that characters, items, and friends lists do not transfer across regions. Playing on a different region’s servers means you’ll be creating characters and friends lists specifically for that region, and you’ll be accessing the gold-based auction house for that region.

To learn more about Global Play in Diablo III, see the FAQ.

If you receive an error the first time logging into a different region, log out out of Diablo III, exit the client, and then log back in. This should resolve any login errors related to Global Play.

We’re working to resolve this issue as soon as possible, but we’d like to know more about who is being affected.

If you’re experiencing Error 12 when attempting to log in, please let us know in this thread and provide the following information:

• Are you attempting to log in to a region that is not your home region? (see Global Play FAQ for details)
• If yes, do you still receive an Error 12 message even when logging into your home region?
• What is your home region/where are you logging in from?

Please note that Global Play is not yet available, so you will only be able to log in to your home region at this time. We’ll provide an update in these forums once Global Play is live.

Thank you!

Followers

• When playing a Demon Hunter, giving a shield to your Templar before you kill Jondar and hire him can disconnect you from Battle.net.

so how do you avoid this?
It’s a very specific issue. You’d need to a) create a Demon Hunter, B) loot a shield, and then c) trade it to your templar before killing Jondar and hiring him. If you avoid just one of those requirements, you should be able to avoid this particular disconnect.

That is not true though. Yes – I had a DH, Yes – I looted a shield, Yes – I gave it to the templar BUT AFTER killing Jondar and after hiring him (had the dialogue box with the Yes/No option). It was actually a few minutes after Jondar died, as I remember giving my Templar a blue Axe and later on trying to give him a shield.
I’ll pass this information along to Quality Assurance. Thanks for the additional details!

How did could this have possibly slipped past quality control?
The will of the templar is stronger!

We’re aware that some Australian GAME customers have been left out in the cold on what should be the hottest night of the year — the launch of Diablo III. To help with this situation and get these players into the game as soon as possible, we’ve put the following process in place.

Australian GAME customers with a valid preorder/prepurchase receipt dated before May 15, 2012 can do the following:

1. Purchase the digital version of Diablo III from http://www.diablo3.com now or anytime before May 21, 2012.

2. Download and start playing when the servers go live!

3. Submit your GAME Australia preorder/prepurchase receipt to us before June 30, 2012.

4. Receive a credit from Blizzard, for the amount you paid in advance to GAME Australia for Diablo III. This credit will be applied to the payment method used for the digital purchase.

We’ll post further details here on how to submit your GAME Australia receipt to our customer service team as soon as possible. Stay tuned, and we look forward to seeing you in the Burning Hells!