Blizzard apparently still tinkering on Diablo 3

While we did not get a chance to play Diablo 3 in time for the 2011 Holidays there was a wide spread hope/belief that Blizzard was onto the last little bit of tweaking and that the game would be out in early 2012.

Now this post on the official Diablo 3 website makes this seems like a very unlikely prospect indeed.
Apparently Blizzard still have their hands deep down the proverbial bowels of the game and are currently changing and cutting several significant game mechanics.

"Actually, could we make it a FPS instead? Or maybe try a Sci-Fi setting!"

For example, the post details that Blizzard is currently reviewing the core stats and the benefits that they provide to player characters, which seems like something you would/should not be doing if you are planning to ship your game within the next few months.

Additionally this quote from Jay Wilson, Game Director for Diablo 3 does not exactly inspire much hope that we'll be clicking our ways through hellish hordes any time soon:

"There’s a lot of work left to be done, though. We’re constantly tuning and making balance changes; it’s a massive task. Some of these changes can be seen in the beta, like changes to item rarity, the levels at which we introduce affixes, and how many affixes enemies can roll up. Some you can’t see in the beta, like balancing the difficulty of the entire game for four different difficulty levels, adding tons of new affixes, creating legendary items, filling out crafting recipes and itemization, working on achievements, and implementing Battle.net features. We’re also working on a number of other large systems changes -- specifically with the skill and rune systems. We're not quite ready to share what those are just yet, but we look forward to being able to do so in the near future."


Oh dear... I don't want you to "share changes" with us in the near future. I want to *play the goddamn game in the near future!*

Oh well, I guess Blizzard will be Blizzard but I guess this means that we should probably not expect Diablo 3 any sooner than Q4 2012. I'll be happy if it just doesn't slip into 2013.



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