Tomas Hernandez is owner of Blizzplanet.com since 2003. I post news about World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Diablo III, Hearthstone, Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard Careers, and the Warcraft film.
Blizzplanet is a leading fansite covering news about upcoming Blizzard Entertainment licensed products. I also post previews and reviews. I have interviewed book writers and Blizzard game developers.
I was previously an employee of the OGaming Network (2003), and IncGamers (2008-2010). I was a guest newsposter for GosuGamers (World of Warcraft) a few years ago and for Diablofans.com (formerly Diablo3.com)
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With the official launch date approaching (September 20), the Nintendo Switch Lite is now available for pre-order for $199.99 in Turquoise, Yellow.
What is the difference of the Nintendo Switch Lite version? The main difference is its fully integrated controls and a built-in +Control Pad. Basically, you can’t remove the Joy-Con pads, and it is a handheld device only (meaning no TV gameplay mode). However, the device is compatible with all physical and digital Nintendo Switch games that support Handheld mode such as Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and more.
UPDATE: The ASUS ROG Phone 2 became available in the United States on September 24th. You can order it now.
Those who don’t have a phone, or plan to play Diablo Immortal (or give it a try) might like to hear that ASUS plans to reveal details about the ASUS ROG Phone 2 on July 23. It is confirmed that the device will be sold in China the same day.
So far the following details have leaked through the TENAA certification website.. the ASUS ROG Phone 2 consists of a 6.59″ AMOLED 18:9 display with 120Hz refresh rate (adjustable between 60Hz, 90Hz, or 120Hz); a 5,800mAh battery with a 30W fast-charger; the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus octa-core 7nm SoC clocking at 2.95Ghz; and Android 9 (PIE). At least two models have been approved by the TENAA Certification in the range of 8GB RAM and 12GB RAM. In terms of internal storage, the TENAA Certification lists three options: 128GB, 256GB, or 1TB.
Pricing is rumored to start around $640 (roughly translated from Chinese currency). We will have to wait until July 23 at an event in China to learn more details. ASUS is also slated to showcase the ASUS ROG Phone 2 at the ChinaJoy 2019 expo on August 1 in Shangai.
Blizzard Entertainment hasn’t made new announcements about the Diablo Immortal game. Not even 4 months after NetEase revealed their co-development tasks were completed.
We know Blizzard won’t be at GamesCom 2019, so there won’t be a Diablo Immortal panel there, nor gaming stations to play the demo. That leaves us little wiggle room to speculate where Blizzard might announce new details about the game, leaving us with BlizzCon as the most adequate platform. E3 already over (June 11-13) didn’t have Blizzard’s presence. SDCC started today, and nothing Diablo-ish appears in the schedule.
However, beta testing could happen in 2019, before BlizzCon… in theory. Don’t hold your breath though.
You can sign up for beta testing right now. It’s been up in the official website since November 2, 2018.
Without info on the game, and its requirements, it is hard to figure out the hardware specs and Android version Blizzard plans to support. What we do know is that Diablo Immortal Beta will be available to Android users. iOS won’t be available for beta, but there are plans to launch Diablo Immortal for iOS devices at some point in the future, or as the website coins it: “Soon”. Whether that means a simultaneous Android/iOS release, or a Android-only release, with a iOS version at a later time– that remains to be seen.
So when preparing for a game like Diablo Immortal when you do not own a phone or tablet, but for motives other than the game you plan to purchase one — you have to go the safe route. The latest Android OS: 9.0 Pie. Just in case, because we don’t know how far down the rabbit hole Blizzard plans to support (i.e. Android 8, Android 7, etc.)
For example, I have a device with Android 5. It won’t even load the Diablo Immortal beta sign-up app in Google Play. I also have an NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet running Android 8.1 Oreo. It won’t load the Diablo Immortal beta sign-up app in Google Play either.
If you don’t have an Android phone or a tablet, I will mention here some of the top alternatives available in the market right now running Android 9.
Several months ago, a NetEase representative revealed that all the development on the side of NetEase had been completed: “With regards to the launch of Diablo Immortal, we will announce a market launch date simultaneously with Blizzard. But on our side, development is already fully prepared and invested.”
It has been now 8 months since Blizzard Entertainment unveiled Diablo Immortal and no one has heard a peep about the game after that announcement — at least from Blizzard. So what happened?
NetEase has encouraged the press to reach out to Activision Blizzard to ask the question, but certainly nothing has been heard as a follow up. Why is Activision Blizzard holding up on details or on what the status of Diablo Immortal is?
I am going to speculate here based on what we know. Diablo Immortal was not received well by the audience at BlizzCon. Blizzard did clarify at least a couple of times that we would not be hearing about Diablo 4 at BlizzCon, but that the forges of Hell were burning. That was clearly a “Don’t expect Diablo 4 to be announced at BlizzCon.”
The Hellfire Expansion is now available to the Original Diablo at GOG.com. For a limited time, you can buy the original Diablo at a 10% discount ($8.99), and get Hellfire as a free add-on.
If you already own the original Diablo on GOG.COM, it will be updated with Hellfire expansion automatically. 10% discount for Diablo is time-limited and ends at 10 PM UTC June 17, 2019.
Originally developed by Synergistic Software and released in 1997, Hellfire was not an official Blizzard product and did not carry Blizzard’s endorsement or label. Despite that, in response to Diablo players who have expressed a desire to experience the content, Blizzard has given the OK for it to be included as a free add-on with Diablo purchases on GOG.COM.
Hellfire offers a non-canonical single-player storyline where players must defeat a powerful demon named Na-Krul who is threatening Tristram. The expansion also adds a Monk class, new weapons and items, new missions, locations, dungeons, and enemies. Hellfire will be accessible while launching the original Diablo.
The Art of Diablo is now available for $26.19 (down from $45 and later $35). The release date has been pushed from October 15 to November 3, 2019 (the day after BlizzCon’s closing date).
Below you can read the book description and three new interior pages from the book. The pages are mostly a temporary mockup preview. The text within is just Lorem Ipsum dummy text.
The preview shows an entry for the Demon Hunter class, as well as concept art created for the Diablo III video game: her weaponry, armor style, standing-up pose; and for the amount of dummy text likely the history of the Demon Hunter.
The Art of Diablo’s interior pages lead in with a foreword from senior artist Brom, and an introduction by former Vice-president of Creative and Franchise development Chris Metzen.
For months, the community has discussed the massive removal of dislikes from the Diablo Immmortal trailer’s YouTube page. Content creators or influencers have also highlighted the topic widely.
However, Caden of the House known as Ythisens has come forward to share his personal experience while he was still a community manager.
Ythisens was one of the hundreds of Blizzard employees laid off early February 2019. But now that he is no longer an employee, he decided to come forward by sharing what happened behind-the-scenes.
Blizzard Entertainment was not aware of the reason thousands of dislikes were removed. Blizzard didn’t remove them, nor requested YouTube to remove them. As a matter of fact, Blizzard still doesn’t know why that behavior happened, as YouTube has not responded Blizzard’s inquiries of the matter.
It seems the exorbitant amount of dislikes might have been generated by multiple fake bot accounts that got banned by YouTube. That sounds like a logical assumption. But same as you, Blizzard has no clue why the dislikes started to disappear en mass.
As speculated last night via tweet, Blizzard Entertainment was tweaking the PTR last night in preparation for Season 17 on PTR.
The Diablo III PTR 2.6.5 will go live on Friday, April 5; and it will last for a week to test Season 17 — which features an insane buff.
The Season of Legacy of Nightmares:
Player’s damage dealt is increased by 750% and damage taken is reduced by 4% for every Ancient Item they have equipped while having no Set Bonuses Active.
Other highlights of Patch 2.6.5 is that Torment 14, 15, and 16 have been added into the game. So far the max difficulty was Torment 13.
