Blizzard Offering Free Trial of Auction House App

There are many World of Warcraft players who basically play half their game in the auction house. I personally know of a gamer who has made thousands of gold pieces buying and selling there (*cough* Derrick). The only problem these people have is that they only have so many hours in the day to log in to World of Warcraft to run auction house sessions.

Their problems are over (or just beginning, depending on your point of view.)

Blizzard has announced that they’re giving a free trial of their new Auction House app that allows you to check in on Auction Houses remotely from your iOS device. As the ad states, it’ll allow you to “buy, sell, chat – anytime, anywhere”, which is a very scary thought for WoW widows. (Unless, of course, those significant others are also WoW gamers.)

Another app allows remote guild chatting, which is nice when you want to be in contact with your guild 24 hours a day, too.

The app will charge $2.99 a month after the free trial. Check both apps out here.

(Thanks, RPS.)

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There has been many debates on the graphic level of Diablo 3 and how it should be different. Finally a developer comes out and says “um, no.” Their reasoning is fairly simple, it’s one thing to photoshop up a screenshot with some filters but it’s another to get the texture and lighting to run at that detail on a standard computer.

How do you argue with that? Personally, I think the graphics look wonderful, brilliant, vibrant and professional. Diablo 3 game designer Jay Willson said:

“The key thing to remember here is that this has been Photoshopped. This isn’t created by the engine. Though it looks really cool, it’s almost impossible to do in a 3D engine because you can’t have lighting that smart and run on systems that are reasonable. If we could do that, we probably would in a few of the dungeons.” (slashdot)

Non-developers seem to forget that the colors, cameras and lighting don’t come free on a video game. Everything has limitations and, although the limitations change over time, today’s graphics for a standard machine are capable of running Diablo 3. Blizzard isn’t making a game that only hardcore PC gamers can play, this game is for everyone.

Building a video game is a lot of smoke and mirrors to make a virtual object look “real” to normal gamers. Immersion and definition is important, grainy dark graphics do set a mood, but they also frustrate many players. Remember DOOM 3? Some people could barely see the “epic graphics” of the last DOOM sequel, it’s time to mature and show off true colors.

Darkness usually is used to hide imperfections, Diablo 3 has nothing to hide.

(For a high resolution photo, checkout MTV Multiplayer Blog)

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Now that Blizzard feels their engine is solid, it’s time to move on to creating content for the full game. Jay Wilson, Diablo 3‘s lead designer, says the game engine is in an advance stage of completion and much of the art team has moved onto Act 2. Don’t read into that, he said game engine.

Blizzard is obviously not hurting for money, given the success of World of Warcraft and they’ve always taken their time with projects to make them solid products. Blizzard’s name is on the line and they’re brand consists of three major franchises: Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo. When you produce so few games you’re expected to do them perfectly.

How do they do it? As Wilson says, “If we haven’t rebuilt something five times it really doesn’t deserve to be shipped. That’s pretty much our policy.” (eurogamer) While a game engine is the foundation for a great game experience, the content is king. Blizzard is deep in the mire of content production so, although the engine might be solid, the final product is probably still far from complete.

End result, expect a high quality product once again from Blizzard.

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  • Asheron’s Call comes to a quiet end after 17 years

Let us know how long you’ve followed the podcast for!