Blizzard confirms expansion pack for Diablo III

One of the biggest games that have been released this year has been Blizzard’s hack-and-slash loot gathering game Diablo III. According to Eurogamer, the company has confirmed that it is working on an expansion pack for the game.

Head of Blizzard Mike Morhaime confirmed an expansion pack during a recent investor call, but has not revealed a possible release date. Judging by Blizzard’s track record, the release of the next expansion pack could happen anytime from 2013 to 2015. “So we do have a plan,” he said. “An expansion planned for Diablo. I don’t have any timeline to talk about. I think that the most important thing for us always comes down to the quality of the expansion and the gameplay, and so that will be a big factor in terms of driving our schedule.”

Blizzard has confirmed that it is working on an expansion pack for Diablo III

Blizzard’s release schedule was leaked two years ago, and according to the schedule, the expansion pack should see the light of day in the second quarter of 2013, with the third one releasing in the last quarter of 2014. Though, it should be noted that the release schedule has been proven to be outdated, especially with entries such as the World of Warcraft movie scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of 2012, and the supposed first expansion pack for Starcraft II scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of 2011.

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Morhaime also talked about Blizzard’s attempt at a MOBA game. So far, not much is known about it other than the name – Blizzard All-Stars. “Blizzard All-Stars is in development, and we’re doing some great work,” Morhaime said. “Some internal testing is under way. We’re doing a lot of things to experiment with game play, and I don’t really have anything concrete to announce on this call, other than we’re very excited about the game.” The only other mention of the game in recent times has been the legal battle between Valve and Blizzard about the Dota name.

Back in August, Diablo III had gotten its first major patch – version 1.0.4. The game had been facing a lot of complaints and criticisms over the lacklustre equipment drops and the utterly pointless end-game, which is nothing but endless farming for more gear. Blizzard attempted to fix many of Diablo III’s failings, such as spell balance and the pointless end-game in the upcoming 1.0.4 patch.

Developers from Blizzard had been explaining all the changes that they were making to the game in the upcoming patch in a series of blog posts, the latest one being the addition of a new end-game to the hack-and-slash role playing game (RPG). A blog post by the game’s senior technical game designer Wyatt Cheng explains many of the changes the game will be seeing, and the reasons for these changes. The post says, “One of the general improvements we’d like to make to our item game addresses the difference between an item having a chance of being good vs. knowing the item isn’t going to be good before you even identify it.” To put it simply, there’s a big difference between an item having no chance of being good and the item having some chances of being good. While Blizzard wasn’t able to fully address this issue in the patch, it is a long term plan for the company.