It shall be the class that uses a bow!

I suspect they will save their shapeshifting agility fighter for last.

I really hope it’s going to be more than just a ranged fighter. I mean ok, the Barbarian and Wizard are achetypes that you can’t really avoid if you want to stay true to the genre, but they’re pushing them forward, so I’d like a twist on this one too. And the last one, well I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be the craziest of the bunch. :D

And if I may ask a question that’s been nagging me for months now: why is there no Worldwide Invitational this year? oO²

I hope one of the classes will be completely new, like “Fallen Angel” who has lost most of his powers or something. That’s what’s needed. Not other names for already existing classes. With the time they are taking with this game, I expect something really new and cool. Please, Blizzard.

They should announce a class at BlizzCon, anything else is not logical.

LoL.  They probably went:
A: “Why do they keep asking us the same question?  They never get it, do they?”
B: “Nope.”
A: “I’m going to go crazy if I have to keep forcing myself to treat these people seriously!”
B: “I’m sorry to tell you, but I’ve heard that one before.”
A: “Is it alright if I have a little fun with this?”
B: “Sure!  Whatever floats your boat!  As long as we don’t have to hire another new CM again, you can do whatever you feel is right.”
A: “Sweet!”

1.13 delayed? lol…

no surprise there…...

What will be class revealed this show isn’t really the question, Flux. Well… it may be. But the debate will not go past speculation. Which really makes it rather senseless and dry.

The question I’d be eager to get an answer to is instead exactly what you made before that. Why is that lately (as in the last couple of years, for anyone keeping track also of SC2) the revealing of new information has been constantly shrouded by Blizzard marketing machine.

They are overdoing it so much that it is becoming a tad bit boring and slightly… edgy. I cannot feel in any other way but being poorly treated. As if my desire to know was something Blizzard felt the right to toy with. What it may have in marketing value, it is quickly losing in PR. Because it’s becoming irritating and offensive.

Being more specific about certain events contents, or producing more clear expectations on players surely couldn’t hurt. As it wouldn’t have hurt Blizzard the least to have told us before 1.13 had been halted for a while. These things make up a gaming company we may love, trust and, paraphrasing a current thread on the forums, even “respect”. But it seems Blizzard is starting to become overly conceited. This is not the same Blizzard of a few years ago. That much I know.

Meanwhile, because there’s a constant “we don’t know”, I’m free to think that perhaps the reason is things with D3 aren’t as organized as they are wanting us to believe. Why not? I can make up all sorts of reasons depending on my mood. They give anyone room for that.

Or I can also think that it is simply them treating us like garbage. And because Bashiok (read, Blizzard) constant replies seems to always go on a “screw you” tangent, I’m starting to slowly lose interest in the whole D3 development affair and honestly reevaluating my interest in D3 itself. Particularly when I’m following another big name company development stages and players are being treated more kindly and with more respect to their passions.

Krugar, please don’t go into the same hurt little troll routine we’ve seen a thousand times over… I’m tired of people whining because a CM said this or a Dev did that… get over it people… Blizzard is made up of imperfect human beings just like any other organization and the way they handle things is the way they handle things…

I would say that the true situation is exactly the opposite of what you people are insinuating… that being that Blizzard is being FAR more open with information than they ever were before, well pretty much WoW’s development cycle…

In the the pre-Blizzcon era people were lucky to get a new piece of info every couple months unlike every couple days like now… and the forums are definitely the main facility of this…

If you wan’t to complain about Blizz’s secrecy then go ahead and follow your other big name company and have fun playing their games, but I seriously doubt that when the time comes that you won’t be playing Diablo 3… While I do agree that the Blizz employees can all be somewhat dodgey at times about new information, I take it as they still aren’t quite used to being in the spotlight so much (or it may just be the newer people at Blizz having an attitude) and also that they like to make things surprises (as they always have)...

But anyways… Of course they are going to announce the fourth class at Blizzcon… they cancelled WWI to make this year’s bigger (supposedly) and so they damn well better have multiple big announcements…

Things I’m personally considering possbilities of being covered:
-Fourth Diablo 3 class
-Unvealing of their “Next gen MMO”
-Next WoW expansion
-Maybe Starcraft 2 release date

And as far as what I hope one of the new classes to be, I would personally like to see some sort of hand-to-hand fighter like a monk or something… Just something that is mainly about the melee combat but doesn’t need weapons to be good… Or going with the speculation I saw posted on here a while back based on the art in Deckard Cain’s journal, possibley a darker class (because to me the Witch Doctor isn’t that dark) like a demonic knight that stresses physical force like the barb but also uses dark magic or controls demons or something… I don’t know…

I actually found that article particularly interesting because a long time before D3 was officially announced, I heard rumors that it was going to be different in that you played as an agent of heaven or hell and that items would have good and evil versions depending on which you played as but obviously that’s not the case…

And if I may ask a question that’s been nagging me for months now: why is there no Worldwide Invitational this year?

I’d guess it didn’t work with Blizzard’s schedule. They hold events when they have something major to announce. I believe SC2 debuted at the WWI in Korea 2 years ago. Diablo III was announced at the WWI last year in June. This year nothing needed announcing. Their current games were known and the 2 secret ones aren’t far enough along yet to announce.

You’ll note that Blizzcon was in mid-October last year, and is in mid-August this year. They moved it up 2 months since they knew they weren’t going to have a WWI in May/June/July time frame? The timing of that works well for an announcement of the next WoW x-pack? Along with much more D3 stuff, including the 4th character.

Harder to predict what sort of SC2 stuff they’ll have; we should be well into the beta by August, so perhaps they’re not real worried about publicity for that title at that point, since every gaming site will be covering the beta developments. NDA-permitting.

Thanks for your answer Flux, it makes sense to me now.

And Krugar, give me just one game company more open about its development cycle than Blizzard, and you can have the right to complain about being “treated like trash”.

The reason Blizzard doesn’t release too much info is simply because they know they have a very loyal and passionate fan base, who sadly tends to take every “maybe” as a promise and then gets offended when Blizzard doesn’t deliver. Feel free to use the 1.13 release info as an example of that.

Either they give the community an insight in their thought process and risk disappointing people when they change their mind (“you said you’d do this and got our hopes up!”) or they keep quiet and only release information when they are almost 100% sure (“you never release any info!”).

It’s impossible to please both sides and I certainly don’t envy the position they’re in. We just have to accept that this is the way they’re doing things and not worry too much about it.