At and around the time of 9/11, I was a Counter-Strike addict. It sometimes struck me as odd while I’d played the game, but it never felt wrong. Should it have? It was a game, it was a whole mess of fun, and it didn’t matter much to me how topical the game inadvertently was. I was a teenager. I wasn’t smart enough to see that yet.

During 9/11, Naomi Alderman wasn’t playing terrorists vs. counter-terrorists on de_dust. She was playing Paladins and Sorcerers vs. Mephisto and Duriel in the Durance of Hate. She was playing Diablo II, for 30 hours a week. It was her way of dealing with the tragedy surrounding her in the streets of Manhattan. And, looking back, she sees absolutely nothing wrong with that. Read more…

Blizzard wasted no time in updating their official site with a brand new trailer showcasing the newly announced Diablo III Wizard class. We will be hitting you with some talent tree info on this class shortly, so stay tuned for more of our BlizzCon 08 coverage. In the mean time, hit the jump for the new Wizard trailer. Read more…

BlizzCon 08’s opening ceremony revealed the third of five Diablo 3 classes — the Wizard. Get a first glimpse of the sultry female as she hurls lighting, fire, and icy gobs of destruction at her would be enemies. Read more…

Ripten is so prepared!

Our swag is in hand, and we just got done watching the opening ceremonies here at the Anaheim Convention Center. The game plan was to live blog it all, but it was essentially over before we knew it.

The BlizzCon 08 opening ceremony was short, and to the point. A Diablo 3 Wizard class was revealed, and a brief demonstration was given. Lightning bolts took over the stage, and the crowd erupted with an overwhelmingly positive response.

“A wielder of the elements and a master manipulator of time, the wizard can hurl environment-shattering lightning bolts, channel explosive arcane energies, and create pockets of space outside the normal temporal flow.”

Blizzard founder, Michael Morhaime, closed out the ceremony by instructing everyone to “have fun”, and we plan to do just that. Step into our consecration and hang out for a while. We’ll be bringing you news as it happens throughout the day.

So much for a slow transition via the ice hole. Blizzard.com now features a fancy-shmancy flash animation announcing Diablo 3 — ice nowhere to be found. Who knows, maybe they had a good reason for all that frosty goodness.

Perhaps you will be able to ice your enemies with Sub-Zero like swiftness, or perhaps it was nothing more than a marketing attempt which, in the end, appears to have no logical connection to the fire filled reveal that was Diablo 3.

However, while we here at Ripten are a little miffed over the lack of connection between the two, we realize that things could have been worse. The reveal could have given birth to the monstrosity below. Enjoy a glimpse at what could have been after the jump. Read more…

As my fellow writers and I discussed back and forth the possibilities for Blizzard’s upcoming announcement, we decided to hit up the Blizzard site again, and noticed that the image had been updated since our last post.

A few sites are reporting on a confirmation of sorts, from an unnamed source, stating that the mystery game is in fact Diablo 3. However, we have spent a few hours discussing and browsing reference images, all the while making comparisons to the slow reveal image on Blizzard’s site. While Blizzard very well may be announcing Diablo 3, we do not believe that the image on their site is necessarily directly related to that release. Read more…