Blizzard Diablo III Team At E3
Blizzard Blues on playing the Xbox 360 version of Diablo III, and the work of a Community Manager
E3 2013 is running this week, and Blizzard will be there. Many of the Diablo III developers will be showing off the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Diablo III at the Activision Blizzard booth. Vaeflare mentioned on Twitter that she will be there as well, representing the D3 community managers.
Here are the latest blue posts from the community managers.
Really? No vendor?
It was something the crew of friends I was grouping with wanted to do, so I went with it. They were playing on MP0, but I bumped it up to MP3. If I was running MP10 I would certainly go with allowing vendor items.
Here is one tasty excerpt from Micah, aka Bashiok:
9:30am
General web surfing/twittering/forum perusing now out of the way, I’ll hit my tasks. We use an internal proprietary tool to create and track personal tasks, which could be anything from cropping some Tier 13 images for use in one of the set reveals, editing and approving the FAQ for a new game service we're introducing, or writing a feature article on a game system. In a perfect world I'd have time to complete these tasks, but it's nearing 10 a.m.
It is attitudes like this that is why nothing gets done. Instead of wasting that time doing "general web surfing" how about he actually comes in and gets work done starting at 9am? The cutting corners has to stop, even for the "senior" level guys. ESPECIALLY for the "senior" level guys.
What if the guy coming to fix my cable comes over and just starts playing games on his iphone for 30 minutes? Is that fair to me? Is that fair to everyone else after me? No it isn't.
What if the guy fixing the roads just decides to let traffic go for 30 more minutes because he feels like it? Wouldn't you hate to get stuck in extra traffic on the 405?
Get your act together Blizzard. You can start by firing Bashiok for making a mockery of the whole work process in that "Day in the life" post and not showing up on the forums in AGES.
Vaeflare you got balls for coming here, and I admire that, but your company man, has something wrong with it.I understand where you're coming from here, but I think you might have taken Bashiok's comment a bit out of context.
Part of our job is to "surf the web," as it were, but it's not in the way you might think at first. While off the clock we roam around the fringes of the internet just like anyone else, when we're on the clock, it's important for us to keep up-to-date about a variety of topics that pertain to our communities. Therefore, we sort of "surf the web" in a targeted fashion, seeing what fan sites are saying, popular blogs and news sites, articles, our Reddit communities, and the forums on various other sites. We do that because it's important to keep a pulse on the community all over the web, and that includes the many vibrant communities outside of our traditional Blizzard forums and blogs.
For instance, one of my responsibilities is also manning our Diablo Twitter and Facebook accounts where players from around the world come to interact with us on yet another medium. It may very well be that certain players don't use these social media outlets, but I try to ensure that I get some time to interact on there as well.
As for Bashiok, he transitioned over to the World of Warcraft community team last year, so you no longer need to hold him accountable for posting here on the Diablo III forums. Instead, you have an Archangel, Khazra, and Fallen Hound to keep you company. ;)
.@kierpanda Yes, I'm going to E3! I believe I will be the only @diablo III Community Manager in attendance. :) #D3Represent!
— Vaeflare (@Vaeflare) June 7, 2013
Here are the latest blue posts from the community managers.
Rules for Self-Found Characters
An increasingly popular way to play a Diablo III character is self-found, and Grimiku talks about the "rules" that he plays by when running that type of character.
Post by Blizzard (Blue Tracker, Official Forum)
You've probably got a good idea of how you're going to play your self found character already, but here's my personal rule set. I don't keep track of how much gold the character has because I'm lazy about it, so I don't restrict gold use.
- No Auction House
- Self found party trades are O.K.
- No vendor items
- Crafting is ok, but only use self found materials
Really? No vendor?
It was something the crew of friends I was grouping with wanted to do, so I went with it. They were playing on MP0, but I bumped it up to MP3. If I was running MP10 I would certainly go with allowing vendor items.
Maintenance for 3 Hours on Tuesday
There will be the standard weekly battle.net server maintenance on Tuesday this week, but it is only scheduled to last for 3 hours.
Post by Blizzard (Blue Tracker, Official Forum)
We will be performing scheduled game maintenance for Diablo III on Tuesday, June 11th. Maintenance will begin at 5:00 AM PDT and is expected to last for 3 hours. During this time Diablo III will not be available for play. In addition, many web services may be unavailable.
Thank you for your patience.
Thank you for your patience.
Xbox 360 Diablo III
Grimiku talked about playing Diablo III on recently announced Xbox 360 version, with friends who only play games on that console.
Post by Blizzard (Blue Tracker, Official Forum)
I have a few family members that only play games on Xbox 360, and I'm glad that I'll be able to play Diablo III with them rather than just talk about it. I'll always primarily play on my PC, but this will definitely have it's time and place too.
For those of you who are going to get a console version, do you think you'll play more on consoles or pc?
For those of you who are going to get a console version, do you think you'll play more on consoles or pc?
Community Managers' Work
Lastly, Vaeflare had a lengthy discussion about the many responsibilities of the Diablo III community managers. Here is one post from that long thread.
Post by Blizzard (Blue Tracker, Official Forum)
In concept, I agree that this would be an awesome idea, but in a practical sense, it's not realistic to sit down and track every step and person involved in a change, especially for ones that leverage dozens of people from multiple teams and potentially span months of time.
That said, what I can do is point you to a series of interviews called "A Day in the Life" that we put together a few years ago that might give you a better idea of what a typical day may be like here at Blizzard Entertainment for various individuals. Even then, the tasks, responsibilities, meetings, and daily topics will vary wildly day-by-day, but hopefully it offers you an interesting glimpse at the types of discussions and interactions we have behind-the-scenes.
That said, what I can do is point you to a series of interviews called "A Day in the Life" that we put together a few years ago that might give you a better idea of what a typical day may be like here at Blizzard Entertainment for various individuals. Even then, the tasks, responsibilities, meetings, and daily topics will vary wildly day-by-day, but hopefully it offers you an interesting glimpse at the types of discussions and interactions we have behind-the-scenes.
Here is one tasty excerpt from Micah, aka Bashiok:
9:30am
General web surfing/twittering/forum perusing now out of the way, I’ll hit my tasks. We use an internal proprietary tool to create and track personal tasks, which could be anything from cropping some Tier 13 images for use in one of the set reveals, editing and approving the FAQ for a new game service we're introducing, or writing a feature article on a game system. In a perfect world I'd have time to complete these tasks, but it's nearing 10 a.m.
It is attitudes like this that is why nothing gets done. Instead of wasting that time doing "general web surfing" how about he actually comes in and gets work done starting at 9am? The cutting corners has to stop, even for the "senior" level guys. ESPECIALLY for the "senior" level guys.
What if the guy coming to fix my cable comes over and just starts playing games on his iphone for 30 minutes? Is that fair to me? Is that fair to everyone else after me? No it isn't.
What if the guy fixing the roads just decides to let traffic go for 30 more minutes because he feels like it? Wouldn't you hate to get stuck in extra traffic on the 405?
Get your act together Blizzard. You can start by firing Bashiok for making a mockery of the whole work process in that "Day in the life" post and not showing up on the forums in AGES.
Vaeflare you got balls for coming here, and I admire that, but your company man, has something wrong with it.
Part of our job is to "surf the web," as it were, but it's not in the way you might think at first. While off the clock we roam around the fringes of the internet just like anyone else, when we're on the clock, it's important for us to keep up-to-date about a variety of topics that pertain to our communities. Therefore, we sort of "surf the web" in a targeted fashion, seeing what fan sites are saying, popular blogs and news sites, articles, our Reddit communities, and the forums on various other sites. We do that because it's important to keep a pulse on the community all over the web, and that includes the many vibrant communities outside of our traditional Blizzard forums and blogs.
For instance, one of my responsibilities is also manning our Diablo Twitter and Facebook accounts where players from around the world come to interact with us on yet another medium. It may very well be that certain players don't use these social media outlets, but I try to ensure that I get some time to interact on there as well.
As for Bashiok, he transitioned over to the World of Warcraft community team last year, so you no longer need to hold him accountable for posting here on the Diablo III forums. Instead, you have an Archangel, Khazra, and Fallen Hound to keep you company. ;)
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