A lot of you are waiting for Diablo 3 and can’t wait to get your hands on it. There are tons of rumors about its release date and when the beta will start up. Sadly its not even known if there will be an open beta to the public. Still, there is almost no information about how far the game actually is. We know a lot about the design aspects of the game, such as the 4 character classes(there is still one more to come), their skill trees, and level design. But, how far along is the game engine? Is the graphics engine done? Well, we have been waiting to reveal some information, but now we feel that it is the right time to do so.

First off, lets figure out what we know about Diablo 3. We know what we have seen in the demos, but the problem is that we’ve only seen two parts of the game. The desert area, and Tristram. Its hard to get a feel on how far the development goes for Diablo 3 with only two levels to reference. Keep in mind that Blizzard’s philosophy on developing games is much different than most major game development studios. Blizzard is very likely to start from scratch many times throughout the development of a project. Diablo 3 is not immune to this philosophy. The Diablo 3 development team has finished many aspects of the game, the game engine is coded, the design elements are done, and the classes are planned and four of them are implemented. Now comes Blizzard’s narcissistic touch. Lets say the development team started with a Diablo 3 build called “zone 1″. The development team moves on to a “zone 2″ build, then a “zone 3″ build and so on and so forth. Around “zone 20″ the development team noticed some of their older builds that are still in their new build need to be reworked. So… they rework them. Many of you will ask yourself, “well, the game engine is done, the game design elements are pretty much done, so what is missing, why not release the game now”? Well as mentioned before, Blizzard is not like a normal major game development studio. Blizzard gives their games about a years worth of polish before they are released. This is why Blizzard is where they are now. They polish their games to a gleaming finish. Most development studios are pressured by their publishers to release a game before it is truly done. Blizzard is able to choose when their games are released because they have the money to do so. So when Blizzard says ” its done when it is done”, they are actually saying that they will release the game when they feel it has enough polish. I will keep you posted on any new developments.