Twitter Contest Update

We already have 3 lucky winners in our Twitter Contest, congratulations to therealmccoy93, Tipsythegza, and darksbane3k who all took home roughly $180 in Blizzard products! There's still 7 more chances to win before BlizzCon so head on over to our twitter and follow us.

We've had to replace one of the prizes because it has been discontinued from production at the Blizzard store. The Keith Parkinson Limited Edition Diablo 2 print will no longer be awarded, instead we will be adding 3 in-game pets for World of Warcraft (Lil XT, Lil KT and Pandaren Monk) to the prize list.

Artisan Crafting Unveiled at Gamescom 2010

Blizzard promised a big announcement at Gamescom and they came through. It wasn't the 5th class as I am betting the house on them unveiling that at the upcoming BlizzCon. Instead it was the first look at Diablo 3's crafting system.

A group of NPCs dubbed the Caravan will follow your character around through your adventure in sanctuary, they'll set up small camps close by where you can collect quests and craft items. After you've earned the trust of the artisans (blacksmith, mystic and jeweler) they will join your caravan and offer their crafting services to you.

For a full preview of the crafting system at Gamescom 2010, click here and watch the video narrated by Jay Wilson.

The Official Diablo III Caravan FAQ

Q: What do the artisans offer?
A: Skilling up your artisans will unlock unique recipes, granting your character access to benefits that may not be found anywhere else in the world. The blacksmith crafts weapons and armor, and can add sockets to some items. The mystic creates scrolls, potions, magical weapons, spell runes, and charms, and can also enchant items. The jeweler crafts gems , amulets, and rings. The jeweler can also remove gems from socketed items and can combine gems to improve their quality.

Q: How do I find the artisans?
A: Finding the artisans will be part of the main quest. Each artisan has been fleshed out to include their own story and quest line.

Q: How do I use the artisans?
A: You'll collect loot as a reward for slaughtering the forces of the Burning Hells. Unwanted items can be salvaged in your inventory, converting these goods into raw crafting materials -- higher-level items are salvaged into higher-level materials. You'll then take those raw materials and hand them over to the artisans, putting them to work crafting or enchanting for you. Upon returning to the caravan after a lengthy foray, you may also find that the artisans have been hard at work plying their trade for your benefit.

Q: How do I salvage my items?
A: Players will find an item while progressing through the main quest that will allow them to convert unwanted gear into crafting materials from the inventory. This item will not take up any inventory space. This should be a more satisfying option for offloading unwanted loot than the alternative -- dropping things on the ground or making frequent trips to a vendor.

Q: Why are you including crafting professions in an action game?
A: Professions add depth to the item collection gameplay that drives the action of Diablo III. We want to provide players with an alternative way to acquire gear, potions, and other randomly found items. We also want to provide additional forms of customization for players -- adding jewels, enchants, or sockets to existing gear allows players to further tailor their characters. Many rare crafting recipes and materials are only found as world drops, enhancing the item acquisition process by increasing the diversity of items dropped by monsters.

Twitter Contest: Follow us and win Blizzard swag!

With Diablo news scarce as we enter the final weeks before BlizzCon 2010, we're excited to have the opportunity to hold a contest for you all. In case you didn't know, we recently opened a Twitter account for D3DB. Entry into the contest is simple; open a Twitter account or log into your current one, visit the D3DB twitter page at http://twitter.com/D3DB and follow us.

We'll be randomly selecting 1 twitter follower as our winner every Friday until BlizzCon (first winner being awarded on August 13th, 2010, final winner being awarded on October 15th, 2010). Each prize pack consists of the following:

- StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
- Diablo Battle Chest
- Diablo 3 T-Shirt (Gender/Size determinable by the winner)
- Blizzard Flex Fit Cap
- World of Warcraft® Pet: Lil' K.T.
- World of Warcraft® Pet: Pandaren Monk
- World of Warcraft® Pet: Lil' XT
- Battle.net Authenticator

Earn an Additional 2 Entries:
Tweet the following and you will receive 2 additional chances (for a total of 3). Please note that you should only tweet once as multiple tweets will not result in more entries:

Win Blizzard swag by following #D3DB http://bit.ly/dAjsDj #diablo

Rules, Eligibility & Other Notes:
1) You must be over 13 years of age.
2) Open to residents of United States and Canada only.
3) Entrants found to be abusing the contest by creating multiple accounts will be disqualified.
4) You'll be notified if you've won via direct message on Twitter. We will do our best to get in contact with you, but if we are unable to after 2 weeks we reserve the right to void your prize and award it to another fan.
5) Every follower's name will be entered into a database and selected through a random process. You are not eligible to win more than once, in the event that the same follower is chosen in multiple weeks the prize will be redrawn.

Video Section is Live

Sorry for the delay, we were able to relaunch the Diablo video section today. Currently we have the 5 official videos up with SD and HD streaming available, and plan on uploading our BlizzCon coverage from 2008 and 2009 soon.

We're working diligently on getting the bestiary back up, stay tuned.

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Update: Our sneak peak from BlizzCon 2008, as well as our wrapup from BlizzCon 2009 are now in the video section. The original video files were lost in the abyss of the interwebs so we had to make due with crappy FLV versions. I'll also be adding the Diablo 3 artwork trailer from 2008 any minute now, and the press Q&A from BlizzCon 2008 will be up early tomorrow morning.

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Update 2: The press Q&A video is now live.

Diablo 3 Database and BlizzCon 2010

Several weeks in the making, we're proud to unveil the new Diablo 3 Database. Our goal with the third iteration of D3DB was to better integrate ourselves with the community. This meant bringing back a section for us to post Diablo related news/blogs, and interacting with fans through our new Twitter account.

The ultimate goal of D3DB has not changed. We're aiming to be the destination for looking up Diablo 3 item, npc, class and zone information when the game launches. Our new codebase was built from scratch with this in mind.

Please note that our site is not fully operational. We had to postpone some features in order to prevent further downtime. We're working very hard at getting the Bestiary back up, as well as our videos. We're also going to be dramatically improving our site search engine. Look forward to these in the coming days.

BlizzCon 2010
As many of you are aware, BlizzCon 2010 tickets went on sale last week (and quickly sold out). For the third straight year, our team will be in attendance representing D3DB.com. We'll be providing more comprehensive coverage here than ever before, including live blogging / tweeting during the opening ceremony and Diablo panels and exclusive HD videos of the event floor. We look forward to seeing you all there October 22nd and 23rd.