Diablo III Adding 'Paragon System'

Class changes and buffs to Legendary items aren't the only changes coming in the 1.0.4 patch for Diablo III. Today Blizzard detailed a new Paragon System on the game's official blog, something it hopes will go along way towards alleviating the issues people have with Magic Find (and more specifically gear-swapping) and giving level 60 players something to earn.

The solution is a set of sweeping changes collectively referred to as the Paragon System. Once it's implemented all experience earned after level 60 will be put toward 100 Paragon levels. Per today's post, each level gives you:

• Core stats such as Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Vitality in amounts similar to what you’d gain from a normal level
•  3% Magic Find and 3% Gold Find

Visually, earning Paragon levels will result in "a distinctive increasingly-impressive border" around your character portrait "[denoting] your Paragon progression."

Game Director Jay Wilson, author of today's post, says "We know that a lot of you out there are level 60 -- maybe on multiple characters -- and this system provides a way to make progress every time you log in to the game."

On top of other bonuses, Blizzard will also be making the Nephalem Valor bonus give a 15% experience bonus per stack, help you earn Paragon levels. As for how much longer you can expect these levels to take, Wilson writes, "The first Paragon level should take about as long as it took most players to get from level 59 to 60, and the experience requirement will rise from there. The time to reach the upper Paragon levels approximates the long-term time investment required to get a level 99 character in Diablo II."

One of the other major goals for the Paragon System is to eventually "transition away" from having Magic Find on items. Eventually Wilson wants to "slowly and gently move Magic Find off of items in the future," but without doing, "so in a way that doesn't flip the entire game end-over end." Magic Find and Gold Find will now be capped to 300% before Nephalem Valor in 1.0.4, which means, "you'll hit the cap when you reach Paragon level 100." Thus as you level in Paragon levels you can start to remove Magic Find items, eventually weeding them out completely.

To see Wilson's words for yourselves, check out his post on the official Diablo III blog.

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Diablo III, Skylanders Push Activision Earnings Past Expectations

In its second quarter 2012 earnings call today, Activision Blizzard reported that sales of Diablo III and Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure put revenue even higher than the company was expecting. Diablo III in particular has been purchased more than 10 million times, while Skylanders sales continue to soar. CEO Bobby Kotick noted that, including toys, Skylanders was the best-selling game of the first half of 2012 and its toys have also outsold the best-selling action figure line in the United States and Europe. “Our performance was driven by strong audience demand for our great games,” Kotick said.

Activision Blizzard earned $1.05 billion overall, with $343 million (32%) coming from digital channels. Despite the successful quarter overall, World of Warcraft continued to lose subscribers, shedding more than one million (but remaining the number one subscription MMO). Meanwhile, Activision reported that a la carte Call of Duty downloadable content sales are down, though Call of Duty Elite continues to thrive with 12 million users overall, 2.3 million of which have purchased a Premium account. Earlier today, Activision also announced the final pieces of Modern Warfare 3 downloadable content.

Kotick also commented on parent company Vivendi’s potential sale of Activision Blizzard for the first time, saying “While we're unable to comment on Vivendi's behalf, we continue to remain focused on strong execution, the delivery of great games and the provision of superior shareholder returns as we have for over 20 years. Our strategy has served us very well in the past and will position us very well for the future.”

Looking forward, Activision Blizzard will launch World of Warcraft expansion Mists of Pandaria on September 25th, Skylanders Giants in October and Call of Duty: Black Ops II on November 13th. Beyond that, Blizzard continues to develop Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, Blizzard All-Stars (formerly Blizzard DOTA), and “an all-new MMORPG in the future,” which we last heard referred to as Titan.

Activision Blizzard expects to make $4.3 billion for this fiscal year, up $1 million from initial projections, but Kotick noted that “the next few years are going to be challenging.” He added that “when you look at the things that have an influence on the consumption of entertainment, unemployment data is very concerning, and when you look at what’s happening in Europe there are a lot of challenges that are going to continue to affect the microeconomic outlook. I think we are at the late end of the cycle, and the late end of a console cycle is always going to have its share of difficulties.”

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following him on Twitter or IGN.

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Diablo III Has More than 10 Million Players

In its second quarter earnings report today, Activision Blizzard confirmed that as of July, more than 10 million people have played Diablo III. This is up four million from the figures announced after the game’s launch and supports the game’s continued success at retail.

According to an Activision Blizzard earnings call that followed, the company said that Diablo III is the best-selling PC game of the first half of 2012 and once again reiterated that changes are coming to the game in the future. Elsewhere in the earnings report, Activision Blizzard also revealed that World of Warcraft subscriptions are down by more than one million.

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following him on Twitter or IGN.

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