Finally, some Diablo III news worth going to Hell and back for. Diablo 3 has announced that your adventures through the world of Sanctuary will not be alone. You'll be accompanied by a group of loyal followers who will help you on your journey by augmenting your weapons and crafting things for you. But you don't start the game off with them; you'll have to find them and earn their trust.

The first one of these revealed is the blacksmith, an artisan who can help you slot any weapon with new gem slots. As you invest more into the Blacksmith, the more his shop levels up, which changes its look and feel. His joint goes from poor shantytown storefront with weapons lying on the ground to an awe-striking hall of ultimate weaponry. But let Design Director, Jay Wilson show you what I'm talking about in his video below. For more check out Diablo III's facebook page.

Diablo III may not be scheduled to launch until at least 2011, but Blizzard has been busy updating the game's site with female versions of a couple of the game's classes. The female barbarian was revealed today, while the female monk was unveiled last week.

These may not be the most amazing reveals for eager Diablo fans, but it's good to see that the official site is being updated with more than just fan art. Aside from some new screenshots that were added in January, these female models are the first major updates to the site since September 2009.

According to Kotaku, Activision Blizzard Chief Financial Officer Thomas Tippl confirmed during a presentation in New York today that Diablo III is not scheduled to be released until at least 2011. Cataclysm, StarCraft II and the updated Battle.net should be set to launch in 2010.

Diablo III, the StarCraft II expansions and Blizzard's unannounced MMO were all filed under the "next few years" category on a slide outlining the company's lineup. It should come as no surprise that World of Warcraft is at the top of Blizzard's list for the foreseeable future.

With the launch of Diablo III not scheduled to happen anytime soon, it looks like you'll have plenty of time to check out Torchlight or play through Diablo II again. And again.

Blizzard has released BlizzCast episode 11, and this one features the community managers for World of Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo as they look back at this year's BlizzCon. Nethaera stated in a post on the official forums that
this BlizzCast is not meant to reveal any extra information and that additional BlizzCasts "will have a little more 'meat' to them."

You can listen to the BlizzCast and read the full transcript on the official Blizzard site. Also, check out our BlizzCon coverage for another look back at the convention that officially revealed Cataclysm to World of Warcraft players.

While most of the non-gaming media continues to cover events like BlizzCon as a nerd-fest gathering of an incomprehensible and socially-inept subculture, one guy is helping to lift the curtain and change those preconceptions. Well, from his standpoint, at least. Chris Nguyen, a.k.a. ddrfreak5o3 on YouTube, directed and produced his own fan-made, mini-documentary called "BlizzCon: An Event For Fans" while attending BlizzCon 2009 last month.

"I suppose the main purpose of this decision was to challenge myself, prepare for some documentary film classes (as well as a few other Journalistic Electronic Media classes), and update my digital portfolio," he wrote in the video's description on YouTube. Although he might not have originally intended it to be a deep, sociological insight into the die-hard gaming community, it's a fairly distinct and refreshingly alternative piece, compared to similar "fish-out-of-water" documentaries and news reports.

The mini-docu runs just over 10 minutes long and is surprisingly well-edited and shot. Nguyen captured high-quality video throughout a variety of BlizzCon events and exhibitions, including the Ozzy Osbourne performance. He also interviewed a couple of WoW gamers, and the winner of this year's costume contest. All in all, it's an extremely polished video for a fan-made documentary; one that shines a light on the best elements of BlizzCon, and the community behind it.

At BlizzCon 2009 members of the press were able to attend a private conference with World of Warcraft Production Director J. Allen Brack and Diablo 3 Game Director Jay Wilson, and the duo had interesting things to say about both games. For example, Brack emphasized there are absolutely no current plans to reach a final level cap in WoW, and the team doesn't look much past the next two expansions since they're constantly learning from their development experiences.

Also, there's been a lot of talk about updating the WoW character models, especially with the addition of new races. It may or may not happen for Cataclysm, but when it does, you might have the option to select the original or new models. Oh, and the WoW team was initially angry when the Cataclysm announcement was leaked, but was ultimately just happy that fans seem excited about the new expansion.

The full Q&A from the press conference can be found after the jump.

Members of the Diablo 3 team gathered on the main stage at BlizzCon for a Q&A session with fans who were eager to learn as much as possible about the upcoming game. The panel was held after the announcement that the monk is the fourth class and players got the chance to try out the demo on the floor.

The team members on the panel were Game Director Jay Wilson, Lead Programmer Jason Regier, Senior Game Producer Steve Parker, Art Director Christian Lichtner, Lead World Designer Leonard Boyarsky, Lead Level Designer Dave Adams, Game Designer Michael Chu and Lead Sound Designer Joseph Lawrence.

Keep reading after the jump for a point-by-point summary of the Q&A. One of the answers that received the most applause was a comment that all items in Diablo 3 will drop on a per-player basis. This means a boss will drop loot for every player in the game, but you can only pick up your own items. This will keep other players from stealing your loot.

As covered live by the ZAM.com reporting team, BlizzCon 2009 ended with a roaring thunder of a performance by Ozzy Osbourne and BlizzCon-regulars Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain. After two days of new and exciting announcements, fun contests and fan-driven celebrations, around 25,000 people left Anaheim, California as the convention came to a close.

The news and announcements that came out of BlizzCon 2009 will be dissected, analyzed and refined by the media and fan community for months to come. Even though BlizzCon 2009 provided a finite amount of information, nearly every piece of it will be examined with a fine-tooth comb, leading to almost infinite speculation and pondering. New questions spawn from the answers we received, and this is just the beginning.

World of Warcraft is headed to a new era; the upcoming expansion, Cataclysm, will forever change the world’s most popular MMO. Blizzard’s new-and-improved Battle.net system is poised to change the way we play upcoming games like StarCraft II and Diablo III; possibly impacting the market as substantially as services like XBox Live. If you weren't able to find out what happened at BlizzCon until now, don’t worry; you'll be reading about it for months to come. In the meantime, here’s a succinct recap of the most important news and announcements that came out of BlizzCon 2009.

Blizzard's game library might not be the first collection that you think of when it comes to video games that need to be censored for content, but it turns out that the international censorship applied to World of Warcraft will be extended to Diablo III. A Wired.com interview with Diablo III lead designer Jay Wilson shed some light on the subject, ironically titled "Why Designer of Gory Diablo III Lets His Daughter Play." Wilson says Blizzard will have to change the more violent aspects of the game, including all the blood, if the company hopes to release the long-awaited RPG in German and Australian game markets.

When it comes to China, the game might not even get a chance, according to an answer Wilson gave to Wired.com in the interview:

We could have a lot of trouble with China, yes, but it would be our goal to go there. We haven’t decided what regions we’re going into, obviously. It certainly would be our goal to go there, but we will struggle to go to China.

He says the Diablo III team received a "lengthy list" of requirements that would have to be met for the game to be released in China; but if it turns out that the development team would have to "redo so much of the game that it’s not viable anymore," they won't even bother, according to the interview.

For those of you just waking up, getting off work or getting online for the first time since BlizzCon 2009 began on Friday afternoon; I promised you a quick-and-easy round-up of the most important news and announcements from "day one" of the convention. The biggest news of the day for most fans was the confirmation of the World of Warcraft's upcoming third expansion, Cataclysm. It turns out the rumors and "leaked" info we've been reading about was spot-on, for the most part. The Old World of Azeroth will indeed be permanently changed forever; the landscape of many low-level zones like the Barrens and Darkshore will be completely altered by the event, as will the rest of Azeroth's zones, to some extent.

Our next two playable races will be the Goblins and Worgen, aligned with the Horde and Alliance, respectively. The level cap will be raised to 85, and professions will increase by another 75 points. Archaeology will be a new secondary profession that everyone can use, and Azeroth will be retro-fitted to allow flying mounts the ability to traverse the skies. You can read about all this and more at Blizzard's newly-launched, official Cataclysm website.

Blizzard also announced Diablo III's next playable class, the Monk. Attendees saw a video of the Monk in action, and had the chance to play the game shortly after the announcement. The StarCraft, Warcraft III and WoW Arena tournaments raged on as the developer discussion panels began...the Class, Item and Profession panel proved extremely interesting; Zam's own Togikagi attended and reported a recap of the panel. Finally, returning MC Jay Mohr closed out the night and hosted the costume, dance, and sound-alike contests. Check out a few pics of the winners and other contestants at Blizzard's own TwitPic photo stream.

Check out the official recap of BlizzCon 2009 "Day One" after the jump, with all the links you need to find out more.