Sit down and take a moment, because the real-cash Auction House for Diablo III is live (for USA anyway - Blizzard is waiting on South America and Europe for now). And the prices for some of those items might leave you slightly short of breath. As mentioned before, now that your Battle.net account is going to be trading around real (or semi-real) money, you will have to go through PayPal or Battle.net Balance, which probably means getting an authenticator app or device. Commodities are not yet up either, but are due in time. And, again as mentioned before, Blizzard takes a cut off the top. 

Come one, come all! ZAM Network and D3DB.com are happy to announce the newly revamped D3DB Skill Calculator! This new skill calculator comes with almost a dozen new features over the old one, including a brand new interface, the ability to categorize and rate builds as you create them, and even site achievements for using the skill calculator! There's a lot of new features being introduced with this new skill calculator, so head on and get building!

Since launch, the D3DB team has been hard at work on various projects, and a revamped skill calculator is just one of many, so stay tuned!

Be sure to check out Blizzard's Patch 1.03 Design Preview to see how they're planning to tackle these issues!

It's been about three weeks now since the official launch of Diablo III, and as players get settled in for the long loot grind that is Inferno, I've decided to take a look back on the various lessons that can be learned from this momentous launch. Now, you might argue that Diablo III isn't quite an MMORPG by most standards but every title that Blizzard puts out can be seen as a cumulative progress report on what they've learned from the past. Furthermore, there is some genuinely valuable information to be gleaned from the launch and development of Diablo III, so let's get to it.

Good news for people complaining about balance, not so good news if you are a Monk. A long list of patch notes has been rolled out for players of D3, and - while I spare you the details - the word 'nerf' will probably come to mind quickly. 

Incidentally, a CM on the Blizzard forums has also put out the announcement that the real-world money Auction House has been delayed. Given the sheer volume of issues and the number of outraged players, I think it's somewhat understandable that this is happening. Still, you can always sink their user Metacritic score! Seemed to work last time!

(Please don't actually do that.)

There's been lots of rumors lately of hacking Battle.net accounts ever since Blizzard's flagship franchise Diablo launched its third iteration. Because, well, it's Diablo, and hacking goes hand-in-hand with it. But what was alarming about them is that it apparently bypassed the Battle.net Authenticator, which - given that it's effectively like having a keycard to get into your World of Warcraft or D3 account - would be really bad. 

Blizzard has stated in a forum post that, yes, hacking is happening, and they urge players to use their Authenticator system. But more importantly they have also said that the times where the account was hacked was due to a stolen password, and there was no Authenticator used. A relief, to be sure, but that also makes it pretty important that you use one - even if you don't have a smartphone, there's an SMS text system in place. No reason not to, now.

Diablo III launched yesterday. It was thought that after their open beta, with the shaky start, Blizzard was prepared to shoulder the burden of handling that many excited gamers. They were apparently not.

While most of you are probably too busy immersing yourselves in celebratory Diablo III launch day marathons, remember to have a moment of silence for those who just couldn't take the day off. But fear not! For those stuck at work or school, D3DB has a plethora of Diablo III data just waiting for you to discover! You might not be able to play, but at least you can theorycraft the perfect build in D3DB's fantastic character planner!

For everyone else who has spent the past six hours adventuring in Sanctuary, remember that D3DB is having a week-long contest to give away six Turtle Beach Z11 headsets and one Turtle Beach Z6A headset to a few lucky contributors! All you need to do is any one of the following three: upload a useful video to Youtube to add to a database page; upload a high-resolution, high-quality screenshot where needed; or just post a useful comment on any of the database pages. The sweepstakes starts now and will continue until 11:59 PM on Monday, May 21st, 2012.

Happy monster mashing, adventurers!

Diablo III fans, your time is almost here! With Diablo III launching in less than a week (May 15th!), ZAM Network is proud to announce our newly upgraded D3DB.com! With so many changes being added in, we figured you might get a little confused, so the the friendly folks at D3DB have created a handy tutorial video highlighting some of their biggest upgrades.

Be sure to also check out their fantastic character planner for all your theorycrafting needs! Also remember to swing by their new D3DB forums to get in on the discussions!

Holy cats. The war between angels and demons has been a long-standing thing in the Diabloverse, and thanks to Peter Chung - director of Aeon Flux, the Animatrix, and Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury - we get to see it first-hand. And it's awesome.

Ah yes, the wizard, prerequisite in any fantasy video game where magic is a thing. Ranged nukers all, gather together and prepare for the might of the magi.