Blizzard will release a game for Linux this year

Linux gaming world is growing continuously since Valve has released Steam for Linux. Now Blizzard is intending to give Linux community some love. So Phoronix.com has an information from a trustworthy source that Blizzard is going to publish a game title for Linux later this year, but it's unclear what exactly it will be.
While all the games of the company run great with CrossOver on Linux, a native Linux version of one of the games would be absolutely sensational. It is supposed that Blizzard already have a working in-house version of World Of Warcraft for Linux. However, World of Warcraft is not the only candidate for a Linux release. StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm is going to be released on the 12th March and is surely an ideal candidate for the company's first Linux title. Another highlight for the Linux community could be Diablo 3 which was released last year.

 

What do you think? Which title will come from Blizzard for Linux first?

Blizzard Is Not Banning Diablo III Linux Players

In spite of some rumors that Blizzard is banning people running Diablo III on Linux platform, emulated through Wine, it appears that this is not the case.

The whole shenanigan was started on Blizzard's official forums by some gamers complaining about being banned after playing Diablo III on Linux.

Blizzard has replicated the setups described by the users and tested their own system, and Linux clients were not banned. The company has said plainly that they are not banning the Linux players, only cheaters.

“We’ve extensively tested for false positive situations, including replicating system setups for those who have posted claiming they were banned unfairly.”

“We’ve not found any situations that could produce a false positive, have found that the circumstances for which they were banned were clear and accurate, and we are extremely confident in our findings.“

“Playing the game on Linux, although not officially supported, will not get you banned – cheating will,” a Blizzard statement said through their forums.

Diablo 3 digital edition restrictions relaxed

Opting for the digital edition of Diablo 3 will no longer place a temporary cap on your progress through the game, Blizzard has announced. Players buying the game on Battle.net post patch 1.0.3 were finding their characters locked at level 13 and limited to Act I until their credit cards were verified, a process taking up to 72 hours. With 1.0.3a, this has been fixed – but there are plenty of restrictions still in place for new buyers.
Unverified digital copies of Diablo 3 will still have restricted access to the auction house, trade, chat, public games, and they won’t be able to change their server region. As Blizzard explained last week, these measures are supposed to combat credit card fraud by making freshly-purchased accounts less useful as spambots, and therefore less attractive to unscrupulous types. The full explanation is available on the Battle.net forums, if you’re interested.
There’s no doubt, though, that it’s an inconvenience. On one hand, gold selling and associated underhandedness has to be combated somehow – but on the other hand, isn’t that exactly what the real money auction house was supposed to do?

Blizzard restricts digital editions of Diablo 3 for up to 72 hours after purchase

 

A Customer support agent has posted on Diablo 3′s official forums confirming suspicions that there is a wait period on all digital purchases of the game.
Kaltonis says that anyone who purchase the digital edition of the game could be forced to wait up to three days for their game to unlock.
Specifically, players will be restricted to the free demo (a.k.a. Starter Edition) of the game. This imposes pretty hefty restrictions: characters are capped at level 13, cannot go past the Skeleton King boss in Act 1, cannot access the Auction House, and cannot join games with friends that own the full game.
Kaltonis does say in the post that the delay in receiving the full game “is often much quicker than [72 hours].” But the justification that he gives for the delay is extremely vague and unsatisfying: “it is a necessary step to combat fraud and other malicious activities that can weaken everyone’s play experience.”
Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of restrictions on trial accounts for online games to combat spammers and gold farmers abusing them to annoy players. Those are often necessary and benefit legitimate gamers, but I’ve never seen a restriction this heavy on people who’ve paid for the full game. As it stands, we’ve received no satisfying explanation for why this is required. Blizzard needs to give a more detailed explanation of why they’re taking this extreme measure of keeping players from the game they’ve paid for.
We’ve reached out to Blizzard for comment.

Diablo 3 real money auction house “expected” to go live in Europe this Friday

 

Get your Euros, Pounds and Rubles ready, folks. Diablo 3′s real money auction house will finally go live this Friday according to an in-game notification spotted by Eurogamer. The US real money auction house launched last night with minimum bids set at $1.25 and a maximum set at $250. Blizzard take $1 for every sale and a 15% cut when you cash out auction house earnings, expect similar rules for the European auction house.

It’ll be interesting to see what effect the cash auction has has on player habits, and the gold auction house. If you discover a truly incredible item, why float it on the gold auction house when you could stand to make some money form it in the cash auction house? Will the potential for profit make high level loot drops more dramatic, or will we end up in a situation where you can buy a new wardrobe for a fiver that’ll completely outshine anything you find in the game world? We’ll have to wait and see how the prices settle.
The real money auction house has been delayed several times recently amid the Error 37 controversy, legal problems in Korea and as PCGamesN report, a period of downtime in Asia recently to investigate reports of item duping. It’s been a difficulty launch for Blizzard so far, but errors with the cash auction house could directly mess with people’s money, making any future errors that much more serious. What do you think about the real money auction house?