Pinoy gamers among the first to play Diablo III

Diablo III, the third installment of the blockbuster role-playing game series from Blizzard Entertainment, went live online Tuesday and Filipinos were among the millions of gamers planet-wide who stormed the RPG’s virtual world.   IP E-Game Ventures Inc. chief operating officer Heidi Anne M. Garayblas said the Philippines’ first-ever participation in a global launch of Diablo is the culmination of over 10 years of waiting for the new sequel in the epic RPG saga.   The game may be downloaded from the official Diablo III website through credit card purchase. The DVD-ROM may also be bought from authorized retail outlets. Retail price is P3,145.   E-Game is the exclusive distributor of all Blizzard games in the Philippines, including World of Warcraft, Starcraft II and the previous incarnations of Diablo.   E-Game executives at the launch in Makati said Blizzard preorders of Diablo III reached 5,000.    “We’re pretty confident that the amount of (DVD-ROM) stock we have right now is enough to meet the demand,” Garayblas said. 'A hellish good time'   The E-Games executives said the game can only be played while online and using a free Battle.net account. The default server is in the United States but there is an option to connect to the Asian server.   Diablo III installation requires 12 gigabytes of free space, 1 GB of RAM and display settings of 1024 x 768.   Its gaming computer specifications include:  broadband Internet connection, Intel Pentium D 2.8 Ghz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+, Nvidia GeForce 7800GT or ATI Radeon X1950 Pro or better, Windows XP/Vista/7 or OS X 10.6.8 or newer, Intel Core 2 Duo Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT or ATI Radeon HD 2600 or better.   “Now that Diablo III is live, we hope everyone’s ready to have a hellishly good time slaying demons and collecting loot in Sanctuary,” Blizzard Entertainment CEO Mike Morhaime said in a news release channeled through E-Games.   Worldwide, preorders for Diablo III exceeded two million–setting another Blizzard record.   Sanctuary is the battleground in the Diablo III virtual world. Gamers venture into Sanctuary as any of five classes of characters—Barbarian, Demon Hunter, Monk, Witch Doctor, and Wizard.   Of these characters, only the Barbarian and Wizard (an upgrade of the Sorceress) were carried over from Diablo II.   E-Games vice president for marketing Juan Miguel Bauza said Filipino gamers are likely to prefer the Diablo III’s Barbarian and Monk because they are more suited to full combat action compared to the three other characters. —VS, GMA News