It's no secret that Blizzard Entertainment has been working on a follow-up to Diablo II since the game's release back in 2000 and its expansion's release in 2001. Here we provide a brief history of the events affecting the former Blizzard North, the team that developed the Diablo series, and its development activities from 2000 until now.
Material in this article is based on fact and quotes from former and current Blizzard Entertainment employees in published interviews. Rumor and speculation have been mostly avoided, but are clearly cited as unverified when used.
A few quick and helpful points:
Development on the new project began as early as 2000, in addition to Lord of Destruction.
Employees including the group's founders left Blizzard North in 2000 and 2003 to form new game studios (ArenaNet, Castaway, Flagship).
A new project was being worked on long before the original founders left to form Flagship Studios.
Confirmed: That project was Diablo III, but Blizzard HQ scrapped that version of it to start anew.
Flagship Studios' first commercial release was Hellgate: London, a 3D Action RPG.
Although Blizzard North was closed, the remaining team was not. They were moved to the Irvine headquarters in 2005.
Blizzard Entertainment has for years been hiring for "Top Secret" projects associated with "Diablo and Diablo II" and "Next-Gen MMO."
Reiterated several times, the Sin War novels by Richard Knaak serve as the basis lore for future Diablo titles.
An announcement was rumored for the WWI 2008 event in Paris, France on 28-29 June, which coincides with Diablo II's release date.
Diablo III was indeed announced at Blizzard's WWI 2008 event.
From data-mined information, the Blacksmith artisan can convert up to the next tier/difficulties materials at a 10:1 ratio. It will also cost 100 gold per conversion, although this might be a placeholder and subject to change. Also remember that there are 10 artisan ranks.
So for example, 10 common scraps, a normal difficulty crafting material can be converted to 1 assorted fragment, a nightmare crafting material.
What if you want a single valuable component, from inferno difficulty. That means you will need 1000 common scraps to get there.
Once you unlock all these conversions from leveling the Blacksmith artisan, if you need a certain material, it would be wise to do the math on whether to buy it as is or do a material conversion to make the one you need. A spreadsheet will help with this.
