The Weekly Blues: BattleTags, Mark of Valor Sigils & Beware Spoilers

Will there be a character specific or Diablo III specific friendslist as well, or is BattleTag the only way to add friends in Diablo III?

There will only be two levels of friendships in Diablo III when the game launches: Real ID friends and BattleTag friends. Character-level friendships like you have in World of Warcraft won't exist in Diablo III, so if you want to another player as a friend, you'll need to add them as a BattleTag friend or a Real ID friend.

Lylirra, can we get some clarification on where character names show up vs. Battletag?

Sure thing! When Diablo III launches, your character name will be visible to you in a variety of locations including the character selection screen and game menu. For other players, your character's name will only appear within your player profile, as hover text in the friends list, and when your character participates in quest dialog. In every other context, your BattleTag will be shown.

Also, just to clarify, your BattleTag identifier (the numbers appended to the end of your BattleTag nickname) will be visible in the "Add Friend" dialog and on a player's profile page. But that's it. When you're just playing normally in a group, only your BattleTag nickname should display.

So Bashiok basically lied then?

No, but we did miscommunicate, and that's our bad.

To help clear up that confusion, the current design is something we feel pretty confident in. Even after carefully reviewing all of your feedback and analyzing the pros and cons of the system, we found that BattleTags are a better way (overall) to personally identify individuals from game to game, even if they change characters.

It helps players build up street cred, or even the opposite type of experiences where you'd want to avoid another player entirely -- something that would only be possible with an account-wide nickname. As a result, we felt that confusing BattleTags with character names in Diablo III was detrimental to those types of benefits.

We know that some of you may disagree with that approach, and that's totally fine. We just encourage you to give BattleTags a chance when Diablo III releases so you can see how the system works in the actual game environment. You might find that you actually like it! Or, you might not, and we'd love to hear your feedback either way. :)

As a reminder, all five hero sigils are now unlocked on the Darkness Falls, Heroes Rise launch site. From now until Friday, May 18, you can earn these exclusive in-game emblems to use on your character banners in Diablo III. All you need to do is create a Mark of Valor and you're set!

Some important notes:

What happens if I mistype my Battle.net email address?
When submitting a Mark of Valor entry, the website will not check to see if your email address is valid at the time that your submission is made, so make sure you type it in carefully! If you make an error, simply resubmit. You'll receive a Mark of Valor confirmation email shortly after submitting your banner image.

How can I tell the email I receive apart from a phishing or scam email?
The automated confirmation email will come from "noreply@reveal.diablo3.com." If you're worried about whether or not an email is legitimate, just know that no action is required on your part if you receive an email from this address. You won’t be asked to reply or click on any links.

When will I actually receive my sigil?
We're keeping records of all the Battle.net accounts which have claimed each sigil. Within the first couple of weeks of Diablo III's release on May 15, we'll be processing all of these accounts and flagging them to unlock the appropriate sigils. The bonus sigils will automatically appear in-game in the banner customization screen in-game once awarded.

This is a warning to all that spoilers may occur both in these forums, and the internet at large. We’ve worked hard to craft an engaging story and fun game, and our hope is that you have a pristine experience. For that reason we recommend you exercise extreme caution when perusing the webs of cyber space.

If you’re to be the lucky owner of a Collector’s Edition, we highly recommend you wait until after you have completed the game on Normal before opening the art book or watching the behind-the-scenes DVD/Blu-ray. Both of these items contain big spoilers, and should probably be avoided until later.

You should be especially cautious on May 14, as with the installer unlocking and worldwide releases taking place, the entire game will be available to be discovered and datamined. We also plan to populate the Diablo3.com game guide with item data that Monday, which may themselves be spoilers. If you care about spoilers, it may just be best to not go on the internet on May 14.

We will not be moderating topics discussing spoilers as long as:

• The thread title does not contain a spoiler
• The thread title contains a [SPOILER] tag in it

If someone is found to be purposely posting spoilers with the intent to ruin the experience for others, such as using a misleading title or posting a spoiler in an off-topic thread, they will be dealt with harshly.

We appreciate your help in attempting to keep spoilers in-check, and hope you enjoy your first experiences in Diablo III. See you in-game!

Am I the only one that has been waiting for this for months? I mean, I like Diablo: the animated series as much as the next guy, but I was really looking forward to info on weapons finally being released. The game is now less than a week away and none of the heroes of Sanctuary even know what gear to keep an eye out for... WTH??

So with the item database being updated next week it’s important to keep in mind that what we’re going to have on the website are the items that are actually possible for us to show. If Diablo is about nothing else it’s about randomization, and Diablo III is no different. While all items have some variance, either in their armor range or the affixes they roll, the vast majority of items (~99%) are entirely random. It’s also true that the entirely random items are going to be among the most coveted, and therefore the focus of the majority of the item hunt. What you’ll see on the site next Monday are the handmade items that a designer named and set specific stats and ranges for. What you won't see is the majority of the game's entire item pool, which exists in the near limitless randomized permutations.

Will there be a list of magic prefixes and suffixes?

Filling out the game guide with all the rules and data is something we'll be starting as soon as we can (ideally with launch) and updating as we go. We do want there to be some discovery on people's parts as to the rules of the game, so we're going to start broad and then get into the nitty gritty rules as time goes.