The first Diablo III expansion has been unleashed; read our Reaper of Souls review to find out the verdict.
Say what you like about Malthael, the Silent Angel, the Guardian, the Angel of Death, Architect of the Eternal Conflict, former Archangel of Wisdom, ex-leader of the Angiris Council. Say what you like about that bloke, but he doesn’t discriminate when it comes to eradicating humanity and the nephalem.
New servers have been deployed ahead of the release of Reaper of Souls on Tuesday. They should result in a “smoother” looting experience for players in Australia and New Zealand.
A datacentre in Sydney is hosting the new servers, which are already offering local players an “improved” experience.
The Australian servers will communicate with their equivalents in the Americas, allowing seamless play with existing characters overseas. Because the Diablo friends list is powered by Battle.net, not local game servers, players will be able to group up and chat internationally without any penalty in ping.
“When an American player creates a game, it will be hosted in the data centre located in the Americas,” explained Blizzard. “Joining this player’s game will connect you with the Americas data centre and you will play the game there.
“When an Australian or New Zealand player creates a game, it will be hosted in the ANZ data centre. Your American friend can join your game and he or she will then connect to the ANZ data centre and will play the game there.”
Server maintenance for the new servers will take place at the same times as the US. All characters, gold and experience will be unaffected, and no action needs to be taken to switch to the new servers – if you’re near enough, they’ll pick you up automatically.
And Blizzard haven’t ruled out the possibility of more servers in underserved areas of the globe.
“Blizzard Entertainment is committed to providing our players around the world with the best possible experiences,” they wrote. “We will continue to explore optimal server solutions for all of our franchises in each region.”
Hmm! Will any of you lot benefit from the new datacentre?