Players looking forward to the new arena-based PvP in Diablo III will have to wait a little bit longer than the rest of us. In a recent blog post to Blizzard's official D3 website, lead designer Jay Wilson stated the following:

After a lot of consideration and discussion, we ultimately felt that delaying the whole game purely for PvP would just be punishing to everyone who’s waiting to enjoy the campaign and core solo/co-op content, all of which is just about complete.

While this is bad news for the players hoping to testing their mettle against the deadliest game, the silver lining for the rest of us is the fact that D3 may be closer than we think. Blizzard is "counting down the days" until the official release date is announced. I'm holding out hope for late April or early May.

Do we get a special dedicated ear inventory, or will I need to make an ear mule?

I honestly have not been "On the edge of my seat waiting" In fact I don't have time to play D3 if it comes out in the next month or two so I'm kinda bummed by this.

I don't like this for the simple reason... This means they assume we will be playing this game for a few months after release for this patch. Myself and many other gamers just don't have time to play one game or our style isn't that (I know Jeff is like this). I want to play ALL of Diablo 3 the first few weeks, then I'll move onto a another title. I did the same thing with Starcraft 2. It's maybe why I never buy DLC, after the game is DONE it is DONE. I want to play PVP but with life and other games, I won't be coming back after it's out. So I really do feel like a part of the game is missing... I know I can pop it back in and play, but that's not the point. PVP is like a HUGE part of this game the way they made it out to be, so I'm sad by this.

@Deadmeat said:

I honestly have not been "On the edge of my seat waiting" In fact I don't have time to play D3 if it comes out in the next month or two so I'm kinda bummed by this.

I don't like this for the simple reason... This means they assume we will be playing this game for a few months after release for this patch. Myself and many other gamers just don't have time to play one game or our style isn't that (I know Jeff is like this). I want to play ALL of Diablo 3 the first few weeks, then I'll move onto a another title. I did the same thing with Starcraft 2. It's maybe why I never buy DLC, after the game is DONE it is DONE. I want to play PVP but with life and other games, I won't be coming back after it's out. So I really do feel like a part of the game is missing... I know I can pop it back in and play, but that's not the point. PVP is like a HUGE part of this game the way they made it out to be, so I'm sad by this.

Unless your job is working at Blizzard producing more updates for Diablo 3, you need to tell your life to GO ON MOTHER-EFFING HOLD!!

I'm not a one-game kind of guy either - I have a very poor attention span - but once Diablo 3 comes out I won't be playing much else for months to come. I have been playing the beta religiously and after getting a taste of some of the "unreleased" beta content over the weekend, my appetite for this game just grew 10-fold. I am perfectly fine with the PVP being dropped in lieu of a post-release patch and that doesn't make the game feel any less "final" to me.

I can't wait for this game to release. I am really hoping that during their press event this week that we hear something about D3s release date (even though the event is focused around Mists of Pandaria) either this week, or once the info is allowed to be publicly disseminated (next Monday, the 19th). While I doubt we'll see a late April release, I sure wouldn't complain if it happened.

I don't know about the rest of you but I plan on hitting 10 with a softcore character then logging off of him and jumping straight into hardcore. I am really excited about doing a 'blind' hardcore run of the game and I managed to convince my friends to get on board with it. I haven't been this amped up about a game for YEARS. I am at the bursting point of excitement... having a concrete release date may either make things a bit better, or make things exponentially worse.

@Deadmeat said:

PVP is like a HUGE part of this game the way they made it out to be, so I'm sad by this.

Really? I think Blizzard has been downplaying the hell out of PvP considering that they removed it from the core game (you have to do it in arenas now) and they aren't even going to bother trying to make PvP balanced.

Couldn't care less about PvP in DIII.