Live blogging the Diablo III European press conference

We're now in the European press conference for Diablo III at the Blizzard Invitational in Paris. It's about to start. After the break.

• It's over. Thanks for reading!
• "I don't think we've broken a hundred on screen at a time, but we've flirted with it," says Jay of monsters.
• The core ideals for the game have stayed consistent over the dev period. Jay says the style and look of the game is the thing that's changed the most.
• They're talking about voice comms. Want to improve on it.
• Blah de blah. Sounds like it's running out of steam a bit. Five minutes, says Mr PR.
• "We're in hardcore production," says Jay. They're working mainly on content at the moment.
• "Diabllo is not that is very mod-friendly game because of the random nature," says Jay. Mods haven't been a big focus. It's difficult with this title, he says.
• They're talking a lot about co-op. "We really see the single-player and co-operative play as the same thing," says Jay.
• "The biggest thing we have to help us protect against piracy" is the community, says Frank. People want to be a part of Battle.Net.
• Seasonal stuff - a la WoW - is a "cool idea".
• They're going to "discuss" a beta, but nothing confirmed yet.
• "It's always our goal to run on a broad range of systems," says Jay. They won't confirm system specs.
• They use Zelda and WoW as inspiration for boss design. Jay says the bosses are going to be much more complex than Diablo II.
• You can pick character gender, but you can't customise. They want you to kill monsters as soon as possible.
• They don't have the boss frequency yet. Jay says the boss in the stage demo wasn't a boss at all, just a creature.
• The characters in the game will have their own plotlines and stories.
• "Our goal is to sim-ship in as many languages as possible": Frank. He says it'll be very hard to do, though.
• "We haven't made a decision about our financial model," says Jay. All regions are different.
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• The game has real physics, but it's not a "pure, physics reactionary system."
• The blue teaser image was supposed to be the face of Diablo. Jay "doesn't know" what the purple penguin was.
• A lot of different locations. Dur.
• It's going to mix random and static maps. They've been experimenting with random exits, entrances, monster placement, items, and so on.
• We definitely want to add web functionality, says Frank.
• Around 50 people working on the game.
• Story for the game starts 20 years after the events of Lord of Destruction.
• Targeting a length "similar" to Diablo II.
• They're going to improve trading, apparently, but are still working on how it's going to happen.
• They won't talk about the skill tree format. Sounds like it's not nailed down.
• We've got so many monsters to reveal, says Frank.
• "We're very interested in the consoles but we don't have any plans at this time to become a console developer": Frank.
• They've just confirmed Diablo III for Mac. "Absolutely," said Jay when asked if it was happening.
• "The Diablo III team is definitely thinking about e-sports and whether or not it makes sense for the game": Frank.
• Frank just said they're planning PvP features but they're not saying anything about it right now.
• "We have a new version of Battle.Net that will appear in the coming months," says Jay. Frank says the new features for Battle.Net will be seen in conjunction with StarCraft II's release.
• When it's done. "It's far too early in development for us to put a release date for it," says Frank. It's been in development for four years.
• "Brand new 3D engine that we developed in-house." Jay says they don't have a name for the engine.
• Frank Pearce and Jay Wilson answering questions for the next hour.
• Starting now.
• Hall's filling up. This should be good. Press only.