D3Here

D3Here is the nickname ascribed to an unknown individual who appeared online in late June, 2011.

He claimed to be a Diablo III play-tester[1] who had seen the entire game, and began answering reader questions via his blog, d3here.wordpresst.com. Word spread very quickly through the Diablo III community, and after just a couple of days the posts on his blog were receiving hundreds of questions from skeptical, credulous, or just plain curious fans.

He made several posts[2] over a few days, before abruptly deleting his blog[3] after claiming (via an email to Flux of Diablo.IncGamers.com) that he'd received a scary C&D letter from attorneys representing Blizzard. At that point Flux archived all the D3Here posts in a forum thread, then agreed to act as D3Here's mouthpiece[4] for one additional session of questions and answers. These were posted a couple of days later, and after that the D3Here guy vanished from the scene.

Most fans wound up not believing[5] he was legit, though most people were pleased that they'd been able to read his statements, and the sheer volume of his output and the audacity of his many predictions/statements about previously unknown game info did win over some fans.

While D3Here is gone, he's not forgotten, since he made enough testable statements about unknown features in Diablo III that the authenticity of his knowledge will be proved or disproved on August 1st, 2011, when Blizzard is planning a major reveal of Diablo III's Battle.net systems.

D3Here Event Timeline

June 28-30, 2011 -- The first few posts of questions and answers go live on d3here.wordpress.com. The posts generate a great deal of debate and a 15+ page thread springs up almost overnight in the Diablo.Incgamers.com D3 forum. Flux's first news post about the d3here blog creates a great deal more attention and controversy.

July 2, 2011 -- A total of 5 lengthy question and answer posts are made, all of which can be seen archived in this forum thread.

July 3, 2011 -- The author shuts down d3here.wordpress.com allegedly after receiving a C&D email from attorneys acting for Blizzard. Word of this comes via Flux of Diablo.IncGamers.com who had initially received an email from the D3Here guy on July 1st.

July 3, 2011 -- Flux announces that D3Here is willing to answer additional questions, which should be submitted via the newspost on Diablo.Incgamers.com. This post generates dozens more questions, as well as quite a bit of heated debate about the ethics of providing D3Here with a megaphone. Tragically, that comment thread was lost when the site changed servers and scripts a few weeks later.

July 5, 2011 -- Flux posts the last batch of answers from D3Here. They provoke no additional controversy.

July 7-12, 2011 -- The final word came from a community vote on Diablo.IncGamers.com. Here are the results:

What do you think about the D3here guy’s claims?

* 2) I’m not sure. Could he really have made all that up? — 678 votes, 25.03%

* 5) I didn’t read. No opinion. SPOILERS. — 583 votes, 21.52%

* 3) He was fake, but very interesting — 548 votes, 20.23%

* 4) He was fake and should not have been given a podium. — 478 votes, 17.64%

* 1) I believe that he is a D3 play tester. — 422 votes, 15.58%

Total Votes: 2709

D3Here's Legacy

This is not yet known, since not enough time has passed. As more game info details are revealed, it will become evident if he was a legit inside source, or just a hoaxer.

In a more general sense, the argument over whether such a person should have been listened to, or promoted (albeit with constant disclaimers and skepticism) by the leading Diablo 3 fansite, is unresolved. The final vote showed that only 18% of readers thought he was fake and that he should have been suppressed. Even if the 21% who didn't read and therefore presumably didn't care is added on, that still leaves over 61% of fans who read and believed, or at least enjoyed the information/conversation/discussion/controversy.

The D3Here guy never argued for his right to be heard or to speak. Flux did, largely in the course of defending his decision to point readers to D3Here's site, and then to provide additional assistance in keeping D3Here anonymous while he continued to get his questions and replied out to the public.

The arguments in comments were lost when Diablo.IncGamers.com switched servers and news scripts, but Flux's main point was that D3Here was clearly newsworthy, given the hundreds of comments his site was attracting from the Diablo community. Since informing the readers is the whole point of an independent media, and since Blizzard was banning all threads pointing to the D3Here information, Flux felt it would have been wrong to join in their censorship, so long as D3Here wasn't doing anything to ruin the game experience or breaking any laws.

Flux's argument, while always making clear his personal skepticism of D3Here, was that anyone could or could not read D3Here's posts, and then make up their own minds. Free flow of information is the goal of the media, and if a Diablo fansite only posts what the PR department of Blizzard approves, then what's the point in existing at all?