Sales-tracking firm NPD Group today issued its list of the ten best-selling pieces of PC software in the United States across the week of July 6 to July 12, 2008.

Blizzard's Diablo Battle Chest, originally released in 2003, has now appeared on the weekly charts for three weeks straight--a feat attributed to the unveiling of Diablo 3.

Completely absent from the latest list is Funcom's mature MMO Age of Conan, which was #7 last week and #5 the week before.

1. Nancy Drew: The Phantom Of Venice / Her Interactive / $18 (Average)
2. Spore Creature Creator / EA Maxis / $10 (Average)
3. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA Maxis / $30 (Average)
4. Diablo Battle Chest / Blizzard / $39 (Average)
5. The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff Expansion Pack / EA Maxis / $20 (Average)
6. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest / Blizzard / $39 (Average)
7. World Of Warcraft / Blizzard / $20 (Average)
8. The Sims 2 FreeTime Expansion Pack / EA Maxis / $30 (Average)
9. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack / Blizzard $30 (Average)
10. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare / Infinity Ward / $50 (Average)

In the week following Diablo 3's announcement on June 28, Blizzard's Diablo Battle Chest compilation was the second best-selling PC game at United States retailers. Compiled by sales-tracking firm NPD, the data covers the week of June 29 to July 5.

Containing the original Diablo, Diablo II, and the Diablo II expansion Lord of Destruction, the Diablo Battle Chest hit retailers in 2003. In the week before Diablo 3's official announcement, rumors of its revelation bumped Battle Chest sales up to #10.

1. The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff Expansion Pack
2. Diablo Battle Chest
3. Spore Creature Creator
4. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
5. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest
6. World Of Warcraft
7. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures
8. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack
9. The Sims 2 FreeTime Expansion Pack
10. Warcraft III Battle Chest

Blizzard's Diablo Battle Chest ranked as the tenth best-selling piece of PC software at US retailers for the week ending June 28, sales-tracking firm NPD Group has revealed.

The sales spike for the action-RPG compilation--which hit in late 2003 and packs Diablo, Diablo II, and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction--came in advance of Diablo 3's official revelation, which occurred on June 28.

Following the announcement of Diablo 3, the Diablo Battle Chest was the best-selling PC title on Amazon.com as of July 3, according to Gamasutra. However, NPD has yet to issue its data, which is culled from multiple retailers, for the week following June 28.

The Battle Chest marked one of two new titles on the list over last week's data. The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff Expansion Pack represents the other new entry.

The 10 best-selling PC games for the week ending June 28 were... Read more

Update 3: More comparisons surfaced overnight, revealing that Limbo of the Lost apparently contains background elements of Gray Matter's Return to Castle Wolfenstein, World of Warcraft artwork, and a shocking number of Unreal Tournament 2004 maps. Left, Limbo of the Lost. Right, Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

"This is not an old game that has been dressed up," director Steve Bovis once told QuandaryLand. It is also worth noting that developer Majestic was planning a sequel to Limbo of the Lost and was seeking a new background artist for the project.

Left, Limbo of the Lost. Right, Unreal Tournament 2004.

Given the sheer number of similarities from so many different games, it is extremely unlikely that all of the duplicate assets are a result of a common texture pack, as was the case with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s apparent use of Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 elements.

Update 2: Along with Oblivion and Thief: Deadly Shadows, it seems the three-man Majestic team stole assets from People Can Fly's Painkiller (PC)... Read more

Blizzard has issued new patches for Diablo 2 and its Lord of Destruction expansion, updating both to v1.11b. The patch fixes two crash bugs. Thanks Blues News.

Blizzard has announced that the Diablo 2 1.11 patch is now available, only a few days after the initial announcement. At FileShack you can download the patch for the original game and the Lord of Destruction expansion pack. Read about changes at Battle.net.

A new Mystery has been revealed!
• Players of Hell Difficulty Realm games are hereby warned once again, that a series of new and challenging tests await you! The answer lies within Diablo's Bosses, which span across the world from the Den of Evil to the Throne of Destruction...

New Items
• Added 10 New Runewords.
• Added new Unique Items that will drop from Special Bosses.

Hireling Enhancements
• Players can purchase hirelings that are within 1-5 levels below their own level.
• The rate at which hirelings gain experience has been increased. They should now stay closer to the player's level.

In other Blizzard news the company has announced it is closing Blizzard North, moving most of its employees there to the Irvine headquarters. The (former) North team is working on an unannounced project.

"Great evil has returned to the world of Diablo 2. Will you answer the call to save Sanctuary?", mentions the Blizzard website, adding that Patch 1.11 is on its way. Four screenshots: one, two, three, four.

Blizzard has finally released the official Diablo 2 1.10 patch as noted on Battle.net. You can upgrade by connecting to battle.net, a standalone download will be available soon. Diablo 2 1.10 offers things like seasonal ladder characters, more challenging gameplay, enhanced skills, new items, new anti-cheat measures, and a new game-world event among other things. Thanks DiabloII.net.

Update: You can now find the patch on FileShack.

We received an email from Blizzard announcing that the Diablo 2 v1.10 patch testing period has come to an end. The beta version is no longer available for download and no new bug reports can be submitted. There is no ETA for the final version of the patch yet, but it shouldn't be too far off.

Blizzard sends along a new Windows and Mac build of the Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction 1.10 beta patch. The new patch takes care of some item-deletion problems.

For those of you who just want a run down of all the major changes in the v1.10 beta patch for Diablo2, here's the page for you.

Guess what Blizzard finally released? That's right, the Diablo 2 1.10 patch, a beta version at least. US owners of Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction are invited to test it now. The final patch will also support Diablo 2 without Lord of Destruction. Also, this from Blizzard

Please be sure to inform your readers that if they install this patch they cannot connect to Battle.net unless they revert to 1.09. Also Blizzard Tech Support cannot help with any problems with this patch. Read the readme for more details: http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/beta/readme.shtml" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" class="external

The 1.10 patch features a new skill system and skill rebalancing, new Horadric Cube recipes, new rune worlds and whole bunch of other new additions and changes. We have the file mirrored on FileShack.

DiabloII.net has a chat transcript offering a recap of a Blizzard chat event to talk about the upcoming Diablo 2 1.10 patch. Q&As are about ladder changes, gambling changes, the synergy abilities, changes to PvP combat, changes made to experience and Battle.net enhancements among plenty of other related topics.

Blizzard's Arreat Summit page has been updated, offering some info and screenshots from the new Horadric Cube recipes which will find their way into the Diablo 2 1.10 patch that's currently being tested.

DiabloII's E3 interview with Blizzard's Bill Roper has been posted. Roper is mostly asked about the upcoming Diablo 2 1.10 patch.

Blizzard's Battle.net website is now offering info on the upcoming Diablo 2 1.10 patch, which is currently being tested. The new patch will have seasonal ladder characters, more challenging gameplay, an updated game world, enhanced skills, and plenty of other cool new things.

Blizzard sent word yesterday they are working on a 1.10 patch for Diablo 2. They didn't have any details then, but they've posted about one of the changes now. If you still play the game you'll want to give it a read.

Planet Diablo has posted a set of questions and answers sent to them by Blizzard. They are about the duping of items which was going on in Diablo 2.

So Blizzard has just announced they have completed the latest fix of massive item dupe problems going on on the realms. They say the item dupe problem has been fixed, but give no indication of what they plan to do with the destroyed economy that is in Diablo2. As every serious D2 veteran is probably aware there have been so many duping and hacking exploits through the past year in D2 that the upper end economy is a complete worthless mess. The latest hack was actually bogging down the entire battle.net servers because of the number of people duping items all at once. So I've been wondering, why the heck has Blizzard not offered up a clean realm? Perhaps it would be a little futile because of all the cheats, but I cant imagine it being much worse for D2 players than it is right now.

note: This is not the thread to make fun of D2 players.

I see on Blues News that Blizzard has announced they have finally fixed the item trade hack in Diablo 2.