In case you were wondering when Diablo III’s first new “Season” is starting, Blizzard community manager Vaneras announced that it’ll begin with the release of the upcoming 2.1.0 title update for the game and its expansion pack, Reaper of Souls.
Vaneras made his comments on the game’s battle.net forum, where he reiterated that there is no release date for the 2.1.0 patch, and added that it is possible to test the contents of the Seasons on the Player Test Realm (PTR) should you wish to do so.
It would not have been unreasonable to think that the first Season would have begun a short while after the patch’s release, but Blizzard seems intent on launching it together with the release of the update. Unfortunately, due to the fact that Seasons are a race, players who are able to download the 2.1.0 patch ahead of everyone else will maintain a head start, and a good lead over the competition.
Some might argue that because the race happens over a period of a few months, it won’t matter as much, but given that there are guides to get your characters to level 70 in a matter of hours, I’d say that the seemingly insignificant lead you’d get for downloading the patch early would give you a major advantage over other players who are slower to download the update.
Hopefully these are all issues Blizzard will be able to resolve before releasing the patch and launching the game’s first Season. As for me, I’ll just be biding my time before the items from the Seasons are added into the regular game.