The Glade 4.0

By the way, Diablo 3 is open beta for this weekend.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

Hehe I took a week off as well. I'm still kinda torn what character I'm going to start off with; it's a toss up between the monk and wizard at this point. Been playing through the beta again though with all the different characters especially now that a core part of character advancement is implemented (runes), and the difficulty increased to match to see if the others grab me after the improvements.

Dammit, Blizzard, this is why we can't have nice things.

Tried the beta, and was not able to play by myself. I had to join another person's game because my connection to a solo game kept timing out. Blegh, DRM.

Still havent been able to get in. Although i only tried 3 times. Looks like they took the servers down now anyway meh.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

Well, at least everyone that's been ***** about the DRM since it was announced can be vindicated now. I can't imagine how Blizzard thought the result would be anything different when the entire internet tries to join a game. At least they have some good "this is how our servers look when they catch fire" data, but you'd think they'd have that from every WoW expansion launch already.

I played for while last night and this morning with no problems (until they took the server down).

I like what I see so far. They have retained key elements that make it Diablo, but added some improvements and stripped away some annoyances. It's a slick Diablo-clone. Wait...

Still nothing. I'm just hoping this can keep me occupied between GW2 beta events up through release.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

Likes:
- No more mana potions
- Different mana mechanics for classes
- Streamlined interface
- Not having to worry about ninja looters in groups (everyone's droppped loot is phased to their character)
- Graphics
- Male and Female versions of each class
- Easy to join a party with your friends
- Shared health orbs and shrines between you and your entire party
- Being able to teleport to any party member from town

Dislikes:
- Most weapons are just stat sticks for everyone but the hunter and barb. Very weird to see a monk with a giant sword and shield, but his attacks don't use them (which is good)
- Far less customization than the previous game, which in many ways is also a pro instead of a con. There many, many, many, many, many ways you could permanently gimp yourself in D2
- No town portals (that I've seen). Which again can also be a pro instead of a con.

Ultimately I like it. Looking forward to seeing the nightmare/hell/whateverisafterhell versions of the game. Because that's when D2 really got fun.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

There are town portals, you just have to get far enough to learn it.

And the customization *is* a fair bit deeper than it probably seems at this point (if you haven't gotten the town portal yet), but yeah, still not the same level as Diablo 2. But I like the changes...I remember the days in Diablo 2 having to save up skill points over many levels so that they didn't feel wasted on lower level skills, until you reached the skills you wanted to invest points in...I'm quite happy with Diablo 3 bypassing that issue altogether.

Yeah. They tried to fix it with skill synergy, but it still felt like I was wasting points.

_________________
Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

Seems like what they've done with skills is necessary, yet now everyone is the same except for what items they have. More justification for their auction house, I guess.

That's not entirely accurate because runes will offer a fair bit of customization. Then again, this is primarily a single player game that lets you play with your friends if you want. So it wouldn't really matter if everyone was the same or not.

_________________
Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

I guess you're right. When I say the same, though, I mean that, from what it looks like, everyone has access to every build in terms of available abilities.

And now that respecs are available in Diablo 2, it's pretty much in the same boat. Diablo 3 just allows you more freedom to change your skill spec around.

The thing I like about the new skill/rune system, is that if you have multiples of one class in a group, then you can switch up on the fly so that you don't have any overlap. Or if you find you need more CC, or whatever, it's very easy to change out your skillset.

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"I Live, I Love, I Slay, and I Am Content."
- Conan the Barbarian

True, they do finally exist. But they aren't cheap. You get three free ones (one per difficulty level) and from that point forward you have to, if I remember right, kill the uber-versions of the bosses (where you fight all three at once, and they are amped up).

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Next week, guys!

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/05/08/diabl ... -titmouse/

A pretty cool 6 minute cartoon with a little backstory on the war between heaven and hell. Worth a watch.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

Really great write-up of the differences between 2 and 3, and why the changes are a good thing. Very long read, but very good.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3811455085

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

As someone that played the **** out of D1 but never got far in D2, would I enjoy D3?

I guess it'd depend on your reason for not getting far in Diablo 2...but if you enjoyed Diablo I can't imagine why you wouldn't like this one.


And in other news, I just ordered a laptop largely so I can play Diablo 3 while out (at work, etc) and for dual boxing etc. =)

Is it possible to play with a controller?

I believe Blizzard has said something about it playing very well with a 360 controller, I'll see if I can find it.

Okay, looks like they said that Diablo 3 feels great with a controller, but support for them wouldn't likely make it in time for release. Dunno if that's changed.

D3 built upon the previous games. As I mentioned before, the Diablo series is really just a Rogue game at it's core, with prettier graphics. Random dungeons, random loot. Decent story (I've always enjoyed it) but the story is really just secondary to the Rogue aspect of the game.

Very easy to play cooperatively. The problem with D2 co-op is that all loot dropped for everyone to grab, so it became a game of "He who clicks fastest, or does not get DDOS graphic lagged, gets the loot." D3 fixed this by making all loot that drops phased to everyone's own character. Where someone else might see a couple "gray" drops from a chest that they can pick up, an epic item might drop for you. And vice versa.

Far less potion spamming, which I personally think is a good thing. No more hoarding full rejuve potions and having them take up the bulk of your backpack and stash. Speaking of which, managing your inventory is far less like playing Tetris.

I enjoyed playing the game with my wife a lot and it's really cool to see how the different classes and powers synergize with each other. The fact that Blizzard's biggest mantra with this game is that all specs for your class are viable is also very nice. Want to be a wizard who specializes in melee? Go for it (and I've seen videos of them kicking *** in hell difficulty)! Pet-less witch doctor? Easily done!

The biggest change I like about this game is that items that you find are no longer useless to your character 99.98% of the time (especially true for anyone who played d2 in hell difficulty, which is where the game really begins). All magical items can be disenchanted by your blacksmith who can then forge slot-specific items (with random enchants). It's a really neat system and I like it a lot. Which also means that gold isn't worthless anymore either.

I guess what it boils down to is, do you play a game like this just to learn the story and you're done? If so, I'd likely wait for bargain-bin prices.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!