Diablo 3

[spoodie]

So anyone have thoughts to share yet?

I'm only up to around the middle of act II I think. I'm taking my time and a L24-ish wizard, but I'll share my thoughts:

I find it a highly polished and competent example of the genre, the best I've played (others being Titan Quest, Torchlight and probably 1 or 2 more). Not having played other Diablos or being a particular fan of the genre I wasn't eagerly awaiting, but I'll play a well regarded game whatever.

Other than the quite enjoyable battles of exploding colour and gore plus exploring the pretty semi-random areas, I particularly like the WoW-like loot and obsessing over stats aspects. I'm avoiding the AH for now as there's so much in there I feel it would diminish the excitement of finding nice stuff myself and crafting. And I thought the wizard was going to be a little lame and soft, but all the interesting powers more than make up for it. Including the protection ones that have stopped me from dying on many occasion, I'm sure.

Things I don't like: very infrequent rubber-banding, the EU servers going down for maintenance last Sunday afternoon and the voice acting of the companions is far too limited. Templar: "THAT WAS A WORTH FOE!", Me: "Shut the fuck up"

Generally I'm really liking it. It's not a great game but I'm confident I'll make it to the end, eventually. Unlike the other games like this I've played. The areas in those other games seemed to go on and on. Diablo doesn't seem as bad, plenty of portals so far. Always best to go back to town before logging out I feel. Although the game has dumped me somewhere else on restart, but no biggie.

I didn't like the default unlocks for every level with hardly any choice to customise.

Elective Mode* FTW! This allows you to set any ability you've unlocked to any of the slots you've unlocked. It's stupid that it's hidden and obtuse. But it makes things a lot more interesting, so many variations.

*In the gameplay options.

[Roman Totale]

I too am enjoying it, however...

I've never played a Diablo game before, but by all accounts it is an excellent series of games. With that in mind I was expecting something...more. I am seriously not trolling when I say this, but I don't how this game is any different than Titan Quest. In fact I'd argue that TQ had more going for in terms of you could put points into different skills and stats each time you level.

So far I've had a bit of a dabble with a Demon Hunter and a Wizard, but I've spent most time with Barbarian (I think level 25 or summat). Very enjoyable, great fun smashing people into jam. For me though the later skills just seem a bit crap. Every time I level up I get excited, go to the skills screen, then end up crestfallen as the skills that have unlocked are less useful that the ones I got around level 10. I'm sure in the long run it works (especially if you're going for the harder modes), but as a first impression it seems rather weak.

Finally, for what is essentially a single player game, it is down more often than a whore's knickers. The servers are down again tonight for some sort of maintenance - something like the 3rd time in the last 5 days of playing. It's getting rather tedious. I mentioned on TS the other night that the forums seem to be a troll battleground: 50% of people saying that all Blizzard employees should die of AIDS after being raped by a pack of hyenas, and the other 50% preparing to lay down their lives in defence of a multi-million pound organisation that made some games they like.

[Fred Woogle]

I've got the secret level unlocked upto Nightmare (should have hell tomorrow) so give me a poke if you want me to open it for you.

[Fred Woogle]

also - motorphetame#2912

[Roman Totale]

Servers down again. Shock.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I43GUnZN_s4[/media]

[spoodie]

I got in, try a few times. It's not good enough though.

[Roman Totale]

I've been trying for ages and still not managed to log in. I wish I had a monkey butler to spam the log in screen for me.

[spoodie]

That sucks, I got in on the second go. Then I just checked my auctions and logged out. That's how I played WoW.

[HereComesPete]

Well boo, after everyone ever complained that the legendary weapons are actually shit, they're going to buff them. But if you already have one then it'll stay shit.

[Thompy]

Login has been borked for the last five hours. I wasn't one to get bothered over the launch issues but with the down time and constant latency issues I'm currently approaching annoyed.

[Roman Totale]

I think I've moved beyond annoyed now. Couldn't get on at all yesterday due to error 37. I played for around half an hour tonight, spanked a boss, moved into act IV, and then got disconnected. Whenever I try to log back in it sticks at 'Retrieving hero list'.

For fuck's sake, Blizzard - sort your shit out.

[buzzmong]

I assume you're all trying to play singleplayer?

[HereComesPete]

I assume you're all trying to play singleplayer?

Yarp.

[Roman Totale]

Found a nice little Easter egg the other day. In one of the desert locations I found a lootable body named 'Stilgar's Corpse' - clicked on it and was immediately attacked by several giant sandworms. Cool.

[Dog Pants]

This is enjoyable:

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq166ggocNE[/media]

[Anery]

I bet he plays Call of Duty

[Thompy]

Real Money Auction House is up in the US, with EU coming tomorrow soon. People are, naturally, buying incredibly overpriced items. Their money I guess, but reading the official forums time to time there are a lot of people who simply don't understand the mechanics well enough and will think an item is good when in fact the stats are wrong for them. I will try it out because, why not? If I end up making the cost of the game back by the time I'm done with it then that'll be a bonus, but I don't have the heart to exploit naivety or simply rip people off.

[Soonarmar]

Real Money Auction House is up in the US, with EU coming tomorrow soon. People are, naturally, buying incredibly overpriced items. Their money I guess, but reading the official forums time to time there are a lot of people who simply don't understand the mechanics well enough and will think an item is good when in fact the stats are wrong for them. I will try it out because, why not? If I end up making the cost of the game back by the time I'm done with it then that'll be a bonus, but I don't have the heart to exploit naivety or simply rip people off.

Whoever wins, everyone loses.
Blizzard comes out on top.

[Thompy]

Whoever wins, everyone loses.
Blizzard comes out on top.

Elaborate?

For every sale the seller gets the most money and fees have been well publicised. The buyer gets the item for the price it was advertised for. Hardly much different to eBay. Now, I don't think the auction house was a good idea from a game perspective, I'd much prefer drops to be more appealing and for that to be the only way to acquire items (along with player to player trading), but it's not any kind of death to gaming, and everyone who buys the game accepts its place in the game. I'll agree that Blizzard come out on top in terms of they've obviously put a lot of time into a new way to make more money and not into making a better game, but I don't know if that's where you're coming from.

[Soonarmar]

Whoever wins, everyone loses.
Blizzard comes out on top.

Elaborate?

For every sale the seller gets the most money and fees have been well publicised. The buyer gets the item for the price it was advertised for. Hardly much different to eBay. Now, I don't think the auction house was a good idea from a game perspective, I'd much prefer drops to be more appealing and for that to be the only way to acquire items (along with player to player trading), but it's not any kind of death to gaming, and everyone who buys the game accepts its place in the game. I'll agree that Blizzard come out on top in terms of they've obviously put a lot of time into a new way to make more money and not into making a better game, but I don't know if that's where you're coming from.

Oh that's exactly what I was going for. I have no interest in the RMAH (don't even play D3), but what I was trying to get at is that yes, at the end of the day, Blizzard always wins.