Diablo 3

[Metalhead]

I am in beta, who else?

[PolePosition]

Luckyyyyy. I wish I had beta! But I'm playing the game all night when it finally releases thats for sure.

[mav]

I haven't played any of the other Diablo games, so I don't know if I will get this one. I will more than likely wait until it is out and see what the reviews are like. The game I am looking for comes out next month, Mass Effect III.

[TN_Hiker]

I JUST got in last night. I've only played it a few minutes and I'm not terrible happy yet, but again it's just been a few minutes. I spent well over a thousand hours in Diablo 2 / Lord of Destruction easily and that few minutes of D3 didn't remind me much of that time... maybe that'll change.

[Murgatroy]

Diablo and Diablo II were awesome.

I played Diablo and Warcraft II on the computer, when the Playstation version of Diablo came out I got several friends involved. Computers weren't super common in the sticks in the late 90's.

Diablo II was superb. I can remember many a late nights playing that.

I saw some previews of D3 a couple years ago when I still played WoW, I wasn't that impressed, but it was like a ten second video.

I have kinda given up on games lately. I might play two or three hours on XBOX Live with some coworkers once or twice a month, but that is about it.

[Metalhead]

The fears people have had about D3 not being as "dark" as D1/2 have been unfounded. Playing through what is open in the beta has been excellent and fit the overall mood of what you'd expect from a Diablo game. Here's the thing, they have streamlined, or "dumbed down" it from D2. D2 had stamina, that is gone and its awesome. Stamina had no use other than being annoying. Item identification is gone, which was just another minor money sink/annoyance. I havent seen a town portal scroll yet, but I havent had to use one yet. Stats grow occording to your class, and are enhanced by gear instead of spending x points per level like D2. Personally I dont really like that, but I can see why they did it. It was awful easy to gimp a char if you didnt put points into the right stat. Case in point, if you got to hell difficulty in D2 as a barbarian, if you havent put enough points in vitality or your resistant talent you were screwed with no way to respec. With my limited amount of playtime thus far I dunno how resists will play into it like D2, but overall is a nice change.

Gear is as you'd expect. Armor rating/various states on armor vs dps and effects on weapons. My barb atm is rocking vampire effect weapons that give health per hit.

I've only played through with a barb so far, but mana is gone from them. No more having a skill that takes mana and if you dont have a + mana per hit item being out of mana to use your skills in 4 hits. Mana for a barb is in the form of Rage ala WoW if anyone has played a warrior in WoW. You have skills that generate rage, and skills that use rage. Starting out you will have bash as your main attack that generates 6 rage per hit, and hammer of... something that uses 20 rage and hits a small AoE around the main target. After getting a few levels I got a sweeping attack that does less damage than bash but its multiple mobs in front of the barb and generates 5 rage per hit. Not as much rage, but more dps overall in groups when used with the hammer move.

I'd say thus far it feels like a combo of D1 and D2 skillwise, but only got to play about 3 hours today before the servers came down.

Will take some video with Fraps and post it as I go.

[JeffL]

I'm in beta, played it for about 10 minutes and decided I never wanted to play again.

Also, Daniel I probably need to buy a gun from you soon .

[Guest lostpass]

crap, why does this always happen when I'm starting a new project? I love the diablo stuff.

[Guest bkelm18]

My roomate in tech school would play Diablo II ALL night EVERY night. I don't think he ever slept. He got kicked out for alcohol abuse, no surprise.

[bteague2]

I haven't played any of the other Diablo games, so I don't know if I will get this one. I will more than likely wait until it is out and see what the reviews are like. The game I am looking for comes out next month, Mass Effect III.

Yep, ME3 is going to be awesome. I'll be losing some sleep the first couple weeks.

[Metalhead]

Yeah some good long awaited games coming out before the end of the world! Kidding of course. But D3 and ME3 cannot get here soon enough. Even playing through ME2 agian just to have a current save to continue with.

[Jonnin]

I will try D3 but game makers are really killing their own industry. Nothing that you can play "offline" has the depth to last for years (like D2, for example, I STILL play that sometimes for an hour or so and it is still plenty of fun). I still play alpha centauri & warlords 3 & neverwinter nights.

Then you get stuff like skyrim: I got it at christmas, have beat the main quest 4 times now and am finding it somewhat lacking compared to morrowind in terms of depth and detail.

It seems intentional. They want you to buy more games, not spend a decade playing old ones. But the old ones are better; all the new ones have are graphics, the story and depth are lacking and complexity is replaced with the simple until you do not have to think to develop your character or strategy, its done for you .... making it even more meaningless.

[mav]

I still play alpha centauri & warlords 3 & neverwinter nights.

I'm glad you mentioned that. I used to own Neverwinter Nights & II. I keep meaning to get on ebay and pick up another copy.

I don't mean to be a thread crapper, but I never saw anyone mention in times past. Did any of you guys ever get to play The Witcher II? It was fantastic. It is very mature, so you can't let your kids play it.

[Jonnin]

I think you can get NWN electronically now, as a download, from whoever owns it now (atari? Someone else?).

[Metalhead]

GoG.com has it I believe.