A Few Words on Diablo 3
I played a little over the last few days, the beta doesn't have a lot of content. The first 9-10 levels goes pretty quickly and just gives a taste of the classes and a look at how to play in general. The weekend was deliberately a stress test, so I'm not particularly put off by or worried about getting disconnected once and having trouble logging in for a period of time Saturday. I'm still not fond of the connection requirements, but it is what it is.
Overall, I'm underwhelmed, but I don't think I'm an ideal "target audience" person anyway. I enjoyed the previous games, but in the years since D2, the click-and-kill-everything genre has lost appeal to me. And while I find some elements of the setting of Sanctuary to be interesting, it's never been seriously fleshed out. D3 even begins back in (New - why do people keep building here) Tristram yet again. When I first booted the game up, the graphics made me go "bleh," but that was fixed by cranking up video settings. After that, it looked fine and detailed enough, though I kept wanting to zoom in and view things closer.
The game plays well enough for what it is. It seemed a little easy to me and I don't believe I came real close to death at any point save perhaps the final boss of the beta which drops health orbs during the fight, but those were initial levels on normal difficulty. I find it odd that the one class I was most interested in, the demon hunter, seems to be the only one afflicted with certain unique mechanical limitations. Having two ability resources instead of one (like all the other classes) seems strange, but it wasn't a problem. On the other hand, I found certain DH abilities only work if you have a ranged weapon equipped - while that fits the class style, none of the other classes were so restricted when I tested (and all the wizard spells seemed to work fine and key off weapon damage whether a sword or wand).
I'll probably play it. I probably wouldn't buy it, but I've been reasonably sure of that since it was first announced. I'm curious to see what kind of sales the game does, considering they're giving away "over a million" with WoW Annual Passes. But I imagine the transaction fee for real money purchases in the auction house will be a long-term revenue stream that makes up for it.
Overall, I'm underwhelmed, but I don't think I'm an ideal "target audience" person anyway. I enjoyed the previous games, but in the years since D2, the click-and-kill-everything genre has lost appeal to me. And while I find some elements of the setting of Sanctuary to be interesting, it's never been seriously fleshed out. D3 even begins back in (New - why do people keep building here) Tristram yet again. When I first booted the game up, the graphics made me go "bleh," but that was fixed by cranking up video settings. After that, it looked fine and detailed enough, though I kept wanting to zoom in and view things closer.
The game plays well enough for what it is. It seemed a little easy to me and I don't believe I came real close to death at any point save perhaps the final boss of the beta which drops health orbs during the fight, but those were initial levels on normal difficulty. I find it odd that the one class I was most interested in, the demon hunter, seems to be the only one afflicted with certain unique mechanical limitations. Having two ability resources instead of one (like all the other classes) seems strange, but it wasn't a problem. On the other hand, I found certain DH abilities only work if you have a ranged weapon equipped - while that fits the class style, none of the other classes were so restricted when I tested (and all the wizard spells seemed to work fine and key off weapon damage whether a sword or wand).
I'll probably play it. I probably wouldn't buy it, but I've been reasonably sure of that since it was first announced. I'm curious to see what kind of sales the game does, considering they're giving away "over a million" with WoW Annual Passes. But I imagine the transaction fee for real money purchases in the auction house will be a long-term revenue stream that makes up for it.
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