I finished up my barbarian using the rare helmet I obtained from my wizard's play through and obtained the following from the Skeleton King: Barbaric Sentry (Crossbow), Keen Sickle of Slaughter, Adventuring Leather Gloves of the Lion, Mending Hide Belt of Thorns. This again goes against what several people are complaining about on the forums.
Being able to level up and complete a character on Normal difficulty is a pleasant experience. I'm assuming the harder difficulties will be challenging, but will be able to be beaten the same way I'm working my way through the game now. Thankfully, you can transfer items between characters using a storage chest located in New Tristam, the central hub of Act I.
Beating Act I is nice, you get a full page splash saying "thanks for playing the demo" and then nothing. You just stand around the throne room and listen to one final audio tape. Audio tape is a nice way of saying you find a story element on the ground and it speaks. A lot of games are doing it these days (Arkham Asylum, Bioshock, Borderlands), but they aren't doing it well. The good news is that each item plays after you click a "new lore" button that glows at the bottom of your screen, but there is no way to pause it. A pausing hotkey would be nice, especially in the heat of combat because I'm not able to focus then and there. Of course you can go back to the lore book and listen again, but all those extra clicks and breaking of the seamlessness really isn't necessary.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Diabloe 3 Open Beta? More like soul-vacuum
Diablo 2 was the first game I sat down to play everyday after school in my teens. I had convinced my parents to get a custom built computer from Comp USA just to play it. Twelve years later, I find myself with a level 11 wizard and a few items from the Skeleton King.
Blizzard's open beta weekend for Diablo 3 started on April 20th and is set to drink up the weekend of many players for the entire weekend. Allowing players to level each class up to level 13, Blizzard has given everyone a chance to experience the first quest of their upcoming release. Available at launch will be 5 character classes, each with connection to their previous iterations.
While there are several reports of bugs and lots of Error 37's and 3004's to go around (server full errors), the game plays just as one would expect an isometric dungeon crawler to run. Dungeons are randomly generated play grounds, many times, looping around. I often found myself going the right way which was a very nice surprise. Doubling back in this type of game can be time consuming and for those of us who aren't natural-born explorer's, the built in loops really help. There was one or two times I found myself at a dead end and had to take the 60 second walk back to the right path.
My first character, a barbarian, I played up to level 9 before tiring and jumping into a more challenging class. Seriously, a barbarian can be boring, especially if you are finding magic items left and right, everything felt like it was dying in 2 hits. I loaded up a wizard and could instantly see a difference. Now I was able to fight things from a distance using 2 different spells. After level 6 though, the game became increasingly hard. This wasn't the games fault at all though! Gear in this game is a game changer. You must acquire magic items if you want to succeed. By purchasing 5 items from the shop and crafting a wand, I went from 4-5 shots per kill, to 1 hit kills. From there out, I was able to always maintain my level of damage output.
Just to touch on some known bugs, I'd like to mention that my drops on the Skeleton King for my Wizard were a Reaping Hood, Vampiric Two-Handed Sword of Slaughter, Vampiric Oak Wand of the Snake, Vampiric Light Crossbow of Slaughter. This was the first run through for him. Some people are reporting not getting rare drops (yellow item) on their first play through. Blizzard has stated that the loot table does indeed contain a rare item for the Skeleton King. Reports of issues can be made at http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/3430582/.
Blizzard's open beta weekend for Diablo 3 started on April 20th and is set to drink up the weekend of many players for the entire weekend. Allowing players to level each class up to level 13, Blizzard has given everyone a chance to experience the first quest of their upcoming release. Available at launch will be 5 character classes, each with connection to their previous iterations.
While there are several reports of bugs and lots of Error 37's and 3004's to go around (server full errors), the game plays just as one would expect an isometric dungeon crawler to run. Dungeons are randomly generated play grounds, many times, looping around. I often found myself going the right way which was a very nice surprise. Doubling back in this type of game can be time consuming and for those of us who aren't natural-born explorer's, the built in loops really help. There was one or two times I found myself at a dead end and had to take the 60 second walk back to the right path.
My first character, a barbarian, I played up to level 9 before tiring and jumping into a more challenging class. Seriously, a barbarian can be boring, especially if you are finding magic items left and right, everything felt like it was dying in 2 hits. I loaded up a wizard and could instantly see a difference. Now I was able to fight things from a distance using 2 different spells. After level 6 though, the game became increasingly hard. This wasn't the games fault at all though! Gear in this game is a game changer. You must acquire magic items if you want to succeed. By purchasing 5 items from the shop and crafting a wand, I went from 4-5 shots per kill, to 1 hit kills. From there out, I was able to always maintain my level of damage output.
Just to touch on some known bugs, I'd like to mention that my drops on the Skeleton King for my Wizard were a Reaping Hood, Vampiric Two-Handed Sword of Slaughter, Vampiric Oak Wand of the Snake, Vampiric Light Crossbow of Slaughter. This was the first run through for him. Some people are reporting not getting rare drops (yellow item) on their first play through. Blizzard has stated that the loot table does indeed contain a rare item for the Skeleton King. Reports of issues can be made at http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/3430582/.
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