Diablo 3 PUBLIC beta this weekend

[Al B. Sure!]

Just giving people a heads up.

[Felch]

I had some fun for a bit. Played a Witch Doctor up to level 7. It's more about quests and such than D2, which is a nice innovation. The skill trees have been changed for the better. You have slots where you gradually unlock skills. These skills can then be modified with runes that you unlock as you level, to tweak them to your preference. I think it'll be a lot more flexible old skill point model, since you're a lot less likely to completely ignore whole branches of the trees.

[Al B. Sure!]

It runs badly on my computer. The entire computer shuts down after a while and it gets crazy hot. Quite a lot of lag, too. I have an ASUS G73jh with 1GB video card.

[Al B. Sure!]

Okay I put all the graphics down and it played fine.

The monk's first runed punch thing makes him teleport to where he punched. That's great in principle because it lets you close immediately with an enemy but it's disorienting, especially since the mouse pointer will be off target once you teleport to the enemy.

I'm reminded again why Diablo games bother me. So much clicking. A druid in D2 was cool just because there was less clicking. Guess I'll try the witch doctor.

[Felch]

Witch doctor still clicks a lot. I miss the scrolls of town portal, although maybe they exist and I just haven't figured out where yet.

[Tuberski]

I hate the you have to logon to battle.net just to play. Lag will make the game suck,

ACK!

[Al B. Sure!]

Witch doctor still clicks a lot. I miss the scrolls of town portal, although maybe they exist and I just haven't figured out where yet.

Yeah I just realized this. What happened to the zombie dogs? I figured I could let them do all the work like I did with a druid in D2. Crap.

[Tuberski]

Now I can't even get on.

ACK!

[Felch]

I like the crowd control powers the witch doctor has. I'll check out other classes tonight. The grasping hands with the zombie dogs help tie down the enemy to let you hit them with the darts. I wouldn't have spread my points out in D2 to try combinations like that. D3 does a great job of introducing new options without ****ting on what you had already.

[Tuberski]

I'm playing Torchlight.

ACK!

[Al B. Sure!]

Maybe it's because I had to lower my graphics to the worst to be able to stably run Diablo but after the servers went down, I tried the demo to Titan Quest and I'm like why does a game from 2006 look so much better than Diablo 3?

[self biased]

because you're an idiot?

part of the neat thing with d3 is the fizzicks processing as well. most of the environmental damage is procedurally generated. i enjoyed the beta, and look forward to playing the game in two weeks.

[Al B. Sure!]

because you're an idiot?

part of the neat thing with d3 is the fizzicks processing as well. most of the environmental damage is procedurally generated. i enjoyed the beta, and look forward to playing the game in two weeks.

Dude, I said I had to turn the graphics all the way down just so D3 wouldn't set my computer on fire.

Sucks because this is a common problem and I have no idea if Blizzard is going to address it. This would affect my decision to purchase or not.

And Titan Quest's graphics are actually pretty nice if you haven't seen the game:

[Felch]

I'm going to sit this one out, at least until the DLC is bundled into a GOTY edition or something. Torchlight 2 will be coming out a little later, much cheaper and with mod support.

[Tuberski]

Try Din's Curse or Depths of Peril, wonderful indie action RPGs with a difference.

Depths of Peril you play against other, NPC, factions.

In Din's Curse you have to complete quests before the town is destroyed, also have to run back to defend the town at a moments notice. There is always another town to save.

ACK!