Diablo 3: Thoughts so far

[Kathinka]

intrusive and unneccesary always-on-drm? check
much too short campain? check
lan mode? no check
pay-to-win real money auction house? check

i don't think so, activision-blizzard, i don't think so..

 

[Lunar Templar]

Load spikes aren't a technology problem, they're a $$ problem. Which is why Amazon Web Services exists. Did BlizzaVision not have the time/resources to create a bunch of images on Amazon and have them ready to spin up when they hit the inevitable release day load spike? They can always spin those images down post release week when the extra capacity wasn't needed. Sounds like a bottom line decision to me.

All the money that could've gone into that instead went into having giant full page ads on every site on the internet.

you'd think, but .... ya know, advertising >.>

anyway, i've been on it twice, both times the game it self ran like a champ.

case your wondering, i have one character just past the skeleton king, and one about to break her foot off in his hind end >.> I'd probably be further if i didn't explore every square inch of map space

I have that problem too. I think I did that cemetary part at least 3 times in order to get the jar of souls quest done too for absolutely no reason other than it is super fun.

On topic, really enjoyin it right now. My first character was planned to be a Wizard, but my partners weren't ready when the servers came up so I messed around as a Demon Hunter. That was a whole lot more fun than I expected it to be. Vault, especially when you get your first passive, is so much fun.

i got the jar of souls on my barb (the one that's not beat SK yet), i got the 'lay the nobles souls to rest' on my demon hunter, funny thing is, it was the same in the open beta weekend to.

and i agree, vault is awesome, then again, she dose kinda need it >.>

 

[Fishyash]

Just finished act one so I can get some actual first impressions.

It's OK. Although I am slightly dissapointed that I paid £40 for it. I am hoping it will be worth the money, but it hasn't really gotten me hooked.

The game plays perfectly fine, it just didn't give me as great a pull to it as Diablo 2 did when I first played that. I can't quite put my finger on why that is though. It is probably because the customization is a lot more limited until later on in the game.

 

[Dags90]

The game plays perfectly fine, it just didn't give me as great a pull to it as Diablo 2 did when I first played that. I can't quite put my finger on why that is though. It is probably because the customization is a lot more limited until later on in the game.

Customization skyrockets after Act 1. You're just starting to get runes and duplicate abilities.

I made a fairly in depth review of the Normal campaign which is now up on the User Review section and can be found here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.375332-Diablo-3-as-a-video-game

 

[Stryc9]

*Snip*

Yeah, i thought about that. But gladly they delivered it today. Not sure why it took so long.

Well that's good news, and hopefully everything's smoothed out now and you should be happily enjoying the clicking, the killing, the clicking and the looting.

 

[Jaeke]

Finished the game last night at around 18 hours. Level 31-32 Barbarian.
Little short for 4-5 year development but it doesn't matter that much.

This is a great game. Nothing else needs to be said.
The combat is superb, enemies are diverese. Level design is interesting and great. Voice acting is spot on. Story was fulfilling. Didn't notice anything that people complained about with art design/atmosphere.

My only complaint is that you never really explore the world beyond a few cities, it was a bit easy for me (groundstomp+earthquake... I literally killed about %75 of the bosses in under 10 seconds) and I have had only one incident with the online DRM so far. It hasn't really been a problem for me.

Worth $60 to me.

 

[Tarrker]

intrusive and unneccesary always-on-drm? check
much too short campain? check
lan mode? no check
pay-to-win real money auction house? check

i don't think so, activision-blizzard, i don't think so..

Yeah I wasn't a huge fan of the always online thing either but I wouldn't say the auction house is "pay-to-win" at all. The only items for sale are posted by real players and you can choose weather you want to use real money or gold. I was actually kind of disappointed. It's been, what, three days now and I still haven't seen ANY real money auctions at all. Wholey aside from that, the game is very skill based. A naked character with a good skill set that knows how to use it will easily dominate players with epic gear that do nothing but skill spam. I've actually seen this exact scenario happen a few times already.

In all honesty, some of the worst parts of the game are the actual features. There is nothing like walking through a dungeon one-shotting everything only to be slowly wittled down by four "nightmarish" skeletal archers that stun lock you into death. Or finally downing a boss and watching in joy as a rare, wizard item drops only to find that it has strength as the main stat.

I swear whatever "random" function they used for the character chat in the game is just broken. All the characters have about 5 or 6 taunt sayings but you'll hear the same one about 5 or 6 times before you get another "random" one. OMG! And if I hear the vendor in New Tristram say "I've worked my hands to the bone to bring you these fine goods." ONE MORE TIME, I'm going to uninstall.... (not really)