Completed Let's Play Diablo III Beta - COMPLETED!

[tindrli]

Great LP! And the game itself looks great, now we only need to wait for 2 more years to actually play it.

The colour palette seems very different from DI and DII though, seems DIII environment and lighting have a more blue-ish cue compared to DI and DII's black-ish. In fact it looks way too much like WoW or Torchlight for my taste...hope the actual game in action looks different than the screenshots.

when does it comes out anyway???? and it will need constant connection to play it isn't it ??

 

[Gragt]

I'll echo the others and say it looks much better than expected. From what you say, it appears to be better balanced for single player than D2 was, with its fuckload of wide open areas that each had an optional dungeon with nothing to do but a unique monster to beat in the hope to get items. What turned me off D2 was not only the size — too big with too little interesting stuff to fill it — but also the fact that MP games aren't about dungeon crawling but rushing through the game as fast as possible to reach the end bosses that drop the best stuff, then rinse and repeat.

So yeah, unless I learn of some terribly retarded stuff about Diablo 3, I'll likely pick it up. I kinda wish we had random quests and monsters as in D1 but it seems no one is interested in that. My guess is that this kind of randomness worked better in a short game like D1, which could be easily finished over a week-end and just as easily restarted the next one with a different adventure, and won't fit a long game like D3.

 

[felipepepe]

NEW PATCH 10 BETA - UPDATE

So BROS, this monday Blizzard made HUGE changes in the game, way bigger than anyone expected since suppousedly D3 was going to be released soon. Definetly the release date has changed because of this, and as Blizzard promises even more beta patches in the future, I doubt we will be seeing this game in the next 2-3 months. I'm just gonna do a commented changes list, as there is no point in LPlaying everytime they patch the beta. If anyone wants to see the full patch notes, here they are.

- First, character stats have changed, they are now:

Dexterity
+Demon Hunter damage
onk damage
+Dodge (for all classes)

Intellect
+Witch Doctor damage
+Wizard damage
+Health from health globes (for all classes)

Strength
+Barbarian damage
+Armor (for all classes)

Vitality
+Health (for all classes)

A good change IMHO, made to avoid every class ignoring stats and just equiping the hightest DPS weapon available. Besides, "Attack, Defense, and Precision" were really dumb things to have as stats.

- "Skill Totens" were removed. You can now swap all your available skills at any time, even during combat. Once swapped, the new skill will be on a 2 minute cooldown before you can use it. Much needed change, since it was a annoying and dumb system having to go back to town to equip a skill you just learned.

- "Companion Scrolls" were removed. No more of summoning rats, snakes or chickens to collect gold for you.

- Artisan manuals were removed. They were a rare drop that you used to upgrade the blacksmith or the jeweller, but now upgrading costs only money (shitloads of it).

- The Heartstone was removed. Now we have unlimited old fashined town portals, but they have a 10-second cast to avoid those "portal fights" we all did in D2 (especially on the asshole Duriel).

- The Enchanter was removed. I didn't get to her on the beta, but she was supposed to enchant weapons for you, as gems were intended only for armor. Pointless idea, removed, now you gem everything.

- Scrolls of Identification were removed. You now identify itens by just right-clicking on them. WTF Blizzard, isn't that why Deckard Cain exists?

- The Nephalem Cube was removed. Now the blacksmith will salvage your itens for you. And he will only salvage magic or superior itens, white itens only purpose now is to be sold.

- Money is important again. The cost of everything in the game increased a lot, like upgrading the Stash went from 2.000 to 20.000 gold. And since the blacksmith now requires money to level up and won't salvage white itens anymore, Blizzard wants you to gather loads of trash itens and portal to town to sell them.

- Potions now have a fixed place on the UI. Dumb move, I lost a multi-purpose slot, that I could also use for potions, for a potions only slot.

With the cube & heartstone removed, they fused the inventory and the stats screen together, and also created a new "Details" screen. On the UI bar you can also see the potion slot and the unlimited town portal slot.

Reading this its easy to see that most of the patch was just removing dumb new shit they added and going back to how it was in D2. And it's quite alarming how such core elements are still being tested/changed at this point...couple that with notes like this:

Please note that the skills system is still considered a work-in-progress and will be undergoing additional changes in future patches. This iteration of the system is not final.

and the holes left by all those removals; i.e. there is no quest awarding you the town portal, it just magically apperas on the UI after the Crown quest; and you know that maybe D3 will be a nice christmas release.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, achievments are back up, gonna post them soon.

 

[Gragt]

Thanks for the update. Wish I had a key to test this myself.

 

[felipepepe]

Achievements - Patch 12

Okay guys, I was gonna do this last week but the patch 10 beta build was so shitty and buggy that it was almost unplayable. Blizzard made 2 desperate stability patches (we are now in Patch 12), and I finally managed to play.

So achievments are in, but reseting every patch, so there's really no point in hoarding then now. Here's a screen of Sulik 2.0 (the old one was wiped on the patch) killing the Skeleton King with some bros and earning a achievement. Also to note, the difficulty has been increased a lot in multiplayer, finally making the enemies a challenge.

Here is the Achievment screen, that oddly enought doesn't have a Icon on the UI, you have to acess the ESC menu for it. The achievment showcase is not working yet, but the whole rest is fully operational.

They are very similar to WoW, divided into many categories, and some of them give rewards, that at the momment are limited only to patterns for the player banner. Not very impressive. Also, some achiements like "Betamaxed" and "Overachiever" are unique to the beta but will carry on to the final game, so expect to find me lots of douches with those on their 'Achievement Showcase'.

Not much else to add, I covered most of the beta changes on the last post. And honestly it's getting quite boring to beta test it. I don't see much players online anymore, having all your characters and achievements wiped every patch is frustrating, and there will be no nnew content until release; and since that looks still far away, I understand why Blizzard released 100,000 new beta keys...If it stays like this, everyone will be burned out of the game months before it hits the shelves.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Thanks for the LP, I'll echo the others that it doesn't look quite as bad as I thought. But since I never got bitten by the Diablo-bug, I'll probably skip it anyway. Never tried D2 and never finished D1.

Also, no Bioware-influence, ie shitty romances? of Blizzard.

 

[CappenVarra]

Please disregard, but I have to make fun of this (the voices demand it).

Fall of the LichBlack King? (are those corpse-shaped void zones?) And a kris blade? What, is the hilt missing? Or somebody wanted to make sure no player gets confused about what a kris is, and has to pick it up to figure out it's a blade-type weapon?

 

[felipepepe]

Please disregard, but I have to make fun of this (the voices demand it)

Fall of the LichBlack King? (are those corpse-shaped void zones?)

I know, I do the same everytime...

And no, they are just bodies of the skeletons the boss summons, but they are "powerful", so they glow. :Blizzard Logic: