Diablo 3 Open Beta Weekend

As you may know it is Open Beta Weekend for Diablo 3 right now, so anyone who wants to try the game out can head onto battle.net and download the client to  try out the game. If you've had any doubts so far about purchasing the game now may be a good time to test it out and see if you like what Blizzard has done with the franchise.

Personally, after having playing the beta a month or so ago, I liked what I saw. The art style is genuine Diablo universe, there's been a nice mash up of the classes, and the spell sets are simplified, yet still seem to be interesting enough to play. The main focus is once again on getting the items you need through various sources like monster drops or chests, but this time there's the third option of crafting your own items through the Blacksmith's workshop, where you can disenchant (or as it's called 'salvage') items for the materials they give and then use those materials to buy items from that particular NPC. You can also upgrade the workshop for a price to get access to better items.

One other difference is the health orbs that pop up every now and again and somewhat relieve the need to stack hundreds of potions at a time. At the same time those orbs pop randomly from enemies and more frequently from bosses, so you can't rely solely on them to be safe in the game.

Lastly the main selling factor for me is the game Lore. It was a dark and enticing story from the beginning, with the first Diablo game, and then with Diablo 2's brilliantly choreographed cinematics and extensive travelling, each Act bringing you to an entirely new world in the game. Since the Beta is actually limited to lvl 13 which pretty much covers 90 minutes of gameplay or the first quest chain in Act 1, you won't be seeing much of that until May the 15th when Diablo 3 is officially released. But for a taster this weekend can help you make up your mind weather you actually want the game or not. 

Diablo 3: Armour Sets Preview

With Diablo 3 coming out on the 15th of May, it's time to take a look at the armour sets that will be available in the game. They all look pretty epic, keep in mind that these are dyes of one armour set per class. There is bound to be more options.

In the D3 Beta for example each class of gear comes with a different visual style. That is a studded leather vest looks entirely different from a wizard's robe. There's bound to be more variability in the end-game content but these are the ones that are available for now.

If you want to skip all the recolours, keep on clicking on the right-most thumbnail in the album. You'll get through the list quicker and won't have to see ten versions of the same model.

Ultimately what I'm eager to see in the game is the unique-level gear. I have some fond memories of finding unique items in Diablo 2 that came with their own unique 3D model. Names that come to mind would be Undead Crown, Lidless Wall, the Brain Hew great axe. Some of the best 2D art on the items was also reserved for the unique-level gear. 

Blizzard Announces Release Date for Diablo 3: Pre-purchase Available

The wait is over! Blizzard has just announced that Diablo 3 will be coming out two months from now. The game is now available for pre-purchase at the Blizzard Store so you can start playing as soon as the servers go live. The official date of the release will be May the 15th.

Battle.net Front Page

Apparently the Anual Pass deal is still available where, if you have an existing World of Warcraft account you can get Diablo 3 for free, if you subscribe for 1 year of World of Warcraft. On top of that with the deal you'll get a Tyrael's Charger mount for all your WoW characters past present and future, and access to Mists of Pandaria Beta as soon as it is available. Take note that if you agree to this deal the payments will be monthly or every six months depending on what you prefer, but the contract cannot be cancelled or frozen for any reason. 

The news about Diablo 3 coming out comes shortly after Bethesda started a countdown to a major announcement on their web-site, so Blizzard's CEO came out with the statement, I guess in a hope to 1up Bethesda's efforts. After all two equally expected RPG's coming out at the same time, would be a disaster for Blizzard. This further fuels our expectations that Bethesda might be cooking up something really amazing. Or it might be just that Blizzard's acting paranoid. Either way here's the statement about the Diablo 3 Release Date from Blizzard's CEO, Mike Morhaime:

"After many years of hard work by our development team and months of beta testing by hundreds of thousands of dedicated players around the world, we're now in the homestretch.  We look forward to putting the final polish on Diablo III over the next two months and delivering the ultimate action-RPG experience to gamers worldwide starting on May 15."

The Diablo 3 game client is already available for download.

Indeed it has been almost twelve years since the Diablo 2 came out. It's been a long wait, but based on my
experience from the Diablo 3 Beta it might have been well worth it. As I've mentioned before the game is going to come out without the PvP arenas, since the developer didn't want to delay the game any further. The Player vs Player capabilities will be patched into the game at a later point in time.

Diablo III Will Come out Without PvP Around June

Blizzard just announced that Diablo 3 is going to come out without the PvP arenas to avoid any more delays in the release of the game. According to the developer, the PvP is just not good enough yet. So they're going to be patching all of the arena maps into the game after some time. That said, Blizzard hasn't even announced an official release date yet, all they're saying is they're looking to the second quarter of this year. That means Diablo 3 should come out sometime in June 2012.

The news once again comes from GametTrailers Facebook Page and SideMission Some more speculation on the actual release date: Side Mission

To be completely honest, I'm not at all bothered by the news. I've never looked forward to PvP in Diablo, as long as I can play the full single-player campaign.

On a more positive side of Diablo 3 news, yesterday was patch day for Diablo 3 beta, and now the Hardcore Character mode is available for testing. If you happen to have the beta you'll need a character who's at least level ten to unlock the mode. As usual when you're creating a Hardcore Character, Blizzard will give you the fair warning that you only have one life and they will not under any circumstances resurrect your hero if it happened to die.

There's also going to be a new difficulty called Inferno, after the usual three - Normal Nightmare and Hell. Now that's something that I'm looking forward to. To access it your character will have to be level capped at 60, while all of the monsters inside will be level 61. For your troubles in Inferno duifficulty you'll get the best gear in-game and the best part is the drop chance of the first act monsters and bosses will be the same as that of the last boss. All enemies being level 61 means that you won't have to grind any particular area, instead you can just replay your favourite parts and still get the best drops.

Diablo 3 Beta Key: First Impressions of the Gameplay

Since I've posted about GameTrailers giving away Diablo III beta keys yesterday, I've been playing the game and I've managed to do a play-through of the entire quest-line that is available in the beta content.  So here's some first impression notes, before I review every detail of the game separately. (More info on how to get a beta key: Diablo 3 Beta Code Giveaway)


The Quest-Chain, available for the beta, starts in New Tristram, located near the Ruins of Tristram in Westmarch, which is entirely over-ran by the undead as a result of a strange occurrence. A Fallen Star has descended upon the old Tristram Cathedral (which we know from the first Diablo game) and your role is to find out what happened. As it turns out the Fallen Star is a meteorite that has crashed through the several layers of the Cathedral, leaving it hollowed out. There's also a Skeleton King involved and the Crown of Leoric, though from the somewhat rushed playthrough I couldn't really understand what their role was other that it is connected to the Fallen Star episode. I'll look into that the second time around, as the beta allows you to take your character and run it through the quest-chain as many times as you like.

Diablo 3 Beta Code Giveaway

Diablo 3 is coming out soon, and currently it's in closed beta, but I've managed to swipe a free beta code from the GameTrailers Facebook page. They're currently doing a giveaway, where they'll be handing out one hundred codes for the game every day, at undisclosed times through their FB page and Twitter.

A tip if you want one: lurk their Facebook page, where they're periodically posting the codes in heaps of 10-30. As soon as you see the first post chances are they're going to be gone within the first minute or two, so have your Battle.net account open on the Add/Upgrade game page. Start refreshing Facebook, for the next 15 minutes to an hour, more are sure to come. Stay tuned for more codes this weekend, and I'll also be doing a review on the beta content.

http://www.facebook.com/gametrailers

Twitter @Sidemission

Blizzard's Diablo: On Cutting to the Chase

Diablo is a Blizzard franchise since 1996, around the same time that Star Craft came out and a few years after Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness. What makes it a memorable game is not so much the novelty, but the execution(no pun intended). Like any other Blizzard game, it's a re-discovery of the game-play mechanics of an already popular genre, in typical Blizzard  style less of the role-playing, more of the fun of slashing up enemies. 

The first thing you'll notice when starting up Diablo is the minimalistic interface, no convoluted D&D rules involved in the character creation, no customizable character backgrounds. In fact it's as simple as choosing a character class and a name. Later on you'll be able to assign some points to your character's statistics and skills, but for now don't worry about that. If you've ever played anything like Baldur's Gate or Fallout of the same era, you might be a little disappointed at first, but everything that it lacks in the area, Diablo makes up for in atmosphere and style. The art is heavy and dark, the music is classic medieval lute, whenever you're in the small town that makes up the starting area, and a suspenseful ambiance, when you finally venture into the  catacombs beneath the nearby church.

The story of Diablo revolves around the town of Tristram, which has recently been visited by what appears to be a demonic power, infesting the cathedral and the endless layers of catacombs beneath it with scores of demons. Pieces of  both the overall lore of the world and some personal stories will be revealed to you as you interact with the dozen or so non player characters around the town. There's a blacksmith, an elder who is also a healer, an annoying kid who'll sell you some interesting gear, gathered from who knows where for a reasonable price and a witch, settled in a hut on the outskirts of town. The game itself is based on completing quests for the locals, and most of all hacking and slashing your way through hordes of the various demons and minions of Hell. There are treasure chests to hunt down, ancient scrolls that give you new abilities, and scores of items and artifacts varying from honest to God junk to items that only drop from a specific boss, or as a reward from a quest.

Finally you'll face Diablo himself, after you've trudged through more than a hundred different levels of Catacombs. As you progress deeper and deeper, at first you'll be adventuring in the catacombs of the church itself, then in a mixture of ancient tombs with dirt walls and finally into Hell itself, with alkes of lava and fire demons. Every level, except for Tristram is randomly generated and enemies don't respawn, but in case you feel that you've not quite gathered enough experience for the final battle you can always restart the game from the character screen which will randomise the levels you've already covered and reset the enemies. Additionally to the main chapel entrance every now and again as you go deeper you'll find a shortcut that conveniently leads you back to the surface, only at a different location, one may be hidden in the graveyard next to the chapel, another may be in a bunch of rocks nearby, and they serve as a sort of check-points that make it a little bit easier to go back to town whenever you need to re-stock on potions, identify a magic item, repair your gear, etc. There's also portal scrolls that will bring you back to the town from any point in the game, and then back to where you left off in the dungeon, before they close up behind you.

All in all the game feels epic from end to end. Weather you choose the warrior, rogue or sorcerer class, you won't have to worry about micro-managing your character, and that only leaves the satisfaction of plowing through hordes of skeletons, zombies and demons. Still, both the first and second Diablo games have a fascinating and rich lore, further expanded by the book series, written by various authors throughout the years. Weather you actually enjoy that sort of writing is another thing entirely. Personally I've never been a fan of video game novels, but I've met plenty of people who've read the series start to finish and can tell you exactly what happens to each King, Prince and Demon in the tale.

Diablo has been appraised universally as one of the most popular RPG's of all times. The third edition of the game is currently in invitation-only Beta and is expected to be released sometime in early 2012. The original game is available for download on the Blizzard Store for a token price.