3781

Town Portals appear to be free. Just click the blue portal button.

3782

You get town portal after a quest midway through the beta. It puts a handy dandy portal button next to the skill button on the UI.

3783

Either their cap on the people playing at once is fixing it, or my computer was possessed by evil spirits earlier 'cause I fired the game up again and it’s playing peachy. Their always online nonsense seems pretty terrible if that was the cause. Not to mention I imagine open beta stress test has fewer people than the launch of the game will see.

Still looking forward to Torchlight 2 more, but after dicking with the D3 beta a bit it looks like it should be alright.

3784

Well thats ridiculous for a single player game.

3785

<shrug> It is what it is. </shrug>

Everyone has gone around and around on this. Some people think it sucks because it does nothing that couldn’t have been done client-side for a purely SP playthrough. Some people don’t care because they only played D2 online anyway. Some people think it’s actually a benefit because it cuts down on hackers.

I don’t think anyone has ever changed their opinion on this.

3786

Thanks Giaddon.

Still 3003. I suppose Blizzard have to add the hardware capability for all of us. !Happy campers.

3787

Huh, I hated the look of everything before the Cathedral, and even that area I wouldn’t call “gorgeous”. Maybe if you’re doing a direct comparison to Diablo 2…

Also, do most of the characters start off in their underwear? My sister and I thought that was an odd choice, to say the least.

3788

Why in the world would I use Fists of Thunder after getting Deadly Reach? What’s the point of including useless skills that are still actually fun to use?

And the weapon’s disappearing upon skill use is definitely weird, at least for a monk. If I have Fists of Thunder as my primary skill, just sheath the weapons at all times, because they get magically sheathed immediately anyways (the buckler goes onto your back and whatnot).

Pre-edit-edit: I see now that you have to hold CTRL to get more detailed skill tooltips, that’s good to know. Now I can see that Fists of Thunder is Lightning damage as well as being a faster attack that ends with a pushback.

The lack of quick skill switching is bothersome, I liked it better when you could right-click on your active skill and select from a popup of icons like in Diablo 2. Going into the skill list to switch skills is annoying. Am I missing some shortcuts here?

A way to auto-equip an upgrade from the ground would be nice. It’s a minor complaint but with how slick this game is in presentation it’s hard to care. For instance, when hold ALT to compare an offhand item, right-clicking will equip to the offhand automatically.

3789

Ok, I have managed to enter, changing the servers to “The Americas”.

I suppose the europian server is toast.

3790

Note there is an option (I can’t remember what it’s called) in the menu you can check so you don’t have to hold CTRL to get those nice, detailed tool-tips. Should be on by default if you want my opinion.

3791

You’re not supposed to be frequently changing skills. Every time you do, it puts that skill on a rather long cooldown.

3792

Finished going through the content in the beta with the wizard. The art style, which I was unimpressed with at the beginning of the beta, grew on me. It’s fine. I recall some controversy way back when that it was too colourful…? Definitely very muted colours, so if that concerned anyone, no problems now.

Never got to a point where I was able to make any choices about skills – I levelled up and got some automatic upgrades. Feels a lot more limited than Path of Exile, where I get to choose which skills I use. Loved playing as a templar who could also use frost nova and rain of fire.

The decision to make this online-only is still bizarre to me, but I’m guessing it’s DRM related, despite anything they’re saying publicly. The decision might have made sense even a year ago, but in 2012, with PoE, Grim Dawn, Torchlight 2, and other ARPGs on the scene, I’m not sure how they can rationalise it. (Yes, PoE is always-on, but it’s also completely free to play. I’d tolerate D3 if that were the case, too.)

Can somebody give an alternative opinion here? I only played D1 and D2 single player, and am planning on only playing D3 single player. I could care less about this auction house nonsense, whether for real money or in-game money – how does that fit with the lore of the game, anyway? I’m a lone adventurer in Tristram but I’m also bidding against other lone adventures who are completing the same adventure as I am… seems like it’s breaking the fourth wall, and for what? Anyway, for those that do play ARPGs in parties multiplayer, are the changes to D3 really that great? I ask because the game will of course get 90-95% metacritic because it’s Blizzard, even though right now it feels like a solid 75% - 80% to me.

3793

Christ, I’m so tired of giving an alternate opinion. Love the game or leave, these “online only! Art style! Skill system! Wah!” discussions are gnawing at my fucking soul. I’m out.

3794

So far I’m enjoying how visceral the monk feels, and the thunderclap rune, while buggy, is a LOT of fun to play with.

3795

Sorry, but the first time I experienced Diablo 3 was today. Haven’t heard or read anything about the game before today. By all means if you don’t want to discuss it… don’t.

3796

You can get a mumble voice server with 5 slots from Typefrag for $2 a month. Setup start to finish 10 minutes, download the client and share the address and password with your friends and off you go.

3797

I haven’t unlocked any major choices or customizations beyond running around with two magic weapons strapped to my monk instead of one and a shield, but so far my experience running around popping things is:

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

3798

Well I wasn’t expecting great things from this because of the always online requirement plus my internet sucks.

But um, well, I like it. A lot. For a start it’s smooth, feedback is instantaneous as it should be (unlike Path of Exile that takes a second between click and action) and I hardly noticed any online caching. Secondly, I love the fact that the first thing I click on goes flying through the air (as a Barbarian) and explodes in a shower of blood, rather than the usual plinking away that these games normally rely on at low levels. I can see I’m going to enjoy this.

So yeah, fuck you Blizzard I’m not buying your overpriced online-only game ever! (gets wallet out)

3799

At 200ms I could defnitely tell that there was some online shit going on, so I can’t agree that feedback is “instantaneous.”

Since I usually get 130ms to online games, I’ll give the servers or my connection on a Friday night the blame for now.

3800

The Blizzard party line is that the Diablo series is really best as a multiplayer game. Given that, they wanted to make the multiplayer aspect as secure as possible.

On the official forums or various others discussing Diablo, the players who only played previous versions in open multiplayer will flame you into oblivion if you try to explain why you would want to play offline. There is no answer to requesting offline except you are pissed off that you can’t hack and dupe. They don’t seem to understand that some people just like to play the game and couldn’t give a rat’s ass about what they’re doing in their world.

Online only is a perfect marriage of Blizzard seeing a way to make cash with the real money auction house and appeasing those people who assume if you don’t play with us, you hurt us.

After months in beta, I’ll still be buying it, but I hate the online only. Performance has been pretty good, but I had to laugh the first time I experienced rubber band lag. I haven’t seen that since UO.