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<3 Morrigan. Right there next to Adria. Maybe above her.

The bad news is that everything "news" about the beta was covered during the Friends and Family testing period, before we were even allowed in. The good news is that I finally had the time to sit down and write about my experiences playing with the Wizard, the casting archetype of Diablo III. Along the way, we'll explore some interesting aspects of this decade's iteration of the series, up to the epic battle with the Skeleton King and including skills ranging from the powerful to the mundane.

Disclaimer: If you decide to read further than this line, you accept that I may divulge certain bits of information that some may view as spoilers. Beyond this line, I will make no effort, whatsoever, to hide this information, since that is counterproductive to the intent of an informative article.

The beginning has always carried a certain sentimental value to me as a Diablo player. Your character wanders onto the screen, wearing naught but minimum grade armor, a crappy weapon, and a single skill. It's only up from here!

Not much has changed in that regard except, perhaps, that our characters now have motives. Yes, my friends, our heroes have reasons to be where they are! Hoping to find the Fallen Star that landed in the ruins of Old Tristram, my male Wizard strode boldly down the path towards New Tristram, with nothing but Magic Missile and Frost Nova (Diablo III) at his disposal, ready to take on the hordes of the Undead and the legions of the Burning Hells. How very bold of him.

One of the cooler changes from Diablo III's predecessors is that it's not long before you're in the heat of battle. My Wizard took not ten steps before a Risen appeared, feasting on a festering pile of human carrion (take that you Diablo-III-isn't-gory-enough crazies!). Body parts flew in majestic arcs through the night air as I slammed the unwitting zombie with Magic Missile, trailing the purple light indicative of arcane-elemental spells. Before I had entered the village proper, a veritable pile of the Undead was mounded before the gate. Diablo magic, I'd say.

Here I would like to note something of ghastly interest: Frequently enough, the Risen, as their name implies, rise again after they are slaughtered. Crawling forward with bloodthirsty intent, they drag their abdomens through the earth as their severed spines leak out vital fluids, nearing the unaware adventurer handhold by handhold. Moral of the story: When you kill a zombie, make sure it's dead.

News of the dead rising from their graves has not made every denizen of Sanctuary hop out of bed in the middle of the night and sprint out the door with an axe at the ready. Entering the village of Old Tristram, another neat new feature of Diablo III comes to light: Brother Malachi the Healer, a pious, fire-and-brimstone preaching ex-zealot of the Zakarum faith, is already screaming damnation for the world before I even had the presence of mind to click on him.

Gossip in the game manifests itself in two primary mediums: the player opting for various discussion topics when interfacing an NPC, much like in the older games, and when passing NPC's. Some even have discussions with each other. While not necessarily a breakthrough in storytelling (games have had this kind of thing for years), it is new to the series and adds a certain level of authenticity to the social vibe.

Reaching town center, a welcome design change is present: no more wandering all over creation trying to find that accursed waypoint! ( Kurast Docks, anyone?) Located in scenic downtown New Tristram, the waypoint is surrounded by all the most useful features of the fledgling village: the Blacksmith, a merchant to the upper right (not pictured), the location to hire your hireling, the entrance to the tavern (whose proprietor peddles potions and other odds and ends), and, eventually, the man himself: Deckard Cain.

The waypoint interface is also more useful, if somewhat cluttered. Collapsible menus now offer categorized destinations, as well as recent destinations. And, if you for some reason can't read your location off your mini-map in the upper right-hand corner of your screen, it even tells you where you are! Nifty.

But not all the action is outside. Indeed, one of the great new aspects of Diablo III that, in my opinion, is a bit down-played is that you can actually go inside multiple structures in towns, with even more NPC's to interact with. While in Diablo II this was evidenced rather minimally, in Diablo III we see full-blown quest points and NPC interaction. The moment my Wizard walked into the inn, the injured gathered there immediately began to rise as the Undead. Leah and myself had to jump into the fray to smooth the situation over. These aren't simply buildings with their roofs fading away, as we saw in Diablo II, but entire new mini-dungeons stuffed with homeliness and NPC goodies. In New Tristram, enterable buildings include the Slaughtered Calf Inn and Deckard Cain's home.

Nearly all of the NPC's in New Tristram share one trait that makes them an improvement over the previous games: they don't just stand there all day waiting to give out a quest to whatever lucky adventurer wanders along the road. One can only wonder how much smithing Griswold actually did.

But enough of New Tristram. What about the rest of the game?

Despite all the cool things there are to take in when visiting the barely-hanging-on village of New Tristram, I was sent on my way nearly the instant I walked into the Slaughtered Calf Inn. Zombie syndrome seemed to spread like a disease, even among those in the village, and one impromptu battle later I was on my way from the inn and down the eerie Old Tristram Road. Murders of crows flapping dramatically off into the night? Check. Creaking wagon wheels moving all on their own? Check. Ruined homes with a murderous history? Check.

And some of them have nice little dungeons underneath. Oh, and Blizzard wasn't kidding when they said their random dungeons would be cool.


I must have been through ten random dungeons (sorry folks, I have other time commitments, too) in my various play-throughs of the beta, and each time they feel new and exciting. Entering one Musty Cellar below the ghostly ruins of an old farm home, I see a Quill Fiend poking around near the steps. Approaching it, and readying my Wizard to blast it to Hells with my l33t Adventuring Oak Wand of the Oracle, the little critters scuttled off into the darkness. I ran after him, spamming all kinds of flashy stuff, wondering where the rest of the monsters were, until the little guy scurried under a pile of debris in the center of a room down a hall.

The junk exploded and out poured the entire mob of the dungeon in one instant. Quill Fiends ran everywhere, doing that thing they do (shooting quills, if you haven't figured that part out yet.) One Frost Nova and a quick recovery later, I realized that the @#$%er had tricked me into following him to a whole nest of ravenous, twitchy little scoundrels.

Of course, there are other variations of the dungeon. Several times, my Wizard entered one such cellar, openly wondering where all the loot was. Rounding a corner, I saw that the Quill Fiends--those fiends!--had already broken open my chest and sacked the place. However, killing their leader dropped the loot that would have generated in the chest. And it gave me a sense of accomplishment. Two birds with one stone.

Further along the Old Tristram Road, zombie hordes were made even more annoying (but awesome, since zombies are awesome) with the addition of Wretched Mothers. These puketastic baddies seem to be stuck on a perpetual hangover, vomiting their guts out--maybe in a literal sense. Not only is it disgusting, but the vomitus propagates another zombie. Until the Wretched Mother is killed, the process continues. TLDR: Kill the Wretched Mother first and save yourself some time and effort.

A few dead (well, re-dead) Wretched Mothers later, I was heading out with Leah in pursuit of her mother's old hut. Yes, Diablo I's witch, Adria, returns. Or at least her house does. And she's got a nice little piece of real estate out in that forsaken sixteenth of an acre of no-man's land. But one of the coolest things about this encounter is that Leah follows you, chats with you, kills monsters with you, and interacts with game world objects. Some of the Wizard's characteristic scholarly mindset sparks up here and other places. It's amazing how fixated the guy is on the Fallen Star.

The journey from here on out is something of a trip down memory lane.


Ah, the Cathedral, how I've missed thee! Kael Rills is long gone, of course, and I do miss the blood-red light knifing through the dark. But maybe the deceptive serenity surrounding the Cathedral is what makes it most unsettling. Its depths are anything but serene.

The Fallen Star finally makes its reappearance. In its wake, it's left a tell-tale trail of otherwordly blue flames and a crater big enough to stuff over nine thousand McDonald's regulars. The journey down the old Horadrim bastion is crawling with the Undead. Ravenous Dead prowl the halls, often in groups. Carrion Bats stalk in clouds, swarming my Wizard with their annoying little zaps (reminiscent of Diablo II's Bat Demon (Diablo II)s.) And, of course, the Grotesque (Diablo III).

While not particularly the most dangerous of enemies, the Grotesque sported a few elements that might prove tricky, especially in later difficulties: a reasonably large amount of health, a corpse explosion guaranteed on death, and a mobile army inside its stomach. Okay, a handful of killer Lampreys (eels) wasn't really that dangerous, either, but it was just freakin' weird. Later in the game, the Grotesque was more likely to expel a number of Imps, though these, for the most part, ran off in random directions until I sniped them down with Electrocute.


Eventually--inevitably--Cain popped up. Uncle Deckard had decided to go dumpster diving in the Cathedral for some esoteric lore in his never-ending battle against the forces of the Burning Hells. What a harmless idea.

Cain's addition to the mix brings another cool feature with Diablo III's take on story-telling: NPC's that talk with each other. Back in town, Cain and Leah catch up on old times: doomsday prophecy, demonic lore, the usual. Their interaction occasionally mixed in the haughty attitude of the Wizard. Were any other character to be the hero in the discussion, he, too, would add his character's flavor to the discussion.

But Diablo III isn't all idle chatter and zombie pounding. The climax of the beta culminates in the battle with the Skeleton King, a point which Bashiok has specified as a third of the way through the first act.

While the battle was not really that difficult (this is, basically, "easy" mode for testing purposes), King Leoric's ghostly remains had a few tricks up its sleeves.


The battle is initiated by clicking on the King. I started every battle by popping a few Diablo III Potions to boost my resistances, attack, and defense. The buffs are minimal and last only several minutes, but every little bit helped.

Leoric has three primary modes: a whirlwind attack similar to the Barbarian crossed with a I-don't-know-how-to-swing-my-weapon frenzy mode, a teleportation spell, and a simple swing attack with his massive mace. Periodically, he disappears from the fray, leaving a rabble of Undead minions in his wake. Of particular use during the skeleton waves was the Wizard's Wave of Force.

Wave of Force works great in mobs due to its large area of effect and massive knockback. The damage isn't bad, either, often decimating low-level mobs in a single hit. For my purposes, the wave blew gathering swarms of Returned and Forgotten Soldiers away from me, the fragile caster, and off into my patient comrades. Oh, and did I mention the +50% speed impediment?

Defensively, the battle can be fought with two skills: either Ice Armor or Diamond Skin (we're not even going to talk about Storm Armor, since it lacks any defensive buffs.) While Diamond Skin is better for straight damage reduction, its relatively short duration (five seconds) makes it more of a cast-in-the-moment-of-need spell. Frozen Armor, while not a big damage absorber, does increase the Wizard's armor significantly (50%), lasts for two glorious minutes, and chills every enemy that attacks you--including the Skeleton King! This also works great in mobs, allowing the unwary Wizard to escape with his skin intact in certain sticky situations.


From a safe distance, I could then spam them with Electrocute, which works exactly like Diablo II's Chain Lightning, or Energy Twister. (Oh, clever hint: Energy Twister is perfect for kiting. Cast and run, baby!)

And that about wraps things up. If any of you were fortunate enough to have played the beta yet, we'd love to hear about your experiences playing with the Wizard--any crafty spell tips, survival scenarios, or witty lines the Wizard is so prone to imparting.

And, if you still can't get enough Wizard (*cough sign of addict cough*), we prescribe Force Gaming Strategy's excellent Wizard playthrough videos on YouTube. Here's one to get you started:

"DFTT," while fun, is hardly an intuitive acronym and wouldn't necessarily be an indication of technical assistance personnel to a person who 1) probably knows very little jargon to begin with and 2) doesn't come here often. Whatever the name of said group is, it should be in (a) plain word(s).

Buuuut... A great idea, nonetheless

Quote from PhrozenDragon

Exactly. It's such a good thing they make those edges extra sharp in case people want to use them as knives <_<

What a strange coincidence:



Edit: misspelled tetanus. Figures.

Hey guys, I haven't been on as much as I have wanted to be lately because I am currently in the middle of separating from my wife. I will still be on and have access, I am just not sure how much time I will have in between everything else that is going on. I still plan on getting out beta articles and coverage but it just won't be as consistent as I had planned on.

I want to make some offhand joke about the inevitability of any marriage breaking up over Diablo III-addiction, but I guess this isn't the time for that. I hope everything goes as smoothly as possible for both of you, and don't worry, it looks like Winged has things under control, anyway

Quote from Ajnc

I found this in the database:
A1_LeahReining_Encounter_Name : The End of the Horadrim Event
A1_LeahReining_Taunt_Text : You may already be too late...
A1_LeahReining_Join_Instruction : is about to witness

Rein is probably code like the rest of the pony/horse codes they seems to have put in to cover spoilers.
My guess is that this is Leah Turning at the end of act 1.

A1_C6_SpiderCave_01_Main Caverns of Araneae

Looks like Araneae the Spider Queen might be the boss of Act 1, or another mini boss.

Also

A3_AdriaBetrayal_Encounter_Name : Triumph Event
A3_AdriaBetrayal_Taunt_Text : Fetlock is dead. Celebrate your victory!

Appears Adria will betray us after we kill Fetlock(Azmodan, Lord of Sin).

Noooooo! Adria, my love--why?

Quote from Molsterr

Quote from Magistrate

Quote from Molsterr

it has to have something to do with your browser and your cookies for sure.

I believe that some years ago we stopped using cookies to store auto-login data. Instead, it's all handled by databases and the server.

rofl. All logins are handled by the database and the server. Im not sure what your trying to say? Cookies are used to remember your login when you come back to the site at another time. [Sessions cant do this].
Plus im looking at the cookie right now =P

I know. I write such applications all the time. But the site should no longer use the cookies. It should store your IP address and do a lookup whenever a non-logged in user accesses a page, then auto-log you in based on a correlated boolean value assuming a match.

No need for the rofl :/ I certainly didn't laugh in your face.

-------

Regardless of whether or not this is the case, this was discussed several years ago--a little bit after the ownership switch. This happened back when we still had vBulletin, but I guess the change didn't get carried over to the (more recent and what you'd be used to) IPBoard.

Since we didn't get to start beta yet for some fucking retarded reason, we could create casual interview articles from people who are in it already, as evidenced by the threads in the class forums.

While this won't necessarily provide awesome new news, it will be a nice extension to the community, it will answer some more pointed questions, and it can serve as filler.

Thoughts?

Welcome to the staff!

Please leave your sanity at the door and hang your dignity in the closet down the hall. If you would like a better position, simply deposit your soul in the trash bin on floor three and notice of your lack of life will earn you a near instant promotion.

Note to staff members with intact sanity: Please talk to zhuge on MSN for approximately two hours to minimize the effects of your mental well-being. If the problem persists, contact Sixen or your respective manager for more redundant and meaninglessly time-consuming tasks. If these suggestions still prove insufficient, we keep an emergency stock of crazy pills in the medical kit on floor three.

We look forward to your team effort, creativity, and good judgment. We hope that the self-image that you build here will be a positive learning experience.

-Seff

What Eggo said.

Moreover, there is a difference between legacy and Battle.net 2.0 games. Currently, WoW, SC2, and Diablo (Beta) are the only games set up for Battle.net 2.0. It's only logical that only 2.0 game keys will work with a Battle.net 2.0 website.

And for the love of god, Blizzard is a singular noun. Has*. Its*. You don't say Magistrate are a hamster.

The books are, for me, only there for lore supplementary material, for that which wasn't revealed or elaborated upon in the games. Overall, I don't think most of them are very entertaining and the style and dialogue are shoddy, at best. I don't like the Sin War trilogy much at all; my favorite is the Black Road.

Hi Diablofans comunity, I made this for the devs/mods of this forum <3 hope you like it.

Gaming is moving to a "service" platform. This will be the new standard, even indie developers are adopting this model. It's not inherently bad, just that certain companies take it to the extreme and that has left a bad taste in many peoples mouths. I actually don't want the expansion model because that means very long periods of no new content, then a massive dump of it, followed by another drought. Microtransactions allow for constant updates that keep a game fresh; POE, Fortnite, etc.

Just look at how D3 was handled. They basically spent years "fixing" the game and when they felt it was in a good place it was essentially abandoned. Why? because they had no reoccurring revenue stream to justify dropping substantial content updates. The biggest thing we got was the Necro. Remember that game developers get paid on average $100k a year and there are often dozens or so maintaining a game. Just imagine the cost. It's not a smart or a sustaining business model to put millions in a game that generates no money for you.

I do think that D4 could go FTP and be successful but remember they have to answer to shareholders and they don't want to hear about the long road to profitability. They want sales numbers. Sad but look at what happened to HotS. Hearthstone was a side project, with a tiny team that blew up like the Hindenburg. D4 is massive in comparison; probably end up costing the company 100's of millions to produce and market.

As long as the game you love is being supported does it matter that they have cosmetic items for sale? Not to me.

It's somewhat as dark or darker than D2, it's clearly isn't as dark as D1, not looking at the stream at least.

It might be important to point out we've also only seen like 5% of the overall map and dungeons. If you would only see the Caves in Diablo 1 which is grey but clearly not dark, or Act2 or Act5 of Diablo 2, you would also say, meh, not really dark.

TBH, Diablo 1 Cathedral is the darkest place, it's dark, it's grey.

Diablo 2 dark places also are things like Cathedral, Flayer's Dungeon, things like that, it's dark, gloomy, but again.

Diablo 4

So value-wise, it's really not that far off, colors are much tamer than D3, values are pretty good. A little note here for people who watch Twitch streamers play. The blacks are totally lost, either from compression or I dont know, so yeah, it's a bit weird they didn't try to get the brightness right. If you inspect the values from what you get in twitch, the pixels who should be pure black (outside the walls in a dungeon say) are floored at like a value of 20 grey, which is a bid deal, you lose about 10% of your dynamic range, so game looks a bit milky on stream.

When it comes to the theme. The game looks wayyyy more gory than any other games we've had so far. I mean, there are camps where tents are basically bloody, fleshy, flapping around. There's ALOT of blood, and it looks great, your character gets blood on him when you swing. The drowned zombies are pretty frkin ugly gory too, did you see that sea witch or whatever that fat bloated zombie lady when she dies? She burst, and bile and blood is spewing out as her bloated intestines cover the floor.

Quote from OSW_Zenkiki»

Quote from Magistrate»

It is BlizzCon my dudes

It's Thursday in the US. BlizzCon begins on Friday, so technically tomorrow is the day

Big surprise here for Diablo IV go to check . New images the art of diablo ( diablo 4 images ) no in the web net https://www.facebook.com/marco.rufini.9 or https://twitter.com/Marcazzo81