Despite Diablo 3′s launch day snafus, I finally had my first all-nighter battling the Lord of Terror. When it works, it performs flawlessly — Blizzard may take its sweet development time turning out a new product, but at least it’s highly polished when it arrives. (Diablo 3 itself, at least, not the online infrastructure supporting it.) After settling down to plow through Act I and half-way into Act II, here are a few more impressions.
A Living World
If you’re in a race with your friends to finish Diablo 3 as soon as possible, then you may be missing a lot of the details. I’m not just talking about the visuals (which, for a game viewed from an overhead isometric perspective, are pretty intricate), but in the little surprises littered around the environments. Like, for example, the preset boobytraps that can be triggered on enemies (such as crashing chandeliers and piles of precariously stacked logs), precipices that crumble away when you get too close, collapsing walls and columns, secondary quests, and bits of lore uncovered by going off the beaten path. If you’re a lore-hound, there’s plenty to appreciate here.
Loot Ain’t Phat Enough
Maybe it’s just because I’m still in the first half, but the loot and inventory system doesn’t match up to Diablo 2 (or its expansion, Lord of Destruction). For many of us, tinkering with our loadout — enhancing weapons and armor with gems and runes and experimenting with the Horadric Cube to create new items — made every big loot drop feel like Christmas morning. At this stage, weapon and armor creation is performed only at the town forge where you can break down unneeded magical loot to create new preset magical items that you might actually use. But, at least at the beginning, it’s too limited and — dare I say — a bit boring. I’ve started finding gems to put into slotted weapons, though, so my loot-tinkering itch may soon be scratched.
Severs Down
Not to beat a dead horse into bloody horsey-tasting paste, but a prime example of why my single-player game shouldn’t require a connection to an online persistent server struck me like a mace to the back of my skull. While inside a timed dungeon (I had to make my way to the central treasure room in under three minutes), the servers went down for maintenance. When I returned later, the side-quest wasn’t available; I could still enter the dungeon and loot, but there was no timer, so I don’t know if I missed out on an ever bigger payday. Again, this isn’t a MMO — I wasn’t questing with friends, just my NPC buddies. Blizzard, why are you making it so hard for me to love your game???
05/16/12 – Mike Nelson, Barbarian
Yesterday sucked. I don’t think there’s any getting around how much Blizzard screwed up a launch day that everyone managed to show up to except for them. Today was a much different picture but it’s still far from perfect — I still ran into a handful of log in and disconnection issues which has made it awfully hard to make much in the way of progress (I just took care of the Skeleton King).
So is it everything I ever hoped it would be? That’s hard to judge this early on because I played much of this opening area during my time with the Diablo 3 beta. Yes, the combat is great. Yes, I’m still having a lot of fun. No I don’t mind that the opening levels are a little slow to start. The biggest difference I’ve noticed thus far when compared to the beta is that I have some more unique loot drops and attacks that were previously unlocked, but playing as Barbarian I’m still sticking with Bash and Hammer of the Ancients as my go-tos and haven’t felt like branching out just yet. After I unlock more runes I’ll start to experiment with the customizable system some more.
I also haven’t had a chance to try multiplayer yet. I keep hearing horror stories about my friends getting in parties with people who are skipping cutscenes so the group can keep moving onto the next area. Because I’m such a lore hound, and don’t want miss out on any of the story, I’m going to wait until I have a friend or two to play with. Then we’ll be in agreement that we’d prefer to stay awhile and listen instead of rushing off to the next dungeon.
Tonight I plan to complete the remainder of Act 1 as long as I can stay connected and don’t lose any unsaved progress. I also want to dabble in the Auction House, see if I can find some better armor for my Barbarian. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll be able to weigh in some more about my thoughts beyond the introductory chapters of Diablo 3.
Day One
Midnight. Diablo 3 is downloaded, installed, and awaiting the witching hour when the servers unlock so I can begin my descent into Hell. The time comes. I enter my Battle.net login info, click “Play,” and… get a message that “The servers are busy at this time. Please try again later. (Error 37)” Oh, goody.
My fears about the consequence of depending on online servers to allow access to what, for many people, will be a single-player experience have just been realized. While it’s pretty common for servers to be slammed at launch for massively multiplayer games, Diablo 3 isn’t just any other game (or an MMO). It’s a game PC gamers have been waiting a decade to play. To be so close, and yet so far, is just plain cruel. And for those on the East Coast who had to wait until 3am, only to be locked out, it’s even crueler.
Into the Breach
Finally, at 1:20am, success! I quickly agree to the three Terms of Service, my account is authenticated, and then… the request times out. I barely manage to stifle a loud curse.
The login dance continues for 15 more minutes until, miraculously, I’m ushered into the character select screen. From there I select to play as the Wizard from the choices of Witch Doctor, Barbarian, Monk, and Demon Hunter. An instant plus is that, unlike previous Diablo games, you can select your gender instead of having it associated with the character class.
Entering the world of Diablo 3 is like revisiting an old friend, though one who’s undergone the knife with considerable cosmetic surgery. The gameplay is thankfully just like you remember it: click frantically with your mouse to move and attack. The visuals are noticeably improved with 3D graphics, enhanced lighting effects, and smoother animations, but it still has that unquestionable Diablo “look.” And for those who played the first two games, you run into an old friend early in Diablo 3 — Deckard Cain, the elderly storyteller who always urged you to “stay awhile, and listen,” is still sucking air. (Voice actor Michael Gough continues to deliver an excellent performance.)
Once rescued from the Undead that have infested the town of New Tristram, Cain imparts how the world of Sanctuary is facing the End Times due to the machinations of Diablo’s minions. My Wizard’s response is to lob fireballs and cold blasts at the Undead until they’re dead-dead. Combat is still very basic right now, but oh-so addictive.
The next morning, I awaken refreshed and renewed. Oops, more server issues. Blizzard is performing maintenance and hopes to get them all back up “soon.” My new nemesis is “Error 317002.”
And the quest continues…
Spy Guy says: It’s ridiculous that a company with Blizzard’s reputation, not to mention its “when it’s done” philosophy, would release Diablo 3 in this state. The team behind D3 is probably way more frustrated about this than we could possibly imagine, but they took our money, and it should be working better than this on day one.
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