Diablo 3 - News Tidbits

Here's a handful of miscellaneous Diablo III tidbits.

• Interview with Jay Wilson at Games.on.net
• The Mythology of Diablo at Eurogamer
• Launch Day Preparation Guide at Blizzard
• "Wrath" trailer, "details the Eternal Conflict between angels and demons"

More information.

Cool, i better get pre-downloading. My retarded self forgot that the 15th launch ( or any launch really) is at midnight - so I can either play that night til like 3 am and go into work dragging, or call in sick =\

Maybe I can take a vacation day on short notice…

whats the rush bro? you don't have cancer or something

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
Cool, i better get pre-downloading. My retarded self forgot that the 15th launch ( or any launch really) is at midnight - so I can either play that night til like 3 am and go into work dragging, or call in sick =\

Maybe I can take a vacation day on short notice…

Yeah you don't want to wait til launch day to download. I prepurchased last Saturday & it took several attempts to get the installer to download fully (7.6 GB)— plus the transfer rate was crazy slow. I can only imagine how bad it will be on 5/15/12 with millions trying to download. I had originally intended to play right at launch until I read the servers are up @ 12 am PST (3 am for me).

However, you can actually install the game on 5/14/12 which is good news, just can't play. Despite all the concerns from the Diablo community (ZOMG dumbed down skills & horror of horrors the RMAH, etc) I absolutely cannot wait.

Originally Posted by EvilManagedCare
Despite all the concerns from the Diablo community (ZOMG dumbed down skills & horror of horrors the RMAH, etc) I absolutely cannot wait.

Same here. But I just can't imagine the first week is going to be anything but craziness. I'll give it a shot, but I'm expecting all sorts of lag-outs, disconnects, and frustrating wait times. I know it's Blizzard, and I know they've beta-tested, but I'd be surprised if the first week is anything close to smooth. It's just de rigor to underestimate the demand rather than over-allocate resources and then have to cut back and incur unnecessary cost doing so.

I'm cautiously hopefull that it will have a smooth launch. Blizzard did underestimate demand for WoW, but that's understandable given that it sold exponentially more copies then any other MMO in history. Their other launches since then have generally been pretty good. But of course there is always room for things to go wrong.

Ive been trying to decide what class to play. I'm 99.9% of the time playing a ranged character, so the Demon Hunter seems like a sure bet. But the witch doctor looks cool, one of the best and most fun toons I had on D2 was a Necromancer and he looks comparable.

Probably going to just do the first hour or so with several of the classes to see how they play until I commit to one for the initial playthru. The downside being of course it gets awfully boring going thru the tutorial-easy section of the game several times!

Played quite a bit on open beta weekend. Only class I didn't get to was the WD. I think he looks fun, but the goofy factor (a wall of zombies that falls down on the enemy? a plague of frogs? zombie dogs that look like people hunched over pretending to be dogs? goofy) contrasted against the Diablo atmosphere is a bit much for me.

Having said that, I had fun with the other 4, even the Barbie which isn't really my play style. I was especially worried about the over-the-top-from-the-very-beginning nature of the Barb's attacks, but at least for the couple of hours I played her, I could not deny the sheer joy of sending baddies flying so high their bodies ended up dangling from the tops of walls two and three stories above me. :-)

I'm definitely going DH solo first and Wiz with my buds second. After that, not sure between Monk and Barbie.

I play Hardcore only so I'll have to get to level 10 on something first to even start "playing."

I, too, played every class during that brief open weekend and the Wizard's attitude and recklessness captivated me.

The Barbarian also felt barbaric. Really visceral.

I still to this day play Bowzons in D2 Hardcore so the first character I rolled was the Demon Hunter.

It will be fun discovering how they all play. Check out Penny Arcade's D3 comic for the frustration of having the game on your HD and not being able to play it.

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
But the witch doctor looks cool, one of the best and most fun toons I had on D2 was a Necromancer and he looks comparable.

My sentiments exactly, I mean, poisons, voodoo magic, curses, pets — Exploding pets… what's not to like? Voodoo mama it is for me!