Path of Exile - Open Beta Weekend
 

Grinding Gears send us the following press release, announcing a public open-beta event for Path of Exile this weekend:
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AUCKLAND, New Zealand – 23 July 2012 – Upcoming Indie Action RPG Path of Exile is opening its doors to everyone for two days with a public test this coming weekend.

Currently in a Closed Beta, Path of Exile has its own dark and highly customizable take on the Action RPG genre. It has been in development for five years by Grinding Gear Games, an independent studio of hardcore RPG fans in New Zealand.

The Path of Exile Beta servers will open for public access at 5pm PDT on Friday, July 27. Public access will end at 11:59pm PDT Sunday night, July 29. A full FAQ about the public weekend is available at www.pathofexile.com/publicweekend/.

The game has added a host of new features and content recently. The latest version adds a challenging Act Two boss fight, weapon swapping, and a new end-game system featuring Maps whose properties, risks and rewards can be modified by players. There is also a new layout for the game’s passive skill tree which features over 1300 skill nodes, allowing highly customized character builds and hybrid classes.

The game is free to play, but does not feature ‘pay-to-win’. A previous public weekend in May attracted 48,000 players.

While the game is currently in a Closed Beta, fans who pre-purchase at least $10 of credit for the game’s ‘ethical microtransactions’ receive a beta key. Over USD$700,000 of credit has been pre-purchased to date, with over 50 fans buying the $1000 ‘Diamond Supporter’ pack.

Grinding Gear Games’ producer Chris Wilson says the news features make this weekend a great opportunity for action RPG fans.

“The Path of Exile community has been growing rapidly and always give us valuable gameplay feedback. We’re particularly looking forward to their feedback on our new end-game content.”

“Two of the most important things in action RPGs are items and the end-game. Almost everything in Path of Exile, including skills, can be itemized, traded and upgraded. We thought it would be cool to design the end-game the same way - as itemised areas that players can trade, modify and build characters around.”

The Open Weekend will also feature special events, such as two hour ladder races and competitions to clear areas first. To take part sign up at www.pathofexile.com.

Key features of ‘Path of Exile’:
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da game's awesoome !

new skill tree and act 2 boss

If you're looking for something after the Diablo 3 debacle - I highly recommend checking this out. I, personally, consider it much much better for long-term play, but it's not flashy and it's not a mainstream title.

I wanted to try this game badly but I am on business trip this weekend so I won't be able to:(.If any watch members tries it I would appreciate if they post their impression of the game.

Interesting game and worth to check out, had a fun time back camping the forums for a key.

You'll get my fresh comments then. I decided to try it this weekend.

Does this game have a single-player component? I'm too anti-social to play with others :)

You can play it alone, yes. You can't play it offline - though - as it's server-based.

It's looking a lot better since I last played also; the graphics must have received some kind of overhaul and the zoom is enabled.

Server-based is fine, as long as I don't have to interact with anyone :D I'll keep an eye on it then.

I've played it couple of hours during the weekend and am considering the beta access purchase.

I'm orthodox lone wolf myself; after turning off the global chat, the only place I met other players were the villages. No interaction at all.

The game feels and plays heavily like Diablo 2. Of course, graphics and sounds are much more modern (with great lightning effects which deserve a mention), although not as great as in D3 (but more realistic) - which is probably direct function of budget.

Character development is engaging, as both passive and active skill systems provide much room for tweaking and role and/or power play. Skill tree even comes with great online tool, helping you to plan your way around it.
Character screen in-game is a bit lacking - it provides all the information about the character (which is great), in pure unformatted text-mess style (which is terrible), with the presentation dramatically changing (lines disappearing) when making small changes to the equipment (which is even worse).

As in almost all ARPGs of recent years, there are too many items with many abilities, turning loot hunt into "pick-up - ignore if not rare - sell" cycle. I was even selling unidentified items, as I had no means to identify them all. Currency system is strange, but I've yet to build an opinion about it.
Consumables are great, self refreshing with kills (not with time!) which removes the tedium of keeping them enough in inventory and keeps the balance. It also means that there is upper limit to their number during boss fights, which now cannot be killed by potion drinking.

I've played only two classes, but the gameplay was refreshingly different for each of them.

There are currently only two Acts (with size roughly comparable to D2 acts), with third being finalized and released for open beta, fourth later and then supposedly one per year for 10 years to come (I'm curious as how close to this plan will the reality be).
Each of the acts has completely different graphics, enemies and feel.

Story is weak and uninteresting (I wasn't paying much the attention to it anyway), quests the same (one of them provided choice in execution (literally), many of them providing choice of reward - which helps shape the character).

Always online was only a bit of pain and I'm ready to tolerate it in a game this cheap.
Problems:
- few disconnects, about once per 2 hours. No progress lost, with single exception.
- occasional ping spikes. Not very frequent however, with ping staying on impressive levels (30-45ms) for most of the time.
- "instances". Apart from me not liking usage of computer science terminology in a game, server is purging the status of areas you have visited every 8-15 minutes (supposedly). Which means need for re-traversing the area again if you need to re-visit it again (and quest structure enforces this).

In closing: Engaging character development (for an ARPG), tons of items, various enemies, various classes.
If you have enjoyed Diablo 2, you will enjoy this.

This is the best line to explain Path of Exile.

I gave this game a look over the weekend, and I'd say it's pretty good overall. I don't really like MMO's but Path of Exile looks like something I might actually play.