Diablo 3 - Open Beta Weekend

Blizzard has opened up the Diablo III beta to anyone with an Battle.net account for this weekend:

We're pleased to announce the Diablo III open beta weekend, which offers open access to all players with a valid Battle.net account! Beginning this Friday everyone is invited to log in and help us put the game and servers through their paces in this three day stress test as we march toward the game's release on May 15. You can begin downloading the Diablo III client right now!
From Friday, April 20 at 12:01 p.m. PDT (noon), until Monday, April 23 at 10:00 a.m. PDT you'll be able to log in, team up with friends, and play each of the five heroic classes to level 13 as you fight to save the world from the impending demonic invasion.

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Spotted at VG247.
More information.

OK, since someone has to do it: WUT?!? THIS TOOK THEM 10 YEARS?!?!?

Hint for Euro players like myself who can not connect (I was getting a 3003 error every time). Go to the 'Account' options and switch your server region to 'The Americas'. The US beta servers seem to have less trouble with the onslaught. Worked for me.
You get a little more lag, of course, but you won't really notice that in practice. I had maybe two short instances of lag where my character's position was reset (teleported back a couple meters because the game could apparently not keep up with the movement speed) but nothing dramatic. It's perfectly playable.

I'm already worried about this game's immersion, playing it beta will surely not help. Gonna wait to get it pirated and see its worth.

borcanu said:

I'm already worried about this game's immersion, playing it beta will surely not help. Gonna wait to get it pirated and see its worth.

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Yeah, I am just not going to play that game in all likelihood. Not because there is a beta, though, which is a good opportunity for people to give last-minute feedback and more positive than anything else.

I am more annoyed by the mandatory online connection to Battle.net and real money auction houses. Both trends I would rather see disappear in the game industry. The former is not necessary for single player gamers and only serves to punish honest customers who are not pirating — in fact, it serves only Blizzard itself because it makes piracy harder and reaps them profit from any real money transactions — the latter likely has a negative impact on online gameplay. I am not Blizzard's cash cow. Also, I rather prefer to play with people who do not depend on collecting in-game items for their livelihood.

Furthermore, the cinematic intro seemed uninspired compared to what we saw in previous titles. Let's see what the more honest (later) reviews say about the gameplay; I find this hard to judge just from looking at a few videos, but it did not catch my interest to far.

Any chance I get to see how a game works on my machine, before I buy it, is always a good thing.

After playing it for a bit I'm a little disappointed, but not surprised. It prompted me to back Grim Dawn on kickstarter though.

coyote said:

real money auction houses. Both trends I would rather see disappear in the game industry.

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Blizzard is genius tho, not only are they releasing a game where you pay to gain an advantage, but you also have to pay for the game itself. Brilliant!


I don't mind free-2-play games, but games that claim to be something else are on my do-not-play list.

zzajin said:

Blizzard is genius tho, not only are they releasing a game where you pay to gain an advantage, but you also have to pay for the game itself. Brilliant!


I don't mind free-2-play games, but games that claim to be something else are on my do-not-play list.

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Speaking of Free-2-Play, I like the way Tribes Ascend does it. Everything unlockable by in-game experience and skill still dominates over unloackables in terms of determining success. Anyways, didn't they say the Diablo III AH was going to be for cosmetic/collectable things that didn't have significant gameplay effects? Or has that changed? The reason I ask is there's a significant difference between what amounts to in-game promotional swag people can waste money on and turning it into a pay-2-win game.

From their website
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/events/diablo3-announcement/index.html#auction:auction-faq


"Does Blizzard plan to post weapons, armor, and other such items for sale in the currency-based version of the auction house?

The currency-based auction house is a place for players to purchase or sell items they’ve obtained within the game. Blizzard does not plan to post items that affect gameplay, such as gear or character-enhancing runes, for sale in the auction house."

They only seem to be saying Blizzard won't sell gameplay changing items.

I played a little and my thoughts:

It seems like this is made specifically for consoles and people with the opposite of ADD, which I shall call attention surplus disorder. There are at most six buttons (right and left mouse and keys 1-4; at level 9 I can use 4 of the six keys). No skill trees. There is neither character generation nor is their character development. At certain levels new abilities become unlocked, or a slight change in an already unlocked ability. There are no choices to make beyond gear. There is no way to customize your “character” beyond gear. This is no more of an rpg than Zelda.

This is like DCUO without the skill trees, twitch gameplay, nice graphics, quests, with significantly dumbed down gear and an extremely linear progression. I can see how it would be appealing to people who do not like to think and who have way too good of attention spans and can do repetitive activities over and over and over.

I really wanted to like this game because Leonard B-something from Troika is worked on it and they decided to stay true to the view perspectives of D1 and D2 (neither of which I liked either). I have made it father in D3 than I ever did in D2 and like it more than D2 but still not enough to buy or play.

I highly doubt anyone who likes these kinds of mindless games will not love this one; and any of them who do not play will not play more out of the fact they cannot pirate it than like of desire or want of playing. Graphics are great, plays responsively, etc. I score it a -7 gazzillion/10 when rating it as an rpg. I would probably have to rate it as a 10/10 when rating it as an action game with an emphasis on gear acquirement.

Well in WoW, Blizzard has occasionaly sold things like new flashy mounts that don't do anything but look different. It will probably be similar in D3. I don't like the fact that they do this, but it doesn't really effect the game all that much. Ultimately I'd rather that D3 do that, then release a bunch of story based content as DLC.

The beta is very short and just really covers the tutorial area, but I enjoyed what little of it there was. I'm looking forward to the game, but time will tell how it holds up. They are changing some pretty much sacred cows of the ARPG genre, and it could work great or it could blow up in their face.

zzajin said:

From their website
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/events/diablo3-announcement/index.html#auction:auction-faq


"Does Blizzard plan to post weapons, armor, and other such items for sale in the currency-based version of the auction house?

The currency-based auction house is a place for players to purchase or sell items they’ve obtained within the game. Blizzard does not plan to post items that affect gameplay, such as gear or character-enhancing runes, for sale in the auction house."

They only seem to be saying Blizzard won't sell gameplay changing items.

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I have to strongly disagree with this. There is tremendous character customization, and the changes that runes cause to your existing abilities are dramatic. People have been creating dramatically different character builds and posting them online since the D3 skill calculator came out. Each class has over 100 abilities to choose from and several passive skills as well, and which ones you choose have a dramatic effect on how your character plays. The only thing it doesn't do is lock you into a permanent choice (and this is a fairly major change). You can respec your character reasonably freely, although there are some mechanics in play to encourage yout to not change specs at the drop of a hat.

It's also clearly not made specifically for the consoles given that there is no console version.

Unrestigered said:

It seems like this is made specifically for consoles and people with the opposite of ADD, which I shall call attention surplus disorder. There are at most six buttons (right and left mouse and keys 1-4; at level 9 I can use 4 of the six keys). No skill trees. There is neither character generation nor is their character development. At certain levels new abilities become unlocked, or a slight change in an already unlocked ability. There are no choices to make beyond gear. There is no way to customize your “character” beyond gear. This is no more of an rpg than Zelda.

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My only disapointments are:

a) Only 6 buttons to use makes the game extremely geared towards action mindless hack&slash and deviates it immensely from a more strategic RPG game, thats realy bad and a knife in the back of diablo 1.

b) No "knight" class like a paladin or crusader or finesse warrior style. I dislike barbarian and monk so the rest is mainly ranged characters wich I always never liked too much.

c) 10 years for this? honestly, i've seen better in games done in less than half the time. For the love of pete i can't understand why they took 10 years to make this in a multi million dollar budget.

My happys about it:

a) Music seems similar to diablo 1 - i love this kind of music
b) Customisation seems interesting. Runes are a very good idea
c) I'm very curious about auction house. It seems a very good feature


Hopefuly the single player campaign is not a 20 hours game and will last over 60+ on each dificulty level. That is mainly what i have to know before i invest money into launch.

KnightPT said:

1.

b) No "knight" class like a paladin or crusader or finesse warrior style. I dislike barbarian and monk so the rest is mainly ranged characters wich I always never liked too much.

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This is a point of contention for me too. I played the barb briefly in the beta, didn't care for it as I hadn't in D2. Guess I'll be playing the monk for melee fun.

I was also pleased with the music. I was afraid they would stray too far from the style of the first in favor of pure orchestral and none of the strange sounds embedded in the music as it was in D1 & D2. The first bit in Act 1 made me feel much better in this regard. The music was such a huge part of the immersion of the previous installments it would have been a real shame if they screwed it up for this one.

I got my beta invite months ago and purposely limited my playtime because I want to go into the final version fresh. Definately glad they didn't succumb to the trend of the zoomable camera. Tech advancements be damned: Diablo shouldn't have a zoomable camera.

I'm playing a witchdoctor so far. There doesn't seem to be any feel of skill selection, it is all very limiting in what you will do with skill choices.

I didn't see any way to do anything related to crafting, even though it is mentioned in the gameplay, such as breaking down items. Don't see how to do it.

fadedc said:

It's also clearly not made specifically for the consoles given that there is no console version.

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"In response to an inquiry from a fan via Twitter, which asked simply "can you confirm or deny Diablo 3 coming to consoles?" community manager "Bashiok" responded "Yup. Josh Mosqueira is lead designer for the Diablo console project." More specific details have yet to be announced."

It was clearly developed for consoles. Unless you think it is an amazing coincidence this game, and games like DCUO, have 6 abilities. If it was for PC only they would allow more abilities. Period. More abilities is better from every possible perspective except if the game is for a console. They have the abilities there. We have keys 5 through everything besides q, tab, and T doing nothing. You really have to have your eyes wide shut to think this wasn't developed for the consoles in mind from the start.

I have to strongly disagree with this. There is tremendous character customization, and the changes that runes cause to your existing abilities are dramatic. People have been creating dramatically different character builds and posting them online since the D3 skill calculator came out. Each class has over 100 abilities to choose from and several passive skills as well, and which ones you choose have a dramatic effect on how your character plays. The only thing it doesn't do is lock you into a permanent choice (and this is a fairly major change). You can respec your character reasonably freely, although there are some mechanics in play to encourage yout to not change specs at the drop of a hat.

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No, each class has six abilities. Six choices. A builder, a spender, and 4 situationals. 9 choices if you count the three passives, 10 choices if you count male and female I guess. DDO has hundreds of choices. Either way you end up clicking the left mouse button 90% of the time in a thoughtless mannera hnyways.

Played some more before servers went down (just now). Was playing the Barbarian this time around (after having played monk) and it's so very boring! The [minion-class] enemies with knockback and fear effects don't help melee matters any.

Next up, I'll be trying demon-hunter. If I'm still bored out of my mind, D3 will be a definite no-buy from me. It's truly hard to believe they spent all this time on this rehashed and stale product.

@zz: you get access to crafting once you bring the crown to the blacksmith.

I dunno. I had quite a bit of fun as the DH playing coop with a buddy of mine. Once I got to the 3 skills unlock, was enjoying using the tactics and mixing and matching the 3 depending on the situation. The viscerals (physics, force of skill impact, destructable environments, mass gore-fest, kill kill kill loot loot kill kill loot some more, etc) are good.

But I am still concerned they've dumbed it down too much. The rub is that I don't think it's fair to say how it will turn out based on just the Beta. That's like judging all of D2 on the part up to Blood Raven. Lots more gameplay goodness emerged as you progressed past that point in D2, I think the same will probably be true for D3. I sure hope so, anyway...

For me error 37 alone was enough to not come close to D3 within a mile - I don't need Blizzard and Activision to tell me when I should play a single player game.

SpoonFULL said:

For me error 37 alone was enough to not come close to D3 within a mile - I don't need Blizzard and Activision to tell me when I should play a single player game.

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Well if you get past error 37 and do log in, then there's error 3003 and 3004 when trying to start the game and error 3005 and 3007 if you're dropped after managing to start or continue a game. No I'm sure sure I categorized all the 3000's correctly, but they're all related to server load and connectivity and I've had all of them at least once so far. They all mean a pretty similar thing in the end though- need moar servers. But yeah, definitely not getting the week it launches (maybe not for a while or unless I hear they properly gauge initial server load or expand their capacity after they realize they didn't).

I can certainly understand not wanting your ability to access the single player aspect of your game to be tied to their server reliability and your connection reliability. Heck, given my only options for service here and the awful reliability they have at times I might not even consider buying the game until I move and get FiOS. So yeah, in about a year.