Last week, the fine folks at Blizzard announced the Diablo III open beta weekend. I never got a Diablo 3 beta key, so needless to say I was a very happy clam.
Watch the video: Diablo 3 Open Beta – All Achievements
As expected, the servers were on fire from everyone trying to play the game. It took me several hours before I could successfully login.
My first character was a Barbarian, aptly named Conan. I decided to go solo instead of joining a party. I think it’s a mistake to rush to the Crypt of the Skeleton King with your first character. You’ll end up skipping lots of cool stuff, not to mention the opportunity to create a nostalgic memory: your first visit to the new world of Sanctuary.
It took me 4 hours to reach the Skeleton King. I broke every vase, killed every monster, opened every chest, read every NPC line of dialog and explored every nook and cranny of the cathedral. Multiple times.
Somehow I never got bored. It might had to do with the random events, the fact I could interact with the environment and hit walls to bury my foes under a ton of rock, or simply the joy of crushing my enemies, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentation of their wretched mothers.
In the graphics department, Blizzard did a terrific job. Just look at the screenshots they released in 2009 to see how much the graphics evolved. They were ugly back then.
The implementation of health orbs and the existence of cooldown on potions was interesting. Potions are now an emergency heal. Although I was rarely at the risk of dying, I can see how hardcore mode players will have to play more cautiously, focusing more on defensive skills/equipment and rely on teammates to overcome the hardest challenges.
Difficulty wise the game is easy, especially when you team up with other players. Many people complained about that, while ignoring the three additional difficulty levels: nightmare, hell and inferno.
Speaking of other players, holy crap! As soon I entered a public game, 9 out 10 times there were already three other people in New Tristam. That was impressive.
The current skill system offers more variety than it’s predecessor. You can imbue several runes to your current skills to make them even more powerful. Would you like your Wizard’s arcane orb to deal extra damage? Use the obliteration rune.
At the end of the weekend I maxed all classes and got every achievement. The classes I had more fun to play with were the Barbarian and the Wizard. I found the Demon Hunter a bit boring, the Witch Doctor a little weak and the Monk didn’t impress me.
I loved the open beta and I already ordered my Diablo 3 copy