Diablo III Wild Speculation and Rumor Mongering Abounds

[Malakili]

Bird Watch Simulator Version 37
What a disaster.

Stress testing your servers and learning you have problems 3 weeks before launch is a disaster?  If anyone doesn't buy this game because of this they're an idiot.

[zwohand]

Oh I'm going to buy it alright, but the past 24h have confirmed my fears. The future is now and it has brought all the MMO problems to a 4 player game.

[Xanthippe]

For updates, check @Bashiok on Twitter.

Nice way to be kept up to date.

(Game's not up right now).

[Rendakor]

Betas are buggy, and not always accessible. Stress tests doubly so. News at 11.

[Musashi]

It's... glorious....

[Ratman_tf]

Oh I'm going to buy it alright, but the past 24h have confirmed my fears. The future is now and it has brought all the MMO problems to a 4 player game.

Bullshit. D2 was buggy, D1 was buggy, all had connectivity problems out of the gate. EVERYONE bitched about Battle.net.

I can only assume you are a person who coalleased out of fog this very day and started playing video games.

[Ingmar]

D1 was more bug than game.

[Xanthippe]

I am very happy with D3 after playing today.

Played a Witch Doctor to level 10 - I can't kill the boss at the end, I need to kite more but those booger skeles trap me.

I want to try something else now.

[Merusk]

You can't kill the Skeleton King as a L10 WD?   

I know I had a hard time of it on the WD, and they seem to have added more mobs and abilities to mobs than were there before, but i didn't think they'd ramped it up that much.   

[Malakili]

If you are having trouble with him make sure to position yourself near the skeleton miniions when he does the whirlwind attack, that will kill all the skeletons it hits, which prevents you from having to kill them all, and they still drop the health orbs.

[Merusk]

Just got to him on the wizard.  Yeah, they increased his toughness again.  He was a pushover before and now he's a bitch.. particularly if you don't find any magic armor before killing him.

Which seems to be a problem as well.  I only found 10 or so items by the time I hit Skeleton King, of which I could make use of 3. Pants a belt and a club. Maybe I just had shitty luck, though. How did the rest of you fare on that?

[Malakili]

Just got to him on the wizard.  Yeah, they increased his toughness again.  He was a pushover before and now he's a bitch.. particularly if you don't find any magic armor before killing him.

Which seems to be a problem as well.  I only found 10 or so items by the time I hit Skeleton King, of which I could make use of 3. Pants a belt and a club. Maybe I just had shitty luck, though. How did the rest of you fare on that?

Since they upped the difficulty I've made it a point to buy a decent weapon from the vendor if I haven't gotten anything decent by the time I hit the last waypoint before SK - smooths the whole thing right over.

[KallDrexx]

Well that sucks.  The game runs smoothly enough for me, but every other time an "objective" was achieved or unlocked (and at other random times) the game would freeze for like 4-5 seconds, causing me to die in most situations. 

[kildorn]

I'm amused that they keep jacking up the first boss of the first difficulty level due to complaints from the beta that D3 is too easy <3

[Xanthippe]

I just played a wizard in a public match. Took me to level 8 in 1/4 the time I went to 10 solo, and had no problems killing anything (along with my 3 cohorts).

So loot isn't split anymore? if something drops, only I can see it, and other people get their own loot? How about gold?

I am very very pleased with this game.

[Malakili]

So loot isn't split anymore? if something drops, only I can see it, and other people get their own loot? How about gold?

That is right.  Gold too.

The following applies:

If you pick something up, but then decide to drop it, then everyone can see it.
Health globes heal everyone in the party who is close by, but are not dropped "per person" the way loot is.
Shrines go to everyone in the party who is close by.

[Phred]

Oh I'm going to buy it alright, but the past 24h have confirmed my fears. The future is now and it has brought all the MMO problems to a 4 player game.

Bullshit. D2 was buggy, D1 was buggy, all had connectivity problems out of the gate. EVERYONE bitched about Battle.net.

I can only assume you are a person who coalleased out of fog this very day and started playing video games.

Or he played offline solo or with a friend in direct connect mode because battle.net was so fucked. That's what I did but everyone here seems to have had no problems with the servers when they bought diablo2.

They also seem to have nerfed the leveling. Back when I first got into the beta my chars would be close to 11-12 before the first skeleton king death. Now I make it to him at L8. This is doing full clears of all areas too.

I tried repeating the last section a few times before killing him but the mob exp seems to be mmog'd now so most of the leveling experience is in the quest hand ins rather than mob kills.

[Hawkbit]

Pros:  It's fun; lots of fun.  D3 was down, so I logged into WoW to tinker around a bit.  Then I waw my brother pop online, but he was in D3.  So I logged off WoW, onto D3 and we were grouped within seconds.  This game is going to be great for large groups of people that play together, like F13. 

Con:  The connection sucks.  I know the "it's a beta" and "it's a stress-test" routine.  However, D3 has been down for me more that it has been up so far this weekend, and that kinda sucks.  I hope these issues get hammered out pretty fast post-launch.

[Sky]

large groups of people that play together, like F13. 

Wasn't able to get on at all yesterday.

[Hawkbit]

I was half-joking.  I do think that the fast nature of grouping, combined with the fact that everyone gets separate loot will drive greater groups of people together.  My time playing in a group was a lot more fun than playing solo, so hopefully if we get some battletag database going there will always be people to play with. 

[Mosesandstick]

As it stands, playing solo is really inefficient. I'm intrigued by the skill system; considering that you only used 1 or 2 skills most of the time in D2 I think this one could work out well.

[Quinton]

Is it possible to play at a higher difficulty than Normal in the beta?

Having run through this with a Monk and a Wizard, doing some co-op play with a friend, I'm really looking forward to launch.  Just need a little more challenge (haven't died yet, though it did get a little hairy once or twice).

[Ratman_tf]

How is group quest tracking handled? I'm fucking sick and tired of "We can't group because of X retarted game mechanic." F'rex I want to be able to jump into a game with my brother, even though he's leveled all weekend and is 24 and I'm only 8. I don't want to get cockblocked by quest progression, I just want to beat on some mosnters with my bro.

[Merusk]

Is it possible to play at a higher difficulty than Normal in the beta?

No, and this is some of the failings.  I get that they didn't want to show more than this bit to the players.  They still could have given it across more difficulty, boosting characters and giving level-appropriate equipment.  If people had seen harder levels then "normal" would have remained sane for the proles.  Instead it's increased in difficulty with each patch, almost to the point that you can't complete it single player with some classes (See: xanth) and with others it takes too fucking long just to kill a single boss.

I predict they're going to be nerfing things within the first few weeks.

Con:  The connection sucks.  I know the "it's a beta" and "it's a stress-test" routine.  However, D3 has been down for me more that it has been up so far this weekend, and that kinda sucks.  I hope these issues get hammered out pretty fast post-launch.

This has been a problem as long as I've been in beta, so it's not just the stress test.  The last few patches have really increased the problems I've had with rubberbanding and stutter-stop lag that have nothing at all to do with my computer.   The last few groups I've been in I've also noticed that if someone with a shitty connection logs in, it fucks the entire group.   I'm wondering if the same is true of those with shitty machines that can't handle the settings they've decided to use because it looks better, despite being 8fps.

[Rokal]

The last few groups I've been in I've also noticed that if someone with a shitty connection logs in, it fucks the entire group.   I'm wondering if the same is true of those with shitty machines that can't handle the settings they've decided to use because it looks better, despite being 8fps.

This was the case with SC2. Because of the old CPU I was using when it came out, the game would pause for a few seconds during large fights. If I was in multiplayer, it would pause for everyone. Pretty frustrating for everyone involved. I ended up shelving the game after only a few matches, and build a new machine a month or two later. It's possible that they're using a similar system for D3.

[Xanthippe]

Gear makes a difference. I've got my Witch Doctor to 13 (max for this weekend) and have ok gear in every slot. I think I can beat the boss now (but I haven't tried).

Who resurrects? I got a res during a boss battle somehow.

I like WD, wizard and monk much better than DH or Barb.

[Merusk]

That's not just gear, that's gear and levels.

Everyone can rez, you just click on a fallen companion.  There's even an achieve for rezzing every class.   (I find it funny this thread gets active only when servers are down.)

[Malakili]

The last few groups I've been in I've also noticed that if someone with a shitty connection logs in, it fucks the entire group.   I'm wondering if the same is true of those with shitty machines that can't handle the settings they've decided to use because it looks better, despite being 8fps.

This was the case with SC2. Because of the old CPU I was using when it came out, the game would pause for a few seconds during large fights. If I was in multiplayer, it would pause for everyone. Pretty frustrating for everyone involved. I ended up shelving the game after only a few matches, and build a new machine a month or two later. It's possible that they're using a similar system for D3.

It seems highly unlikely to me that this uses architecture like SC2.  RTS have always done this differently than everything else.

[Rokal]

The reason SC2 did it was for competitive balance. If one player lags, all players should lag to keep the match fair. I could see them building D3 in a similar way if they intended for the game to have a larger pvp component originally (before scrapping it entirely).

[Xanthippe]

That's not just gear, that's gear and levels.

Everyone can rez, you just click on a fallen companion.  There's even an achieve for rezzing every class.   (I find it funny this thread gets active only when servers are down.)

Oh how nice.

Where are the gem bits? Are they gone now?

I miss the plink sound.

[Malakili]

That's not just gear, that's gear and levels.

Everyone can rez, you just click on a fallen companion.  There's even an achieve for rezzing every class.   (I find it funny this thread gets active only when servers are down.)

Oh how nice.

Where are the gem bits? Are they gone now?

I miss the plink sound.

Gems are in the game, but not in the beta.

[Phred]

Is it possible to play at a higher difficulty than Normal in the beta?

Of course not. In diablo games you have to finish the game on normal difficulty to open up a higher difficulty.

[Phred]

As it stands, playing solo is really inefficient.

You're one of those race through the whole act skipping huge portions of the map folks aren't you?

[Xuri]

I don't think I can play this game multi-player. I am unable to go past a barrel - or a location containing a potential barrel - without smashing it to bits. There might be a gold coin inside!

[Yegolev]

There probably is!