Playing it is pretty simple, you just open Starcraft II, go to the Arcade section and search for "mortal" and select Diablo: Mortal Shroud. The game is already pretty darn great and has the feel of the original Diablo. The mod author is using the original game voice acting, art and play style as the original. The game looks a bit...
Playing it is pretty simple, you just open Starcraft II, go to the Arcade section and search for "mortal" and select Diablo: Mortal Shroud. The game is already pretty darn great and has the feel of the original Diablo. The mod author is using the original game voice acting, art and play style as the original. The game looks a bit...
HERE’S THE PLAN:
- We’ve created a small team of UT veterans that are beginning work on the project starting today.
- From the very first line of code, the very first art created and design decision made, development will happen in the open, as a collaboration... Read All
HERE’S THE PLAN:
- We’ve created a small team of UT veterans that are beginning work on the project starting today.
- From the very first line of code, the very first art created and design decision made, development will happen in the open, as a collaboration between Epic, UT fans and UE4 developers. We’ll be using forums for discussion, and Twitch streams for regular updates.
- If you are a fan and you want to participate, create a free account and join the forum discussion.
- All code and content will be available live to UE4 developers on GitHub.
- The game will be true to its roots as a competitive FPS.
- Development will be focused on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Epic Games is pushing pretty hard on it's tools in a very unique way. Earlier this year they released the Unreal Engine toolkit for a reduced price, but now they are now going to develop the next Unreal Tournament game in the open. It's an interesting model and I hope the results are a great Unreal Tournament game, we have needed a new one for quite a long time.
I am curious how many from the UT community will join in the games development?
https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/the-future-of-unreal-tournament-begins-today
Sounds like a cool experiment! It'll be interesting to see how it turns out. Also: free UT! Seriously awesome.
:godmode:
:godmode:
I'm glad this isn't free-to-play, it's actually free. And the model they're using for development is a major shift from what we've seen in AAA games, honestly I'm more interested in how that turns out than how fun the game is.
From the top of the feature list:
"You can now get quests from the Angler NPC for cool rewards. Each time you complete a quest, the rewards progressively get better.
You can now use critters as bait for fishing.
You can now ride around in style on the new Minecart system.
Beaches no longer... Read All "As many of you know we decided to pull several of the mechanics and features from the Lunar Update and do them in a smaller update to minimize the wait for a patch. Now that this is out of the way we will be putting our full attention on the Lunar. Lazure has already been hard at work creating assets for the event and Crowno has a pretty awesome idea for the final boss of the event."
From the top of the feature list:
"You can now get quests from the Angler NPC for cool rewards. Each time you complete a quest, the rewards progressively get better.
You can now use critters as bait for fishing.
You can now ride around in style on the new Minecart system.
Beaches no longer feel so empty.
Truffle Worms now spawn in hardmode Mushroom biomes. Be weary using this bait near the Ocean.
You can now place weapons and tools on the craftable Weapon Rack. (Thank you Goryō for your suggestion!)
Added Smart Cursor. This can be toggled using control and has an interface option. Smart Cursor makes digging, chopping, placing, and breaking much faster and easier.
You can now craft stone letters and numbers with a Heavy Workbench.
Lihzahrd Powercells drop more commonly from enemies in the temple."
Awesome. Read the full set of patch notes here:
http://www.terrariaonline.com/threads/1-2-4-changelog.143548/
This game is growing faster than I'm comfortable with. Not really, but kinda.
I'm seriously wondering at what point it will reach "too big." I'm kind of obsessive about games like this and I want to collect EVERYTHING and do EVERYTHING.
Terraria is going to be the death of me.
Perhaps a good problem to have? That said, Terraria is still VERY finite and our games have pretty obvious ends.
That said, they are giving it WAY more of a life than i'd have thought and I really respect that. Doesn't seem like we have that much further to go for the "final update."
Yeah I love it. I really do. BUT I WILL NEVER BE DONE. :)
Seriously, I'm looking forward to getting back into it.
Me too. I was thinking holidays for server part 4. Or is it 3?
4. We've done three. I guess lunar update is the obvious point for server 4.
And if by "holidays" you're talking about December, I'm not sure I can wait that long. If you were talking about Memorial Day or Independence Day as "holidays" though...
I'd be open to an earlier server.
I played around with this a bit last night. The smart cursor is awesome, but I can imagine I wouldn't want to use it all the time. With my already decked out character I was able to mine all the way to hell in a new large world in about a minute.
The new stuff seems interesting, I'll have to check it out sometime. When I saw the minecart video, I thought that it would be really cool if some how worlds could generate some minecart trails. I think that would be cool.
Is Lunar another game they are making?
The Lunar update, according to what I have read, seems to be one of the last large content updates to Terraria? They plan on adding the Moon and the final boss there.
I kind of thought the last boss would be Cthulhu himself, but it seems like it won't be.
Interesting, thanks for filling me in.
I havn't played for probably a year - this game looks insane now
@Sungorth: The game really has gotten pretty huge, I played it at 1.1 and then 1.2 and haven't yet played this update. Can't wait to start up a new game.
Jon, do you mean, "start up a new game," as in a new character in a new world? That would be dedication, going though it all over again. I've thought about doing that, maybe I will again eventually.
We've done it at least three times. Every time we do a new server we start up new characters. I have one other that I started fresh. It's fun!
Wow! I've only created one character.
Yeah, going through the game fresh is really fun. Otherwise there isn't much to do save the new content.
It's also kinda nice to start a new character because not all the new content is meant for end game. So I tend to discover things a little more naturally as I progress through the game. Plus I seem to progress quicker with each successive play through so starting over isn't really that big of a deal. :)
That said, if we start up another server I have no real preference for new characters or continuing on with existing ones. I think we'd have fun either way.
Good points!
With starting up a new one I'd definitely want new characters. There have been so many minor additions since our last one that we would still miss out on a ton.
At least they didn't nerf our favorite weapons again. Too bad they didn't un-nerf them. Hahaha Anyway, the wiki doesn't seem to have the Angler listed under NPCs yet.
Which wiki are you using? If you're using the wikia wiki, you're doing it wrong. The gamepedia one is the "official" one, and is much better.
http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Angler
That said, both wikis have the Angler in this case.
http://terraria.wikia.com/wiki/Angler
And they both have them in the categories:
http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Template:Town_NPCs
http://terraria.wikia.com/wiki/NPC
It looks like all those page changes were made on the 9th, so if you checked before Friday they may not have been there.
I'm probably giving you way more info than you care about.
I was looking at the official one. Thanks for the links. If you notice the Angler doesn't seem to be on the front page.
Looks like it was added earlier this morning
http://terraria.gamepedia.com/index.php?title=Terraria_Wiki&oldid=253906
I just realized that I barely ever looked at the front page, if ever, I just search for the thing/category I'm after. There's a lot missing from it, but it's a nice primer.
There we go!
Yeah, I just search for what I am looking for. Except for when I started and really didn't know what I could do with the game. That said, I love the wiki and hope it's always maintained.
Oh it will be. So many obsessed fans! What would we do without them?
Miss more than half the game.
Interested in checking it out, peep the link below
http://imgur.com/a/Xq04G Some awesome person on the net took a snapshot of the original Doom manual and found that it contains an actual story. It's no Song of Ice and Fire but it does make sense and sets the game up well.
Interested in checking it out, peep the link below
http://imgur.com/a/Xq04G
Matching heads with torsos to send home to the folks became a full-time job.
Overtime pay!
And quality of life!
And benefits!
I wonder how good the benefits are on Mars base? I've played all the Doom games and after Doom III I had my doubts.
He makes a few other interesting predictions too. What do you think, where will gaming be in five to ten years? Jamin makes some interesting predictions about the future of gaming I wanted to share. He seems to think that at some point the idea of watching and playing video games will cross together more to create a kind of game/spectator hybrid experience. He cites Twitch Plays Pokemon as a recent example.
He makes a few other interesting predictions too. What do you think, where will gaming be in five to ten years?
This is totally late, but I just thought of something that sounded more interesting than the 5 or 6 other things I was going to predict. I think that, within the next 10 years, someone (or a consortium of ones, a Gaming UN, if you will, with the ironic acronym of G.U.N.) will offer a free-to-play hardware (i.e. console) option. Then, we will finally have a single console system environment. Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo... hell, anyone that wanted to contribute, could invest a fraction of their R&D and production costs into building a universal hardware environment. All of the games would either go free-to-play or subscription based. Master Chief, Mario, and Nathan Drake could live in relative harmony. The Big Three could still make money off of peripherals (all conformed to universal standards, like USB) and in-house games and services (they could still host XBox Live, PSN/PS+, etc, and charge their normal (or increased) subscriptions).
The way I see it, at this point in time, all of the console hardware seems to be normalizing, and to the point where they are indistinguishable from a good gaming PC. They are spending all this time and money just to develop a compact gaming rig that won't burn your house down after it's been in use for 8 hours straight. Console life cycles are getting longer, too. Investing in a 10-year solution seems like it would be a win/win for everyone. A standard gaming console. A SteamBox, really, but one that everything could play on.
Hahahahahaha very good!
I wonder just how many plots they can come up with that involve killing Diablo.
All the plots of games people keep buying. I don't even mean that in a cynical way, I bet the franchise will live on forever. Then again, I really don't mind that as i've really enjoyed what they have done so far.
I decided to take a different approach to this interview and reached out to one of my friends Alex Atkins, the lead writer of Monsters Ate my Birthday Cake. We are both excited about the game and he agreed to toss a few questions in the interview to give it a different perspective.
Alex Atkins: Many developers (and artists in general) are... Read All Hyper Light Drifter is an upcoming 2D action RPG. Like many of you I was dazzled with the Kickstarter and am on the edge of my seat awaiting more information on it's development. After the last trailer dropped at PAX East I wanted more information on how things were progressing with the game and contacted Heart Machine Games.
I decided to take a different approach to this interview and reached out to one of my friends Alex Atkins, the lead writer of Monsters Ate my Birthday Cake. We are both excited about the game and he agreed to toss a few questions in the interview to give it a different perspective.
Alex Atkins: Many developers (and artists in general) are influenced by things that don't directly relate to their art, such as the lyrics of a song influencing the story of a video game. Are there any such instance for the Heart Machine team? Are there any specific cases of something outside the arena of video games (such as film, literature, music, or otherwise) that have profoundly affected your creative process?
Alex Preston(Heart Machine Games): Of course. I think we're all deeply affected by great film and music and literature of any kind, with the qualifying factor of "good". A major influence for myself in creating this game has been Miyazaki films, primarily Nausicaa.
jdodson: So far, the story details of Hyper Light Drifter are pretty sparse. I am wondering if you can share a bit about The Drifter?
Alex Preston(Heart Machine Games): Intentionally so! I don't want to spoil anything. I prefer people to experience the story and character progression themselves once they play.
Alex Atkins: After some playtesting at PAX East, the character animations seem a bit 'framey', is this an intentional allusion to a bygone era of games with limited hardware and choppier framerates?
Alex Preston(Heart Machine Games): Hmm, not sure precisely what you may have noticed; our animation is fairly fluid, as each character is loaded with a large amount of hand drawn frames. There are a few milliseconds of hold on the attacks and some other moments to add impact and weight to the gameplay. Could be the build had some frame rate stutter, as it is still pre-alpha.
jdodson: If you could work on any video game property what would it be?
Alex Preston(Heart Machine Games): Maybe F-Zero. I say maybe since the answer would likely be "none" if confronted with that in actuality; I very much enjoy creating my own worlds to experience.
jdodson: How long have you been working on Hyper Light Drifter? How has it evolved from your early concept of what you wanted it to be?
Alex Preston(Heart Machine Games): About 2 years of concepting, experimentation, lore building, and some loose dev work. It's evolved into something much more cohesive and gratifying, due to having a full team now. Everyone at Heart Machine has great input, ideas and abilities, so it's far better than what I could have produced by myself.
Alex Atkins: Why did you choose Game Maker over other engines such as Unity?
Alex Preston(Heart Machine Games): We are most familiar with GM, and it's very fast and cheap to iterate on. Unity is less suited for 2d, and none of us are as comfortable with a 3d toolset in the first place.
jdodson: Imagine yourself in the following scenario. You are in a abandoned 1950’s town and you hear a distant siren. After some searching you realize you are in a nuclear test area and the bomb is close to dropping. You notice a lead lined fridge. What do you do?
Alex Preston(Heart Machine Games): Search the fridge for a (hopefully delicious) final meal.
Alex Atkins: How has it been working with Rich Vreeland (Disasterpeace?)
Alex Preston(Heart Machine Games): Rich is a gentleman, and a super talent. He understands the project and process well and adds such a magical quality. I'm always so damned excited to hear his next track; music is such an integral part of the experience.
Alex Atkins: You received a very generous sum of financial assistance with your kickstarter, but do you care to give any figures or insight on how the inevitable ‘dropped’ payments have affected Hyper Light Drifter’s development? Especially if the total amount paid after drops brought you below a stretch goal that to an outside observer appears paid for?
Alex Preston(Heart Machine Games): Sure. It was a decent chunk, a percentage point or two, on top of the fees for KS and Amazon, so it absolutely takes away from the final budget. It's inevitable with mass payment systems. However, I think it has balanced out; our humble bundles have helped to offset losses like that for the most part.
Alex Atkins: Any regrets on the offerings of the kickstarter reward tiers (i.e. you wish you hadn’t told people you’d give them that)
Alex Preston(Heart Machine Games): The t-shirts were stuck in the middle of the tiers and did not "travel" up through the other tiers by default, so things got a bit messy because of it. It's been a pain to deal with that, but I don't regret offering them. Otherwise, I'm sure we will continue to find some level of difficulty or quirks when producing and distributing the remaining goods, as always happens with physical product. The KS tier/survey system could use some fine-tuning to help ease those pains.
jdodson: In an age of triple A games pushing 3D further to melt video cards many, Indie titles are made with pixel art. As someone making a modern pixel art game I am curious what you think about pixel art in the modern age of gaming? Do you think it will always have a place in modern gaming?
Alex Preston(Heart Machine Games): I think it will always have a place, just as hand drawn animation in film and television still does after 3d took the lead. It's an incredibly unique aesthetic with a massive dose of nostalgia attached, and there's plenty more to be done within it's limitations.
jdodson: Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. Anything last thing you want to say before we wrap things up?
Alex Preston(Heart Machine Games): Thanks for the questions! Final comment: thanks to everyone that came and played the game and took the time to speak with us at PAX.
I want to thank Heart Machine Games for the interview and wish them to a speedy launch of Hyper Light Drifter!
http://www.heart-machine.com/
Really looking forward to this one. Such beautiful imagery. I love that good pixel-art games continue to be pumped into the gaming ether.
Good interview. This game looks incredible! I can't wait to give it a try.
I am too. I want to play a kind of Indie Zelda and I hope this fits the bill. Since Nintendo doesn't port games to PC this is a pretty close second.
Or seems to be.
Diablo III broke my mouse. Logitech is awesome, though-- my G500 gaming mouse is gone, and I now have a G502 in its place thanks to Logitech's legendary support. I swear I'm not a Logitech shill, I just love them.
This all started because my left click stopped working reliably, and if I had to guess I would say Diablo III wore it out. I bought the mouse when I started playing Diablo III two years ago, and I've had a few periods over those two years when I obsessed for a few months. But over the past month since Diablo III: Reaper of Souls came out, the poor mouse couldn't cope.
Diablo III (1.x) is dead, long live Diablo III (2.x)!
... Read All My mouse is dead, long live my mouse!
Diablo III broke my mouse. Logitech is awesome, though-- my G500 gaming mouse is gone, and I now have a G502 in its place thanks to Logitech's legendary support. I swear I'm not a Logitech shill, I just love them.
This all started because my left click stopped working reliably, and if I had to guess I would say Diablo III wore it out. I bought the mouse when I started playing Diablo III two years ago, and I've had a few periods over those two years when I obsessed for a few months. But over the past month since Diablo III: Reaper of Souls came out, the poor mouse couldn't cope.
Diablo III (1.x) is dead, long live Diablo III (2.x)!
It's hard to review Reaper of Souls without also reviewing patch 2.0 that came out for Diablo III a few weeks before the expansion launched. This patch changed so many core systems that it truly felt like a new game, even before the new content.
The biggest changes were with loot. The Auction House, once the only reliable way to gear your character, is gone. The game was once a matter of finding things you could vendor for gold, or things that could work for other classes you could sell on the Auction House, and if you managed to find an upgrade for yourself that was just icing on the cake. Nearly all your endgame gear would be gear you bought, not gear you found. With patch 2.0, the SmartLoot system was introduced, and the legendary drop chance was increased dramatically. This is now a loot-grinding game instead of a gold-grinding game, and we're better off. Now your loot actually means something.
Patch 2.0 also changed the way difficulty works. Before, when you beat Normal you started Nightmare, when you beat Nightmare you started Hell, and so on. Now there's just one campaign playthrough that you can still replay any time you want, but you don't have to play it four times. All enemies scale to your level. The old monster power system has been changed to Difficulty, where you can tune your experience as you like. This makes for a less confusing system, and speeds up leveling quite a bit-- I had two level 60 characters prior to the patch, but now I have about 10 levels before all 6 are at level 70.
The Paragon system was changed dramatically. Once you hit level 60 in the old game your character started gaining Paragon levels that would give you minor attribute buffs and increase your chances of finding loot/gold. Now, however, all your Paragon levels give you points that go into a pool that all your characters can use, and you can assign those points however you like to really fine tune your character beyond the gear you choose.
This patch really changed the game, entirely for the better. The new team is doing a hell of a job.
Death is dead, long live death! (yeah I admit that one doesn't work very well)
While patch 2.0 changes things for the better dramatically, the Reaper of Souls expansion brings a lot to the table that you'll be seriously missing out on if you're just playing the base game.
For starters, your level cap gets bumped from 60 to 70. This brings a new active skill to each class, as well as a few passive skills, and the loot you get even by level 62 or 63 starts to make your level 60 loot look like it was made out of cardboard. But that's probably the smallest addition. To help you fill out those extra ten levels, Blizzard has added a ton of content:
Act V
The biggest addition is Act V, which takes place in a new area called Westmarch and has you going after the Angel of Death himself, Malthael. The Act V level design is fantastic for the most part, and goes a long way to address some issues people had with the main game not looking dark and evil enough. A few of the new areas are some of the best in the game for causing massive damage to an onslaught of enemies. The Malthael boss fight is a welcome challenge. It took me a few tries to take him down, but you get better at it as you learn his patterns. For me, the new act is the real star of the show.
The music in Act V is amazing. On the whole, it's probably better than the music in the base game. Derek Duke really outdid himself with the composition. You really get a sense of foreboding when it's required, and being a badass when you're about to do something awesome.
I think the best thing in Act V is all the random events. One thing I noticed in acts I-IV is that there isn't much going on in the world beyond the major events you're involved in. With Act V, you run through many areas where events are occurring that you can take part in. Early on in the town of Westmarch, you can go into many houses to help people, and there's a small storyline that progresses through some of these events. It makes the world seem far more alive.
The Crusader
RoS adds a new playable class, the Crusader. The main game only had one class that used Strength as a main stat (the Barbarian), so this adds some variety. The Crusader is a tanky class so it plays slower, but can deal out a ton of damage and can take a beating too. It isn't perfect, but it's only had one balancing patch, whereas the other 5 classes have had two years of balancing. It should only get better from here. The Crusader is also a lovable smartass. I loved going back through all the acts with the Crusader to hear his dialogue and how he reacts to things differently, because it was pretty consistently amusing.
The Mystic
The Mystic is a new artisan you pick up in Act V which can enchant your gear to change a stat you don't like to something more desirable. She can also make your gear look like other pieces of gear if you have a look you're trying to go for. In addition to the loot changes in 2.0, this extra level of customization lets you make your gear even better, or tune it to specific goals you have.
Adventure Mode
After you complete Act V the first time, you unlock Adventure Mode, which is where you'll be spending most of your endgame. You can take bounties in each act which will give you extra experience, gold, loot, blood shards and rift keystone fragments (we'll get to those shortly). Basically, every time you start the game, there are 5 bounties in each act, so you never run out of goals to shoot for or things to do. There are some bounty-exclusive legendary items that can be real game-changers.
You can use those keystone fragments to open rifts. Rifts are randomly generated areas where your objective is to kill a ton of enemies to get the Rift Guardian to show up. This is a beefier version of minibosses from the main game. The Rift Guardian drops a ton of loot and blood shards. As an added bonus, Rifts have double the legendary drop chance, so you can gear up faster there.
And those blood shards you've been getting can be gambled at a new merchant, Kadala. She sells any kind of gear in the game, but it's random. So you'll spend 5 blood shards for a pair of pants, for example, but you have no idea what it's going to be until you get it. This is yet another way that Blizzard has improved the flow of loot-- if your pants suck, you can gamble on better ones.
Conclusion
Diablo III is very different now. If you've never played before, now is a great time to jump in, and if you stopped playing months or years ago because you were frustrated with how things were, now is a great time to revisit the game. I put a couple hundred hours into the game before any of these changes, and probably a hundred since, and while I liked where it was before, I can't say enough good things about it now. Your next upgrade always seems obtainable, even if it takes a while to get there, the rifts and bounties add a ton of replay, the balance tweaks make more builds viable, and it's just more *fun*, which is what we're here for after all.
I don't generally like the number ratings, but if I had to give one it would at least be a 9. This is a game that shouldn't be missed. If you're on the fence you can pick up the starter edition and see what you think.
Bonus quality-of-life tips
In addition to the review, I thought I'd share some tips I picked up.
By default, Shift is the key for "force stand still." Don't ignore this key. This forces your character to stop moving so you don't accidentally move when you intend to attack.
On the same token, you should map a key to "force move." I use the spacebar for this. Especially if you're a ranged character, sometimes you need to just get out of the way and you don't want to accidentally attack. This also lets you move toward your mouse cursor just by pressing the spacebar. It's a little easier on the hands. Fight back against carpal tunnel!
I have also mapped "close all windows" to mousewheel-down. So if there's a bunch of dialogue that you've heard a hundred times before, or a "bounty complete" window you want to quickly get out of the way, just scroll down. In the case of dialogue, just keep scrolling to get through it quickly. Mousewheel-up is mapped to "open inventory" so I can check some new loot quickly. These won't help you play better, but they can get you where you're going much faster.
Wow, what a review! Good timing, too, since I bought the game last night. I've been on the fence about the game. The Starter Edition was cool, but I was still hesitant. Then, while playing Starbound, I realized I like being a bad ass and smashing stuff, so of course I'd like Diablo 3. That is, I created a Barbarian, "Hulk Smash!" My Barbarian almost never loses health points and/or it regenerates quickly.
Anyway, I was on the fence about the game, but wanted to play something else. The fact that you and the rest of Cheerful Ghost seem to love the game made me think that I should get into it. I like it, it's cool. I was really impressed by the cinematics. Even though I had a character I played through the Starter Edition with, I decided to delete him and create a new character with a new name, but still a badass Barbarian.
Nice review, Travis! I might actually get off my ass and get Reaper now. That, or a Logitech mouse...
scrypt: https://i.imgur.com/Lf8VOIX.png
I edited the review to add in something major I had left out about the random events in Act V. I'm surprised I forgot it, since that's my favorite part.
Also, Greg-- you're in for quite a treat! I see from your B.net status that you're in Act II now. Be glad they toned down the bees. Those things were horrible back in the early days.
Hahaha, funny pictures. Yes, I've made it to Act II (not available in the Starter Edition). It's cool. I don't know about bees, but there were some locusts, I think, that I ran into and probably killed me once. I've died a few times, but not many, I'm always surprised when I do though. There is still much for me to learn about the game other than the plot. I hardly make use of my skills.
I just picked up the Diablo II Battle Chest at KMart for $2.07. I couldn't pass that up.
Ha, that's a great deal.
$2.07? Damn, I would have bought all of them to hand out to people.
D2 is hard to play these days though. I used to love it but it feels kinda clunky now.
@Travis: Whereas some would slit your throat when they heard that, I can't entirely disagree with that. The resolution alone is pretty hard to deal with.
Well, I know it's dated, but I never played it. My super computer probably wouldn't even blink to run it. Hahaha. Some how I've had a copy of it or its expansion and never played it. I'm thinking I won't have any major compatibility issues (with Win8.1), but if I do, I know ways around that (like running a Virtual PC or changing compatibility settings).
The World of Warcraft had a small Battle Chest as well for the same price, but I didn't pick it up.
Back to Diablo III: Reaper of Souls.....I'm enjoying it. I hate that I felt so good about being a bad ass that didn't need health replenished and then I started dying. Hahahahaha. It surprises me when I take that much damage, but I just respawn and finished off whatever defeated me. Yes, there's a 10% loss in item durability, but that's a very nice death penalty in my mind. I can easily repair items and never seem to lack the money necessary to do so. I like how easily it is to repair items through the blacksmith either via options in that menu or just a right-click. You can train him to level up and what he can produce gets better. I found some things that are used that way which require him to be at a higher level, so I'm working on that.
I love how many items in the environment are destructible, like vases, pots, rock piles, etc. It would be strategic to hit these things before attacking enemies as doing raises the Fury gauge. I usually hit them for what they might drop or spawn (like a skeleton) or just to "mark my territory" of where I've been in case I get lost. It's not a habit limited to Diablo III.
I think I'm grateful for the Auction House's removal, even though I haven't experienced it for myself, I feel like I'm not missing out on a great thing. I prefer the way the game is working now in which you get items as drops. I usually sell a bunch of items because my inventory gets full, but I should probably make use of the blacksmith's Salvage ability to get more crafting materials.
I've kept the Templar follower, but have gained a couple of others along the way. I haven't chosen them, but I am interested in seeing how they work sometime in the future. I look forward to playing other character types when I'm done with my Barbarian, although for right now that's the perfect one for me.
Still, I wonder if or how the story some how changes for each character type. I believe the dialog is different, but I don't know how all that works out and I look forward to testing that out later on a new character. Are the cut-scenes the same for each character type? I've only seen a few cut-scenes so far, but have thoroughly enjoyed them. I assume the character's voice changes depending on gender, but does it also depend on character type, I wonder.
RE THE STORY: Basically the dialog changes based on class and gender. The story isn't radically different BUT how your character responds to the characters and your follower is. It really changes the tone of things from one play through to another.
The Witch Doctor is a really cool class and I love how it's acted and scripted. The Crusader is really different and took away a ton of the regal/elder nature the Witch Doctor acting brought to the table.
Sounds cool!
Yeah, the Crusader you would expect to be all uptight, but he really isn't. He's very frequently a smartass, and I love him for that.
Hm, Campaign with Crusader or continue in Adventure with Barbarian....great game, really. I could go for more!
So, I often have gear that I've kept because I can't decide what to equip. I recently found two awesome maces. As I was trying to decide which to equip, I realized I could equip both! Being a Barbarian is so fun! I'm still playing Adventure Mode. I've at least done all the bounties in Act I and ran through a nephalem portal twice. Bounties seem to reappear when you get back into the game. My Barbarian is finally at or above level 50. When I'm done with Adventure Mode, I plan to go through the campaign as a Crusader.
I do love this game, although I wish the campaign lasted longer. On normal difficulty, I didn't find the game very challenging, but I found it to be very fun, which is what I prefer anyway. I wonder if we'll see any more expansions.
If you are not finding Normal to be challenging then up the difficulty. It's really fun playing at a higher difficulty plus you get sweeter drops and XP.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/game/guide/gameplay/game-difficulty
Well, like I said, I like it. I might try a higher difficulty level some time. Yeah, I died a few times on Normal and the only time I really used a potion was at the final battle of Act V.
There's actually not much point in doing higher difficulty until you can do torment, which I still struggle with, in terms of rewards.
You don't really get an experience boost for time spent unless you can one-shot standard enemies in the difficulty level you're playing. You may get a boost per monster, but if it takes you twice as long to kill them, you are leveling slower.
And the drop rates don't start ticking up until Torment.
But that doesn't mean it isn't more fun on higher difficulty. I don't really enjoy one-shotting enemies, killing rare packs in 3 seconds, killing bosses in 5 seconds. It just isn't fun.
That's one thing I hope Blizzard tweaks a bit, so that it is actually more rewarding to play Hard, Expert, and Master. As it is now, it's barely worth it, and the most expedient way to get more drops and more exp is to be bored because you're unstoppable.
Interesting, thanks for the insight, Travis. As I said, I'm not complaining about how easy it is, it's really fun and to me that's what's important. I saw you had a Witch Doctor, level 80 was it?
Level 70 is still the max, but my Witch Doctor is almost there. That's the last class I have to get to 70!
Wow! So what's your favorite class?
You may as well ask me to pick a favorite child. :)
Maybe Wizard. Wizard is so badass.
Ha ha! Well my Barbarian is above level 60 now and I've gone through each act and did the bounties and Nephalem Rifts.
In new patch notes: "Tyrael will now chat about his poor eating habits with less frequently." Aw, man, I thought that was a funny conversation and don't mind hearing it. "Being a mortal is so complicated."
Sorry, should have included a URL in last comment: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/14138344/patch-205-now-live-5-13-2014
Oh sweet, thanks Greg, I totally didn't see this in my feed!
"Crusaders should be the toughest class in the game and currently they are not. We've increased the 15% damage reduction to 30% to match that of the Monk and Barbarian. In addition we are removing the movement speed penalty on Heavenly Strength while also changing Fervor to be a very strong passive for Crusaders who want to play with a 1-handed weapon. Together these changes should solidify the Crusader fantasy of a powerful tank wielding a giant shield."
Whoa, that should be awesome. I'll have to check this out tonight. Overall the Crusader got totally tanked up, which makes sense I never felt he was the "beef machine" Blizzard said he was. Now, it seems he may be on his way. Or her, depending on how you play the class.
Yeah I'm still thinking the Monk didn't get enough love. But I'm liking what they've done with the new patch. Especially removing the requirement for white items from legendary crafts at level 70. That was so annoying.
You're welcome, Jon! What you've posted is relevant to me now as I've started a Crusader. I imagine I'll eventually make a Monk and maybe the others.
Hard Lander is a really cool new co-op game by one of my Portland developer friends, Nic Blondi. I have played a few versions of Hard Lander as it has made its way through development and I am pretty excited to see it launch on Ouya. Hard Lander is a blast to play with other people and one time while playing it with Justin Baldwin(Monsters Ate My Birthday Cake) I got pretty good at ramming into him such that he would lose the match. And really, that's a ton of the appeal of Hard Lander,... Read All "Test your skills in confined areas while fighting gravity (and walls) or brave the asteroid fields in zero gravity and experience firsthand the weirdness of the friction-less void."
Hard Lander is a really cool new co-op game by one of my Portland developer friends, Nic Blondi. I have played a few versions of Hard Lander as it has made its way through development and I am pretty excited to see it launch on Ouya. Hard Lander is a blast to play with other people and one time while playing it with Justin Baldwin(Monsters Ate My Birthday Cake) I got pretty good at ramming into him such that he would lose the match. And really, that's a ton of the appeal of Hard Lander, it's a really cool game to try anything with and watch your ship fly apart.
Because, really, blowing up a rocket ship should be fun.
After I heard about Hard Lander's Ouya debut I sent some questions over to Nic and he got back to me. I wish him well with the Ouya launch and hope people find it as fun as I have.
jdodson: Hey Nic, I am curious what the tech you used to build Hard Lander is?
Nic Blondi: I used the Unity engine in the development of Hard lander. I used the "2d toolkit" plugin to help with Sprites and the Ouya ODK plugin which allows Unity to build for the OUYA. Getting the controllers took quite a lot of time. The guy that made the game Clark (http://goldentricycle.com/) released some code that helped with this quite a bit by releasing some code to help the rest of the community out.
jdodson: Will Hard Lander be coming out on any other platforms other than the Ouya? This looks perfect for couch co-op on a Steam Machine.
Nic Blondi: My plan is to keep updating the game on OUYA to get feedback and add more content for a month or so. I think my next port will be for Fire TV since I hear it's a fairly simple port for an OUYA game. After that I want to build for steam. I really love the idea of the Steam machine. When I have friends over I often find myself awkwardly hooking my laptop up to my TV. I want to port to Steam if for the only reason that it would give me a good excuse to get myself a steam machine. Do you have any suggestions for a good, cheap option?
jdodson: Right now my suggestion is to hold out for the Alienware Steam Machine but it seems to be coming out later this year and will most likely ship for $500. That's not cheap but there will be others that might go lower in price, I am not entirely certain though. That said, I am 99% sure I will get the Alienware box when it ships.
jdodson: I've played Hard Lander and it lives up to it's name well. Curious though, if you were going to design "Easy Lander" how would it be different?
Nic Blondi: The difficulty if flying the landers is, for me, what makes the game fun to play even after hundreds of hours spent "testing" it. If I was going to make flying easier I think I would have to add other elements to the game to compensate for the joy of mastery with something like weapons, items, alternate goals etc. Maybe giving ships custom load-outs would be fun. Allowing players to amass money which they could spend on shields, weapons, devensive drones, and autoturrets would be fun to try.
jdodson: Which Star Wars prequel episode do you consider the best film?
Nic Blondi: I've never been a star wars buff. The old ones make me feel like I'm watching the cosby show in space.. too dated to draw me in. And the prequels were all pretty confusing. But If pressed I will say Episode 1 was the best because the amount of feathers ruffled by Jar Jar Binks continues to this day. I expect it to be the most enduring as a result.
jdodson: After Hard Lander is ported everywhere you care to and updated what are your plans for next?
Nic Blondi: I don't know what I will be doing when Hard lander is put to bed. I am perpetually working on prototypes so I think once I find one I can't put down, I think that will be my next game. Here is a small sample of prototypes I have worked on in the last year:
- A tactical arcade shooter featuring robocop and his domestic problems.
- A 3rd person 3d roguelike where the maincharacter is a golum who pulls pieces of his body of to spawn new tools and upgrades.
- an isometric action puzzle game where you control an ice-cube lost from his iceburg.
- An earth defense game where you manually pilot a space ship into orbit to release satellites which interface with special towers that you build to gain money, fire rockets, and otherwise defend the planet from asteroids and invading aliens.
- A submarine multiplayer game where you control the force and direction of two propellers on either side of your ship which allow you to move in very controlled manner and shoot your opponents. Kind of like the spiritual successor to hard lander.
- Another one I want to prototype but I haven't is a unicycle game where you control the speed and direction of your pedals and the weight of your rider. Basically a unicycle sym :D.
You can play Hard Lander right now on the Ouya.
There's a typo in your heading. =)
Hahahahahahaha We all make mistakes.
I haven't played around with the map editor. I guess this is what you were doing last night when I saw you sign in to Battle.net. I noticed you were in the Starcraft II Arcade.
Yeah, I was playing the Diablo mod.
I haven't seen any updates on this for about a year. Glad to know they're still working on it. It's looking WAY better.