Diablo III

Today I finished the Diablo III beta. I'm not making any promises, but at this moment, I don't really see myself buying the game—ever. There are a few reasons for this, which I'll get to momentarily. I should also note that even despite some significant problems that had nothing to do with the game itself, I mostly enjoyed the game and wanted to play it more than I got to. Actually, I should begin with those problems.

My laptop has a cracked screen, so I've been using an external monitor. My external monitor is ancient. Well, it's from 2000. Even though I did use this monitor for almost a decade, now that I'm forced to use it again, I'm annoyed at how bad everything looks on it. So there's that. Worse still, I had some computer-crashing issues that I suspect were not related to Diablo III at all. I suspect this because the computer seemed to be overheating. Last year, I had major problems with my computer overheating and crashing. I had my dad take it to a repair place that replaced a fan, which solved the problem. For several months, everything was fine. Eventually, yet another problem (this computer is a lemon, as you might notice from my posts in 2010) arose that resulted in my cracked screen, but that's a topic for another time. Anyway, in all the time I played Skyrim and other games, the computer never once overheated. However, that's exactly what it seemed to be doing while I was playing the Diablo III beta. It could have been the game crashing my computer, but I strongly suspect that it's merely an indication that my computer's overheating problems have returned. I was still able to play pretty reliably for well over an hour at a time, so I finished the beta. But if I hadn't been worrying about my computer crashing, which was likely not the game's fault at all, I might have actually played the whole beta all the way through with a second character. So I'm going to criticize the game, but keep in mind that it was good enough for me to finish the (pretty short) beta, and that I would have played it even more if I'd had the opportunity.

The Good

• I don't think I used the vanilla "hit monster with weapon" attack once the whole time. I played as the witch doctor, which is allegedly the substitute for the necromancer in Diablo II. I started out with a poison dart skill and always had enough mana for it. Eventually, I replaced my poison dart skill with a thrown jar that exploded and released spiders (yes, really) to attack my enemies. These skills were spammable and cost so little mana that it wasn't even noticeable. I suspect that it's similar for the other classes. That's a breath of fresh air compared to Diablo II's use of mana.
• More fluid skill usage. I don't know what finished builds will look like, but early on, I was tossing jars of spiders, snaring enemies with magic hands, summoning zombie dogs as distractions, and using a draining spell all at the same time. In Diablo II, most finished characters use the same skill over and over to kill everything, and even early on, most characters are relying on one or two skills most of the time. Oh sure, one maxes synergies and uses pre-buff skills and some mobility or shielding skills or whatever, but when it comes time to actually fight anything, it's just two skills or sometimes even just one. If I'd been playing a comparable portion of Diablo II, I would have a necromancer with a golem, a curse, and either a poison dagger, a few skeletons, or a damaging spell (Teeth) for actually killing things. My enchantress is way farther along in Diablo II than the length of this entire beta, and she's still stuck with her vanilla attack for killing enemies, and will be for a while even after she beats Normal difficulty Diablo!
• Followers apparently have skills as they level-up. I'm still a little apprehensive about this one. The original Diablo didn't have followers at all. Diablo II introduced them and LOD greatly improved them. But this might be a bit much. The game is supposed to be about me, about my character, not about followers. Still, this seems to have been done in a way that makes it work. Overall, I think it's a positive.
• Boss fights seem like they will probably be better. There's really only one boss fight in the beta, and it comes later than Blood Raven would have in Diablo II. I don't know how long the full game will be, but I'm assuming the boss in the beta is roughly analogous to Andariel. If so, that's definitely an improvement. Andariel could be a bit intimidating for a weak character, but really, all she does is call you names, tell you to die, and shoot poison at you. Far stronger poison than any other poison before that point in the game, but still, just poison. Any character that can throw damage at her while avoiding the poison or that can dish out a lot of damage can easily whip Andariel like the bitch she is. Now, the Diablo III beta was, as a rule, very easy, but the Skeleton King actually took some time to kill and actually seemed to pose a threat. He teleported to me, hit me with a big axe or something, summoned undead to get in my way, and generally didn't go down without a fight. He also talked to me before we fought and was more dramatic than Andariel.
• In multiplayer, every player gets his or her own item and gold drops. This is actually rather brilliant.

The Bad

• I guess it's impossible to namelock enemies? It was often hard to actually focus particular monsters. Also, I sometimes couldn't run up to a mob because when I clicked in their general area, my character kept spamming his jars.
•  In Diablo II, even with a brand new character, actually, even when I was just starting out, I was looking down the skill trees and planning my skill investment. I had some idea which skills I wanted to sink points into, which ones I only needed as prerequisites or as one-pointers, and which ones I could ignore because they weren't for my build. It wasn't perfect, but it was intuitive. Even after playing all the way through the beta, I still have no idea how skills work in Diablo III. I was unlocking either a new skill or some enhancement to an existing skill every level, with seemingly no room for customization. Even if it turns out that end-game characters can be incredibly diverse, this is still a problem.
• The beta was way too easy. I was never in real danger. Part of the atmosphere of the Diablo series is that you're fighting demons and such. They have claws or shoot fireballs or whatever. They are legion. They want you dead. If a level 1 character is running around in godmode, that atmosphere is gone.
• Even before I ever played the witch doctor, and moreso now that I have, I thought the biggest problem with the class was that they should have named it "shaman." Setting aside the fact that everyone immediately thinks of that stupid song by the asshole that invented "Alvin and the Chipmunks" whenever the phrase "witch doctor" is uttered, the name connotes a healer or at least someone that attempts to heal. A spellcasting individual that uses animals and nature and curses and stuff to disable his foes is already a thing in lots of games. And it's called a shaman.
• Apparently multiplayer games are limited to four people. That's half as many as in Diablo II. What gives?

The Ugly

• Well, the graphics are ugly. I mean, my horrible monitor doesn't excuse everything. For a game that's so many years in the making and is coming out in 2012, it just doesn't look very good. League of Legends looks cooler, and it's not even a game that needs to look good. Also, it's free to play. Hell, Diablo II looks better, is over a decade older, and uses 2-D graphics.
• The game was unavailable the majority of the times I tried to play it. I had to be very persistent. The servers were crashing or going down for maintenance all the time. And yeah, I know it's just the beta, but so what?
• There is no necromancer.
• The random conversations are dumb. Unlike some people, I found the voice-acting in Diablo III to be fine, at least mostly. But sometimes my character would suddenly strike up a conversation with townsfolk or followers, either discussing history or engaging in shallow philosophical banter, which was annoying.
• Everything is on Battle.net. Online play is the only play there is. By far, this is the worst thing about the game. A lot of people are dismissing this one, but I cannot. I've played Diablo II without an active internet connection or without a reliable internet connection, well, a lot. And then there's the issue with servers crashing or otherwise being unavailable. I have this crazy notion that if I buy a game, I should be able to play that game when I want to, not when Blizzard says that I can. That's one of the reasons that all of my Diablo II characters are stored on my computer, not on Blizzard's servers. Oh, this also means no mods and no item packs. Well, no thanks.