Last Thursday (24 May) - The Diablo Auction House

Last Thursday (24 May) - The Diablo Auction House

At the end of Act IV we get to battle Diablo himself, after proving ourselves against a number of lesser elites. At level 32 and with the best gear BW could scrounge up from drops off of kills, Barbedwire tested himself against the great One. Diablo cheated. BW didn't just fight Diablo, but several other elites that would step in and take Diablo's place whenever BW seemed to be getting the upper hand. BW had the power to bring down both Diablo and his minions, but not the health. Despite using all his tricks to stay alive, BW was eventually beaten down and defeated. He tried twice.

BW could have continued to take more shots at Diablo, and probably would have eventually managed to take him out, mostly by getting lucky with health pot drops. BW wanted something more decisive than that. BW went back to farming gear and experience. He eventually raised his level to 33, but did little to improve his gear. After the first clear of an area, the game gets very stingy with additional loot. I think that is a failure in the game, myself, as I was prepared to spend the extra time working to improve the gear.

It was suggested that I try the Auction House. One look at what was being sold caused BW's jaw to drop in shock. Before the AH, BW thought he'd made an awesome weapon improvement when he jumped from a 2-hand 39 DPS weapon to a one-hand 44 DPS weapon. BW's first buy off the AH was a new one-hand. He spent 5,000 gold (BW has over 100,000 gold) for a dagger that does 70 DPS, nearly double what BW was currently using. OMFG. There were a couple more buys for other gear slots, specifically to get a stat called Life Steal. That stat is a barbarian's best friend, BW would soon learn, because every bit of damage done to the bad guys gives health back to BW. Suddenly, BW had a crushing weapon to wield and his health issues nearly evaporated with all of the life stealing.

I sent BW back to the beginning of Act IV and had him run the whole Act all over a second time. It was awesome! Nothing could stand in his way. BW earned level 34.

And soon enough, it was time to face Diablo once again. This time, it was Diablo who was quaking. It was a great battle, but the outcome was never in any serious doubt. Diablo fell.

With that came the words: Congratulations, you have completed Diablo 3! More challenges still await you.

Those "more challenges' is an invitation to play the exact same game again, from beginning to end, only against a higher level of competition against tougher foes. BW completed D3 in Normal difficulty. The next level is called Nightmare. And there are two more higher levels after that.

In addition to the new difficulty level, I still have level 13 demon hunter, Ratatatat. There haven't been many opportunities to run as a group, which is what Rat was created for, but hopefully our team will get together again soon.

Wednesday (23 May) - Riding out the String

Wednesday (23 May) - Riding out the String

Wildshard and JB have been taking it easy for a number of days now and are pretty much ok about that. Happy was running our of herb bags, though, and on Tuesday managed to rouse JB long enough for her to gather up some mats and send them over to Wild. Wild waited until after his siesta to check in. While in game he checked on the status of guild raiding. There were few guildies about, none of whom were in any of the guild raids. Wild learned a few things just poking around on the raid calendar, though. By the way, Wild never did get any responses to his guild website post letting folks know Wild's non-raiding status.

All three of the guild raids remain active, but there have been some changes. The weekend G3 continues to refer to themselves as "still forming" but Sb is determined to make it work. Wild helped out a couple of times before his temporary retirement, but we spent almost as much time trying to fill the raid as we did on bosses. The G1 appears to have lost their raid leader. Can't tell if the change is temporary or permanent, but the RG2 raid leader, Bd, is leading the G1 raid this week. G1 is apparently undergoing some rebuilding as well. Lady Hunter is running RG2 this week. None of the raids have more than a handful signed up.

JB participated in her last guild raid on 14-15 April with G3. Wild's last guild raid was on 18 April with RG2. It was on 10 May that Wild officially informed the guild that Wild was "greatly reducing" his WoW time and would not be actively raiding.

In the opening sentence I mentioned a "number of days" away from raiding. The actual count for Wild is now 34 days. And counting . . .

As for BW, he has reached level 30 and killed the spider woman and Azmodan. There are some interesting developments at that stage, but I won't spill the beans. Jewel crafting may actually be a useful thing to train up in. For example, the skill can be used to craft Flawless type gems. One such gem, socketed in a weapon, adds 20-30 damage. BW ratcheted up his rare one-hand from 39 to 44 damage and I don't even have a flawless gem yet. Sockets are the way to go, and lower end gems are used by the jewel crafter to make higher end gems.

Barbedwire Update: BW has pushed forward to level 32 and has cleared Act IV. Well, almost. Everything is done except for that last task. Silver knows what that is, as I saw that her toon has reached at least level 50 (level 60 being the max level). BW failed in two attempts to finish Act IV. I could have kept throwing BW into the ring and eventually the odds would grant me a win, but I decided instead to do a little farming and try to earn some additional gear to make the fight a little less dependant on health pots. I've been using a heavy +strength build for faster killing, but I felt it was time to start upping BW's health for the tougher battles to come. BW was already starting to die more than I wanted, so it was probably past time to change up the stats. Those mobs with the big, thunderous slams were taking big chunks out of BW, and he was having trouble living through stuns/freezes that have been more and more of a problem.

I've also decided to give the Enchantress follower a chance to prove herself. I thought I would have to level her up, like I did Templar, but apparently they level up even when they aren't played. I wish I had noticed that. Anyone playing Diablo should upgrade the gear of all three followers as you advance. I was only interested in the templar, and let a lot of gear go by that the other followers could have been using.

That hurt the Enchantress. I didn't keep any of the staffs that dropped, so "Tress" (BW's name for her) will be weak in that area until one drops for her. The reason for trying her out is that she has some interesting group attack and defense skills that could be helpful. BW needs extra help staying alive. Her much lower armor, though, could mean she'll die a lot more, which of course won't help BW. We'll see.

Update #2: BW took Tress out for spin, redoing some of the dungeons that lead up to the final battle of act IV. Tress did well. I like the abilities she adds. The only problem is that she often Fears mobs that BW is actively trying to kill, forcing BW to change targets or, more often, chase down that fleeing elite I almost had killed.

Frankly, banging through old dungeons was a lot of work with not much gain. BW made it to level 33 and almost halfway to 34. The gear drops have gotten really pathetic, though. Not a single rare dropped, and three out of every four drop were useless gear for witch doctors, wizards, and monks. I'd like to finish Normal before moving up to a higher difficulty, but maybe BW should go pound in the next higher difficulty level and then drop back to finish normal.

Well, better get this posted or I'll just keeping adding things ... 

Tuesday (21 May) - Gathering a Group

Tuesday (21 May) - Gathering a Group

Ratatatat is my demon hunter. On Monday night she and two friends, playing a monk (Silver) and a mage (DB), got together as a group. Our levels ranged from 7 to 10 I believe, which meant that we were not all at the same spot in the storyline. That wasn't a problem, though. Diablo manages to keep everything moving forward, tracking our different positions in progression while still allowing us to play as a group. "Rat" soloed up to level 10 before joining the group. She does not have many abilities, yet, but she does have a pretty devastating crossbow that can be fired at machine gun speed. Imagine the 1930s tommy gun era. The only difference is that in Diablo Rat quickly runs out of ammunition (unlike the movies). Rat generally uses single shot mode for normal mobs; short, rapid sprays for when the number of mobs gets too stifling; and long, murderous bursts against the nastier foes.

Group work is a lot of fun, and goes very fast. We raced through field and dungeon wrecking havoc at every turn. Initially Rat was battling through areas she had already been through solo. Later, when Rat teamed with just DB, she got to see areas she had not yet visited. How that affects her solo play I'm not sure, but then I don't intend to play her solo very much. For solo play I have Barbedwire. Another benefit of group play is that players can trade gear. Rat nearly doubled her damage rating when DB won a rare crossbow and passed it to Rat to use. Wow, could she really blow things away with that!

In addition to that powered up crossbow, Rat does have a couple of defensive moves to stay out of trouble. Her favorite is the tumble, which is a very fast move that she uses to rocket herself out of immediate danger. During boss fights with the group she typically will empty her magazine on the boss right at the start, which attracts a lot of attention from the boss. If it actually succeeds in reaching her, she tumbles away and lets her ammo replenish while single shotting mobs (bosses are always surrounded by piles and piles of mobs). The others in the group are also attacking, of course, but if the boss isn't already down when her ammo loads up she can usually finish it with another long burst.

Ratatatat Level 1

Rat at Level 13

BW, meanwhile, continues to progress, but the going has gotten slower. As with WoW, each new level takes longer to complete than the one before. The gear upgrades come a lot slower, as well. However, BW did retrieve a new weapon that sent him back to blade and shield instead of a two-hander. BW found a very rare single hand weapon with a damage rating that was higher than the two-hander he was using. BW is now wielding that blade and has his big shield back. BW will likely be trading back and forth single and two hand weapons, depending on what combination delivers the most damage.

Monday (21 May) - Pacing Myself

Monday (21 May) - Pacing Myself

The obvious eventually occurred to me over the weekend in Diablo. That first flush of excitement has worn off. No matter how large the pile of carcasses BW stacks up, there is always another dungeon and more mobs to kill. There is a plot line, of sorts, and for those who want to talk to each and every npc encountered, it's probably an interesting story. The gist, though, is that whether you know the story or not, the game is a series of dungeons full of mobs to kill. Every now and then we have to kill a particularly bad-ass one, and then back to more dungeons and more mobs.

I'm not getting bored, necessarily. The goal now is to reach the finish line. Which, when I think back on it, is pretty much how all of these single player games go. I suspect that even in multi-player it's much the same goal, only we can do it with friends. It's still nice to get new gear, but BW has to empty his bag many times now before seeing a new piece he could use.

For awhile I was saving gear that would be useful when I started up another character. The "Stash" where I can store gear is a common stash that all my characters can use. So, if barbarian BW gets demon hunter gear, for example, he can put it in the stash. Then, if I had a demon hunter, he could use that gear. Now, though, that doesn't seem necessary. Gear drops so routinely that saving anything but the rarest gear seems pointless. BW generally sells every magic item he doesn't need, and just throws away the junk that isn't magic. There are some npc craftsmen - there's a blacksmith and a jewel crafter so far. I spent considerable gold leveling the blacksmith and made three pieces of gear at additional cost. That gear was replaced so quickly it was next to useless, as BW quickly acquired gear far better than anything the blacksmith could make. I haven't decided yet whether to bother with the jewel crafter or not. The gems for sockets are nice, but I'm already seeing better and better quality gems, so it may not be worth it.

Meanwhile, BW continues to bash his way through the dungeons. Since BW is so attuned to staying alive, he has always gone with a single-handed weapon and a shield. Even when some pretty nice two-handed weapons started showing up, BW stubbornly stayed with his shield. I couldn't blame him - shields offer huge protection. However, when a very rare two-handed weapon dropped that had a socket (for additional stats) and a damage rating a full third better than his single-handed weapon, that shield went into his bags.

It was awesome how much faster mobs started going down. BW has to be more on his toes, always on the lookout for a free health bulb, and retreating quickly when things aren't going his way. BW also began trying out some of the newer abilities the game kept tempting him with, and a couple of those became a staple of BW's attack. Under the right circumstances entire rooms full of mobs now go down is seconds!

As of Sunday morning Barbedwire is now well into Act III and had reached level 27. I'm not really sure where the finish line is, but that remains my goal.

Thursday (17 May) - Diablo 3 Act I and More

Thursday (17 May) - Diablo 3 Act I and More

Note: My somewhat obsessive focus on Diablo 3 has outpaced all my attempts to write about it. So, the below is a somewhat rambling account of my progress prior to the weekend. I did have to slow down over the weekend because I wasn't home much on Saturday and will be away much of Sunday, as well. So, hopefully, I'll get caught up early next week. Here goes . . .

Diablo 3 really brings back memories of those old single player games. It was just me against the computer, and I played a lot of them. Diablo 1 and 2 were my favorites. A close second was Dungeon Siege I and II. Of course I played all three single player Warcraft games and completed the first Starcraft game, too. When I was in between releases of my favorites, I grabbed other games: Sacred, Beyond Divinity, Harbinger, Syberia, Throne of Darkness, and others. I still have all of those games, and they probably even still play on my XP computer.

Diablo 3 takes advantage of all the things Blizzard learned when they created World of Warcraft, while still giving the game the very same feel of the earlier Diablo games. I was stunned when I learned that the game still used Checkpoints instead of letting players save the game at whatever point we want. During actual game play, though, it really hasn't been a factor or even a minor irritant. There are a lot of checkpoints, so even in the worst case you don't lose too much if you quit the game in between checkpoints. My worst moment was when Blizzard shut down for maintenance. I was off in my own world and didn't know about it until I was booted out of the game. Even then, the game remembered everything right up to that second. The only thing that seems to be affected is exploring and clearing areas. Several times I would return to an area I had explored, only to find I had to go do it all over again.

Getting around in Diablo 3 is a lot easier than with the earlier games, too. Waypoints allow travelers to teleport to every major spot in the game, and single purpose waypoints are also used to move between areas, such as when following a quest chain. For example, when exploring a dungeon with two levels, players must pass through a portal to go back and forth between levels. The handiest feature in the game (which I can't recall whether earlier games had it or not) is that once players reach a certain level (like level 5 or something low like that) we get our own personal portal between our home town and where were are currently. That makes it really easy to portal to town, clear the junk in our bags, and then portal back right where we were. It's more convenient than even WoW's portal process.

When I started playing these games, a lot of those conveniences didn't exist. If you were killed, depending on the game, it could be a real pain. Imagine working and working to clear through a long chain of monsters, and then die right before the end with the game putting you back at the beginning to do it all over again. Maybe in part because of that, I really, really hate dying. It took several years playing WoW before dying was just another facet of the game. Just rez and go on.

With Diablo, I've fallen back into my barbarian opinion that dying is for wimps. Barbedwire's gear and ability decisions mirror that opinion. BW is heavily armored. He wears quite a bit of armor that adds additional health, or provides health regeneration. It's nothing as elaborate as WoW, but it's very similar. Everything else is designed for killing. All of BW's abilities give him more fury, or higher damage, or strike multiple targets, or stun/knockback the bad guys. As BW has leveled the game keeps presenting him with new abilities to try. From my perspective, though, they gave BW all of the good ones up front. All of BW's abilities come from the first or second rank, and he has access to four levels of abilities now.

BW still has his templar follower with him. The Templar levels right along with BW, although he is usually one level behind. Which is just like hunter pets in WoW. Bw was offered a Scoundrel (like a rogue), which BW turned down. So far BW has only been allowed one follower, so I'd have had to give up my templar. I like my templar. In truth, I wish templars were playable characters. Later on BW was offered a sorcerer type, but I stayed with the trusty templar. To be absolutely honest, the follower doesn't really help much (ie, a WoW hunter pet is much more powerful than a follower), but he does talk a lot, so I guess he's good company.

I've played enough to start seeing some patterns. Based on that, here is a description of a typical battle when going into an area for the first time.

BW and Templar teleport into a new area. We are in a small room. The map doesn't show anything but the immediate area around me. We'll have to move to start drawing in the map of the area. Templar immediately sets up a few yards in front of BW. The guy is earnest and sincere, and determined to protect BW by attacking anything and everything nearby, even if it's currently minding it's own business. No problem, because killing everything in our path is what's on the agenda.

Our first contact is with a group of mobs, including some really nasty ones. The game likes to get the adrenaline popping right at the beginning with a large pile of mobs which often hides a smaller group of elites. Templar gets the scent and he's off, BW on his heels. BW weighs into the fray, swiping multiple targets with single swings of his axe/sword/dagger/mace/whatever he's using at the time. If mobs are going down in two to three swipes, BW will keep massacring them, adding Stomps to stun groups before cutting them down. Left click swinging and right click stomping, BW piles up the carcasses. As long as health bulbs appear in the carnage, BW can keep plowing through mobs. When something meaner than the run of the mill mob starts taking chunks out of BW, BW targets the attacker for personal attention. If health starts to become a problem, BW has his special, practiced move. He retreats, forcing the mobs to follow, which also causes them to spread out and become easier prey.

Retreating is good strategy if part of the goal is not to die. There is no penalty for dying, though. Sure, dying damages gear that then have to be repaired. Gold is plentiful, though, and gear is easily repaired. Dying might also mean having to restart at a checkpoint that requires re-killing some mobs, but again that's a minor inconvenience. It's just fun for me to try to avoid being killed.

Ok, about the mobs. Mobs are stupid. Some mobs follow, some stay back, and they quickly get strung out if BW stays on the move. BW can saunter back, his health now back to full, and crush them in smaller groups. It works for the big bad elites, too. Just wear them out, get out of range when health is low, and they'll eventually go down. One ability of BW's is that mobs will literally explode when certain conditions are met. There's a certain finality to that blast of blood and flesh, particularly when it's an elite. BW will even save the health pots that randomly drop, leaving them available in his path of retreat so he can heal up faster.

BW is facing a lot of mobs recently that spread acid and other corrosive goop as an attack or when they die. Standing in that stuff does more damage than anything else. BW has to reposition often to stay out of that stuff, and retreat to heal when he can't help it.

Templar ignores all that. He jumps into every fight with genuine enthusiasm. He does pitiful damage, but he's just about indestructible. When BW first started using the back off and come back approach I figured Templar would die, because he just doesn't know how to quit. But I learned right away that Templar would immediately try to follow BW. If BW out ran him, which is easy to do, in a few seconds he'll still pop up out of nowhere next to BW, ready to go again.

For most battles, though, BW and Templar don't need to back off at all. The two of them leave piles of rotting corpses in their wake with the only pause being to port back to town to sell off the gear bulging in BW's bags.

Barbedwire is level 23 and has completed Act 1. BW is near the end of Act II, with just two more king-sized elites to deal with.

Tuesday (15 May) - Diablo 3

Tuesday (15 May) - Diablo 3

At midnight on the 15th of May, Diablo 3 was officially released. I know of one friend who was awake at midnight. His report: "As soon as 1201 hit I was anxiously trying to log into the game to get a whiff of the sweet aroma of demons and death as glimpse of world’s first to log on achievements flashed in my eyes! ;) Sadly it took me about 10 tries and a few minutes to get past the log-in screen, and then when I finally got to the character select screen it was so laggy that I couldn’t even create my character. . . Overall I spent about 15-20 doing nothing!"

I made my first attempt to download the game on Tuesday morning. I probably tried twenty times without getting past "Updating Setup Files," which would hang at about 40% and then do nothing. I couldn't even get to the actual download of the game. I read through the technical Support forums and tried every plausible tip. And then I started trying implausible tips, and even some stupid tips - like making changes to Microsoft Explorer settings even though that program had nothing to do with anything if you didn't actually use it, which I don't.

Along about 7pm I finally found the culprit that was hanging up the process - it's called "agent.exe" and it's used to assist in installing programs. Well, it's "assistance" was causing the problem. The solution was to delete it from the computer. And then things started working. From that point forward, it took about an hour to get the game fully downloaded and installed.

Blizzard complained that my video card was a piece of crap, even though it met the minimum requirements. I told Blizzard to shut up and logged in anyway. There are some opening video clips, but I'd already seen them online before the game launched. I went to the character screen. Even with my crappy card the resolution and detail is pretty good. Better than WoW, which should be expected given it's a new game. Yet, it is much like WoW in the way the character screen is set up. I would learn that it is a lot like WoW in a lot of ways.

The first thing to do was to create a character. I've known for months that I would be playing this game, but didn't put much thought - ok, no thought - to what I would name that first character. I wanted my first toon to be a Barbarian, which is the class of character I used in both Diablo 1 and 2. I was tempted to start with a female character, but the female barbarian was eye tearing ugly. I thought about making another Wildshard, but decided I wanted to start fresh with this game. Again, without a whole lot of thought, my first Diablo 3 toon came to be known as Barbedwire.

I'll get into all of the details in a second post. It's 2:30am and I've been playing a good while now. Barbwire is level 7. I'm loving this game so far. Good night!

Thursday (10 May) - Message to the Guild

Thursday (10 May) - Message to the Guild

I just want to let folks know that I am greatly reducing my WoW in game time. For all of you wonderful, crazy, and superb G2 raiders, I apologize for not making raids in recent weeks. I hear that Wild's spot has been very capably filled and many Gratz! to downing Deathwing!

Part of the reason is that I'm just busier with other real life things right now. I have to admit, though, that I have a hard time building up any enthusiasm for the coming Mists of Pandaria, and with Cata drawing to a close I'm looking elsewhere for entertainment. I've been playing WoW since it was first released, and that's a very long time.

I'm going to give Diablo 3 a try, so maybe we can hook up there, for those who are going to play. I'm not quitting WoW, though, and may check in on raid nights to see if you need a spot filled, but I won't be actively raiding, at least for now.

I posted the above on the guild website, where it most likely won't be noticed or read. I spoken with the guild leader, though, so it won't be a complete surprise. I'm excited about Diablo 3. I loved the first two. That was before WoW, though, so I have no idea how the two will compare now. I plan to solo play a barbarian class, which is what I played in D1 and D2. For multiplayer I'm leaning toward the templar class, which is part reckless killer and part healer, and sounds pretty cool.

Diablo 3 launches on 15 May.