Tried the Wizard class in D3 for a bit yesterday…  Was not impressed.

I guess I was expecting something more like the D2 Sorceress, or a traditional swords & sorcery wizard.  Something like a Mage in WoW, maybe.  And maybe that’s unfair – to judge D3′s classes because they aren’t like I expect them to be.

But my first impression of the class was Harry Potter.

I mean, first of all, it’s called “wizard” instead of “mage” or “sorcerer” or anything like that.  Which already feels a bit like they’re trying to cash-in on the popularity of the books.

Then…  The basic, naked, “I’ve got no armor at all” look for a wizard is more reminiscent of a gentleman’s attire than some battle-hardened wielder of arcane forces.  He’s got a crisp white shirt, and a vest, and slacks.  I guess it’s supposed to look like he’s stepped out of some arcane university or something…  But it really looks more like he’s walked out of business school.

And then there’s the wand.  The specialty weapon for wizards is apparently a wand.  Not a big ol’ staff, or magic crystals, or floating orbs, or anything like that.  A wand.  And it looks like a wand, too.  Just a little stick held in the hand – that gets waved and pointed at enemies, and blasts of energy come out of the tip.

Not that there’s really anything wrong with a Potter-esque wizard class….  But it just feels a little weird in a Diablo setting.

Of course, I’m basing this on my experience of the first two games, and a small slice of D3 in the beta…  It’s entirely possible that the new wizard will make perfect sense in the context of the full game.  In fact, I think it could be great fun if we wind up visiting the kind of place that would create a wizard like that…  I think it’d be fun stalking through the streets of some dignified, urban setting with my demon hunter.

Played some more D3 this afternoon…

I’m really liking the Monk class.  Very cool.  Vaguely reminiscent of the Assassin from D2…  With maybe a dash of Paladin thrown in for good measure.  Lots of fun.

The game does some things in interesting ways…

The stash and gold seem to be shared across all your characters.  As do your achievements.  In fact, in a lot of ways, it almost seems like the individual characters don’t matter.  While you can name your individual characters, once you get into a game the only name that appears is that of your Battle.net profile.

One of my quests involved getting the local blacksmith set up and running again…  And when I came back to the game on a different character, he was already up and running.  I was still able to do that quest again, but I was also able to make use of the blacksmith before I did so.

Terri got in to the Diablo III beta.  Got a notice just a couple days ago.  As did one of my old DAoC buddies.  I didn’t though.  Primarily because I hadn’t even opted-in to the beta list.  I feel a little stupid about that.

Terri, being the awesome wife she is, has shared her beta access with me.  And I’ve spent a good chunk of the day today playing around with it.

My very first impression – holy shit, this place is dark.  The whole starter area is dark and gloomy.  Lots of fog everywhere.  Everything is varying shades of black and grey.  Feels very muddled.  Very hard to see.  Feels like those stupid rainbow-hating morons won.  I have to assume that later areas will be more varied, and this region is simply dark for plot-related purposes.  I certainly hope the whole game isn’t this dark.

Getting beyond the overwhelming gloom…  It’s definitely a Diablo game.  Feels just like I’m wandering the fields outside the cathedral in Diablo II, Act I.  Lots of zombies, the occasional quillrat.  Hollow logs and corpses to loot.  Even the sound of coins falling to the ground is the same.  Very familiar.  Very cool.

As I play through a couple of the dungeons, I get the distinct impression that I’m actually playing Torchlight, and not a Diablo III beta.  The Demon Hunter is playing almost exactly like the Vanquisher did.  Plus there are bonuses for destroying random objects in the environment.  And achievements to be earned.

The comparison to Torchlight is maybe a little unfair…  As Torchlight was simply the most recent game to imitate Diablo…  But that’s really what it feels like.

I’m having a few, small issues with the beta…  Getting some random pauses and slowdowns.  I’m assuming that it’s somehow related to the beta status of the game.  Maybe it’s doing some reporting behind the scenes…  Or maybe there’s still some bugs to be squashed…

But, on the whole, it’s playing very well.  The graphics are nice, crisp, and clean.  The gameplay is very familiar, very intuitive, and very enjoyable.

I can easily see myself sinking a ridiculous amount of time into this game once it is released.

Been playing a good amount of WoW lately.  And, since I’m not really part of an active guild, I’ve been running dungeons with a bunch of pick-up groups.

For a while there, I was having great luck with my PUGs.  Could burn through three or four dungeons, back-to-back, with no trouble.  Decent gear, no real drama, more-or-less competent players…  Really had no trouble clearing a dungeon – either normal or heroic.

Sure, there’d be the occasional fuckup and/or party wipe…  But folks would just get back up, dust themselves off, and charge back into the battle.

Then something happened.

I’m not sure if my luck changed, or a people suddenly got stupid, or what.  But I suddenly find myself constantly grouped with moronic prima donnas.

I’ll wind up in a party with one or more incompetent players – a tank who can’t hold aggro, or a healer that just can’t keep people standing, or a mage who simply can’t control his aggro…  And we’ll wind up wiping on something…  And then folks start bailing.

We’ll have a single bad pull, and all of a sudden the tank leaves the party.  Or the healer runs for the hills.  Or a couple of the DPS’ers leg it.

Depending on who leaves, it might be possible to queue up again, find someone to fill that role, and continue through the dungeon…  But unless someone is found very quickly, more people start leaving…  And before long I’ll find myself standing alone in some dungeon wondering where the hell everyone went.

Seems like I’m only actually clearing a dungeon about a third of the time.  It’s getting pretty discouraging.

I canceled EVE again not so long ago.  Signed up for the WoW yearly subscription thing, so I could get a free copy of Diablo III and entry into the next WoW beta and all that good stuff.  And I’m having great fun with it…  But there’s a very distinct feeling to EVE that most other games simply do not deliver.

There’s a feeling of loneliness and quiet desolation as you fly through space.  Thousands of kilometers between you and the nearest object.  Millions of kilometers between you and anything that could be called “civilization”.  A feeling of freedom, of being able to wander aimlessly wherever you want.

And the open-ended nature of EVE just isn’t replicated in many other places.  You can run missions, engage in piracy, build a trade empire…

But the X Universe games have always done a pretty good job of capturing that kind of feeling.  That same feeling of the vastness of space, and the open-ended possibilities.

So, I’ve recently started playing X3: Albion Prelude…  It’s the newest title in the X series.  I guess it must take place some time after Terran Conflict, but I have to admit that I’m not familiar enough with the setting’s lore to know what’s going on with any certainty.

Looks like there’s been some kind of falling out…  The Terrans appear to be at war with everyone else.  I’m not entirely sure what has caused this rift.  There’s an intro video that looks like it might explain what is going on, but it’s just a bunch of dramatic scenes.  And, honestly, I’m not sure that even matters too much.  The meat of the game is the free-roaming, open-ended gameplay that you engage in outside of the storyline missions.

I’ve just started playing around, and I’m horribly rusty.  Having a hard time navigating and fighting and anything else.  No idea what I’m doing.  And there isn’t much of a tutorial.

The graphics look pretty awesome.  Much improved from the earlier games I played.

And the game is definitely more mouse-friendly than it used to be.

But there’s still a distinctly X feel to it.  And I’m having fun wandering the spacelanes.  Can’t wait until I get the hang of things and really get going.

Today is finally Friday.  It’s been one hell of a week…  Feels like I somehow wound up with an extra day or two, like I’ve already worked six or seven days.  All week long it has felt like it should be later in the week – Tuesday felt like Wednesday, Wednesday like Thursday, Thursday like Friday, and today I’m just glad it is Friday.

Work is still consuming most of my life.  Every day is very busy.  And then I’m coming home exhausted, and going to bed early.

I’ve pretty much stopped playing Skyrim.  I’ve got over 80 hours logged, haven’t finished the main storyline, and I just can’t find the time to devote to it these days.  I’ll wind up going back to it eventually…  But, for now, I just don’t have the time.

I’ve been playing WoW again.  It’s easier to log in and waste ~30 minutes in WoW than it is in Skyrim.

I’ve pushed my huntress up to 81, got her out to Vashj’ir and I’m playing with sea creatures.  I also rolled up a priest and I’ve got her to 31.  Took her to the Darkmoon Fair a few times and ran a bunch of dailies around Stormwind.

There’s another sale going on Steam…  This time around it’s their Autumn Sale.  They’ve had different specials every day.

Today, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine was on sale – 33% off.

I’ve been a big fan of pretty much all of Relic‘s 40k games, and I’ve been eyeing this game for a little while, so I had to grab it while it was on sale.

Tried it out earlier tonight…  And it is certainly an interesting game.

It definitely captures the dark, gritty, brutal feeling of the 40k setting.  But it also completely ignores the current trend in shooters towards more tactical gameplay.

I don’t know how many shooters I’ve seen recently where cover was absolutely essential.  Games with all sorts of interesting covering-fire and blind-shooting mechanics to allow you to take advantage of cover.  Games where you virtually *need* to use the gun’s sights just to hit the broad side of the barn.  And, while this is fun, it doesn’t exactly fit the in-your-face nature of the 40k universe.

Which is why I was so delighted to see Space Marine ignore that trend.

Rather than ducking behind cover and waiting for your health to regenerate, you have to gloriously destroy the Emperor’s foes to recover your health.  And, rather than hanging back and carefully picking off enemies from the safety of cover, you’re generally encouraged to wade into the fray and mete out justice with a melee weapon.

It’s a hell of a lot of fun.