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.

Penny Arcade does a pretty good job of summarizing the latest furor over Diablo 3:

So, Diablo 3 is going to require an always-on connection back to Blizzard for the DRM.  Instinctively, this annoys me.

I don’t like DRM to start with.  I don’t like being told what to do.  Being told that I have to be on-line to play D3 because of the DRM just annoys me.

But, realistically, it isn’t that big a deal.  Unless something happens to my ISP, I’m on-line pretty much 24/7.  And even back when I played Diablo 2, I was usually playing on Battle.net anyway.  Even if I was playing by myself – I’d create a game, password protect it, and go to town.  That way I didn’t have to worry about backing up my characters if I had to reload my computer.

And, of course, none of these folks screaming about boycotts are actually going to refrain from playing the game.  They might pirate it instead…  But they’ll still play.

I’m nowhere near the Blizzcon convention…  And I’m not currently playing any Blizzard games…  But I’d have to be living under a very large rock to miss all the hype and hoopla going on.

Looks like Diablo III is going to have a Monk class.  I’m pretty excited about that.  I’ve always enjoyed monk-type characters in RPGs.  I like the idea of wading into combat with no weapons or armor, and laying waste to your foes none-the-less.

Looks like the monk will be armed with a staff, and maybe fist weapons as well…  Reminds me a bit of the Assassin class from Diablo II, which I simply loved.

There’s also talk of the next expansion to World of Warcraft – Cataclysm.

This time around it looks like they’re focusing on the old world instead of adding another new area.  There’s a couple new races – goblins and worgen – and tons of changes to the old world.  New zones, dramatic changes to old zones, phasing terrain, heroic versions of old dungeons…

Looks good enough, in fact, that we’re going to have to reserve a couple copies and re-subscribe to WoW.

Stumbled across a humorous and insightful article over on Something Aweful tonight…  A brilliant example of just how dark Diablo II was.

Yeah…  Those bright blue and green monsters sure are dark and gothic.  So is the predominantly red architecture, and the bright white spell blasts.  It all looks very dark and brooding, doesn’t it?

Frankly, it looks like they did the best they could with an 8-color box of crayolas.

Compared to a screenshot of one of the dungeons in Diablo III…

Or even one of the outdoor areas in Diablo III…

Well, I guess I just don’t see what people are complaining about.  Yes, the screenshots from Diablo III have more colors, but that doesn’t mean they’re bright and happy and full of rainbows and sunshine.  It just means that you can tell different objects apart with relative ease.

Wow…  The announcement over Diablo III is only about a week old and people are already complaining.  Apparently that 20-minute gameplay video looks to happy and bright and cheerful for some people, so they’re petitioning to get the color scheme changed to something more like Diablo I or II.

Just…  Wow…  A single 20-minute video…  It shows about 10 minutes inside a single dungeon, and 10 minutes outside in a single wilderness area…  And they’re ready to burn people at the stake for turning Diablo III into Hello Kitty.

Now, if  you really put some actual thought into it you’d realize that their complaints are based on some very selective memories.  Diablo I was dark and dingy largely because of hardware limitations at the time.  We didn’t have the technology to do fancy spell-effects or realistic shadows or anything.  Lighting effects were very simple and limited.  Color palettes were likewise limited to a few hundred or a few thousand colors – something like the 24-bit with alpha channel that we have today was simply impossible.

Diablo II actually featured some very bright scenery.  The deserts around Lut Gholein were downright blinding.  The jungles around Kurast were lush and green.  The snowy mountains around Horrogath were full of gleaming blue ice and white snow.  The game was certainly not muddy and brown throughout.

And, while Diablo III’s gameplay teaser certainly looked more vivid and vibrant, I don’t think I would ever call it bright or happy.  Everything was more sharply defined.  Everything was clear.  The fountains of blood looked like blood, and not reddish mud.  The swarms of locusts devouring the monsters looked like swarms of locusts, and not a collection of greenish pixels.  Light sources cast actual light, complete with moving shadows, rather than simply reducing the darkness in an area.

To be honest, I suspect the problem is not so much with the color scheme, as the fact that the gameply video clearly shows a change in gameplay mechanics.  The Barbarian is seen dashing around, hacking and slashing, hopping around, mowing through a huge horde of enemies…rather than slowly hacking away at one or two large foes…  The Witch Doctor is an entirely new class never seen before…  It looks like there’s more storytelling going on…  The loot looks completely and totally different…

All of which implies that these folks who’ve been playing Diablo II for the last eight years will not be able to hop right in and be as uber as they are used to.  They’ll have to learn new strategies and techniques.  They’ll have to find new gear.  They’ll have to find their way through new dungeons and wildernesses.  And there’s a concern hidden in this petition that the game might be too different from Diablo II.  And they may not like the game, or may not be as good at it.