Diablo 3 Beta test first impressions

Curtesy of Play.com, yesterday evening I received a Diablo 3 Beta key. Left my pc downloading the game last night and spent a bit of time playing it tonight.
Before if get into the first impressions I have to say I was a big fan or Diablo 2, completing it and it's expansion pack (lord of destruction), and played it online with one of my mates co-operatively. So to say I was stupidly excited to get my hands on a Diablo 3 beta key was an understatement. I was grinning like a fool as I clicked the desktop short cut this evening to launch the game for the first time.
I know the beta has been running for a while now and have read about the many tweaks and changes Blizzard have made so here is what I think as my first impressions of the game in its current state today (21/3/2012). I have so far had a quick go (to level 6) playing as a Wizard and (to level 7) as a Demon Hunter. The first thing you notice is the gorgeous but dark and ominous graphical style of the game (on hi to mid settings, could crank it up some more as my two GTX285m’s in Sli were sitting at about 40% usage according to ECGA Precision, but just changed the res to my desktop size and ticked vertical sync as I was more keen on playing). The sounds also suit the graphics creating the mysterious dark, evil atmosphere.
The first small section of the game introduces you to the controls and interface which for previous players of Diablo 2 will feel quite natural but modernised. You still have the primary attacks/spells on your left and right mouse buttons as with Diablo 2 but it doesn't appear from my first look the you can bind addition spells to switch between to the Function keys. Instead you have 1-4 to bind defensive spells to and have offensive abilities/spells bound to the mouse. This means in combat you generally use your two favourite attacks to fight but don't have to swap them out in combat to use a defensive ability like in Diablo 2. I was rather hoping for a more World of Warcraft style GUI but I guess being able to hit any spell any time would effect game balance. The current setup makes you use your preferred attack and defence abilities that suit your play style best. This is good as it mean if you and a couple of mates all team up and want to play the same character class, you hopefully all wont use the same spec. Unless of course people end up finding a cookie cutter spec that's best, but I'm not sure if this necessarily happen as depending on if you are more aggressive or defensive in your play style would depend on what abilities you choose. Furthermore, your gear could effect the spec choice you pick too as if you have a slower attack you may want more crowd control abilities to help slow down the larger groups so you have time to pick your enemies off instead of getting mobbed.
The control system non the less works really well, the characters feel powerful when fighting the mobs but not unstoppable. There are plenty of points when you need to think about how to tackle a groups of mobs, especially when a rare named mob is in the pack. Also there are points when your gear is falling too far behind your level or you are nearing a level up when you are facing tougher mobs that take a lot of your resources to beat. It's nicely paced from testing you, to allowing you to feel powerful then really testing you for a while hero handing the power back over after a level up or sexy random gear drop.
True to the Diablo style, there is the random element to the world and the gear you get. In both short play runs I’be tried s far, there have been plenty of differences, not so much with the map itself so far, but more where the crypts, cellars etc that you can enter are located and the mobs found within. They have also kept some of the sound effects from the other games like when you loot a corpse, just cleaned up to today's standards. But I'm glad they kept them as it’s part of the feel and character that makes Diablo.
As mentioned earlier, I have had a go at the Wizard and Demon Hunter classes far. The Wizard certainly feels much better than in Diablo 2 with the new arcane bar that recharges quickly for all spell abilities. That means the mana bar and potions are gone! In fact the only character class that uses mana is the Witch Doctor. Initially the Wizard felt like the more powerful class but after a few level ups I found the Demon Hunter to have more effecting range damage. How this will change as the game progresses I couldn’t say at present but once I have played some more I will blog more.
Coming back to the class fights styles, the Wizard seems to have more AoE option available, still offering single target dps but I found the multi target damage to be far more efficient at least from what I have seen. The Demon Hunter starts out as a more ranged single target dps’er with the bow as weapon of choice. The starting attack ability is able to hit a second target and becomes far more effective once upgraded with a rune. I found the second alternate attack ability, which is a rapid fire attack to be most effective, especially when combined with the first defensive trap like ability (caltrops) which slows enemy movements down. The Demon Hunter has two sources of power, Hatred which is used for the main attacks and regenerates quick like the Wizards arcane meter. The second source of power, Discipline, is used for the Demon Hunter’s defensive abilities. Discipline recharges slowly compared to Hatred but I found I didn't use it anywhere as much, but only having one hatred ability unlocked so far it's hard to comment on how it will play later in game.
So lots of good stuff so far but there is one negative point I have to raise from the beta which I hope will be fixed in the final product. That's the fact it has a permanent Internet connection running in the background while playing. It felt a it more like WoW at this point. I've not tried playing with my Internet connection offline of dropping the connection while playing to see if it will kick me out but I'm guessing it will as it when the latency dropped into the yellow bars, I was getting little lag spikes every now and then and the odd clicking an attack then it launching a noticeable moment later after the character animation (crossbow bolt leaving the crossbow after the character had fired the crossbow is what I mean there). When looking at the menu I was playing online at the time as there was an option to open my game up for others to join but I'm guessing the random element layout of my Diablo world is decided on a blizzard server rather then in my local machine so it's easy for others to join in my particular game. If this is the case it's kind’a good for multilayer but for me also a bit disappointing for single player. The reason for it being disappointing is if this is the case, losing my Internet connection would mean I would not be able to play. That's the only negative I can potentially see from the beta so far for me though.

So overall (so far) Diablo 3 is shaping up to be something of a winner for me. I doubt I'll finish Skyrim by the launch of Diablo so in the event the internet connection does stop me playing, I can always jump back into the world of Skyrim for some rpg fun. Otherwise, I think and hope Diablo will be all I'm looking for and some in the final release.

*Update*

I've now had a go with the Monk character class. The Monk uses spirit for all abilities and spirit works differently to the previous characters energy pools in that it doesn't recharge itself over time. Instead, some attacks generate spirit while others use it. Defensive abilities also use spirit. So think of it as a bit like the warrior rage bar in WoW except it doesn't start depleting when out of combat and you don't gain any spirit when the enemy attacks you.
The Monk as a character is quite fun to play and feels quite well balanced with the combat system. It's a melee class for single handed weapons with fast attacks that dish out a good amount of damage. Combining your primary attack to replace spent spirit with secondary, often more multi target attacks (at least the first two you get are) with defensive abilities is really good fun. Especially when I unlocked the rune for the first basic primary attack. It added chain lightening damage to the third punch in the combo. Great for groups of enemies and very cool looking when fighting a mob in a graveyard. The lightening jumped from the mob to a few gravestones obliterating them sending chunks of stone flying everywhere.
A fun fast hitting melee class that as a fan of the Rogue in WoW, I'm finding enjoyable so far.

Update*

Played through the beta with both the wizard and barbarian now. The character levelling and rewards are very morish. The Barbarian is a very fun class, feeling even more powerful than in Diablo 2. With the cleave move you take out multiple enemies at once which is very effective and the character really is hard hitting. Knocking the skeleton out of the flesh of the risen dead looks both cool and funny. The enemies literally go flying. The use of rage as a power source is very similar to that of the WoW warrior but it doesn't run out as fast when out of combat.
I've started playing a little with the Witch Dr. Not quite as I expected as seeing he/she would be powered by a mana bar I was expecting a need for mana potions. Seems I was wrong, the mana pool is pretty much the same as the Wizards arcane pool. It regens quick and allows spell casting/ability use. I guess the Witch Dr is kind of like the warlock class in WoW in that it's much like the Wizard (or Mage in WoW)
and rather than having typical arcane spells around frost and arcane energy, you have a poisonous blow pipe, then get funky spells, like haunting an enemy, or launching a swam of locusts on them. Hard to say for sure but I'm guessing the tactile play style will differ quite a bit from the Wizard due to te nature of the spells.

In any case, in summary again, I am really impressed with the beta and have pre ordered the game now so really just can't wait for the launch. Great work Blizzard :)

Comodo Free Firewall Review

I have recently been looking into free PC security options as in the past I have found for home use, these are normally more than good enough to do the job and they are often lighter on system resource usage than the paid security suites. After reading various review and advice sites, I decided to give Comodo Firewall a go. Initially all seemed good and it seemed to be holding true to the reviews I had read for the first 2 days and in fact, the latest version was far less annoying with pop ups than all the reviews had suggested it would be. I'll come back to what happened after the first 2 days later.
So lets cover the good points first. It was really fast to load on start up and windows 7 was loading faster from the login point than previously which was nice.
It downloaded updates quickly and efficiently as some firewall providers out there can have quite slow updates, probably due to not enough server weight to through around to their customers.
The interface as quite nicely laid out and easy to navigate. It has nice friendly slide bars to set the level of security/aggressiveness the fire provides against the outside world getting in and your programs getting out. This was something I did like as it's makes it easier for the more novice user out there to use but for the more technical or paranoid user, you can dig into the setup to further customise how you want it to respond and work.
It also has some nice features that Comodo make a point of marketing. I specifically like the sandbox idea where you can run programs you are unsure about in an environment where they can't run wild destroying your registry. Unfortunately, if Comodo firewall deemed a safe program as unsure, it would also shove them in the sandbox. I found this with my razor lycosa app, perfectly safe tool for my peripheral but Comodo was flagging it as a potential risk and off to the sandbox. From the reviews I read, Comodo Firewall does have a habit of flagging up false positives quite often but once you tell it on the pop ups that the safe stuff us safe and tell it to remember it wont do it again.
Another good point is when checking on task manager, Comodo doesn't use up much system resource at all, in fact it was one of the lowest running services on the list when sorted by usage.
So you are probably thinking so far so good and maybe I'll check out comodo's website but what happened after the first 2 days of use mentioned earlier? Well essentially it rendered windows unusable. I did look into what the cause could have been after seeing so many positive reviews and it seems there are a load of people out there who have had this problem. I'm sure there are even more people out there who are using Comodo's firewall without any problems at all otherwise they wouldn't be in business. In any case, from what I found there is a problem with some of the .cav files that result in 99% of your processor time being eaten up. I did try to run the uninstaller after a hard reset as fir the first couple of mins the system was running normally. Unfortunately the bug kicked in and the system ground to a halt. This killed off the uninstaller making Comodo removable even in safe mode. Just to mention at this point if you do try Comodo and get this problem, reboot to safe mode and it should uninstall ok as safe mode runs fine. I would strongly advise setting a system restore point before installing comodo's software though as I needed to restore to get my PC working again. So uninstaller broken, I found a link on Comodo's forums to a batch file that would clean Comodo from my system and registry. Downloaded and use sticked it across to my PC. Run from safe mode following the guide it came with and all looked good until a reboot back into windows. Comodo was gone and the CPU usage bug was gone but it killed another part of my registry or network card drivers resulting in a resort to using a restore point. I was skeptical to do the restore due to have little success with them under win XP, hence the reason for looking for and trying the alternative options but it seems either win7 is better at restoring or I got lucky. I can only assume that Comodo has a conflict issue with certain system configurations and mine happened to be one of those.

So in conclusion, if you are able to use Comodo successfully with your system configuration then I would say it's worth a look as it does appear to be a good firewall with some good features but just make sure you set a restore point before you install.


Veiledbunneh

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