Diablo III Sneak Preview Before Release Date

The first things you’ll noticed upon starting the Diablo III beta, or even the full release if they don’t fix it, is a drastically noticeable lack of hi-res textures. The patching process is also a very long winded crawl. Once we received out beta code, it took us over a day to get past all of the server errors plaguing the service just to get to the point of downloading the game. Even then we fell into another ditch stopping us from playing. We had downloaded it on another computer and planned to simply transfer the files to our gaming powerhouse – nope – not allowed. Server side again. Blizzard are having some serious service issues here.

“It’s a big mistake to overload and pester the player with the story. Diablo 3’s recent beta has helped Julian and his team schedule these breathing spaces, and shown the danger of overstuffing the game. The result is a stats screen that spits out big, easy to understand numbers. Press a gleaming blue doublehanded war-axe into your barbarian’s hands, and the extra damage it deals is easily demonstrated by the game’s UI.

Old-school Diablo players will feel right at home with Diablo III. Despite the – slightly – fancier visuals, Diablo 3 still plays much the same as the originals. Staying true to the point and click genre, you move you character by holding down your left mouse button on the screen. Main attacks are carried out through left clicking enemies, or shift clicking to stay in one spot. Right clicking the mouse will generally use your standard mana/rage consuming ability while the 1-7 action bar slots will control your other moves further into your adventure. You’ll meet Diablo’s first lot of demonic creatures straight away. Click, click, click, click… New Tristram. Amazing. The game will launch with 5 player classes, though fans of World of Warcraft will wonder why the base classes from those games don’t all make their way into such a class heavy game.

There are so many sockets, slots, and holes in which to jam enchanted doohickies and magical wotsits that your level 20 monk likely won’t end up anything like your friend’s level 20 monk. That difference will also be reflected in the game’s visuals – something Julian wanted to mark as a difference between Diablos 2 and 3. There are obvious character demarcations: the game’s customisable banners can be altered with augments earned through achievements, and dyes let players choose this season’s hottest demon-slaying colour. Julian does a quick mental count when I ask him what’s changed during development.

Diablo 3 will build upon what the previous two versions have already established. According to the Diablo 3 website, skill runes will feature control over skills, powers, elemental damage types, precision and area of effect like never seen before. This all was just a taste of the new features in Diablo 3, but there are far more features gamers can wet their Diablo appetite with on the official website. Runic Games’ Torchlight took the main combat ideas of the Diablo series and churned out an excellent game complete with a much speedier and fun combat system with deeper character growth to boot in a much smaller timeframe.