watcha playin'

[MortifiedocAlot]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention how good the soundtrack was.

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(personal favorite)

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Really, the whole soundtrack is amazing and fits each level really well.

Forgot this one, also stupidly catchy.

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Cannot stress enough how good the music is.

[Spectere]

Diablo III.  Bow to me.

But anyway, it's fucking awesome, as expected.  That being said, I seriously can't shake how much it reminds me of Torchlight.  I suppose that's no surprise.

I'm glad to say that Blizzard dropped things that were largely unnecessary and inconvenient from Diablo II (i.e. the stats system) and streamlined the hell out of it.  The only thing that I worry about, as I worried about with Cataclysm, is that it may push characters into being too samey.  I have a feeling that the CAAASSUUALLLSSSS are going to be very satisfied while the hardcore players are going to be peeved that they can't build an insane hybrid spec like they used to be able to.

So far I've beaten the beta (it doesn't really last very long -- an hour or two, maybe) with the barbarian and am about half way there with the demon hunter.  The combat and skills system (thanks to the use of a Torchlight-like hotbar rather than the lame Diablo II belt) are a breeze.  You don't feel like you're fighting against the UI -- you feel like you're actually in control of your character.

Yeah, I think it's going to be good.

[Bobbias]

Well from what I can tell the competitive scene on Teamliquid seems to think the game should be alright. There's been a lot of discussion about how they've streamlined it and whether that's a good thing for the competitive people or not and the consensus seems to be that it should be fine.

Builds are now going to be based on items even more than in D2 (lol) but it should still allow for a pretty large level of customization in how you play your character.

[MortifiedocAlot]

Wait...are you talking about competitive D2?

[Bobbias]

I'm talking about the community reactions to D3 on Teamliquid....

[MortifiedocAlot]

I thought teamliquid was a starcraft team, and that they had a diablo division for some reason. Alright, glad to hear. Honestly, it seems hard to fuck up Diablo. The only thing I wasn't in love with in D2 was how you select skils, and how some builds would just completely overshadow other ones.

[Bobbias]

Teamliquid is a starcraft team, but they have such a huge community they have quite a few dedicated subforums. They've got one for League of Legends, one for D3, and a general Games and Sports section with threads for quite a few games. They have their own Eve alliance (2 corps as far as I know, one dedicated PvP and the other more of an introductory place for newcomers and such), etc. It's a massive community. They recently outvoted what they believe to be a voting bot (with some help from Reddit's starcraft section and HuskyStarcraft's followers) in a youtube poll to get a community member (

rt) featured on the front page. (they collected data about how the votes were coming in for the other candidate and it seemed to mirror their votes far closer than it should have been, and people kept saying that when they'd refresh the page, their votes would be coming in by a few at a time, and the suspected bot seemed to be voting in batches of 50 or so)

[Spectere]

The only thing I wasn't in love with in D2 was how you select skils, and how some builds would just completely overshadow other ones.

Right now, instead of having a tree, you just select the skills that you want.  If you're referring to using the skills (which was a royal PITA), that's improved drastically.  It's just like Torchlight now, where you drag the skill onto a bar and press a button.  I've been playing through D2 at the same time and it's stunning how much of an improvement D3 brings to the table in that regard.

[MortifiedocAlot]

Right now, instead of having a tree, you just select the skills that you want.  If you're referring to using the skills (which was a royal PITA), that's improved drastically.

Unsure if I like the removal of trees, but the new skill system sounds so good. Hated how D2 handled skills, felt really awkward.

Also new indie bundle up, and it's probably the best one they've had yet. http://www.humblebundle.com/

[Bobbias]

Been playing a space 4x game called Distant Worlds. Pretty fun stuff. You get to customize all the designs for you ships, bases, etc. the game can automate stuff for you if you can't handle manual control over everything (which is hard as fuck to do). It's got 2 expansions out right now, and seems like it has a lot of vendor support too.

[Spectere]

Also new indie bundle up, and it's probably the best one they've had yet. http://www.humblebundle.com/

@#$%.

As usual, I have 75% of the games in there already. :x

Been playing a space 4x game called Distant Worlds. Pretty fun stuff. You get to customize all the designs for you ships, bases, etc. the game can automate stuff for you if you can't handle manual control over everything (which is hard as fuck to do). It's got 2 expansions out right now, and seems like it has a lot of vendor support too.

I've heard good things about that game.  I may have to look into it.

Ever play an old Windows 3.1 4x game called Stars?  Sounds like Distant Worlds may be similar-ish to that.

[Bobbias]

Heard of it, never played it (I think...)

If you get it, you should get the definitely get the expansions, they really make the game better.

It's pretty standard fare for how a 4x works, nothing too innovative, but there's quite a few options to customize your world and starting setup, there' some nice automation, and the ability to take control then automate again, etc. And ship designing is pretty badass. Your ships are made of modular pieces which have stats, the base one which is Size. Ship size is the limiting factor on what you can build, and the cost of building is based on the price of the required materials to build the modules that the ship is made of. That lets you build ships to suit how you want to play... Slow and tough, or able to outmaneuver your opponent and hit from a distance, etc.

[MortifiedocAlot]

I got into the Tribes Ascend beta, and the game is pretty fun so far. It does feel stripped down compared to older Tribes games, but it's definitely still fun and challenging. Starting out you're really limited in what you can use, but they still give you good equipment. Also I'm unsure how to get invites, but if anyone wants one I'll look into it (unsure how frequently sneaky browses here now, and I know he was big into Tribes).

Just unlocked a juggernaut class too, since I usually end up playing defense.

[Bobbias]

I've never played any of the tribes games, but I have seen a few videos, and it looks like it could be damned fun. I'd love to try the beta, but I have a feeling I'd drop the game quickly... You really need to invest a lot of time to get good at that game.

[MortifiedocAlot]

if you're good at predicting shots and keeping your momentum going you'll do fine. I basically just jumped into a few deathmatch games, then went to capture the flag and I feel like I know have a pretty firm grip on the game. Can't get a ton of kills, but I'm almost always on the top half of my team point wise and I've figured out where I need to be and when.