Diablo 3: Open Beta Impressions

I'm going to have to disagree with my friend Alex on a couple of points, but I think that we will agree in the end on our overall impression of Diablo 3 after the open beta. I should also be noted that my opinions come after a clearly MORE than adequate TWO hours with the game. That's right. TWO.

So, the first interesting point of the weekend should be that anyone who expected a launch of a game, regardless of the name promoting it, that was specifically billed as a beta stress test to be stable is a fool. There was NEVER any chance of this happening without errors. This is a good thing. They will learn, and on May 15th the game will likely run much better for it. I am notoriously fickle when it comes to game testing. I don't have as much time as I used to that will allow me to wrestle with a game for hours in order to play it. I was strangely satisfied that I got even two hours in before stability led me to uninstall the beta. I got to spend enough time with the Barbarian and Wizard classes to come to some general conclusions, but I obviously can't sit here even as a hack writer and claim the game will be bad on so limited a play through.

After the jump are my thoughts.


I think I'll keep it brief as that seems appropriate for two hours of time with a game that has as much depth as I feel Diablo probably does.

My first impressions of the game are that it was fun with others, had limited excitement alone, I had no drive to level early on because the early skills give you no choices, and it was pretty easy. I do not share the opinion of Alex that Diablo has never been a good single player game. I loved playing them by myself back in the day and this will actually be the first Diablo that I spend more time in multiplayer than single player on. Call it the Titan Quest affect, as I think that game changed the way I play these dungeon crawlers.

I am hoping that the leveling opens up later on and actually becomes interesting. At the risk of becoming one of the people I deride constantly - "I WANT CHANGE! WHY DID YOU CHANGE THAT?!?! BOYCOTT!" - I do not like the skill system so far. At the early levels there were no choices, and I actually didn't immediately level up after the first few times. I can honestly say it is the first game I've played, even from the start, where the thought of leveling up skills didn't immediately make me stop combat and see my options. I also felt like the game was just...boring. I'm sure the beta had limited content available, and maybe there will be difficulty sliders on release, but overall it just didn't GRAB me. Cinematics used to do that for me, and Blizzard games - particularly Diablo - used to have great ones that really pulled you in to the atmosphere.  Oh yeah, atmosphere, that was another thing missing. Someone I know who plays more games than is probably healthy called it WOWABLO. I am hard pressed to disagree.

So what were the pluses? I'm glad you asked. I still think this will be a good game. I just don't think it will be on my GOTY ballot. The looting system where you see your own stuff and don't have to race people to good items is interesting. Health orbs dropping instead of just massive potion spamming was a nice touch. The game looked pretty and the spell affects of the wizard were particularly enjoyable. When the servers were up, it ran clean and smooth even during the stress test. That is impressive.

Oh yeah, I said I'd be brief didn't I? I'll just stop there. I think the potential for the skills and crafting to open up the game a bit is definitely there and some of the positives I listed at the end were nice. I'm not disappointed that I pre-ordered the game or anything, but I do have some concerns with the skill system at this point. Only time will tell, and perhaps on release when all the bells and whistles are in place and I get to some higher levels my tune will change completely. I remain ever the cautious optimist, but I do have some concerns.

Chief among them? Maybe I just don't like the "diablo formula" as much as I did a decade ago. This isn't Blizzards fault if it ends up being the case.