Yes, it’s actually happening. Blizzard explains:
We’re pleased to announce the Diablo III open beta weekend, which offers open access to all players with a valid Battle.net account! Beginning this Friday everyone is invited to log in and help us put the game and servers through their paces in this three day stress test as we march toward the game’s release on May 15. You can begin downloading the Diablo III client right now! From Friday, April 20 at 12:01 p.m. PDT (noon), until Monday, April 23 at 10:00 a.m. PDT you’ll be able to log in, team up with friends, and play each of the five heroic classes to level 13 as you fight to save the world from the impending demonic invasion.
Sound the trumpets! (Compare and contrast you experiences this weekend with our own impressions of the game.)
20/04/2012 at 08:29 Njordsk says:
Server crash incoming !
20/04/2012 at 09:33 Ninja Foodstuff says:
Estimated 10 days just to download the 44 MB installer right now. /sigh.
If anyone has a mirror I would appreciate it.
EDIT: Seems to be picking up speed now, never mind.
20/04/2012 at 08:34 philbot says:
I think the time is nigh for me to get a battle.net account.
20/04/2012 at 08:56 Metonymy says:
Just as a warning, they do NOT have control of their data, and it might get worse with the cash shop. (wow is already pretty bad)
I’ve been accused of hacking several times, and lost all my wow data twice, and on both occasions was accused of causing the problem myself, by the most polite person you’ve ever met. One of many reasons I avoid Blizzard now. And guess what, you’ll have that bnet account till you die, they refuse to delete it.
20/04/2012 at 08:36 Belua says:
I hope this will help them prepare so that the servers won’t explode at launch.
21/04/2012 at 13:48 Whallaah says:
The servers exploded. America is the only available server in the Beta (if you get error 3003, than you try to connect to the continent). America is laggy, for some unplayable, and it’s being overloaded. So don’t put to much hope into playing Diablo this weekend.
20/04/2012 at 08:37 f1x says:
Finally I can get my hands on this and judge for myself :D
20/04/2012 at 08:44 Kakrafoon says:
When? When? Some interns installed the beta on my pc, it’s been sitting there ever since and I’ve been asking around the house for someone to lend me a beta account to go with it… to no avail. But today, I will play! I hope, at least.
Damn. 12:00 PDT means 21:00 or something like that in Germany.
20/04/2012 at 08:54 RedViv says:
Eleven hours from now. Plus a few minutes for the immediate run on the servers. But that’s what this is for after all.
20/04/2012 at 10:19 AgamemnonV2 says:
By the clocks of Neverwinter, I won’t be able to play until 10PM tonight. :(
20/04/2012 at 08:46 Arkanum says:
How about that, had a lan party planed this weekend, and i have now the main game!!
Blizzzard is a tempting succubus!!!
20/04/2012 at 08:47 Arglebargle says:
I’m considering playing it as a second job……
20/04/2012 at 08:53 wuwul says:
YEYEYEYEAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
YUP YUP YUP!!!
WOOOHHHHHOOO!!!
20/04/2012 at 08:57 Baka says:
Remember the old “Diablo 3 is not dark enough!” debate?
link to darkd3.com
Some may find it useful, some may find it hilarious.
20/04/2012 at 09:13 Kdansky says:
That was inanely stupid then, this is quite amusing. As if there were no bright yellow and lime green enemies everywhere in D2, and any outdoor area wasn’t completely lit during the day!
20/04/2012 at 10:50 RedViv says:
Diablo 3 is finally bringing the gorgeous artworks to life. I can’t praise anything about the aesthetics more than that.
This shader DLL is nice though, if only for the sharpness filter.
20/04/2012 at 11:07 Snidesworth says:
That is nice, especially if the game truly looks that blurry without it.
20/04/2012 at 11:14 Toberoth says:
Yeah for sure. Seems like a nice mod!
20/04/2012 at 13:49 Stardog says:
Do we have to go through this again? It’s not the brightness, it’s the textures/design of everything.
link to crankygamer.blogspot.co.uk
It is styled like WoW, and that’s just a fact. There’s no opinion that comes into it.
20/04/2012 at 14:46 UncleLou says:
Do we have to go through this again? It’s not the brightness, it’s the textures/design of everything.
It is styled like WoW, and that’s just a fact. There’s no opinion that comes into it.
In your opinion, it is a fact. In my opinion, it is not a fact at all. It does not look like WoW. There are a few similartites, yes, but Torchlight, for example, looks significantly more like WoW than Diablo 3 does.
I am actually confused how people can be so blind towards such – for me – obvious stylistic differences.
20/04/2012 at 16:35 Stardog says:
The point is that it looks more like WoW than it looks like the original Diablo games.
The should’ve called this game something else.
20/04/2012 at 17:21 Syra says:
Oh boy this tired old schtick.
Actually, it looks more like the general art style of blizzard now, considering that blizzard north no longer exists.
/debate.
20/04/2012 at 17:38 Ragnar says:
Having actually played the D3 beta, I think it looks nothing like WoW. Sure, you can find a screen shot from one that looks like a screenshot from another, but the overall aesthetic is completely different. WoW is third-person, bright, colorful, and friendly. D3 is isometric, dark, dreary, hostile, and foreboding. WoW’s environments are static, while D3’s are destructible.
So they improved WoW’s 3D graphics engine instead of using a 2D engine limited to 800×600 pixels? This seems like a good thing to me, as WoW’s graphics have aged well, while D2’s graphics hurt my eyes just to look at them.
So what if they reused a table texture from WoW? One swing at that table in D3 and it, along with any similarity to WoW, shatters to pieces.
20/04/2012 at 19:08 Velvetmeds says:
“they should have called it something else”
wait, what? because it doesn’t LOOK the same?
Am i reading this right?
20/04/2012 at 19:43 UncleLou says:
If you really think this looks more like WoW to you than like Diablo, we obviously have such a dramtically different visual perception that we will simply have to agree to disagree. You’ll have to live with the fact that your facts aren’t facts though, I am afraid.
link to i.imgur.com
20/04/2012 at 19:56 Velvetmeds says:
But, but the exclamation mark is yellow! Totally looks like WoW
20/04/2012 at 16:12 Bantros says:
If anything it looks like Dota 2, and that’s not a bad thing in the slightest because Dota 2 looks fantastic, like an interactive painting.
20/04/2012 at 16:17 Kdansky says:
Wait, your point is “the walls are smooth” and that means it looks like WoW? Unfortunately, that’s just a limitation of 3D vs hand-painted 2D, and has nothing to do with WoW. Demonstrating that brick walls in two different games at the same resolution in two different 3D engines look similar shows absolutely nothing. Except for Grimrock, all brick walls look the same during the last 10 years of games.
Also note that I was talking about colour, and not brightness.
20/04/2012 at 21:43 corbie says:
July 2008?
Good lord.
….
21/04/2012 at 06:19 Gassalasca says:
Look, Blizzard have changed their visual style dramatically with Warcraft 3. And since then all their games have shared, at least to some extent, that syle. Basically, D3 is like D2 setting done in this new Blizzard style. So yeah, to me D3 looks more like WoW than it does like D2 as well. But y’know, it’s not like the gaming’s worst tragedy since… erm… [insert an awful event from your gaming life]
20/04/2012 at 13:21 Napalm Sushi says:
The most painful thing about that “debate” is that one of the developers of the iNovae engine – the thing I’m most anticipating in the universe right now – recently jumped on it thus: link to twitter.com
…and his subsequent tweet suggests he wasn’t being sarcastic.
I blame Zack Snyder.
20/04/2012 at 14:54 Velvetmeds says:
I really like the “none” option, best out of the lot.
20/04/2012 at 17:36 Mordsung says:
For me, it’s not the darkness of the graphics, it’s the darkness of the art style.
The first Diablo had a room carpeted with dead bodies, with gore covered bodies hung on the walls and dripping viscera.
New Diablo just doesn’t have that kind of grim atmosphere anymore.
Where as Path of Exile had a bloated baby corpse on the first beach.
Cartoony blood bursts = bad.
Bloated blue baby corpses = good.
The mark of a truly great dungeon crawl would be coming upon a bloated, rotting body that is so well drawn and so disgusting that it actually causes you to wretch.
It’s about atmosphere, and Blizzard does not cater it’s games to adults anymore.
I’m 30, I want my bloated baby corpses.
20/04/2012 at 17:48 Ragnar says:
The very beginning has zombies chewing on a corpse, and guards taking dead bodies off a wagon and throwing them onto a pyre heaped with burning bodies. Does it look nearly as dark and sinister as the Butcher’s room in Diablo 1? No, certainly not. Could their be areas in D3 that are? Possibly, as the beta is only the first 1/3rd of the first of four acts. Could it be that I’ve seen so many dead bodies and blood in games that I’m just desensitized now?
I did notice that walking into a spiderweb in D3 causes it to momentarily stick to you as you walk away. I would be surprised if they put that much effort into spiderwebs in the corners of a dungeon and not made an area infested with spiders. And the thought of that terrifies me more than any bloated baby corpse would.
20/04/2012 at 17:54 Mordsung says:
We’re different people, you’re not as much of a gore fiend as me.
I like slopping viscera. I like mutilated bodies. Dead bodies being flung around is cool and all, but does one burst accidentally?
Now, obviously I’m slightly atypical, I have a massive gore-thirst, but games used to at least try to cater to my kind.
Think of Quake 2, where you had rooms of guys crucified and bashing like sheep or begging to die. THAT’S what I’m talking about.
It’s about making something so disturbing that the player considers turning off the game. It’s creating that emotional feeling of repulsion and disgust.
It’s about creating a game that changes the player.
Like creating the “A Serbian Film” of gaming.
Like it or hate it, if you watched A Serbian Film, it changed you forever.
20/04/2012 at 19:13 Velvetmeds says:
Play Silent hill 1 to 3
21/04/2012 at 20:20 jaheira says:
I watched A Serbian Film and then I needed jaw surgery due to excessive yawning. It “changed me” not a bit.
22/04/2012 at 07:36 Gassalasca says:
Agreed. I can’t fathom how A Serbian Film could change anyone. It was a rather dull experience.
22/04/2012 at 21:37 SketchyGalore says:
If I was playing Amnesia or something, sure, give me the most stomach-churning stuff in the world.
Diablo, though… Has anyone EVER played these games to be scared or creeped out? I always played for the joy of eviscerating 30 zombies at once with the click of a right mouse button. So when it comes to a decision between a bone cracking sound, a blood-curdling scream, and a slow bleeding death versus me using a roundhouse kick to remove ALL the flesh from a zombie’s skeleton at once… I’m gonna go with the fun one!
Not sure I’d call it “cartoony” either. You don’t see a whole lot of bloody exploding bodies while watching SpongeBob. Over the top and, perhaps, immature levels of gore? Maybe! But I’m 27 and I hope in three years I still see the joy in that!
20/04/2012 at 09:10 Diziet Sma says:
Can anyone educate me as to the size of this client? The initial download is only 44MB.
20/04/2012 at 09:16 Zanchito says:
3GB full download
20/04/2012 at 09:38 Diziet Sma says:
Oh excellent, that’s manageable. Thank you.
20/04/2012 at 09:56 Ninja Foodstuff says:
It says you’ll need 15 GB of free space to install.
EDIT: It actually downloads 3 GB, as mentioned. However, it appears you can start playing it at around 2.6 GB.
20/04/2012 at 10:21 Zanchito says:
What? Has the size changed?! FCK, and I’m away from home, can’t preload the new stuff. Still, 15GB is WAY too much for a demo, are you sure you’re not confusing that with the full game size?
20/04/2012 at 10:37 Maxheadroom says:
sounds like its 3gb unpacking to 15gb. Only guessing though, wont know till ive had chance to download it myself
20/04/2012 at 15:02 LazyBoot says:
My installed beta client is only 3.8gb…
20/04/2012 at 11:40 Necroscope says:
The demo client is 3gb. The full game installer, which was made available to peeps who signed up for the 12 month wow subscription, is 7.6gb, however it’s locked until 15th may.
‘The fire from the sky still falls, Diablo III has not yet launched’ is the message that greets me if I attempt to install …:)
20/04/2012 at 19:09 Diziet Sma says:
Weird it’s on 26% 3.13GB remaining for me. Which would put it at ((1 – 0.26) * 3.13) + 3.13 = 5.4462GB
Ah and I see it has a little yellow playable marker and a green optimal one. Velly clever.
20/04/2012 at 09:11 neolith says:
Hmpf… no Bnet account, no D3… :(
20/04/2012 at 09:50 KauhuK says:
You can create battle.net account for free.
20/04/2012 at 11:01 neolith says:
I know. The problem is I don’t want one.
20/04/2012 at 11:06 Syra says:
Well I’m just in a huff I deleted the client I installed and downloaded THE LAST TIME everyone could play ><. I deleted it YESTERDAY. Sigh redownloading time.
Well this posted to the wrong reply. Oops.
Also you don’t want a battle.net account? What is wrong with you? Do you hate the internet? You need an account for everything these days.
20/04/2012 at 12:35 f1x says:
well if battle.net account was not requiered you would still need a “diablo3 account” so think about it…
20/04/2012 at 15:18 Underwhelmed says:
Sucks to be you. I guess this means you won’t be posting about the matter any more then.
20/04/2012 at 09:14 ongre says:
Mmm I downloaded the installer, launch it, does some updates, says it’s going to launch the downloader, and closes. Any ideas ?
20/04/2012 at 09:17 Zanchito says:
Run as admin, maybe?
It’s worked fine for me on Win7x64 anyway.
20/04/2012 at 09:21 ongre says:
Doesn’t work, never had admin problems anyway. Could it be because I don’t have any blizzard game installed ?
20/04/2012 at 09:27 KauhuK says:
If Milkys advice doesn’t help then try turn windows xp sp3 compatibility mode on for the setup.exe. That should do it
20/04/2012 at 09:30 ongre says:
Wow thanks compatibilty mode for XP worked ! Thanks alot :)
20/04/2012 at 09:23 Milky1985 says:
Just launch the downloader again for the file you downloaded.
It did that to me, it patched itself then just stopped, when you launch the exe you download now it doesn’t need to patch so it behaves ok.
[EDIT] By exe you downloaded i meant he one you got from the battle.net website, not anythign the patching system downloads.
20/04/2012 at 09:25 skyturnedred says:
Seems like I finally should recover my Battle.net account password. Which I cannot do, since I have no idea where my WoW boxes (and the cd-keys within) are located at the moment. Oh well, don’t really have time to play anyways.
20/04/2012 at 12:39 caddyB says:
Call customer support and give out your personal details or email them a photo of your id, both works.
20/04/2012 at 09:31 jezcentral says:
Can you pause the single-player?
20/04/2012 at 09:36 Milky1985 says:
Yeah they patched it in
Why they had to patch it in is byond me, other than that they want to use there MMO backend for everything they make from now on :P
21/04/2012 at 12:44 Thermal Ions says:
Interesting you say that as I noted that the “agent.exe” console window that was running behind the game showed urls including:
“config_url” : “http://ak.worldofwarcraft.com.edgesuite.net/d3-pod/20FB5
BE9/NA/d3b-9359-D06777069202ACA0C804BC5BCC99909F-distributed2.xml”
Not to mention the implementation feels exactly like a deserted MMO.
20/04/2012 at 09:52 AmateurScience says:
Well damn, I have an interview on Monday that I need this weekend to prep for.
Damn damn.
20/04/2012 at 10:09 Gassalasca says:
I get this error:
link to us.battle.net
An error occurred while writing to your hard drive. Please make sure your hard drive is not full and try again.
I’ve got tons of HDD space. And I’ve tried the XP S3 compatibility thing, still nothing. (I’m running Win 7 32-bit, btw)
20/04/2012 at 10:52 HeadlessDevil says:
Have you tried running as admin? It could be your user doesn’t have permission to write to the file system.
20/04/2012 at 10:54 CaLe says:
I had this error a couple of years back with WoW. Unfortunately, it was my RAM that was failing. You might wanna run memtest86.
21/04/2012 at 06:20 Gassalasca says:
After this error I got some other errors. They were all solved by turning off my antivirus (Forticlient).
20/04/2012 at 10:46 Freud says:
My condolences to the Blizzard servers.
20/04/2012 at 11:17 kalleguld says:
Author: Could you add the time in UTC when mentioning times? It makes it a lot easier for us unamericans.
20/04/2012 at 12:01 gschmidl says:
21:00 CEST (GMT+0200)
20/04/2012 at 11:38 EnragedZeppelin says:
Rainbows and Hamsters everywhere, rejoice! Wait, that’s not right.
Think I’m going to hold off until release day.
20/04/2012 at 12:15 MordeaniisChaos says:
Fuck you comcast, I have to share my bandwidth with a guy who downloads like a motherfucker, a mother who watches youtube whenver she gets a chance, and a family that streams netflix. 50 gigs is not enough when a game on steam takes up 20-50% of that bandwidth, and now at the end of the month when steam fucked me by updating stuff that was set to “do not update”, there’s a frickin open weekend for the beta? God damn it v.v
20/04/2012 at 17:24 Syra says:
>download limits in this day and age.
20/04/2012 at 12:24 Mordsung says:
Won’t install for me. I boot it up in Admin mode, says it’s updating/downloading files, then when the Blizzard launcher should boot up for the actual full download, nothing happens.
No error message, nothing.
Edit: Apparently I should try running it in XP compat mode. Now I have to wait 10 hours until work is done to try this.
20/04/2012 at 16:38 Ragnar says:
The installer is absolutely awful. I installed it on two computers running Win 7, and on both it errored out part way through the download, then would freeze while trying to resume. Deleting all the folders under Program Files and restarting the downloader resolved the problem on both, but is inexcusable for such a relatively simple thing.
20/04/2012 at 14:03 sharks.don't.sleep says:
Is the Singleplayer in any way ping sensitive?
20/04/2012 at 14:19 RyanS says:
Yes
20/04/2012 at 16:17 sharks.don't.sleep says:
Bollocks then. :(
20/04/2012 at 16:15 Bantros says:
Every way. Got into the beta couple of days ago, have to play on US servers in the EU but for the most part it has not been noticeable even at 130ms. But, on a few occasions you will rubber band a bit and not be able to pick up loot right away and you are thinking ‘what the hell is going on here?’ and then you remember ‘ALWAYS ONLINE’. Other times it seems like fps drop but it’s lag.
20/04/2012 at 16:29 Kdansky says:
Yes, it’s an MMO without subscription fee.
20/04/2012 at 16:34 Ragnar says:
Except without the first M in MMO, which makes it not an MMO at all. Just an online multiplayer game that you can play by yourself.
It’s like Diablo 2 on battle.net, except you’re always playing on battle.net even if it’s just you playing. If it’s just you, pressing ESC will pause the game (just like it should), but if one of your friends logs on and sees you playing, they can join your game with a single mouse click. It’s really very slick, aside from the whole as sensitive-to-ping as other online games thing.
20/04/2012 at 21:22 Davie says:
Except with most multiplayer games, if you’re going to dick around by yourself you can at least host your own server and a void the latency issue. It’s all the drawbacks of an MMO with none of the scant benefits.
20/04/2012 at 14:41 psyk says:
YES :D
20/04/2012 at 14:45 min3mat says:
You guys are from the UK :( please include our time of release (8PM) I got overexcited :P
20/04/2012 at 16:14 Brise Bonbons says:
Downloading now, though I don’t foresee playing much of it.
I may be a curmudgeon who rants about how Blizzard have lost the plot, but if that’s my lot in life, I’m at least going to be educated about it.
Oh well. Now I can pronounce my disinterest in D3 based on first-hand experience. Thanks Blizzard!
20/04/2012 at 16:24 Phantoon says:
Yeah, that’s why I’m sticking with Path of Exile. The total lack of customization gets me. Some people say “well you shouldn’t have to pay for a mistake you made at level 1 later on” but Orbs of Regret exist for undoing things exactly that way, and Diablo 2 actually added in a one time respecialization after Den of Evil for every difficulty.
So really, homogenization doesn’t make it better when it’s not fixing anything. I stopped playing warcraft for this reason.
20/04/2012 at 16:30 Kdansky says:
It’s actually just a *different* system now. Instead of choosing a talent spec for life, you pretty much build your CCG deck of abilities.
20/04/2012 at 16:54 Ragnar says:
There’s actually a lot of customization. You unlock tons of skills, and upgrades to those skills, and then out of the dozens of skills you pick 6.
Instead of picking from the 2-3 optimum builds, as in D2, you pick the skills that best suit your playstyle and the situation. It’s much like Guild Wars in that way. As a result, my lvl 13 wizard turned may be completely different from your lvl 13 wizard, as I’ll go all close range AoE and you’ll go long range attacks, and our buddy picked something different from both of us.
20/04/2012 at 16:22 Phantoon says:
I wonder if people that paid for this game are going to get mad other people can play it.
And by wonder, I mean hope. Blizzard fanboy tears are second only to Bioware fanboy tears.
20/04/2012 at 16:59 Lord Custard Smingleigh says:
Blizzard fanboy tears are sweeter and lighter, somewhat bubbly and vibrant, but the strength and bitterness of Bioware fanboy tears satisfy the needs of the discerning palate.
20/04/2012 at 16:43 afarrell says:
The interesting thing is that, even though there’s still a few hours to go, just getting to the login screen and putzing about with options reminds me that Blizzard are really very good at what they do, there’s a definite aesthetic at work, as high quality as Starcraft / WoW but very different.
20/04/2012 at 17:09 MythArcana says:
Let’s see just how bad this game is then…
EDIT: Is the installer supposed to take 12 hours on a cable/quad core setup?
A small pop-up just says “Updating Setup Files…” with the progress bar at 75%…for about 45 minutes now. I canceled twice, ran CCleaner, deleted the Battle.net folder in ProgramData (Win7x64), restarted the installer and same thing.
FIXED: link to us.battle.net
What I did (running on Win7 – 64bit)
Before you do this:
– make sure to remove any agent.exe processes
After:
– goto your programdata/battle.net folder
– look up Agent.868
– Launch the app
– You will notice a bunch of readings in a cmd prompt
– Open your beta installer from wherever you have it (in my case downloads)
– in about 5 mins or so, you should be directed right to the installer
Man, six or so years in the making and we are reduced to a 1991 style installer with no information at all. Piss poor HORRIBLE.
20/04/2012 at 19:11 CurlyBrace says:
Seriously, calm down. This is not in beta status for nothing. It’s not like everyone is having this issue. You don’t even have a right to complain in this case. After all, Blizzard didn’t have to make this an open beta.
20/04/2012 at 19:26 MythArcana says:
With all the TSR’s, memory scanners, and six ZoneAlarm warnings this thing employs, not to mention you must shut off PeerBlocker to even start this fiasco. I will be asking plenty of questions. Oh, yes.
21/04/2012 at 12:53 Thermal Ions says:
How is it Blizzards fault if you’ve actively blocked their authorisation/content server’s IPs using a PeerBlocker filter list?
20/04/2012 at 20:00 The Tupper says:
A tip: The installer was running very slowly for me (slowing my machine down as well) until I disabled the P2P sharing setting under downloader options. It’s now faster by an order of magnitude.
21/04/2012 at 03:50 Snakejuice says:
Blizzard has always been the WORST when it comes to installers, heck it takes AT LEAST a whole day to install WoW or SC2 from scratch with all the patches!
20/04/2012 at 17:51 Calculon says:
Anyone else read the little bit in the EULA regarding scanning your RAM at any time they choose? It almost seems that if you want to play a game these days you have to give them deep access to your digital personal property.
20/04/2012 at 18:35 Mordsung says:
Probably there to prevent hacking your RAM with stuff like ArtMoney.
With a RAM modification program, you can effectively cheat on any game if they have no method of detecting it as you can directly modify any numerical value in your RAM.
20/04/2012 at 19:09 CurlyBrace says:
That’s just for Warden, Blizzard’s anti-cheat, which is also in place in World of Warcraft, Diablo 2 and Starcraft 2. It does a very good job at detecting things, and really isn’t intrusive at all. You have to accept stuff like that if you want to have cheaters out of your game.
20/04/2012 at 18:53 Scarclaw says:
Any NDA on this? I’d love to record some but I don’t want the entire US army on my doorstep…
20/04/2012 at 20:16 Jerodar says:
Nope, no part of the Beta is under NDA
Also, it seems the servers are starting to wake up now, good luck getting in all :)
20/04/2012 at 20:19 Calculon says:
Hmm, apparently its telling me I dont have a license and thus cannot get into the game.
20/04/2012 at 20:38 Calculon says:
I added a ‘battle tag’ on my battle.net account and now I have a different error “Server Busy” which to me seems to be an improvement…
..
.
20/04/2012 at 20:49 Lagwolf says:
Ah good that it is not only me. I wanted to pop in for a bit before heading off to do some errands. Alas no…
20/04/2012 at 21:09 Enso says:
One does not simply “pop in” to an open beta.
21/04/2012 at 20:30 fish99 says:
haha
20/04/2012 at 21:25 Davie says:
Yep, same here. So far, the game’s been impressively talented at coming up with new excuses for why I can’t connect–no license, servers full, servers down for maintenance, generic failure to connect, etc.
I assume the purpose of the open beta was just so Blizzard could see how many new servers they’d need to buy.
20/04/2012 at 20:28 Daryl says:
Currently trying to log in on the American server. It just doesn’t work. I’m getting a variety of errors, from “The server is down” to “The server is undergoing maintenance” to “You were disconnected from Battle.net”. I’m only giving this until 4 PM EST, then I’m giving up. No sense in beating my head against the wall.
20/04/2012 at 20:37 Ravelle says:
Servers should be online but can’t get in because every mortal soul is trying to log in at the same time.
20/04/2012 at 20:53 Calculon says:
Got into the character creation screen at least…
20/04/2012 at 21:45 Calculon says:
Well I got in.. played for a bit, made it to level 5, and honestly…..maybe its just me (and I realize its only level 5) but wow..dumbed down, and boring imo.
Click, click, click. Oh look another horde of monsters. Click click click. Horde. Click. (not even close to taking any damage yet). Click. CLick. Click. *yawn*. Click etc.
Not my cup of tea. Im trying to figure out what they spent 6 years on….seriously.
20/04/2012 at 22:13 trjp says:
Diablo has ALWAYS been about wearing out your mouse button – I’d be disappointed if that wasn’t still the case…
20/04/2012 at 22:53 Calculon says:
Maybe I was too enlighted by the likes of Dark Souls and Tribes to enjoy Diablo anymore.
21/04/2012 at 00:20 Joof says:
So the beginning of the game is just like the beginning of Diablo 2 then?
20/04/2012 at 20:55 irongamer says:
No licence attached to bnet account. They forget to click the open beta flag on the authentication process?
20/04/2012 at 21:14 Funso Banjo says:
Thank God, that took a hell of a long time. Looks like the servers are ok again now. At least for me and my brother.
20/04/2012 at 21:24 gingerpembers says:
Hmmm, im not getting anything, just times out and an error appears saying couldnt connect.
I switched in the download page and selected the EU client, as I live in the UK, could that be it? Is everyone here using the US client?
20/04/2012 at 21:32 irongamer says:
Using the US client but can’t get in due to a busy server or error 12.
“If you are connecting from a non-US #D3 client, be sure to change your region to “The Americas” in your game options for the open beta.”
link to twitter.com
20/04/2012 at 21:32 Ravelle says:
Servers are busy, try again later. Is all I get :(
20/04/2012 at 21:57 Greggh says:
WHY JIM, WHY do you ruin my education process with such a splendid news?!?!?!
FUCK EVERYTHING ELSE!!!! DIABLO TIME!!
link to i3.kym-cdn.com
20/04/2012 at 22:30 gingerpembers says:
Got through once!
Typed an incorrect password.
D
O
H
!
21/04/2012 at 01:08 Radchek says:
I managed to get access in the small hours (via the ‘The Americas’ servers – no EU servers running atm). Are we allowed to express our opinions yet or is this against the beta rules?
21/04/2012 at 03:39 trjp says:
I agreed to nothing when I ‘signed up’ for this – I imagine they’ll have no issues with your comments at this late stage…
21/04/2012 at 01:39 khomotso says:
I remember enjoying the first. After playing the D3 beta for a half hour, can’t remember what was ever appealing about it. More dull than an MMO grind.
21/04/2012 at 03:43 trjp says:
I’ve not really been too interested in D3 – but I managed to get into the Beta earlier and next thing I know 2+ hours have passed-by :)
Tried out a Monk and a Witch Doctor – had some fun. No idea about the comments earlier re: the time it takes to kill stuff – everything I attacked died pretty quickly (things do when being attacked by 3 zombie dogs, trapped by corpse hands AND having jars of spiders thrown at them!) :)
Only complaints would be that it’s far, far, far too easy – “Normal” difficulty shouldn’t be this easy (at no point in 2+ hours of play was I remotely likely to die – nor did I ever even tap the pot button) – and sometimes ‘interior walls’ etc. get in the way of seeing what you’re fighting…
I’m also assuming cash drops/values and loot drops are ‘boosted’ for this – because I’m dripping in blue gear and have enough cash to empty vendors of their wares!?!?
Give me more challenge tho and I’d be a happy player…
21/04/2012 at 03:45 trjp says:
The witch doctor isn’t much better – male or female – male monk isn’t too grating tho.
I don’t get this desire to VO loads of stuff in a game – it costs a fortune and the slightest poor choice in accent/tone can actually ruin a game.
I can (scan) read just fine – stop it!!
21/04/2012 at 20:45 AngoraFish says:
This is more or less my experience as well. Started very interested, now losing interest rapidly. In particular, the game is way too easy, and I’m someone who will deliberately pick ‘easy’ mode on games like The Witcher 2.
21/04/2012 at 04:55 rawrty says:
Well that was fun…Defeated the beta in all but 30 minutes or so. Agree with people that say the game is easy, but its just the beginning….D1 and D2 were about the same in the beginning as well. Enjoyed the graphics and setting, some really great environments. Multiplayer seemed a bit random in that I couldn’t even see game names as in D2. But gameplay was VERY similar and I liked that. Will most likely be picking this up :D
21/04/2012 at 06:59 innociv says:
It’s worse than I thought.
I was playing with just the mouse while my left hand held my yawning face up.
It’s so boring, and easy.
What’s with skels coming out from coffins when they are absolutely not threatening?
I know it’s early on, and normal mode, but the beginning of normal in D2 had some challenging parts.
Path of Exile has lots of challenging parts in the first 10 levels.
Diablo3 reminds me a lot of family guy. It’s this high publicized thing that some people put, supposedly, a lot of work into, but it doesn’t get any emotion from me at all.
It doesn’t have the soul of American Dad or Futurama.
I didn’t want to mention the graphics, but jesus everything is middle toned, drab, boring. Where are the bright fires, dark shadows? Where is the blood? And everything is so blurry when my settings are at the highest.
They need to run a batch sharpness filter on all the textures. Takes 1 minute of work and then a few minutes of automation running in the background.
That shader makes it look a lot better just with the sharpness, and increasing contrast a little.
21/04/2012 at 11:23 trjp says:
It is a bit easy but I’m assuming you’ll have the option of ramping that up so it’s hardly a concern.
I also think they know what they’re doing re: how it looks, you want filtered textures, you write your own game eh?
21/04/2012 at 09:36 neofit says:
“Error 300008”
“Temporary disruption of Battle.net service”
“The servers are too busy at this time”
etc.
Thank you Blizzard for showing me the many ways in which you can keep me from playing a single-player game.
21/04/2012 at 09:40 Zanchito says:
I STILL can’t log in. Not selling me the experience very well. Even less considering I’m not interested in multiplayer.
21/04/2012 at 12:18 Zanchito says:
I finally could get in, played a barbarian and defeated Leoric. The game looks nice enough, and I was one of the people who *hated* the art in the screenshots, I guess they don’t make the game justice. Sound quality should be better, it still needs some more work. Voiceovers / dialogs seem to have been written and target to 14-year olds, gameplay was not very fine. All in all, I’m nonplussed, won’t buy.
21/04/2012 at 10:27 MajorManiac says:
I click to start a single player game. Then get “Error: Request Timed out”. LOL! We’re living in the future.
21/04/2012 at 11:05 trjp says:
Make sure you’re connecting to the US Servers (as it tells you in the blurb) – no EU servers for this Beta.
21/04/2012 at 16:38 FunkyBadger3 says:
Still haven’t been able to connect – yay for £45 single-player games you can only play when someone else’s machine is working properly.
21/04/2012 at 18:48 FunkyBadger3 says:
Outstanding. Just got into the character creation screen, then the request timed out when I tried to name my (single-player) character.
YOU’RE NOT HELPING YOURSELVES, BLIZZARD.
21/04/2012 at 19:54 FunkyBadger3 says:
Right… into the game now, and its Diablo, but prettier. And with lag, rubber-banding, slow-down and judder.
So much for 10 years worth of development.
21/04/2012 at 20:11 Nallen says:
Do you know what a Beta is?
21/04/2012 at 20:16 Dominic White says:
This is a beta, yes. It’s also a beta just a couple weeks from release, and supposedly has had almost a full decade of work put into it. If it’s riddled with tech issues now, it’s a pretty bad sign.
21/04/2012 at 20:23 FunkyBadger3 says:
Yes, the underlying issue is, after 10 years developement, I can still get disconnected from a single-player game when their servers mess up.
How is this progress?
(I didn’t mention, but it should be obvious, the only time I died was due to the dereaded lag-monster)
21/04/2012 at 21:12 salgado18 says:
This. I just closed Diablo II to play Diablo III, and can’t log in because the servers are busy. That killed any and all enthusiasm I could have had for the game, no matter how great it is.
Seriously, I have a stable internet connection at home, so it never bothered me about the online-only thing. But the servers are not under my control, maintenances will happen in my little free-time, and many issues could arise because networks fail for no aparent reason. I’m not very interested in buying it now.