Diablo III Previews

Diablo III’s recently launched closed beta has given way to three more hands-on previews of the action RPG, starting with this piece on NZGamer:

Another major tweak to the formula is the tight integration of hints and tips in the interface. Quest items are clearly marked on the map most of the time and places you need to go or people you need to talk to are very, very clearly highlighted. Hop on the waypoint teleporter, for example, and a little quest chalice will clue you in on which destination is most convenient for you. Quests are otherwise pretty similar to D2 in terms of frequency and driving the story forward, however there are a few more and a few side quests for you to pursue, which reward extra XP and items to help you along.

The combat remains, at its core, a click-on-things-to-kill-them game. There have been a large number of tweaks to this formula though, including the ability to have up to 5 quick-access abilities on top of your left and right-click functions. How you access them is a little unusual, however, as you have to pre-define which of your gradually unlocked abilities are “Active” – and you can only select from these active abilities for your hotkeys. Presumably this is to prevent the game from being easily abused by modders or allowing it to vary too far from the core formula, but it still comes across as a slightly weird way to go about things.

Then we stop by 1UP for a multiplayer report:

RW: I actually had a few issues with the game’s appearance. It didn’t support my monitor’s native resolution (1366 x 768), so I had to settle for the nearest one (1360 x 768). While it was only six pixels difference, it didn’t look nearly as good (dithered and aliased) as it could have because my monitor is crap and looks awful at anything other than native res. Second was that the camera was so far out that I had a hard time getting a sense of what my character and NPCs looked like. It would have been nice to be able to zoom in and out with the mouse wheel. Those are all technical issues, from an art standpoint the game looks amazing; the dungeons in particular evoke the original game (which is good, considering they take place in the same exact place) without feeling old or dated.

MN: I agree, the dungeons do look great. There is actually a great sense of depth and scale. While we’re walking across the raised catwalks we could see hordes of enemies below — and then be able to go down there! It’s not just background or for show. That’s an aspect of the dungeon design I am really enjoying. That, and destroying barrels. What did you think of our final encounter of the beta with the Skeleton King?

RW: The layout of the room looked exactly like my fuzzy memories of the room from the first Diablo. It was a nice nostalgia trip, and it’s clear that the first act as a whole is designed to evoke warm memories. I find myself wondering just how far down into the old cathedral the game will take me. Will I find Diablo’s corpse from the first game, lying in Hell at the bottom?

Before heading over to DigitalHippos for an overall consensus:

As I mentioned before, the first few minutes are very limited in both skills and areas you can move around in. Gone are the days of skill points and unlocking skills; in are swappable skills on the fly that unlock every few levels. When I first heard of this change I was confused and upset. Actually trying it in game, I am happy to report, it works wonderfully! Being able to swap skills in and out gives flexibility to exploration while still limiting enough to not be able to unleash all our powers all at once. All the skills I have tried and unlocked are fun and satisfying minus a few stinkers like Diamond Skin. Snore. More details to come.