I played Diablo back when it was originally released. I was just a kid then, but it was one of those games I remember spending hours on. I loved the challenge of killing every evil thing that moved, finding the rarest items, and trying to retrieve everything your character dropped when you died fighting something far bigger than you. (This, inevitably, led to more deaths, because it's really hard to collect your weapon from the floor when the monster who killed you when you were armed now faces you when you have absolutely nothing but bare hands.) It was fun, but once I finished it, I didn't really have the desire to go back to it.
Then Diablo II came out. From the minute I got my hands on it, I was hooked. I loved how it went to different locations, rather than just going deeper and deeper into a boring cathedral where the only things that changed were the things attacking you. I loved the improvements it made over the first game, such as the personal stash, which proved to be a godsend at times. I loved how one of the early quests in the game required you go to back to what was left of Tristram to rescue Deckard Cain, the only character that has survived to see the third instalment of the series. Unlike the first game, this was one I came back to again and again. I still have it installed with all my characters and all my gear, ready for me to play whenever I've had a really bad day.
So, when Blizzard finally admitted to having a third Diablo game in the pipeline, needless to say I was thrilled. I was one of many people who had Diablo III ready to install the moment I woke up on release day. Thanks to having the digital version, and already having all the files on my computer, installation took less than fifteen minutes. I was expecting to have the computer running all day while I was at work, so was very pleasantly surprised to come out half an hour before I had to leave for work to find it ready to play! So. Awesome.
The first ten minutes of the game are pretty good. The opening cutscene with Deckard and Leah was absolutely beautiful, and I was stunned by how good it looked. Character creation is nice and simple, with the added bonus of finally being able to choose your character gender. (It's a little thing, but it makes a big difference.) The game does a good job of giving tutorial-style tips when you first start playing, which helps review stuff that is the same (movement, attacks, etc.) and introduce things that are different (such as skills, which I'm still not sure I understand). It throws you right into the deep end by bringing some zombies out to greet you on your way to town. So far, so good. But at this point, I was running late, and had to leave the game all by itself all day long.
Nine hours later, I'm finally home from work. Everything that needs to be done is done, and I can return to the game. Oh wait... No, I can't. Because, even though you are playing a single-player game, you must connect to the Blizzard servers to play. Yep, even if you're playing by yourself, you have to be online. There is no offline mode for this game. The massive problem with this? Server overload. Release day was a nightmare, because everyone in Europe who had their copy installed was trying to log on at the same time. It took me three hours that evening just to get connected to the server. Three hours!
Now, I know a lot of people would say "It's release day, it's going to be busy, just wait it out." But that's the whole point. Release day. Which means a good percentage of the people logging in were pre-orders. Surely Blizzard could have looked at how many pre-orders they had, added a generous estimate of how many people would buy the game on release day, and make sure their servers could handle that many people? There were apologies from Blizzard, but there were also servers in emergency maintenance for several hours of release day. Not very cool, and meant I spent three hours staring at a log in screen for a game I couldn't connect to long enough to play.
Eventually, though, I did manage to get in. And once I did, I spent a solid two hours doing nothing but explore the game. Some of the changes they made from previous games are a bit annoying; I don't like that I have no control over what stats are improved when I level up. Some are wonderful, such as no longer dropping all of your gear when you die - instead your gear just takes a bit of damage. I also am very curious about how some of the new features are going to work in higher levels (such as skills), or at all (blacksmithing - don't have the faintest idea how this works yet).
Initial thoughts? Damn happy I have this game. Some bits will take some getting used to, and I'm going to have to just hope my internet doesn't go kaput while I'm playing.
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