Update 2: Found The Problem

I'm blogging from a phone! It's pretty neat. My friend has the whole iPhone online thing. As said the other day, my internet and phone line is down. Something happened here at my summer home so that the phone line connecting the two family campers died. AT&T came down and said it was the wire we put in between the campers. Because we did it, he couldn't fix it. Sometime, we will need to run another wire between the two campers to get internet back. Hopefully in the next few days.

Changin' For The Better

Zach Yonzon of WoWInsider is reporting that, 'Yes. Paladin changes are coming.'

I don't need to repeat the article here so I'll be brief. We do not know much about what exactly is going to happen but we do know that change in coming. As we all know, the Paladin isn't the easiest class to balance. As with all hybrid classes, there are a lot of aspects to mold. From what the article is saying, it seems like Blizzard is looking at the Paladin class with the Death Knight mindset. What I mean is: the DK can tank and DPS with one spec. Almost like the Paladin's Spellwarrior build of 40/11/10. Hopefully, they'll give us the gear now to build on more of a DPS and a touch of healing or even DPS via tanking.

They also confirmed they wanted to make the Paladin tank for viable in 5 mans and even full raids. The reason we don't have much info yet about spells and talents is because they're still looking at how they want the future Paladins to work. We'll see what happens but expect major changes in the coming months.

Update

I have no internet at my house. AT&T said it could take until Friday to fix it. I'm typing this up quickly at work. I'll have a post ready when the net comes back.

Time For A Rant

Ihmhi on the Diabloiii.net (new name) forums posted an amazing analysis on the first 9 minutes of the gameplay video. He compares the game to WoW a lot which I think is unfair. Every game copies another. There wasn't a need to mention WoW 7 times...

*talking about D3's buffing system* "I can see they are making the game VERY different from WoW by having it completely on the opposite side of the screen. d:"

"WoW-style cooldown"

"the inventory seems to be more like WoW now"

"the player swap out his axes for some fancier ones. Again, some ideas taken from WoW and similar MMOs."

"Apparantly they've taken some tips from WoW's AuctioneerAdvanced addon (and similar addons)."

What really made me cross was when he was talking about the Elixers. "Will we have stat-boosting potions (like WoW's alchemy) in Diablo III?" Maybe he never played the original Diablo but they had Elixers which boosted up stats.

"Small Bag. So it looks like bags (like WoW) will serve some sort of function in Diablo III."

I'm not trying to beat on the guy. He made great points. I just do not see the need to compare it to just WoW.

http://forums.diii.net/showthread.php?p=6581118

Another controversy surrounded Diablo 3 is that the environments look too bright. Diablo is supposed to be a dark world and yet they're making it look more colorful.

First and foremost, my opinion on the matter? IT'S A LOAD OF BOLLOCKS! After all these years, you would think that the Blizzard Devs know what their doing. 10 Million Subscribers to World Of Warcraft and TWO video games (10 and 7/8 years old) being played by thousands of people daily (Diablo II and Starcraft). Video games that are being played DAILY after almost a decade. Not to mention that Diablo II is now selling at the Top of the Amazon.com carts and when Starcraft II was announced, it too jumped to the top. Now, after all these months since the Starcraft II announcement, it's at #18. Come on. Give it up already.

There's a petition going around which is against Blizzard's art direction. (I will not post a link to the petition). They are saying that it look too "cartoon'ish" (mind you, they repeated that it looked too much like WoW's cartoony style way too many times). They also want the light radius back.

Pesonally, it looks fine. If I want to walk around in a dark dungeon, I'll go lock myself in a closet or walk around my house with the blinds shut at 3AM in the morning. A game should be pleasing. It doesn't mean it has too be "cartoon'ish"; it just doesn't have to be black, dark red and grey. It's an art style and by the look of all Blizzards games (including Starcraft), they all have the "cartoon'ish" look. It's Blizzard's art style. Don't like it? Get out.

/end rant

Diablo 3 Gameplay Video / The Classes

Gameplay Part 1


Gameplay Part 2

Today, I want to talk about the TWENTY MINUTE gameplay video for Diablo 3. Yes, 2 0 minutes! I thought we'd only get to see a cinematic but this just added frosting, sprinkles, roses, balloons, gummy bears, nerds, strawberries, and that cookie stuff in the middle to the ice cream cake. Yes, it's that good.

It starts off by showing a Barbarian class, wearing hardly any armor, fighting some zombies. The zombies enter the area by climbing up the walls! There were a lot of them too. Picture Dynasty Warriors meets Diablo. Not saying it's a bad thing but it sure is different.

They show off some crazy skills including a new version of Leap Attack. Finally, they implemented some good uses to that fun skill. They've added a dashing attack, a sonic wave attack, a Hammer of the Gods spell, and everyone's favorite: Whirlwind! Whirlwind looks wicked.

They rigged the game to show off some weapons and armor. The weapons are nice and detailed and now instead of turning blue for cold, yellow for lightning, they actually have the "WoW Enchantment effect" to them. Instead of slowing enemies, cold attacks freeze and a stun effect was added to lightning. The armor set on the barbarian looked demonic.

We were then met by none other than Deckard Cain. A mini dialog conversation began where the Barbarian was also talking with Cain. That would make a fun aspect to story mode.

On our way out of the dungeon, we were introduced to one of Diablo 3's new character classes: The Witch-Doctor (okay, you all can take 5 seconds to start singing that stupid witch-doctor song. Don't lie. I know you all started thinking about that song when you heard about the class :D). He showed off some summons like the mongrel who seem to work like the Skeletons and Wolves of Diablo 2. He could also make their bodies explode and do damage to nearby enemies (like a Necromancer's corpse explosion only limited to destroying your own pets). There was also a locus swarm attack which ate away at nearby enemies. If the zombie was close to another zombie, the swarm moved to that one; eating both zombies. There was also a Wall Of Zombies spell which worked like a Bone Wall only with attacking zombies.

Some may like this new class and the hate may flow my way by saying this but, I don't like the Witch-Doctor. He's too much like the Necromancer. I don't see why they couldn't have just stuck with the Necromancer and give him a boost of powers. They gave the barbarian a dash attack - why not give the Necromancer Disease instead of Bone? People cried for a Necromancer class in WoW. People loved the new Necromancer class (after patch 1.10). Why not give the people the old man we all know and love?

Any way, we are then met by 2 other characters. FEMALE VERSIONS OF THE CLASSES! I don't know why they couldn't have done this in Diablo 2. We can finally choose to make a Male Barbarian or a Female Barbarian (and with all the other classes).

The final boss fills up half the screen. Literally. It looked tough but the four fighters defeated him. The female Witch-Doctor died and the Barbarian was decapitated. Yes. Decapitated. The monster picked him up and bit his head off. And by bit, I mean tear it off. Well, both really. He bit down and then pulled it off... The Barbarian screaming makes the whole scene a bit disturbing >_>... This is never getting a Teen Rating lol.

The graphics are outstanding and the colors fit. The lighting is good and the physics are great.

Till tomorrow... ting tang walla walla bing bang.

PS: Happy Canadian Day!

Diablo 3 Story // Cain's Journal

The Diablo 3 story takes place about 20 years after the Worldstone had been destroyed by the arch-angel Tyrael. In these years, the people of Sanctuary slowly start to forget the three Prime Evils and all that had happened during their reign. To most, the story is just a myth.

However, to Deckard Cain, the legendary story of the one hero still lives in his mind. Cain travels back to New Tristram to study the remains of the old Cathedral. Tristram grew to a popular town after the Worldstone was struck down. People wanted to view the Cathedral of wence Diablo first appeared. However, as the years drained on, people stopped coming, and New Tristram became a depressing place.

As Cain was researching, he noticed a comet, hitting the exact same spot where Diablo first arrived many years ago. With this, Cain called upon new heroes to protect the world against "the rising powers of the Burning Hells – and even the failing luminaries of the High Heavens itself."

-Cinematic Video-


There is a woman in the video (the narrator as well) who would seem to be Cain's assistant. In the gameplay video (which I will post during the Gameplay post), the Barbarian clearly says that Lyra (or some other name... I can't remember) is worried about him. Also, we see a mountain that is now destroyed and two people in armor looking over it. I can guess that this is Mount Arreat - after the Worldstone was destroyed and the two characters are the Barbarians of the North. Also, to further back this theory, we also see Tyrael throwing his sword into the Worldstone. I can imagine they could be showing this to lead into the explosion of Mount Arreat.

Another awesome surprise is that we see Diablo without his soulstone! There is just a firey "t" scar.

On the Diablo 3 website, there is a section dedicated to Cain's Journal. This is a flash journal, written by Deckard Cain, which shows passages from King Leoric to the destruction of the Worldstone. Deckard Cain will also narrate the journal for you! It's really cool and even though some of you may already know the story, it's still fun to listen to Cain.

I've started playing Diablo 2 again. If you have the expansion and want to play, whisper Aticus (Paladin 30 40) or Starburn (Amazon, lower level 17) or the account *Neflight2 on the USEAST server - LADDER. I might be making a Sorceress soon too.

PS: The background image is set to a 17 inch widescreen monitor (my laptop). The image doesn't stretch out or shrink. If anyone can get me a HTML code which will automaticly fix the background image to make it stretch out to fit the screen, can you leave a comment with the code? Thanks!

Outline For The Week // Paladin Wrath Updates

What I'll do in the next week is take pieces of the Diablo 3 Website and explain what's there and (as always) add my opinions - be it good, bad, or in the middle. I'll try to get to all of these in this week (one per day).

1. Story / Deckard Cain's Journal

2. Gameplay / 20 Minute Gameplay Video

3. New Character Classes

4. Screenshots & Artwork.

5. Tyrael

The Tyrael topic should be a fun one. Best for last, you know? :-). Hopefully I'll get all that in by Thursday.

Onto other topics from today's WWI, there is very little Paladin news on the Wrath front. For you Retadins: You are going to be getting Warrior/DK gear. I could only imagine that's all +Str, +Stam, and +Attack Power. You will also be able to become more viable in groups. Yeah... they said that last time they tried to boost up Ret. Don't get your hopes up, in my opinion.

Holy Paladins will be getting a new healing spell called "Hand of Purity". This spell is supposed to work like a big Holy Crap button. I would imagine (and this is speculation now) that it'll give a player a big heal; just enough so you could get a Flash or Holy Light off. Definitely an improvement.

There was also some talk about changing Blessing of Protection and Blessing of Freedom so that they will NOT override your other Blessing (ie: Kings, Might etc).

So, stay tuned Sunday night or Monday for the next Diablo 3 update!