Diablo III is opening its doors to all in an Open Beta Weekend, starting at 1900 this evening and running through 1700 Monday.
To drum up interest in its upcoming action RPG Diablo III, Blizzard has announced an open beta weekend starting at 1900 this evening.
The open beta, which is accessible to anyone with a Battle.net account, will run until 1700 on Monday and allows players the chance to try out the five class types that will be available at launch up to Level 13. Once the maximum level has been reached, players are free to start afresh with a new character.
The five character classes available in the beta are the Witch Doctor, the Barbarian, the Wizard, the Monk and the Demon Hunter - equivalents to Diablo II's Necromancer, Barbarian, Sorceress, Assassin-cum-Paladin, and Amazon.
While Diablo III has come in for some stick over its allegedly more cartoonish graphics style compared to its predecessors and the news that the game would mandate an always-on internet connection even for single-player mode, a free beta is not to be sniffed at if you've got no plans this weekend.
To ensure you get the most playing time out of the beta, we'd recommend you download the client in advance from the
Battle.net download page. If you don't have a Battle.net account from one of Blizzard's existing games, you can
sign up for free.
If you decide to give the beta a run for its money this weekend, be sure to let us know your thoughts on the game over in the forums.
38 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyI just made plans - to watch paint dry.
Why? Cause between the massive choke for everyone to grap the game and my lines, chances are I finish downloading this come monday morning, 7 minutes before they close the Beta again.
Can't wait to give this beast a whirl..
nvm, this answered it: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/blog/4105609/Diablo_III_Open_Beta_Weekend_-20_04_2012
I am in Brazil. I need to calculate
Anyone else struggling with this because I'm baffled...? :? :p
"piece of sh*t game"
no, I'm sorry, this is a game done by professional developers, not by you, if you wish to diss on an entire team that dedicated themselves to make this game you can just put a gun right to your head and shoot, people like you aren't welcome where I'm from.
looks at the case and half of microbrew beer, hmmm should be good for the weekend
I'm amazed you can assess an entire game that isn't even released yet purely on a public beta. Since it is a stress test I fully expected the servers to be overloaded. I waited patiently to log in and think the gameplay is very good. I'm looking forward to playing more tomorrow.
when you run out of mana holding the right mouse button.. your guy auto shoots his arrows instead- and it's auto aim! just point in the general direction.. so you can just hold a button and have a sausage in the other hand
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/5088/diabloiii20120420183738.jpg http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/7251/diabloiii20120420183942.jpg http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/3797/diabloiii20120420184533.jpg http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/5932/diabloiii20120420184846.jpg http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/2200/diabloiii20120420185503.jpg http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/8094/diabloiii20120420190505.jpg http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/9384/diabloiii20120420191517.jpg http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/7202/diabloiii20120420191914.jpg http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/797/diabloiii20120420192427.jpg http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/2926/diabloiii20120420192513.jpg http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/5463/diabloiii20120420192838.jpg http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/4685/diabloiii20120420193419.jpg
aye, so this is the future of gaming xD man if guildwars 2 is this easy, might as well retire.. that was ridiculous
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/9145/diabloiii20120421004823.jpg
FreshDandwiches: I concede your point about assessing an entire game based upon a beta, but if that beta is less than 1 month away from the full release date, its a pretty good indication of what the finished product will be like. After the massive delays, all the hype and 'jazz-hands' over Diablo 3, I expected a bit more than the same old game with an evolution of the graphics. It's just a slightly more sophisticated Torchlight, which cost a hell of a lot less, had no stupid requirements, and was just as much fun.
I think perhaps it was incorrect of me to call the game a piece of sh*t, however it is really just reflective of feeling let down by a developer that just seems to have taken the easy way out as they did with StarCraft 2, instead of trying to bring us a genuine next step.
Yeah, because SCII isn't one of the most popular games in the world with a massive online following purely because it followed a good formula that works without a hitch...
That's the thing though. It is a beta. The trend is these days for beta's to be glorified demo's. This clearly isn't. I think you'll see the finished product being very different.
Torchlight was very enjoyable, remarkable as well considering how long it took to develop. I'm hoping D3 will be the same and better with the on-line play that Torchlight lacked, the Auction House and all the rest of it.
If you follow the Torchlight 2 blog even Runic are excited about D3. http://www.torchlight2game.com/news/2012/03/16/congratulations-to-the-diablo-iii-team/
I totally disagree with you about SC2 as well. I think that it has evolved as well into a fine game which requires a hell of a lot of skill to play.
You keep mentioning graphics. You'll never get amazing state of the art graphic in Blizz games. They design them to be accessible to lower end machines and more about the gameplay.
While I agree so far it's really, really easy (even actively trying to die is difficult) This is the first act of the first difficulty, so I'm not too worried
We are talking DIABLO 3 here and you are not satisfied! Get real, the Brit Debby Downer thing is getting old.
Oh wait a second, were you not old enough to play the first and second iterations?!
Downloading now and going to have Fun!
Yours in Demonic Plasma,
Star*Dagger
I upgraded the crafter to see what he offers too.. it was the same stuff that drops- the gameplay is fluid and the graphics fit diablo, but really they could make things a little challenging.. I know these console guys want to roll around in cheetos while a game tells them they are not a dingaling- but how easy it was to beat whole droves of mobs by holding the mouse button down
sad thing is I didn't even know wth is going on, beat the first boss and it says thanks! like I was supposed to jizz my pants or something.. didn't even get close to dieing once
should add the graphics well see them in the pics posted.. no way to zoom in and out either.. the character creation is pick a guy- that's it.. no way to customize.. like if your black- too bad xD asian- too bad.. arab- well that's never in there.. played diablo so far back- all remember is the area where you slaughter some cows.. had some fun in bnet back then.. warcraft 3 was probably the most skilled rts blizzard made- thought was better than starcraft.. but this is a money grab to farmville players- my opinion anyway
have a bad feeling guildwars 2 is going to be the same.. the snuffaluffagus dollars is too strong nowdays- if you don't dumb it down they lose interest.. then they roid rage in the sd forum
And where Shayper09 says SC2 is one of the most popular games in PC-dom, I'm not quite sure about that although I acknowledge that it has done very well indeed. I don't begrudge it that, but I was really hoping that Blizzard would actually try something new for D3 instead of rehashing the same method they used for SC2. I just expect something a bit better from one of the supposed shining lights of PC developers. We can't lambast Infinity Ward for rehashing COD ad infinitum and then praise Blizzard for putting new clothes on the same old Diablo, surely?
Freshsandwiches - If I 'bang on' about graphics, its because in some circles the pendulum seems to have swung the opposite way and now to spend time on ensuring graphics are of high quality is a sure indicator that the developer has given sod-all consideration to the fun of the game itself. This is clearly not true. I see no reason why you can't have both. In the specific context of my comment above though, I just expected more from a game that was announced back in 2001. What have they been doing all this time? (WoW, obviously). I will also be very surprised if the finished game is radically different as you suggest. There's less than 3 weeks until you can buy a retail copy in the shops. This beta is a 'stress test' which tells me it's more about whether their own servers can cope rather than the game itself being tested - the closed Beta has been going on for a while, to accomplish that.
Hopefully you'll reserve judgement until then.
Z zooms in an out. (although it does
Also in regard to the difficulty, I repeat, that is the first difficulty on the first act, I didn't exactly expect it to be difficult.
I do agree however that the blacksmith does seem mostly useless, given how much gold it costs to train him up before he could make anything of any use to me what so ever.
read it was perma death at level 10+? that might be why it's so easy.. now I'm holding down the other mouse button and tapping 2.. it's kind of an improvement =} lol
*edit just did a run.. tornado is the win button
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/6906/diabloiii20120422102356.jpg http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/3803/diabloiii20120422103331.jpg http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/7296/diabloiii20120422103853.jpg http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/9554/diabloiii20120422103858.jpg http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/488/diabloiii20120422103912.jpg http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/4383/diabloiii20120422104613.jpg
Yeah, the difficulty level definitely needs tweaking. I ran through the entire scenario with my Demon Hunter using only his left-click autoshot and the machine gun like volley of my right-click. I only managed to die once when 4 of those great hulking beasts exploded on top of me at the same time.
I'm hoping that the ease of play is just because it's a beta demo.
I am loving the fact that it remains true to its origin and it is not some travesty like Fallout 3 was!
I think it is a bit easy, but you have hardcore and nightmare modes, and I can garantee you will die (as we did in the previous Diablos).
I can't wait to see the craftables and the itens along the way. It is all abou collection.
Ooooohhh... BTW, I have to admit that I am less excited than I expected
I can't comment on D3 specifically as I haven't played the Beta, but I think you're being a bit unfair.
A new COD comes out every twelve months, but it's been twelve years since the last Diablo. It's such a retro series it makes sense the gameplay should be retro as well. Besides, it's been such a long time since the last one that even if the gameplay is identical to the previous game, twelve years is more than long enough for that not to be a problem.
Same with SC2 (which I have played): the last RTS of it's kind I played was Age of Mythology, and that was eight years ago. It's so retro is practically brand new again.
To use a more extreme but relevant analogy: it's like having issue with The Artist because it doesn't do anything new compared to all the other films in its genre that were released at the turn of the 20th century. Whilst technically true, it completely misses the point that a) it doesn't matter because it was a hundred years ago, and b) The Artist is a very good film irrespective of comparisons to others in the genre.