Fire from the sky has ended

To postpone the hungry cadre of gamers trying to install Diablo 3, the system declared that the fire from the sky had not ended. We waited. None patiently.

Now the great zerg to play D3 has begun. A few updates and patches, some apologies for errors, and a lot of persistence has players now enjoying the game. My take – well I’ve created a toon and entered the world, but I’ll only be commenting on major stuff in the first ten levels which is different from the beta, or where something is darn odd. I’m pleased to say that it is exactly as expected so far. It’s entertaining.

The class intro media were very good too, which was new to be from beta. It does feel forced to have such a strange mix of heroes from all over the world converging, and that was always going to feel a bit forced. At least we didn’t meet at an inn, with a fight breaking out like a D&D game. Well, ahem, perhaps that bit is in the starter story too.

A few thoughts from around the web worth reading too, Tobold has an observation about D3′s pricing, and Keen and Graev have 5 Things We Like and Dislike about Diablo 3.

Happy killing.

Excellent D3 Prequel Cartoon

D3 is only a week away, and Blizzard has released a darn good 6 minute cartoon which tells the pre-story to Diablo. More games should be released with this style and flavour of side-material. It shows (at least to me) that Blizzard understand the audience who arekeen to play Diablo 3, and that they are really aiming to create something worthy of the lore we have grown to love.

We have also had the “End of Days” tv spot / promo for the game too, which is also very good, but not a cartoon akin to the one above. The animation in End of days is more realistic than the prequel, but it only shows a smattering of the video we know is included. It’s a good hash of the full video.

I really looking forward to D3.

Playing many games, casually.

I’m in that happy state where I get to play many games. World of Warcraft has taken a significant backseat due to real life events, and along with that I’ve chosen to look into the MoP Beta and the Diablo 3 Beta. The odd distracting iphone game gets a look too.

Playing of the big three games very briefly and casually is actually more satisfying in the short term than trying to play one game solidly. Initially I would doubt that to be true. In a nutshell I think being moderate has pushed my expectations, and I now find the small elements of fun amongst a range of games. For now its working. I am looking forward to the official release of Diablo so that I can see the full content and play online with some friends that it is hard to hook up with in other games. I would still like to get SWToR loaded and play that in the future when my PC has been upgraded, as the content was impressive enough that I think it will be a fantastic distraction.

There is also a set of play-by-post tabletop RPG games that distract me, and between them, the healthy posts from the players, and the rest of life short stint gaming is still working. So for now a quick 15 to 30 minute session will do, with much gnashing, power-ups, and gear to be swindled from the nefarious foes.

Happy gaming folks.

Cryptic Accounts Compromised

Cryptic tell me via email today that my password and some user credentials might have been compromised.

Eff’ing what?

“The unauthorized access included user account names, handles, and encrypted passwords for those accounts. Even though the passwords were encrypted, it is apparent that the intruder has been able to crack some portion of the passwords in this database.

All accounts that we believe were present in the database have had the passwords reset, and customers registered to these accounts have been notified via e-mail of this incident.”

I want details, more detail than they supplied. It is a huge concern when the gaming market is going for micro-transactions, and those accounts can store credit cards, especially for inactive games. This event apparently only directly relates to Star Trek Online and Champions Online, but any breach is serious.

Cryptic are doing the right thing by owning up to it, and making channels available to the community affected. They’re doing the minimum right thing. But sheesh Cryptic – how many times has this happened to game companies in the past, and why is it so ungodly difficult to establish a secure database system?

DK Mullet Set – pvp tier

The new Death Knight set has been shared by MMO Champ – I’m calling it the mullet set. Business in the front, party in the back. … A mullet joke is better than the “me-so-horny” jokes you’ll see in Stormwind and the Deeprun Tram very soon.

The set without the helm is good, I don’t understand the helm design.

Diablo Beta thoughts

After completing the Diablo Beta I have some thoughts.

It is a good game, and feels basically ready. I’m looking forward to it. In the Beta test I played a Barbarian almost through to the end, and a Wizard through to completion. I’ll go back and try the other classes now, but probably not play them right through, as I want to also play them when the game is actually live.

Play-style wise I’d recommend that every player try each class; they really play differently. Music was nice, sound effects, nice, and the few special encounters and scenes I saw (Sword of Leoric) were really nice. Well done Blizzard.

Diablo 3 Beta, BRB dancing

Yay. Damn me, all I need now is a reason to stay indoors and play. C’mon rain!

Old topic rant: Lockouts

Today’s blog post pinged because I was listening to the Outlandish
podcast and one of the guys was chatting about the lockouts. The lockouts
in place now strike me as odd.

MoP Beta Thoughts and Impressions

Here are some initial thoughts that I’ve had while I played the MoP Beta, as one of the many hundreds of thousands of new “beta” testers.

Happy Nerd: WoW MoP Beta Invitation Arrived

Ok, I’m a happy nerd now. I’ve got the email from Blizzard saying I’m invited, and that makes me feel special. Special like 250,000 others, but still special. I’m now happily going to fuss about in the beta, and have promised myself that I will actually test and read the material so I add some sort of value.