Introducing Tehrdas, My Diablo 3 Monk!

This is my first character update for Tehrdas and Diablo 3. I am going to try to do an update once a week about my progress in the game. I heard there were a lot of issues at launch with bugs, but the game seems to be working for me okay. I have only had one disconnection so far and the occasional “rubber banding” while moving around.

Other than those few issues, I am having a blast. So much that my index finger hurts from all the clicking. It brings back all the memories from Diablo 2 marathons. I was able to play about 2 hours per day and got Tehrdas to level 20. Future character updates probably won’t have as many level gains. The early levels go really fast in Diablo 3 though.

I will add a link to my character profile for future posts whenever Blizzard adds character profiles to the Battle.net website. The character profile will of course be changing overtime, so it won’t be current if you read this post soon after publishing.

Testing out Torchlight 2!

I never got invited to the Diablo 3 beta, but I found a Torchlight 2 beta invite waiting for me when I got back from vacation! I stayed up late Sunday and then played more on Monday and Tuesday evening. Each day I have played a different class. I did a full playthrough of the beta content with the Outlander, Embermage, and Berserker. Tonight I will do the same with the Engineer. Beta will be ending Thursday 4pm, so I likely won’t get anymore playtime after tonight until the game is out.

I am loving the game so far. I looked at all the skill trees. Even though not all the skills are revealed in the beta, I can already see a number of possible builds. I really like what they did with the attributes. Every attribute is good for every class now in some way. Most builds will only focus on two attributes, but there are other builds that will use other attributes. So every attribute is useful for some build with every class. There are just so many more possibilities compared to Torchlight 1.

The beta has a level cap of 21 and 2-3 big outdoor areas to explore with lots of dungeons of varying sizes. Apparently, that is all of Act 1. It did go pretty fast, but it still took about 4 hours to explore everything and reach the level cap. For me that doesn’t matter much because the fun will be testing all kinds of different builds. The only thing I don’t like is that it didn’t seem like monsters respawned. I wonder how we will farm items without the ability to farm monsters. Maybe they will have an infinite dungeon or portal scrolls like Torchlight 1. Hopefully there is some way to farm monsters though.

I also want a respec feature. In the beta they have one for level 10 and lower, but I want an option for high level characters too. I just don’t see myself leveling a new character from scratch just to try different skills. I did that with Diablo 2, but I have much less free time now. The good thing is that Torchlight 2 supports mods, so someone will eventually make a respec mod. Hopefully it won’t be buggy either. I used a respec mod for Torchlight 1 but hoped it would be in the base game for Torchlight 2.

Now, I also got Diablo 3 installed and created my Monk, but I haven’t touched it very much. I knew the Torchlight 2 beta wasn’t going to last long, so I got straight into it instead of Diablo 3. I will have plenty of time to play Diablo 3 while waiting for Torchlight 2. I don’t have anything planned Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so I should make some good progress in Diablo 3. I plan to have the first character update out this coming Monday.

Reminder: On Vacation

This is just a reminder that I am on vacation from May 9 to May 20. I wrote this post last week but scheduled it to post today. I’m disappointed that I have to miss the Diablo 3 launch day. I have been waiting for this game for years now, but this trip has also been waiting for years. I’m going to be visiting a bunch of relatives I haven’t seen since I was around 12, and I am 27 now.

As I have said earlier, I will be installing the game when I get back late Sunday. Being so tired from travel, I doubt I will be playing it that night. Most likely it will be Monday night when I finally get to play. At least the servers will be stable by then. I don’t think I will have anything posted until Wednesday, May 23. I need to balance playing the game with having time to write it all down.

Torchlight 2 Prepurchase Available!

Steam and Runic Games have just added Torchlight 2 to the Steam Store. It is $20 for a one copy or $60 for 4 copies, so you get a 25% discount for buying in bulk. The multiplayer mode supports 4 players, so the 4-pack is perfect for anyone that has a lot of friends they want to play with. One copy gets added to your account with the other 3 copies added to your account as gifts. You can give these to your friends or even use them in trades for other Steam games.

On Steam every prepurchase has a bonus for paying before the game is out. In this case, the bonus is a free copy of Torchlight 1. If you already have Torchlight 1 you can gift the free copy to a friend or trade it with other gamers for a different Steam game. This prepurchase bonus also stacks with the 4-pack bundle; you get 4 free copies of Torchlight 1.

Torchlight 2 is also available from Perfect World Entertainment, the majority owners of Runic Games. However, Runic Games currently is not selling the game directly. If you want to support the developer more, you might want to wait until they are accepting orders directly. No matter where you buy the game, you will have to create a Runic Games account to play online.

The Steam page lists the game as a Summer 2012 release but gives no concrete date. I will wait until then to prepurchase. I’ve been burned in the past with games I preordered and the release window got pushed back further and further. I eventually decided I will not do preorders unless the game has a concrete release date announced by the publisher and developer (retailers just guess on their store pages). Hopefully, they announce a release date soon.

New Dragon Age: Origins Build: Weapon and Shield Warrior

I beat Dragon Age: Origins last week, and had a lot of fun making this build. The game itself was a blast and took me a long time to get through. I listened to every bit of dialog I could, took time to consider all of the choices, and made a pretty good character for my first try. There were a lot of similarities to Dragon Age 2 as far as the lore, characters, and themes, but quite a few differences when it came to the actual mechanics of the game. I quickly took all the stats of that character, optimized them, and wrote out all my strategy into the Weapon and Shield Warrior.

The Weapon and Shield Warrior is the tank of the party. The goal is not to do damage but to occupy all the enemies’ attentions while the rest of the party does the damage. I wouldn’t say a tank is essential to beating the game, but definitely allows you to coast through a lot of tough encounters. Having a character enemies can just beat on with occasional healing helps a lot.

I found it much easier to hold threat in Dragon Age: Origins compared to Dragon Age 2. For one new enemies rarely spawn in the middle of battle. Usually, the enemies you see up ahead are all you will face in that battle. The few times enemies respawn, they don’t come from all sides of the party that puts your tank in an impossible position to tank everything.

The only problem I had was in fights with a lot of archers. My Taunt did not have the range to threaten the archers, so they would just pelt whatever target they wanted. I was almost always able to lure archers closer by running into another nearby room though. It was never a hassle like Dragon Age 2′s constantly spawning enemies.

I hope you will enjoy this build. I’d like to continue with Dragon Age: Origins, but Diablo 3 is really close now, and unfortunately, Diablo 3 and Torchlight 2 are the focus of my blog. I definitely want to come back eventually and do some more builds. I can think of at least 2 standard builds per class and a bunch non-stereotypical builds such as a mage tank. All that will have to wait until sometime after Diablo 3 and maybe even Torchlight 2 if it releases soon after.

Runic Games Reveals Torchlight 2 Pets

Torchlight 2 is slowly progressing. We still don’t have a release date, but Runic Games have started doing news updates every Friday about the game. Last week’s update is about the new (and old) pets Torchlight 2 will have.

• Ferret – Previously only available in certain Torchlight 1 copies (retail, Xbox Live), but now available to all users in Torchlight 2. Now with new and improved 3D model and textures.
• Chakawary – Sort of like a dinosaur/bird hybrid, the body of a velociraptor with the head of a bird.
• Cat – The cat returns from Torchlight 1 with new and improved 3D model and textures. In Torchlight 1 she looked almost like a lion. She keeps her large size in Torchlight 2, but now has the markings of a tabby cat.
• Bulldog – A new pet that of course looks like a bulldog. I really like the 3D model. He looks like he has a lot of personality.
• Hawk – A new flying pet. It appears to not fly really high, just mostly hovers and flies by your character’s side.
• Panther – Similar to the Cat of course, but with a bigger frame. It looks like a big cat compared to the thin frame of the Cat. Solid blueish-black coat with jade eyes.
• Wolf – This is basically the Dog from Torchlight 1 just bigger and stronger than before. Like all the other pets, he has a much better 3D model and textures than Torchlight 1.

The pets will have all of the same functions as Torchlight 1: have their own inventory, sell stuff for back to town, learn spells, transform when fed fish. They also have one new function: buying items in town for you. I don’t know how complicated this will be. I am guessing it will be mostly for generic items like potions and scrolls. If you run out, you can simply tell your pet to go back and buy some for you. Not bad.

I always liked the pets in Torchlight 1 but was disappointed there were so few. I wanted to have a different pet per character. Now there is a pretty good variety. I think I will make one character per pet, with more characters if I want to try out a different spec. There is some clamor on the forums for Runic to add a respec option, but I have a feeling Runic will be keeping Torchlight 2 the same in this area with no respecs available.

 

Diablo 3 Release Date Announced!

We have been waiting months for this, but now we finally know the day we will be playing Diablo 3: May 15, 2012. Blizzard is now excepting pre-purchases of the game today if you want to go the digital download route. People who got the WoW Annual Pass are also now able to download the client. The battle.net site was really slow, but I was able to purchase the game and get is started downloading.

Like the Starcraft 2 digital download, you get all the game files downloaded before the release date, but they are encrypted. Once the installer sees the live server is up and running, it then downloads a decryption key to decrypt the game files and install the game.

I have some bad news though. Unfortunately, I have a vacation planned from May 9 – May 20. Basically, I am going on a road trip and meeting a lot of relatives I haven’t seen in 15-20 years. I have been putting this vacation off for years, so I am not cancelling it now. I will just have to wait until after to play Diablo 3. I will probably get back home late Sunday and install the game (from my pre-downloaded files) but most likely won’t play until Monday evening.

My plans are still the same for Diablo 3. I will write down my thoughts as I play the game with the Monk. Each week I will do a little write-up, which I call a character update, combining my thoughts into one post to show where I am at in the game. It will mainly be about rare items I find, the new skills unlocked, and the monsters I am facing. The idea is to get a good sense of what my character is up against and what skills counter which monsters. Then, I can take that information into harder difficulties where it is really needed.