Finally after what seemed like a lifetime waiting for the 3rd installment of Diablo, the release is only 3 days away (after waiting 12 years of couse)! It’s been a long time since most of us have played the original Diablo game that sparked our love of diving into dungeons to save mankind, meaning you may have not noticed, or forgot what happened to some of the characters we loved playing then. So we’re doing a “Where are they now?” Segment of the hero classes you could play in the original Diablo.

The Warrior

What happened to the Warrior is not a secret and pretty straight forward. Basically, Diablo couldn’t overpower Leoric and convinced Lazurus to kidnap the King’s son, Prince Albrecht. Since the Prince is only a child, it’s very easy for Diablo to warp his mind and corrupt him – however since Albrecht is only a child, Diablo could never reach his full potential. Diablo doesn’t care though, he’s like “I’M FREAKING DIABLO! I RULE HELL!” and monsters from the underworld begin to flood the depths of Tristram’s Cathedral in order to bring Hell to the living realm. Enter the warrior who dives into the dungeon head first making his way to Diablo. Once he defeats Diablo and removes the soulstone Albrecht returns to his original child body. But this is a game about demons and evil, so there is no happy ending – though the Prince has reverted back to his original form, he’s clearly dead. In some crazy attempt to seal the evil within him to prevent further destruction caused by Diablo, the warrior rams the soulstone into his forehead. Thinking he’s can overcome corruption the Warrior leaves Tristram, and eventually becomes the new Diablo you must defeat in Diablo II.

So where is the warrior now?

So awesome that I stuck that rock into my skull, now I get to be on the cover!

He was Diablo, but now he’s dead.

The Rogue

This cinematic was never actually released as the ending for the game, I’m sure Blizzard saw  the potential of making a sequel for the game and wanted to keep the story concise. So basically, the Rogue wasn’t cool enough to be Diablo for Diablo II. So what happened to her? You played her through and she never got a cool ending!

So where is the Rogue Now?

I fought so hard in Tristram only to be defeated by a level 2 Barbarian. YEAH!

It’s rumored that the rogue is actually Blood Raven from Diablo II. In Act I Charsi and Akara both give you some insight that Blood Raven was a Rogue Captain who had fought in Tristram when Diablo was still playing house under the Cathedral. They say when Blood Raven returned she wasn’t the same anymore, and not long after Blood Raven’s PTSD got the best of her, Andariel rose to wreak havoc in the west.

The Sorcerer

Of course, the sorcerer’s fate wasn’t any better. Just like the other  two heroes he thought mutilating his forehead with a giant pointy stone was a super awesome idea! I thought mage types were supposed to be intelligent.

So where is the Sorcerer now?

Pictured: Mage in need of Prozac.

Like the Rogue, his fate is sealed within Diablo II. Not many people I know spoke to the NPC’s to pick up some lore on their quests, it’s too tempting to just hurry through and hack slash your way through evil. However, if you were a completionist you know that the Sorcerer is trapped in Act II. The Summoner ( a corrupted mage who was impersonating Horazon) turns out to be our beloved Sorcerer. The two characters who give you insight on this are Jehryn and Drognan, who speak of a half-crazed  Vizjerei mage. The Summoner arrived to Lut Gholein claiming to have fought Diablo in Tristram.

1) Quests can be used to direct players to different parts of the world and help them orient themselves in an otherwise intimidating environment.

2) Quests can really minimize the agony of the grind with thoughtful placement and a bit of variety.

The first point was one of their goals all along, if their interviews after the fact can be believed. They allegedly saw the vast potential of creating these massive online worlds but struggled to find an answer to get the more casual player to dive in. Quests were their answer to that, a lot of them.

The second point came a little more slowly. Over time Blizz noticed that simply arranging the order and location of each quest can greatly increase a player’s productivity and thus keeps them engaged for longer. The tedious grind, while still tedious, feels like less of a hassle if you know you can sit down and, with a bit of planning, stamp around a certain portion of the map and blot out quests all in a row and return to the local hub to enjoy sight of your experience bar filling up dramatically faster. The most common (and easiest) way to do this is by simply arranging a bunch of quests in a recognizable and easily travelled sequence.

For example, you ride in to a new quest area and make your way to the first hub. You grab all the quests available to you and open up your map to start figuring out where they all lead. To your surprise they actually appear as a neatly arranged dotted line! This means you can simply go to the furthest point and work your way back. You’re not away from town for too long, you have a clear and definite path, and you stay in roughly the same area, allowing you to orient yourself to your surroundings. Perfect!

This is where I begin to get confused when I look at other MMOs that have come out since this amazing discovery.

Earlier in this blog Proxy had some not-so-nice things to say about Star Wars: The Old Republic. I don’t have the highest opinion of that game either. Her primary complaints centered about the absurdities found within the class system (getting to the “end” with a class only to find out you played it “wrong” and can’t access sweet loot has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard), my first thought when I recount my time with SWTOR is how horrid their quest flow was. So horrid, in fact, I’m not entirely convinced it had a flow at all.

Far too often I’d reach a new quest hub, pick up all the quests, and open my map not to see an intelligently laid out plan of how my experience in that zone was going to play out but a chaotic mess of dots scattered around the playing area seemingly at random. And so far apart! Just looking at my imaginary path made me want to drink glass. And it was especially heart-breaking for me because I felt like at least some people on the BioWare team knew what they were doing, namely the people in charge of bringing these areas to life through the game’s admittedly awesome story. It was a damn shame that I couldn’t be assed to visit all those interesting characters and help them out of their interesting predicaments – I’m a goddamn sith marauder, not a marathon runner!

I remain cautiously optimistic that BioWare will right these wrongs somewhere down the line and might earn some of my money again. Jury’s still out on that, they don’t even seem to acknowledge that this is even an issue.

A fate better than spending the $160 to buy the Collectors Edition.

I rolled a bounty hunter and made the horrible mistake of playing mostly good. Come to find out when you go to the light side vendor – there was no gear for my hunter. So, what was good about going light side and playing a bounty hunter? Nothing.

Next I tried rolling a smuggler, but there was this giant particle floating around my character (looked like a bunch of stretched metal) which hindered what I was looking at and made me too frustrated to play. I tried restarting and reinstalling, but nothing fixed it.

Then I tried a marauder, which to be honest – was pretty amazingly fun! Nothing like dual wielding lightsabers to make you feel like you belong in the movies.

The PvP was… interesting to say the least. Hutta ball (kinda like stealing a flag and scoring) was fun, Civil War was confusing.

I haven’t completely written SWTOR off. I’m interested to see if they make any changes that pique my interest, but who knows how long that will take.

On another positive, I enjoyed the customization!

Please give us a moment as we redesign the site! Thanks!

Image Via Steam

It’s that time of year where you think you’re not spending a lot of money, but you really spend a ton to get all those deeply discounted games on Steam. Oh, I’m certainly no exception to this rule, as last year’s black Friday sale took a great deal of my money. At about 1:00 PM pacific I visited steam, and not to my surprise the website was down from all the anxious gamers checking out all the latest and greatest digital deals. Todays deals include Portal, Portal 2, Fable III, Orcs Must Die, Singularity, Amnesisa, Just Cause, Max Payne, Rift and many others at 75% off. The deals don’t end there, there are other publisher catalogs for up to 90% off!

What will you be spending your money on?

My official gaming career began at Activision, working on Guitar Hero. The picture above is that of Will Townsend, we worked together at Activision, where he was a producer for various Guitar Hero titles and for DJ Hero, and later we worked together at Nexon America. I got the unfortunate news this morning of his passing and could not believe it. The world today lost a bright light and a brilliant smile. Many people knew and loved Will very much – so it’s to no surprise that even those who  were merely acquainted with him felt his loss this morning. We are taking a moment of silence for our dear friend, and I’m sure in the next life we will meet again… and he will point out my sparkly shoes and laugh at me once more.

R.I.P Will Townsend, may your joyful spirit live on through your friends and loved ones.

*Update* Gamasutra has posted an obituary for our beloved Will Townsend.

I, like probably many others, learned the hard way that Star Wars The Old Republic only has a limited quantity of Early Access codes. The head start is said to begin on December 13^th, 2011 only 7 days before the official launch of the game.

Star Wars The Old Republic is widely speculated to be the last true “Subscription” based game to be released, as many companies are starting to fall into the Free to Play (F2P) business model.  The game is still available for pre-order via EA’s digital store Origin  – for $20 more you can purchase the Digital Deluxe version and have access to a few extra goodies.

What side are you choosing? Republic or  Empire?

Image: www.everquest2.com

The free to play phenomenon is catching on as Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) MMORPG Everquest II went free to play on December 7^th 2011, though after researching it a bit, it’s not in the true spirit of most free to play games. The free or “Bronze” members will have only 2 character slots, limited access of content including character races (you still have to purchase newer expansion packs for EQ II ), limited bag slots, equipment, and spell tiers. The other memberships include:

Silver – A silver membership can be purchased for a one-time fee of  $5, which includes increased amount of character slots, spell tiers, bag and bank slots.

Gold – Gold membership is available for $14.99 per month and provides full access to the game as you would imagine any subscription type game would.

Something I noted as a bit of a downside aside from limited content for bronze and silver users is the in-game mail system. Bronze and Silver users will only be able to receive mail – while gold members will be able to send AND receive.

EQ’s change to Free to play seems more like an extended demo than an actual move to the Free to Play system.

Will you be trying out F2P Everquest?

Enter – Autoflix. Autoflix is an awesome little app that instantly hits “play next” for you on Netflix. This nifty little thing is only $1 and well worth it!