Now it’s been some time since I’ve started playing Diablo III and I have to say that it did not disappoint. I was somewhat unsure of whether I will like it or not after playing WoW and SWTOR which are very different from Diablo type of games.

For one thing I really liked the aspect of MMOs in that you gain new skills as you level and you keep using most of them till the end. I remember that being much of break for me coming from Diablo II, the break which I liked. Diablo III is very much like Diablo II in that sense, but it actually is a very nice change of pace after all MMOs.

You only get 6 skills at any given time and each skills has a sub-skill which modifies a given skill in one way or another. You can change the active skills as many times as you wish. For example you can use one build for clearing the dungeons and a completely different one to bring down a boss.

The pace is completely different from the MMOs that I’ve played and is a very welcome thing. When you have to mostly pull 1 by 1 in an MMO here you just jump into the huge herd of monsters and smash away — the more the merrier. You basically never have to stop for a break — you just plow away.

Obviously the biggest difference is the fact that Diablo, while can be played with friends, is built as a single player game. It means I can complete it on my own time fully without having to worry about finding a group. But it also does support cooperative play, which we tried with Eldar, although we didn’t have much time.

Besides leveling, gearing your character and progressing through the story the game comes with tons of achievements for players to … ehm … achieve. Getting as many of them down as possible is another very fun aspect of the game for me.

My favorite class to play at the moment is Barbarian — a melee DPS class. Although all classes in the game are pretty much DPS classes, since it is meant to be a single player game after all. At this point I’ve finished the story on Normal, Nightmare and Hell. However when I step my foot into the final stage — Inferno — I almost get taken apart by regular mobs and I ain’t got nothing on elites.

The problem with melee classes is that you actually have to be able to get into the thick of it and be able to sustain all the damage that is being dished out to you. Ranged classes on the other hand can avoid damage altogether if the player is proficient at kiting the mobs.

Anyhow, as far as I’m concerned, I might not play much longer, but it was money well spent. It provided me with hours of great entertainment. Although I might try leveling a ranged class as well to 60 — should it be a Wizard or a Demon Hunter?

Two days ago I’ve finally decided that I want to get Diablo III. Even though it will be very different game from WoW and SWTOR I think it is something that I might enjoying playing even more since it is meant to be a single player game. I have a lot of history with Diablo.

The first Diablo was actually the very first RPG game that I have ever played. RPG is the only type of game that I would play these days — and that’s been the case for a long time now. I’ve just never been interested as much in any other genre of games. Diablo II¹ was actually the first game that I have bought — first one was given to me by an old friend. I played it all through to the end, later on bought an expansion and finished that too.

So I figured that I’d like to get a Collector’s Edition of the game. But as often is the case — procrastination (putting off the decision to the last moment) resulted in CE version being sold out everywhere — Amazon, Best Buy, etc. I decided to just stop by a Best Buy store in the morning on my way to work, ask if they have CE available and just get a normal version if not.

My Best Buy of choice for today’s morning was a store located near the Pennsylvania Avenue in Brooklyn. I pulled into the parking lot, got out of my car and the door to Best Buy got unlocked right in front of me. I walked in and proceeded to the gaming section. Asked about the CE version and was told to wait while a lady would check for me. She came back with 2 boxes and said that it’s all that they have.

Right at that moment another sales guy run up and said that she can’t sell any to me since these were pre-ordered. She said that she checked and no pre-orders showed up. The guy told her to not ring it up since he wanted to go and check himself. She decided not to listen to him. I swiped my credit card and the transaction went through.

At that moment this guy returned — yelling: “Stop! You can’t sell these! They ARE pre-ordered!” Her only reply at that point was — “Oops!” I wasn’t letting this game out of my hands. Yet another sales guys showed up with a receipt showing that he had pre-ordered both of the copies. I took that as my queue to get lost and left.

I actually didn’t expect it to be rare, but right after I bought mine I phoned our local store at Caesar’s Bay and another one near my office in Connecticut and neither one had any in stock. So I’m pretty happy with how that turned out. However the moral of the story is this — never pre-order anything at Best Buy.

I haven’t played the game itself yet, but just wanted to share this little moment of joy with you all.

P.S. I have a couple of guest invite codes — allows a friend to play through Act I of the game that I can share with you if you want it. I gave one of them out to Andrey already.

I just want to make a short post and offer a small explanation for the lack of posting lately. Blame BioWare, the studio that made Star Wars: The Old Republic — a massively multiplayer online role playing game. RPG is the only type of game that I enjoy playing and I haven’t touched anything way back since the time when we left World of Warcraft several years ago.

We tried playing different RPGs, but nothing really stuck as they tried to invent their own formula and always fell short of WoW, no pun intended. This one however takes exactly what WoW was and improves several annoying parts of it. Everyone has a companion, normal groups are limited to 4 people and companions count. They are not as good as real players, but we’ve been able to do pretty much all content together with Eldar to this point.

Anyhow, it’s been eating up all of my free time and a lot of my sleep time. I have two characters that I enjoy very much. One is a Sith Warrior Marauder named Zhah — a character that specializes in dual-wielding lightsabers. He is a melee DPS guy who I’ve been leveling together with one of Eldar’s characters. Another one is a Bounty Hunter Mercenary that is a ranged DPS dealer.

Both play very differently and have a different story that spans through all 50 levels. Role playing gets to the point of characters being able to romance and marry their companions — that’s what Hahz (my bounty hunter) did. It’s been a lot of fun to this point, but I think it won’t be as much fun once we reach level 50. Same thing as with WoW, only I’m not raiding this time around.