Adventures in Diablo III's Season 4: A Vast Ocean of Exploding Palms

For the first time, I've actually decided to put some effort into a character in a season of Diablo III. Up to this point, I was content just using my demon hunter from when the game first came out and casually futzing around. For the past few weeks, I'd been getting the itch to return to the game, and with the new season starting up it seemed like as good of a time as any to hop back into it. One class that I'd not really spent much time with was the monk, instead gravitating towards ranged characters like the aforementioned demon hunter and a brief stint with a wizard. So, it felt time to change things up and give the punchy kicky class a fair shake.

It didn't take very long to get to level cap and start the loot farming / paragon grinding process, but then again it's been easy to do that for years in this game. Now, with a monk that is half way to being decked out in best-in-slot items, the class is really starting to appeal to me.

On the whole, monks are shaping up to be exceptionally powerful this season. Their Uliana gear set makes the Exploding Palm ability an absolutely devastating area of effect attack that can chain to kill a huge number of baddies at once. They're also doing a fantastic job as healers in group runs. Take someone who has geared for that role and it'll be very difficult to die under most circumstances unless you're pushing the absolute limits of Greater Rifts. Personally, I prefer to play solo, so have been going with the former.

Not only is it very effective, but it's also a lot of fun. There's something very satisfying about seeing a pack of several dozen monsters all with the palm icon hovering over their head, then doing Seven-Sided Strike and watching a huge explosion of bodies ripple across the screen. It makes the approach to a session one of positioning and hoping for dense packs of enemies, applying Exploding Palms, and then blowing them up.

Right now, I'm hindered by missing pieces of gear, especially ones that can be tossed into the Kanai's Cube to have their legendary ability extracted and equipped. Really, it's pretty fantastic that the cube has been implemented into the game. Back in Diablo II, I loved the Horadoric Cube. It was always fun tossing something in and then seeing what it decided to spit out. What's nice about this cube is that we get a fair bit more control, not total control mind you, but at least more than before. Players can now upgrade rare gear to legendary, extract legendary powers, convert a set piece to something else in the set (great if you're getting doubles of certain pieces), convert gems, and so forth.

Right now, I'm stuck waiting for gear to drop before any further progress can be made. What's needed more than anything else is a specific daibo for its legendary ability, as it will reduce the cooldown on one of my main abilities by 60%, which is huge as the thing is absolutely devastating. In that regard, it does showcase that players now have three more places that they need to worry about best in slot items so to get the most bang for their buck on a character. To that extent it means more farming while being at the mercy of random drops, waiting for just the right items, which has always been a big reason people play these games.

Nonetheless, it's proving to be an entertaining season thus far. While monks, witch doctors, and barbarians seem to be at the top of the heap right now, there's a lot of fun to be had across the board. My personal goal is to get the achievement for beating a level 60+ greater rift solo. The season has just started, so there's still plenty of time, so I'll keep my fingers crossed that I can pull it off.

Review: Diablo III: Reaper of Souls (PC)

"Ready for round 2?”

In some respects, this is the question asked by expansion packs more often than sequels, these days. Sequels usually make changes, sometimes massive ones, that make them a distinctive entity despite being part of a series.  Expansion packs generally stay within the framework of the existing title, maybe making a few tweaks here and there to compensate for the original game's shortcomings.  Of course, some games need more than just a few tweaks when putting out an expansion. Diablo III was arguably one of those games.

Two years after its release, plenty of changes have been made incrementally, but Reaper of Souls puts everything in one nice neat package for those who abandoned the game long ago.  The end result is still not the game we could have gotten, but it goes a long way towards making it playable and even enjoyable in spots.

Feature: The Year in Review - 2013

As the year comes to a close, looking back at everything that happened, I'm slackjawed.  I'm having a hard time thinking of a more momentous year in gaming.  It has been just such a wild ride, I’m torn between relief at having made it through in one piece and anxiety that all of this is mere prelude for an even more incredible year.  So, without further ado and in no particular order, the highlights of 2013 (at least as far as I go):

LucasArts Shuts Down
This isn’t like the closures of 38 Studios or Troika.  This is akin to Pontiac or Oldsmobile going away.  For years, LucasArts was the premier game development studio.  Despite being started by George Lucas and kept as an adjunct of Lucasfilm, LucasArts made a lot of original games that had nothing to do with Star Wars, even after Lucas’ decade long moratorium expired.  But with the acquisition of Lucasfilm by Disney, LucasArts became expendable and was quickly shut down despite having two new Star Wars games in the pipe.  In related news, Disney inked an agreement with EA to produce new Star Wars games for the next decade.  The shadow of the Dark Side has fallen over us.

News: More Problems with Diablo III's Auction House

After hammering away on the latest patch for Diablo III, it looks like Blizzard is still having trouble with the game. A bug has made it past testing and into the live game whereby people who make an auction to sell some gold will be refunded double what they were actually trying to sell should they cancel the auction. Oops! Auctions have been shut down until Blizzard is able to sort out the mess, and it sounds like there won't be too many rollbacks to cancel out all of the gold that has been given out because of the bug. The only exception appears to be for people who really tried hard to exploit the bug. Almost a year on, and still the auction house that meant so much to Activision and Blizzard continues having problems.

Raving Rant: The Outsider

It sits there on Metacritic's page like a baleful and accusing eye.  It's the only one of its kind on that page, as of the time of this writing, a red square with a number "45" on it, and the name "Armchair Empire" next to that.  It is the review I submitted for Diablo III.  Right now, it's probably the most viewed page on our site.  I remember the email that Jeff Nash sent me after the review went up while I was at E3.  "Should be interesting to see how people react to the score. I suspect some hilarious comments will be forthcoming."

In this respect, our fearless leader was not wrong.

The Weekly Checkpoint 14

This week we discuss Radical Entertainment going under, Battlefield 3's premium service, and Diablo III dropping the 3 day trial mode for digital copies, among other things.

The Weekly Checkpoint 13

It's time for another weekly news round-up.  This go around we look at 72 hours of limited access in Diablo III, the 3DS XL, the Microsoft Surface, Valve and Adult Swim teaming up, and Phantasy Star Online 2.

News: Blizzard Restricts New Diablo III Digital Purchases for 72 Hours

According to the official Diablo III website, as of patch 1.0.3, anybody purchasing the game electronically through the Blizzard Store is now going to be restricted to Starter Editions for the first 72 hours after the purchase.  The details of what this means are below:

The Weekly Checkpoint 12

It hit a few technical snags, but we finally managed to get the new Checkpoint up.  This week we talk about cheaters in Max Payne, the possibility of Star Wars: The Old Republic going free to play, and Diablo III's real money auction house going live.

News: Diablo III Sells an Absurd Number of Copies

To be filed under "Super Popular Series' Sequel Sells Super Well".  Blizzard sends word that their latest loot fest has sold a gargantuan 3.5 million copies within the first 24 hours that it was available.  These are actual new sales, and do not take into account all of the people who got a free copy of the game for subscribing to WoW for a year, which account for another 1.2 million owners.  Also, by Blizzard's reckoning, Diablo III has sold about 6.3 million copies in its first week.

News: Diablo III Stricken by Hacking Onslaught

So, it looks like the problems just keep on coming for Blizzard's latest installment in their Clicky Mc Loots-a-lot series, as the company is now acknowledging that Diablo III is getting hit by a number of hacking issues.  Many players have reported gold, items, and even characters disappearing because of this, and only now has Blizz acknowledged that this is an issue.