So been playing this for the majority of the afternoon/evening thought I'd give you a quick review on this shit.
Took ages to get in to a room, but once I did - it was freakin' glorious.
Can run everything on max, (Specs below) with very very very very little slow down. I'm talking about 25+ enemies on screen, including being online.
The game controls pretty much exactly the same as D2 with a few subtle difference, some major improvements and some of the fat cut out.
The good initial differences are:1-4 skill slots that coincide with your left and right mouse clicks, giving you a theoretical 6 skills at your instant disposal.
Screen seems to have less clutter. (Though after having played D2 recently, it's probably just because of higher resolution.)
The Auto-Map is much better than D2.
Skill combinations are much more feasible and accessible (more later)
I'm classing this one as good - The level up system has been simplified.
No need to hit R to switch between running and walking (However I would change it certain parts of this)
Stamina is still 'present' but has been modified, greatly (More later)
Simplified potion system, just hit Q to heal.
The bad initial differences are:The graphics are too world of warcraft for my liking, loosing the original gritty and dark feeling of diablo I & II
Not a bad hit rate there. There are definitely things that can be done to improve the overall experience but nothing game breaking or urgent. All in all, well done, blizzard.
Skill Combos/Spirit/ManaAs I said, you have 6 skills available at any one point. With my character, the Monk, these use up 'Spirit' which is probably Mana on other classes. Spirit is replenished by smacking enemies in the face repeatedly with your pwnagers. The only time this becomes an issue is if you have no spirit left at the end of a fight you have to enter the next one with just normal attacks until you have enough to use your abilities again. This isn't a real issue, just means that you need to learn not to waste your spirit clearing up the last of the enemies in a fight.
Having a potential 4 skills on 1-4 (Only unlocked 2 in the beta) and a skill on each mouse button is very useful.
On skill 1 I had a blinding attack, which does what it says on the tin. On the left button I had a teleport to enemy attack which delivers extra damage. On the right button a sweeping kick attack, that does knock back and fire damage. So, you come up to a group of enemies, with a resurrection beast or a spawning beast in. You don't want to waste time killing his minions, he will just revive them and force you to kill them again for no XP.
So, I can run in, hit 1 to stun all the enemies.
Target the revivalist/spawner with left mouse click, teleporting to him but still in the middle of the enemies.
Then with left click still held in, hit right click - spinning kick (right click) that knocks back all the enemies including the boss, buying me time safe of the flack damage by the minions.
But as the boss character flies back, I still have left click held in and haven't changed target so the monk will now automatically teleport again straight at the boss and deliver another combo.
All in all, causing massive damage to the boss, small damage to his minions but adding damage over time (Fire on the spin kick) making for an easy mop up. High in, Low out.
Leveling up/Skill TreeThe levelling system is much simpler overall. It still follows the basic 'Smash-n-stash' experience pattern with kills rewarding XP and XP turning in to levels. However, you don't need to worry about where to spend attribute points any more - all of that is automated. Instead, you focus on your skill trees.
You have 2 main skills (left and right click.) Then 4 different skill trees under that for your 1-4 abilities and then 2 more below that which are passive, but I can't write much about these as I unlocked them 5 minutes before the server shut down.
The skills have subdivisions known as runes, which basically give you the ability to add a property to the skill. I.E. The fire to the spin kick. You don't need to find these runes, just have the required level to use them.
In other news:Some of the minor improvements I would make would be to add a sprint in - using spirit/whatever for when there are no enemies around if you are just travelling. But you have town portal etc so this point is for the most part, moot.
The mini-map should have the monsters in red-dots on it. This would help when you are trying to take agro away from ranged players/healers etc. As the fights can get a bit hectic if you are more than a screen apart you can't tell what's going on. (Though good comms will obviously help.)
As loot is instanced to your machine, a pick up all button would be good (though it may exist and I have yet to find it.)
Fix the graphics to make it look more like Diablo. The back grounds are ok, but it just doesn't feel dark enough.
Other than that, the overall presentation is great. The game plays exactly like you'd expect it to, with the music fitting the Diablo style. Also, I believe Cain's voice to be the same actor (or a very very good impression) which is ace. Just waiting for him to say "stay a while, and listen" and make me want to smack his withered old face in.
Great game, will definitely be purchasing this when it is released.
8/10.