Diablo III Equipment Database and Previews
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I'll start you off at GameSpy, where they suggest that the game should have been migrated to a first-person perspective (no, really):
Ever since gamers first wandered the pixelated halls of Wolfenstein 3D, the first person perspective has been the character viewpoint of choice in today's games, as witnessed by the popularity of the perspective across genres. It's no surprise really -- if you want the player to feel as if they're actually inside the game world, you should present them with a view that matches our real world. Admittedly the first person perspective still isn't a perfect representation of our human vision systems, lacking the wider field of view that our amazing eyeballs deliver. Unless you're packing a 3D monitor this view also lacks the stereoscopic vision delivered courtesy of evolution's clever decision to equip us with not one but two eyes. And yet, despite these limitations, the first person game view remains the closest to the experience we have when viewing the real world. I can only imagine how much spookier Diablo III would have been if I could have explored every nook and cranny of the New Tristram Cathedral, or to zoom in on the pulsing gut flesh of a worm-packed.
Instead Diablo III gives us an isometric viewpoint, presenting us with a small action figure on screen that we're supposed to believe is us. Unless you're having a near death experience, this viewpoint doesn't quite gel with our real world view. You can't even move the camera around like most other third person games, so if an enemy disappears off the edge of the screen you better use those Jedi mind powers to predict where its projectiles are coming from.
Then we move to Ars Technica for a standard hands-on:
The biggest change is the complete loss of the skill tree. You won't have to decide what skills you'd like to gain or build up. Instead, skills will be unlocked as you gain levels, and you can choose which skills to place in one of your active skills slots. You begin with two slots, and gain more as you become more powerful, until you have six slots to use at any given time. This means you can change your character's attacks and abilities at any time, and you'll be able to freely experiment to discover what skills work best in various situations, or with your team of adventurers.
There will be no more second-guessing when it comes to your skills, and the new system definitely feels more fun and inviting.
Before stopping by GamingIllustrated for more of the hands-on treatment:
The graphics of the game so far are pretty impressive. While we haven't been super impressed with the actual character and monster graphics, the environment and spell effects look absolutely amazing. It's a lot of fun to tactically kill something like a (Grotesque) creature that explodes and causes an AoE damage for enemies once he's killed. One of the big things we noticed is how amazing the sound effects are. The music is good but the spell sound effects are amazing. Also, all dialog in the game is done via voice, even the lore that you find that gives you a background into characters and areas you visit.
Taking a step back, the auction house was already in full swing when we loaded the game up, even though the Beta had been live for only a few hours. This auction house will allow players to use their in-game gold (and real life money via PayPal) to buy and sell items that they need/find in the game. In addition, it looks like multiplayer was up to a degree as we could search through and find games.
And then finishing things off with a handful of video walkthroughs cooked up by IGN and Voodoo Extreme:
