Gwardinen

I played a little of it last night without being super impressed, but it'll probably be better with a group. As I said my username is Gwardinen, and it seems like you can set up games that only friends can join, so I'll be doing that any time I check it out but you may want to post usernames here so we can throw out friend invites quickly.

After you've logged in, when you see your character in the middle of the screen there's a "change quest" button on the left. You can only select quests that your character has actually started, so if you've pulled a few levels with your friends you'll probably be doing underlevelled content if you swing back, but soon enough you'll get to stuff that makes sense for you. Alternatively just scan your friends list every time you come online and jump into games with people who are near the level you want to play at, that's mostly what I've been doing.

Well I just got an email saying I'm in for the stress test this weekend, so I'm up for it! My username is Gwardinen, but I have no idea how any kind of matchmaking or friend stuff works as of yet.

Somehow that advert didn't feel right to me until Karma Chameleon played. I feel like Karma Chameleon has been in every advert of that kind. Also it's weird to remember how ordering things from afar worked before the internet. I mean, on the phone is one thing, but just sending money to a PO Box is a bizarre concept at this point.

Yeah gorram it, Sean and Jake are not working hard enough. Clearly they're pooling their million Walking Dead copies sold money with their $130,000 Idle Thumbs Kickstarter money and just burning it all on hookers and blow. Get it together, guys! No but really that's pretty cool, congrats boys. I still feel totally unjustifiably proud of you both.

Yeah that was a good time, I'll almost certainly slap a stream of the conferences on and load up the Idle Thumbs Steam group chat again this year.

This weekend is a stress test so there's going to be a whole lot of beta invites going out, I think (or have they already been sent?). I'm not in yet either, but I'm signed up in the hopes this weekend will give me a chance to try the game, as I'm not certain whether or not to get it myself.

Hey I learned a couple things in that feminism discussion. So be quiet, sexist.

Gwardinen#2776

I believe my BattleTag to be Gwardinen#2776 if anyone wishes to add me. I'll be pootling around the European servers a fair bit, but may potentially be able to play on American ones too.

It's technically live now, but obviously the login servers have exploded so getting in is a matter of ridiculous luck, if it's possible at all right now.

By the by, does anyone who's going to play on European servers tonight (you can switch at any time) want to group up for the hours after release?

I thought I noticed that when the angels first appeared and were zooming over something, but then I wondered if I was just being tricked by the moving line drawing over paper style. It's a bit too dull of a cinematic for me to want to go back and check.

Do you mean visually or the writing? It looked fine, and the dialogue was just... dull. But honestly I've always thought the Diablo lore was the weakest of the three big Blizzard franchise. The Diablo games aren't really built around a strong narrative, I don't think. The game mechanics have tended to take precedence in such a way that make the games very much an interlocking of systems.

I actually had to shake my head at that pun. I don't think it's the same case as mine, then, as mine only has one fan at the front I believe, and it does not have LEDs.

Yeah, for Europe the installation became open 7 hours prior to the release time, I don't know if the same schedule is being followed in other regions or if the installation time was global as technically the software is global. That said, you won't really be avoiding the launch day crowds very much, because you'll still need to login to play when the servers go live. What's more all games effectively have to be created on the server (even singleplayer games) so there may well be queues for both logging in and creating games. Alternatively (or potentially additionally), there may be lag in the game, again, even in singleplayer.

Yeah, I have the G15. The case I have is a Xigmatek Asgard, and Raff's looks suspiciously like it from the little I can see.

Yeah, having now started (and then stopped) pre-downloading the client from Battle.net, I actually think digital and retail are in the same boat. You can't patch properly from the digital pre-download either, so I'm guessing the pre-download and what's on the disc are identical and equally unupdateable, despite that being pretty dumb. Just pray there's no day 0 patch, I guess, because if so everyone's going to have to download it at once.

Yes. That's what I'm doing now. You can use the retail key to activate Diablo III on your Battle.net account (and in fact need to in order to play the game) and at that point you have access to the pre-download client in the same way as if you'd bought it digitally. Obviously it still can't actually be played until Tuesday though.

I think you and I may have the same computer case and keyboard, Raff.

Yeah, that is generally how I use it. A maximised window on my main (larger) screen, and then a number of smaller secondary windows on the other screen. I also keep my taskbar on my secondary monitor, primarily so that I can be watching a video or playing a game fullscreen and still have the taskbar available on the other screen to blink and tell me of new things popping up.

Yeah, my experience exactly. It was very disappointing. Also feels somehow unfair to be worse off with physical media, since pre-downloading will make sure you have exactly the files needed for Tuesday, whereas what's on the disc may be somewhat out of date. The last thing I want is to install it from disc on the day and then have to download further patches anyway while everyone else is also trying to do that.

I just got a second monitor for Christmas. Actually, as I write that I realise I'm saying "just" but Christmas was nearly five months ago. Good god, my sense of time is rolling right off the rails these days. I don't want to get older! This is bullshit! All right, starting again. I got a second monitor for Christmas, and I can already see that trying to go back to just using one would be profoundly difficult for me. I'm constantly spoiled by the ability to just drag windows all over the place. Also, Windows 7 has been a huge help to that - the very simple addition of dragging a window to the top of the screen to maximise it, for example, has made dual-monitor browsing and reading and video watching and so on vastly easier.

Brilliant. Just had to quote that bit. Yeah, I think I might know what you mean regarding Lou knowing something. As much as you're right and 15 minutes of crappy question answering and then excusing yourself is not a great event, do you actually feel better about the Shatner event for having gotten your hour's worth? As you described them, these ageing pop culture icons inhabit a bizarre twilight of fame and irrelevance. It must be a very strange and uncomfortable place to be at times and it's hard to say what the best way of dealing with it truly is.

I had exactly the same experience. I'm probably going to preload the client from the Battle.net site before Tuesday, just keeping the disc as a backup in case I don't find time to do so or somehow manage to fuck up the download. Edit: You're not saying you expected to play early, right? I mean, I see how that'd make sense if you don't know how Blizzard generally works, but yeah that never happens. All of their games are server-based these days and they refuse to flip the switch before time. The best you could have hoped for (and that I was hoping for) was to get to install it from disc early rather than having to pre-download.