Is anyone playing it yet? I'm waiting for its free public open beta this weekend. :)
--
"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea." --Psalm 46:1-2. :) BDs 2 Thule, Andrew Lloyd Webber, & William Shatner. Denied COVID-19 shots #6 4 da colony.
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On Wednesday, March 22, 2023 at 4:05:10 PM UTC-7, Ant wrote:
> Is anyone playing it yet? I'm waiting for its free public open beta this weekend. :)

Free you say?

I've been annoyed at Blizzard since they lost my Hearthstone info, and their
antics since have been rather shady. I did enjoy all 3 Diablos, none were ever
on my top games lists though.

Free... well it's not earning them any money from me so I might try it for the
open beta at least. Starts Friday at 9AM Pacific time.

- Justisaur

On Wed, 22 Mar 2023 19:26:23 -0700 (PDT), Justisaur
<justisaur@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Wednesday, March 22, 2023 at 4:05:10?PM UTC-7, Ant wrote:
>> Is anyone playing it yet? I'm waiting for its free public open beta this weekend. :)
>
>Free you say?
>
>I've been annoyed at Blizzard since they lost my Hearthstone info, and their
>antics since have been rather shady. I did enjoy all 3 Diablos, none were ever
>on my top games lists though.
>
>Free... well it's not earning them any money from me so I might try it for the
>open beta at least. Starts Friday at 9AM Pacific time.

Except you are making them money by working as a free beta tester,
which means they don't have to pay their employees to do the same.

But I'm sure this will be reflected in the price. Diablo 4 will
doubtlessly launch at a $45 price point because of all the savings
from outsourcing their beta- and server stress-testing. ;-)

Me, I'm happy to announce that Activision-Blizzard remains on my
shitlist, and no amount of shiny (or free games) is going to make me
reconsider. Only better treatment of their employees (and customers,
for that matter; I still remember them cozying up to China during the
Hong Kong protests!) will make me reconsider that stance. I'm well
aware my tiny one-person protest won't make them change their ways,
but at least I'll feel better about it.

Of course, it helps that ActiBlizz doesn't really have any products
that interest me. ;-)

On Thursday, March 23, 2023 at 8:05:35 AM UTC-7, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Mar 2023 19:26:23 -0700 (PDT), Justisaur
> <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Wednesday, March 22, 2023 at 4:05:10?PM UTC-7, Ant wrote:
> >> Is anyone playing it yet? I'm waiting for its free public open beta this weekend. :)
> >
> >Free you say?
> >
> >I've been annoyed at Blizzard since they lost my Hearthstone info, and their
> >antics since have been rather shady. I did enjoy all 3 Diablos, none were ever
> >on my top games lists though.
> >
> >Free... well it's not earning them any money from me so I might try it for the
> >open beta at least. Starts Friday at 9AM Pacific time.
> Except you are making them money by working as a free beta tester,
> which means they don't have to pay their employees to do the same.

There is that.

> But I'm sure this will be reflected in the price. Diablo 4 will
> doubtlessly launch at a $45 price point because of all the savings
> from outsourcing their beta- and server stress-testing. ;-)

*Choke* It's $99 for preorder!

Well, looks like I'm not going to be in the open beta anyway, I'm not
sure but it looks like you have to buy the game to get in the 'open'
beta. At least when I try to download from battlenet it takes me
to a page where I click download, and it downloads battlenet.
Infinite loop.

I certainly wouldn't pay $99 for any version of Diablo, let alone
a possibly micro-transaction littered version of unknown quality,
and definitely not to be a beta tester.

- Justisaur

On Thu, 23 Mar 2023 10:50:53 -0700 (PDT), in
comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, Justisaur wrote:

>On Thursday, March 23, 2023 at 8:05:35?AM UTC-7, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>> On Wed, 22 Mar 2023 19:26:23 -0700 (PDT), Justisaur
>> <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >On Wednesday, March 22, 2023 at 4:05:10?PM UTC-7, Ant wrote:
>> >> Is anyone playing it yet? I'm waiting for its free public open beta this weekend. :)
>> >
>> >Free you say?
>> >
>> >I've been annoyed at Blizzard since they lost my Hearthstone info, and their
>> >antics since have been rather shady. I did enjoy all 3 Diablos, none were ever
>> >on my top games lists though.
>> >
>> >Free... well it's not earning them any money from me so I might try it for the
>> >open beta at least. Starts Friday at 9AM Pacific time.
>> Except you are making them money by working as a free beta tester,
>> which means they don't have to pay their employees to do the same.
>
>There is that.
>
Chump. LOL

>> But I'm sure this will be reflected in the price. Diablo 4 will
>> doubtlessly launch at a $45 price point because of all the savings
>> from outsourcing their beta- and server stress-testing. ;-)
>
>*Choke* It's $99 for preorder!
>

And they will totally get away with it. There is buzz on my local gamer
Discord server already.

Goodbye nerfed $60 games with another $29 in DLC season pass. Welcome to
the $99 off-the-bat starting point.

And gamers will also probably eat up the additional $49 DLC season pass.

They'd still spend less than my wife on Evony though, over the lifetime
of the game.

--
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten

Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, March 22, 2023 at 4:05:10???PM UTC-7, Ant wrote:
> > Is anyone playing it yet? I'm waiting for its free public open beta this weekend. :)

> Free you say?

> I've been annoyed at Blizzard since they lost my Hearthstone info, and their
> antics since have been rather shady. I did enjoy all 3 Diablos, none were ever
> on my top games lists though.

> Free... well it's not earning them any money from me so I might try it for the
> open beta at least. Starts Friday at 9AM Pacific time.

Hopefully, we can play due to many players wanting to play it. I already downloaded its client. I didn't get its high resolution assets due to my GeForce 750 GTX (2 GB of VRAM).
--
"Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior." --Colossians 1:21. Thursday got worse due to a break in. :(
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On 23/03/2023 15:05, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>> Free... well it's not earning them any money from me so I might try it for the
>> open beta at least. Starts Friday at 9AM Pacific time.
> Except you are making them money by working as a free beta tester,
> which means they don't have to pay their employees to do the same.
>
> But I'm sure this will be reflected in the price. Diablo 4 will
> doubtlessly launch at a $45 price point because of all the savings
> from outsourcing their beta- and server stress-testing. 😉

I'm in two minds about this as I'm not against having open betas* as
they can iron out problems that are hard to find just with internal
testing before the final more polished release. The exchange is that you
work for free but get early access to the game.

The problem is, well this is Activision Blizzard so they probably see it
as a way to sack half the testing department and the reward the top
brass with a bonus for the money they saved.

*It's a similar view I have to early access. For the smaller devs it's a
way of smoothing out their revenue and getting a better product with the
resources they have. Of course they can end up as cash grabs when a
finished product never sees the light of day.

On 23/03/2023 17:50, Justisaur wrote:
> On Thursday, March 23, 2023 at 8:05:35 AM UTC-7, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>> On Wed, 22 Mar 2023 19:26:23 -0700 (PDT), Justisaur
>> <just...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, March 22, 2023 at 4:05:10?PM UTC-7, Ant wrote:
>>>> Is anyone playing it yet? I'm waiting for its free public open beta this weekend. :)
>>>
>>> Free you say?
>>>
>>> I've been annoyed at Blizzard since they lost my Hearthstone info, and their
>>> antics since have been rather shady. I did enjoy all 3 Diablos, none were ever
>>> on my top games lists though.
>>>
>>> Free... well it's not earning them any money from me so I might try it for the
>>> open beta at least. Starts Friday at 9AM Pacific time.
>> Except you are making them money by working as a free beta tester,
>> which means they don't have to pay their employees to do the same.
>
> There is that.
>
>> But I'm sure this will be reflected in the price. Diablo 4 will
>> doubtlessly launch at a $45 price point because of all the savings
>> from outsourcing their beta- and server stress-testing. ;-)
>
> *Choke* It's $99 for preorder!
>
> Well, looks like I'm not going to be in the open beta anyway, I'm not
> sure but it looks like you have to buy the game to get in the 'open'
> beta. At least when I try to download from battlenet it takes me
> to a page where I click download, and it downloads battlenet.
> Infinite loop.
>
> I certainly wouldn't pay $99 for any version of Diablo, let alone
> a possibly micro-transaction littered version of unknown quality,
> and definitely not to be a beta tester.
>

Looking at the prices I think that's for the Ultimate edition whereas
the base game is 'only' £70. Still though, I just don't see how it's
worth that money when I look at something like Titan Quest which
regularity goes on sale at about £5 or less.

The MTX, they have said their will be MTX but no pay-to-win*. Still not
good and what's the betting that once the playerbase is hooked they find
some way to shoehorn it in and claim it's what the players want.

*That part I found amusing is the support they got for saying no
pay-to-win. That's akin to thinking someone is a good person as they've
said they aren't going to punch you in face like they did last time.

On 22/03/2023 19:04, Ant wrote:
> Is anyone playing it yet? I'm waiting for its free public open beta this weekend. :)

I have, but I cannot defeat Vhenard at all. As soon as I get to the
third phase of the fight I end up dead. Is it just me or is it
completely freaking impossible?

(This is ImperiusDamian BTW... new email, new ID :P )

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action D.G. Wright <dgwrightauthor@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 22/03/2023 19:04, Ant wrote:
> > Is anyone playing it yet? I'm waiting for its free public open beta this weekend. :)

> I have, but I cannot defeat Vhenard at all. As soon as I get to the
> third phase of the fight I end up dead. Is it just me or is it
> completely freaking impossible?

> (This is ImperiusDamian BTW... new email, new ID :P )

So far, I only played about 15 mins. yesterday early morning after 6 AM
PDT. Way too busy. I'm hoping to play more tonight. :( Game ran decently
even though it can get choppy.
--
"...while we wait for the blessed hope--the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good." --Titus 2:13-14. Slammy weekend including a hour nap today. Is winter over yet?
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/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
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In alt.games.diablo Ant <ant@zimage.comant> wrote:
> In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action D.G. Wright <dgwrightauthor@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 22/03/2023 19:04, Ant wrote:
> > > Is anyone playing it yet? I'm waiting for its free public open beta this weekend. :)

> > I have, but I cannot defeat Vhenard at all. As soon as I get to the
> > third phase of the fight I end up dead. Is it just me or is it
> > completely freaking impossible?

> > (This is ImperiusDamian BTW... new email, new ID :P )

> So far, I only played about 15 mins. yesterday early morning after 6 AM
> PDT. Way too busy. I'm hoping to play more tonight. :( Game ran decently
> even though it can get choppy.

I played more for like 1.5 hours (not nonstop). It was different and
better than D3. It was interesting to see ingame cutscenes. Gameplay was
mostly smooth, but ingame cutscenes got a little choppy. Interesting
that I had not run into queues! I did for a minute on Caturday mawny
after 6 AM PDT. :/
--
"He has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation." --Colossians 1:22. Slammy weekend including a hr. nap 2day. Finally briefly played D4 beta that was nice & different.
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On 26/03/2023 7:51 pm, D.G. Wright wrote:
> On 22/03/2023 19:04, Ant wrote:
>> Is anyone playing it yet? I'm waiting for its free public open beta this weekend. :)
>
> I have, but I cannot defeat Vhenard at all. As soon as I get to the third phase of the fight I end
> up dead. Is it just me or is it completely freaking impossible?
>
> (This is ImperiusDamian BTW... new email, new ID :P )

Howdy partner! I hope that you're well and happy.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification
in the DSM"
David Melville

This is not an email and hasn't been checked for viruses by any half-arsed self-promoting software.

That beta was a big marketing scheme to get their hooks in people early so the sticker shock of $100 wasn't going to go over like a tidalwave of shit. That's the reason why they gave away free beta codes through KFC to those who bought one of the most repulsive pieces of fast food one can conjure up (two fried chicken patties with cheese and bacon stuffed in the middle, I'm sure it looked like dogshit 99% of the time)

Then the real problems happened when people with Asus and particularly Gigabyte 3080TI video cards were getting their cards fried during a bug that would cause the cinematics to runs at like 2000 FPS, before the card could throttle itself before melting point. Oops!

On 01/04/2023 18:54, ~misfit~ wrote:
> On 26/03/2023 7:51 pm, D.G. Wright wrote:
>> On 22/03/2023 19:04, Ant wrote:
>>> Is anyone playing it yet? I'm waiting for its free public open beta
>>> this weekend. :)
>>
>> I have, but I cannot defeat Vhenard at all. As soon as I get to the
>> third phase of the fight I end up dead. Is it just me or is it
>> completely freaking impossible?
>>
>> (This is ImperiusDamian BTW... new email, new ID :P )
>
> Howdy partner! I hope that you're well and happy.

Money troubles aside, all is well! Hope you're keeping well! :D

On 26/04/2023 4:07 pm, D.G. Wright wrote:
> On 01/04/2023 18:54, ~misfit~ wrote:
>> On 26/03/2023 7:51 pm, D.G. Wright wrote:
>>> On 22/03/2023 19:04, Ant wrote:
>>>> Is anyone playing it yet? I'm waiting for its free public open beta this weekend. :)
>>>
>>> I have, but I cannot defeat Vhenard at all. As soon as I get to the third phase of the fight I
>>> end up dead. Is it just me or is it completely freaking impossible?
>>>
>>> (This is ImperiusDamian BTW... new email, new ID :P )
>>
>> Howdy partner! I hope that you're well and happy.
>
> Money troubles aside, all is well! Hope you're keeping well! :D

Good to hear. I've only just seen this reply, not much going on in NGs these days. I'm well enough
thanks, money troubles and being a rent slave aside...
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification
in the DSM"
David Melville

This is not an email and hasn't been checked for viruses by any half-arsed self-promoting software.

On 24/05/2023 19:20, ~misfit~ wrote:
> On 26/04/2023 4:07 pm, D.G. Wright wrote:
>> On 01/04/2023 18:54, ~misfit~ wrote:
>>> On 26/03/2023 7:51 pm, D.G. Wright wrote:
>>>> On 22/03/2023 19:04, Ant wrote:
>>>>> Is anyone playing it yet? I'm waiting for its free public open beta
>>>>> this weekend. :)
>>>>
>>>> I have, but I cannot defeat Vhenard at all. As soon as I get to the
>>>> third phase of the fight I end up dead. Is it just me or is it
>>>> completely freaking impossible?
>>>>
>>>> (This is ImperiusDamian BTW... new email, new ID :P )
>>>
>>> Howdy partner! I hope that you're well and happy.
>>
>> Money troubles aside, all is well! Hope you're keeping well! :D
>
> Good to hear. I've only just seen this reply, not much going on in NGs
> these days. I'm well enough thanks, money troubles and being a rent
> slave aside...

Same. Well except the rent slave part. Mortgage slave now. LOL

On 17/06/2023 11:36 am, D.G. Wright wrote:
> On 24/05/2023 19:20, ~misfit~ wrote:
>> On 26/04/2023 4:07 pm, D.G. Wright wrote:
>>> On 01/04/2023 18:54, ~misfit~ wrote:
>>>> On 26/03/2023 7:51 pm, D.G. Wright wrote:
>>>>> On 22/03/2023 19:04, Ant wrote:
>>>>>> Is anyone playing it yet? I'm waiting for its free public open beta this weekend. :)
>>>>>
>>>>> I have, but I cannot defeat Vhenard at all. As soon as I get to the third phase of the fight I
>>>>> end up dead. Is it just me or is it completely freaking impossible?
>>>>>
>>>>> (This is ImperiusDamian BTW... new email, new ID :P )
>>>>
>>>> Howdy partner! I hope that you're well and happy.
>>>
>>> Money troubles aside, all is well! Hope you're keeping well! :D
>>
>> Good to hear. I've only just seen this reply, not much going on in NGs these days. I'm well
>> enough thanks, money troubles and being a rent slave aside...
>
> Same. Well except the rent slave part. Mortgage slave now. LOL

Cool. At least being a mortgage slave you're enslaved to yourself and the bank. ;)

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification
in the DSM"
David Melville

This is not an email and hasn't been checked for viruses by any half-arsed self-promoting software.

On 6/17/2023 8:43 PM, ~misfit~ wrote:
> On 17/06/2023 11:36 am, D.G. Wright wrote:
>> On 24/05/2023 19:20, ~misfit~ wrote:
>>> On 26/04/2023 4:07 pm, D.G. Wright wrote:
>>>> On 01/04/2023 18:54, ~misfit~ wrote:
>>>>> On 26/03/2023 7:51 pm, D.G. Wright wrote:
>>>>>> On 22/03/2023 19:04, Ant wrote:
>>>>>>> Is anyone playing it yet? I'm waiting for its free public open
>>>>>>> beta this weekend. :)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have, but I cannot defeat Vhenard at all. As soon as I get to
>>>>>> the third phase of the fight I end up dead. Is it just me or is it
>>>>>> completely freaking impossible?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> (This is ImperiusDamian BTW... new email, new ID :P )
>>>>>
>>>>> Howdy partner! I hope that you're well and happy.
>>>>
>>>> Money troubles aside, all is well! Hope you're keeping well! :D
>>>
>>> Good to hear. I've only just seen this reply, not much going on in
>>> NGs these days. I'm well enough thanks, money troubles and being a
>>> rent slave aside...
>>
>> Same. Well except the rent slave part. Mortgage slave now. LOL
>
> Cool. At least being a mortgage slave you're enslaved to yourself and
> the bank. ;)
>
And at least in theory are buying your freedom in installment payments. :P

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.