Ten years of blogging, Diablo III, Prometheus and roleplaying

Turns out I was very fortunate in picking my summer leave this year. The weather has suddenly improved, just as my commute stopped. I've a nice long time off and a few things planned. I also aim to spend my quieter days alternating various jobs (housework mainly) with reading, films and computer games.

Apart from our twice-monthly LoveFilms offerings, bateleur and I actually got out to see a new film release not that long ago.

( Prometheus, Indie Game: The Movie, Drive and Balibo )

Apart from watching films, I've been playing a lot of Diablo III and I'm approaching the end of normal (or, at least, I'm pretty confident that I'm now in the last boss fight).

• The Good - I have liked the quests in Diablo III, they vary (or, at least, as much as they can in this genre) and mix the short with the long. I also like the character upgrade system - there is some choice of what version of character to play (although, as bateleur points out, less choice than in II) and there appears to be less scope to create an unplayable variant than in the previous game. I also like the various references to the previous two games - a revisiting of the old I Kingdom characters as well as places and people from II. In particular, a number of the bosses made some welcome reappearances (FRESH MEAT!)
• The Bad - Before I really get into my rant, I'll put in the need for an up-to-date computer and the naff font (I can never read the pluses on magical items) in the bad list. Now for the rant - I think my biggest problem with Diablo III is the multi-stage boss fights. I'm not a big fan of them in any game and III has taken the worst option - the multi-stage approach without check-points or save-points between sections. I guess that the idea is that once you've beaten a multi-stage boss you have an incredible sense of achievement, but this doesn't work for me. Instead I have an incredible sense of boredom whenever I see the first stage(s) again as I have to go through them repeatedly to figure out how I'm screwing up the later stages (not helped by repeatedly dying shortly after entering the later stages). I vastly preferred the II approach. Admittedly, the last fight is made even worse by a certain absence that I wasn't expecting (and has meant I've had to rework my strategy rather a lot). Other bad stuff? Well, in many ways the game feels unfinished. For instance, there's a traitor that I'm fairly certain doesn't get dealt with (although, maybe it's still in the last part of the game I haven't finished). Also there's loads of things which are not yet unlocked (presumably because you're supposed to go from playing "normal" to playing the harder levels to unlock them), but it's a bit frustrating to be fully aware that there's game content you won't get anywhere near during normal play. Finally - I think I've complained about the being on-line bit before, but, it's bad. The servers sometimes glitch and are sometimes down. This does not make for an enjoyable playing experience.
• Overall - I can now see why this game has thoroughly mixed reviews. It deserves them. However, still a fun game, although rather harder than the previous two.

There has also been a certain amount of roleplaying. The local group is currently playing Revolution (the game with pretty character sheets) and I am running the final sessions of Meteor. I suspect my campaign will be over in just two or three sessions.

( About the games )

What else? At the start of this month, we celebrated our seventeenth wedding anniversary with food and alcohol. Details and pictures over on bateleur's LJ.

Finally, I realised yesterday that I've been blogging for ten years. I wrote my first entry "Teddy-tipping" on 19 April 2002. I'm pleased that LJ is still here and still active, although perhaps less so than it once was.