Lalala I'm working, I'm working!

One problem when writing articles about certain browser games is that gameplay is often a bit slooooooooooooooooooooow. You know, the kind of games where you construct buildings, gather resources, wait for your underlings to accomplish certain tasks. And you're doomed to watch, take notes, pass the time with all kinds of stuff that has nothing to do with the actual game, waiting for a chance to make your next click or two. Lunch break games. Hide in a browser tab in the office games.

Many other games can be finished in 1-2 ten hour sessions, MMOs allow you to grind and there's usually a friendly guild around to show you dungeons, raids and the like when you tell them you need their help to write an article. Videogame critics - we're fucking rockstars!

Let's be honest here: When the deadlines are super tight and you're not exactly reviewing an AAA-title, you won't always play all the way to the level cap before reviewing something. But it's mandatory to experience every aspect of a game, be it dungeons, pvp, trading with other players, the whole thing. You can't just describe and rate these features based on a fact sheet or the official website. Does that stuff actually work as described, is it fun, is it innovative? That shit is important. Now, when you play a slow-motion browser game... hoo boy!
Right now I'm waiting 2-3 RL days just building stuff. If I'm lucky, I'm gonna see some actual combat tonight. I can't just skip that and crank out my article. There are other features, which I probably won't unlock before the weekend. To pass the time, I'm currently downloading another game I'm supposed to review, so I'll probably take care of that whilst waiting for things on the browser game to come along. I hate multitasking!

Speaking of hate - our new monitor lizard can be one hateful little fucker when it's dinner time! I don't mind him jumping at a box of locusts, grabbing it, dragging it into the tank before there's even a chance to open it and actually allow him to get what's inside. It's another thing when he goes straight for my hand. He bites it, tries to drag it deeper into his tank like he does with food and he won't let go for several minutes! He's still small, but he's incredibly strong and you can feel those teeth right through the kevlar gloves. It's not very pleasant.

Also, Diablo 3.

This isn't even my final form!

If you've played a melee character to the level cap just after the game was released, the whole thing looked pretty much like this:

Normal and Nightmare difficulty were no challenge whatsoever, Hell difficulty was a little tougher and your freshly unlocked 'Inferno' mode has regular zombies one-hitting you. All the fucking time. In order to beat Inferno, you need to collect shitloads of gear with "resistance to everything". And that stuff only drops on said Inferno mode, where you can't fucking kill anything. Of course there's always the auction house, but buying the insanely overpriced crap on there means having to farm Hell difficulty for gold, making absolutely no progress whatsoever. This is where I (and most people I used to play with) gave up.

When I got back to the game the other day, Inferno was still pretty much unplayable without resistances, so I checked the auction house again. And lo and behold - what used to cost hundreds of thousands of gold is now dirt cheap. So I went with the most basic and straightforward setup a barbarian can get: Strength, vitality, all resistances, done. From crap to godly in under 100k gold. Which is absolutely nothing at level 60.

I have finished basic Inferno mode by slapping random attack buttons with my cock. And nothing else. The whole thing was so easy, it was like playing Nightmare all over again. I know what you're thinking - what's the fucking point in having a super tough difficulty setting if you can just buy your way to victory with a little gold, right? And that's where 'Monster Power' comes into play!
Monster Power is a new setting, which allows you to make the bad guys a lot tougher. Raising monster power increases the overall health and damage ratings for Diablo and his shambling buddies, whilst granting an equally generous boost to your drop rate and experience points.

This simple, yet brilliant little tweak makes the whole D3 experience a lot more interesting. Wanna create a new toon, but you're bored with the stupidly easy starting difficulty? Give those enemies 200% health and damage and receive twice the amount of loot and experience! And stacking only your main attribute and resistances won't get you through Inferno with added Monster Power! If you wanna go all the way up to the toughest setting, you're gonna have to check on stats such as crit rate, crit damage, lifesteal, attack speed - you get the idea.
And progression doesn't just happen through ever more powerful gear - you can now gain another 100 (Paragon-) Levels, raising your basic attributes and gold and magic find stats with every new level.

Claire and I doing a bit of Inferno, Monster Power 2

The way this system works, is actually more enjoyable than the boss-farming treadmill in Diablo 2. Gasp! BLASPHEMY! *monocles*

And here's why: Once you were at a high enough level to beat Hell difficulty on Diablo 2, you'd repeat endless battles against the final boss and hope for good loot. People didn't mind, because there was always a fair chance to get a nice gear upgrade out of it. Or at least some nice item they could trade for something they want.

On Diablo 3, you hunt down packs of elite monsters for good loot. Boss encounters are still a good source for loot drops, but the good shit is no longer exclusive to the prime evils. And fighting lots of monsters in your favourite areas is simply more fun and offers a little more variety than going after Bhaal 300 times in a row. Sure, it's all repetitive and it all gets old after a while, but in its current state, D3 is less repetitive and the possibility to crank up the difficulty some more whenever your toon gets stronger, keeps things interesting. If you're really lucky, you'll end up collecting all the bits and pieces necessary to create the new 'Infernal Machine', which lets you fight ultra powerful bosses for even more loot.

Now, you may argue that the auction house eradicates most of the progress, gathering better and stronger gear all the time, trying harder and harder difficulty settings. But the really good gear costs millions! You can't just pop into the auction house and buy all the good shit without actually making significant amounts of virtual cash. So you have to fight for your stuff, one way or another. Collect rares and legendaries and sell them for tons of gold, that kinda stuff. And if you still hate the auction house - do you even remember what Diablo 2 was like? The trade spam in chat, at least half of all open games were only for trade, people wanting to exchange gear all the time? People bitch and whine about the auction house, saying at least on D2 you still had to earn your gear. Wake up! Trading my shit on D2 or using the D3 auction house, it's all the same thing. The latter is just more comfortable.

And while I'm already at it - same goes for RMT. Yes, if you're really desperate, you could spend a few Euros on the real money auction house to skip past all the farming and get all the good stuff right away. Because hey, that neeeeever happened on Diablo 2! Not "legally", anyway. Diablo 2 is infested with bots, which keep spamming the URLs of 3rd party online shops, where you can kit out any character with all the best stuff for under 20 Euros. And I'm sure they keep invading every unprotected session and flood public chat like crazy because these shops generate absolutely no revenue at all. 

Of course there's no total revolution of gameplay happening. You fight, loot and upgrade, then raise the difficulty setting a bit, fight loot and upgrade some more and so on. The basic formula never changed. They just made the steps in difficulty smaller and more enjoyable, keeping things fun and challenging for as long as you choose to play. Ya know, make it harder as you get stronger. As opposed to the launch difficulty settings of "too damn easy" and "too fucking hard". If you got bored after finishing Normal and Nightmare, the recent updates and changes won't do anything for you. But if you enjoy the item and looting treadmill, which Diablo has always been about, then these new settings and the 100 new paragon levels will keep you busy for a few weeks per character.

-Cat