Moving and stuff

Right at this minute I am homeless and will be till Saturday.. thankfully we have somewhere to stay in the interim. Though I have no access to my computer or the internet other than on my phone we are making it work. We have been watching the first series of a show called Suits, which is surprisingly good! We also have a few episodes of Bones to watch! I realised yesterday that I will have to do without any Diablo 3.. till I don't know when!! Can't check my auctions either, though I doubt any sold.. nothing has sold since the first item I managed to sell. We will survive I think, but only just... And she who must be obeyed may very well kill me if she has nothing to distract her from how annoying I am.. so if this is the last anyone hears from me... I want Chris to have my BBQ, Shaun to have my laptop...

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Diablo 3: The Demon Hunter and stuff

So, I got to level 11 with a Demon Hunter so far, seems quite fun! Though, I must admit most of my time over the past couple of days has been spent playing my Barb again, I specced him to a more tankish build and things are going much more smoothly. But anyway! The Demon Hunter, a ranged class that seems to have quite a lot of survivability, that could just be because I've not really leveled it! Not through taking the damage but more by avoiding it. Perhaps at later levels it will become more like the glass cannon-like Witch Doctor I've got!

It does seem fun, though.. I like the fact that you don't have to use a 2h bow/xbow or whatever and that you can dual wield the 1h stuff, funky! They also have a skill called Vault, which I love! I keep doing it even when I don't have to.. like I'm wandering around and I'll just "tumble acrobatically 35 yards", I think it's the animation that makes me want to do it.. maybe the sound too!

I just got a skill called Bola Shot, which I used for the first time on a pack of spiders.. boom boom, tumble tumble, boom boom! Teehee.

In other news, the Real money auction house went live for items.. and I sold some level 48 Monk fist weapon.. I think it sold for 12 euro and I ended up with 10, not bad for a days work! Shame nothing else sold :P Oh well! I'll just have to keep trying to find stuff to sell! Lots of people were talking about making 250 dollars, or euros.. but I don't know anyone who has. The most I've actually seen someone get was 25 euro, which is still pretty awesome I guess!

I'll just take a time out to update you on my other characters. I have my Witch Doctor at level 60, my Monk at level 56, my Barbarian at level 51 or so, a level 11 Demon Hunter and a level 9 Wizard.. I'm finding myself with the itchy feet syndrome I get when I play WoW. I can't stick with one character for too long but I guess that helps with the games longevity for me.

Ah well, I guess this post shouldn't really be called the Demon Hunter, cause I don't talk about it too much.. let's just add "and stuff" and y'all can deal with it!

Ciao for now!

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Diablo 3: The Real Money Auction House

I was going to post today about the Monk, but as I sat down to write, I had something else dominating my thoughts! What was that? I hear you gasp with anticipation? WELL!!!

Today was the third(or so) date that had been set for the Real Money Auction House to be released for Diablo 3. Yet again it appears to have been delayed, at least in the EU. It does seem to be live in the Americas and several people are reporting that they have sold items for up to $250, which is kinda insane! I guess these items must be high end Inferno items, for them to be that price.

For me, I'm waiting with baited breath.. hoping that the few items I have ready to throw up on there will sell, heck.. even if they just sell for a couple of euro I'll be happy! Who knew you could make money by playing a game.. I won't buy anything on there though, oh no!

I have had people asking me if I really think people will buy things for real money on the Auction House.. and honestly, I really think they will. People seem to buy things with no second thought to if it's really worth the money they are paying.. I mean, we all get the shaft by shops.. so why not in a game too?

But how high will the prices actually be? I think that the dominant sellers will be hackers/bots.. as with the World of Warcraft auction house. They are very good at catching them and banning them, but there are just too many I feel.. the next in the hierarchy would be people who camp the auction house, sitting there refreshing the page till they see a steal, then re-post it for quadruple the price or whatever.. I have a good friend who did this with WoW and they made a LOT of gold from it. The average Joe trying to make a sale will probably find it's not really worth it.. when you take into account the time it takes to farm an item/materials.

At the end of the day, it relies on us using it, for anyone to make anything from it. The question I have for you, the end user is.. will you use it?

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Diablo 3: My Witch Doctor

I didn't get to post anything the past couple of days, because I've been out of town! Flew over to the UK for a couple of days to somewhere I have never been before. I love exploring new cities, thankfully in this day and age, getting lost is extremely difficult to do! Anyway, more details on the Witch Doctor and what I think!

So, who would enjoy playing one of these, the Witch Doctor? Well at the start they are very fun to play, the skills you unlock each level will most likely have you swapping around what you use each time! I know I did! The Witch Doctor was the second class I played, but the first I got to 60. If I had to compare them to anything World of Warcraft related, I would say they are sorta like a Warlock.

I spent most of the earlier levels relying on the classes awesome pets, mostly wandering around with Zombie Doggies and the Gargantuan(which you get at level 19). They both make the whole leveling process much easier.. at least until around level 45-50, where they actually become quite useless which made me a very sad bunny :(!

For the range of skills, I love the class, they have so many varied play styles purely because of how their skill set makes up. For instance, as I said I played through most of the lower levels with the different types of Zombie Dogs and the Gargantuan with the Restless Giant rune.. but if that doesn't suit you, you can summon an army of Fetishes to fight at your side.

But anyway, my Witch Doctor, who is level 60 and stuck in between Hell and Inferno difficulty, is running with what I guess a build that a lot of level 60's use - which can be found here. I think I am definitely going to play around with builds more, as I'm struggling.. but I think that's more to do with the difficulty jump going from Hell to Inferno and the lack of places to get gear for it!

I'm really not quite sure where to go, or how to go further with him.. so for now, waiting with baited breath for the real money auction house(Which I won't be buying anything on) and I'm playing my Monk.. who is level 52 and tanking things like a baus.

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Diablo 3: The Game

Here we go again! Second installment time! It's late! 4:15am late and I apparently have to stay up till 10pm tonight... and Diablo is undergoing maintenance.. whatever will I do?! I guess I'll just have to spend some time trying to customize this page! Wish me luck! Forgot to add this link in the first one.. I guess this will do!

So, what is this game called Diablo 3? I guess I should really offer some explanation, in case you don't know.. right? Well it's kind of a hack and slash/dungeon crawl/grindfest genre PC game created by Blizzard Entertainment.. it's been a long time coming, I remember playing Diablo, Diablo II & The Lord of Destruction years ago! I'm told it was 2001 when the LoD hit the shelves.. I refuse to believe that it's been that long since I was a young lad playing games!

It's a point and click fast paced action-fest, the aim is to get your character to the max level(60, like vanilla World of Warcraft!), with all the best equipment you can find.. there are four "acts", which are kinda like these huge places you have to explore and quest in, to get your levels and gear! There is one thing that a lot of people have spoken out against and that's the fact that you can only play Diablo 3 online, even if you just want to play on your own you still have to be online. Then there is the Auction House, which I think I will go into more detail about in another post.. probably solely dedicated to it.. because it's got a lot of talking points!

Once you have finished playing through on the normal difficulty level, you'll be around level 30-32.. then you get to play through the same acts again, but with buffed baddies to hack and slash your way through! There are four difficulty levels for you to "beat", going from Normal to Nightmare, then to Hell and then finally to Inferno. I think I hit 60 at around act 3 of the Hell difficulty, but I could be wrong!

The best things about Diablo that I've found, is the gratifying sounds of your character, whatever class it is, tearing up the hordes of monsters that will surround you at every turn with mega fantastical weapons or spells that make them explode into a fine red mist.. or you could just decide to conjure up a giant frog that will swallow them up! There is of course getting loot.. Getting loot is cool, everybody loves getting new things even pixels do.

I plan on going over each class, as I play it more and more.. I'll most likely start next time with the Witch Doctor as that is the character that I have at the max level at the moment! Working on getting a Monk up there too, while I try to get my Witch Doctor some uber kit so I can attempt more Inferno(which in my limited experience so far, is quite difficult).

With that said, I think it's time to retire for the night.. or maybe I'll just watch an episode of Fringe..  just one, mind...

Ciao for now!

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So, this is it?

So here I am, sat here after spending several hours playing games, looking at my screen and wondering what now?

After a good few more hours, I decided to do something productive and write something! It's been a good year or so since I even thought about writing! But what to write about? Then it hit me.. I love video games and video games love me.. well, not really! I'm pretty pants at playing games but I can't help spending time playing them!

You will have to forgive me, I tend to ramble and have disjointed thoughts.. so if I wander off on a tangent.. bear with me, I will get back to what I was saying, I promise! Who am I? Well, my name is Steve and I am a alco.. no, wait that is wrong. Actually, the first bit is right, my name is Steve! How did I get around to sitting here and writing this, is the most important thing to go here I guess!

I have to admit something, like millions and millions of others played World of Warcraft for.. well, for far too long. Though, the thing that I have to be thankful for, is that it ended up getting me a job.. to all you mothers who tell their children that playing games won't get them anywhere, HAH!! It did for me! :-D After working for a few years with Blizzard(awesome place to work by the way!), I decided it was time to move on.. and now I'm looking again for a new home within the video games industry.

Before the World of Warcraft, the first game I remember playing was Chuckie Egg.. on my families first computer our BBC 32k. What a fantastical machine that was! No DVD drive, just tape.. that's right the games came on cassette tape! Then I followed the usual suit, Atari(not commodore), N64, PlayStation 1+2, then I discovered the PC and online games.

My introduction came with a text based game, Wolfenburg.. which I think may well be still going, kind of. Then my friend made me get a game called Guild Wars.. then that same friend, after making me play that, let me create a character on his World of Warcraft account and that was that and this was this.. which brings me to the actual topic that I intended to write about... Diablo 3.

So how about it? Unless you have been living under a rock for the past month or so, you'll know that the long awaited finale in the Diablo series came out on the 15th of May and since that date I have spent so many hours playing it! I just can't stop! It's just so much fun to jump around and mash up the monstrous critters that I can find.

For now I intend to write up about the game in general, how it plays and what there is to do and what my thoughts are about it! I may even eventually include clips of my awesome ability to be pants at it.. if you're lucky!

To start there are 5 classes in Diablo 3, Barbarian, Monk, Demon Hunter, Witch Doctor and Wizard. I'll talk about each class in detail a bit later.. but for now.. she who must be obeyed looks to be getting restless and I must appease her.

Ciao for now!

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