Diablo II Beta: Anybody testing?

[HedsSpaz]

Hey JamesA, I was on for a while last night, about 10:30 - 12:00 EST. Hopefully I'll have some time to play tonight, it sort of depends on what my friends are up to tonight. I think we are finally going to go see Gladiator, although we might not do that until tommorow, who knows. Course, after the trouble I had last night, I got disconnected twice after I had reached 5th level and had to restart from the lvl 1.
Of course, on the other hand, playing presumes that Blizzard can actually keep the servers up.
I've been having trouble getting a good net connection anyway. D2 won't work through my school connection and the only ISP I have available at the moment(to my great dismay) is AOHell.

[JamesA]

glarec,

I believe I noticed the "wavy" effect you were talking about. It was a little annoying.

Anyway, I too agree that the auto-map's ability to keep track of nearby friendlies, shrines, wells, etc, quite useful.

But I did not share the same "no lag". Often times, enemies die during the retrieval part of an axe-swing animation or when the baddie was already walking away. Then there are the arrow shooting undead rogues whose arrows I did not see until they hit me (my Barbarian character would grunt/groan). This was of course, (I think), due to the fact that I am connected at 50666 bps.

Have you tried using two axes? I just realize that I could hold two weapons and swing both at the same time. Will definitely try it tonight.

Ok. Back to work....



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JamesA: Just a Dumbass MURCer
System Details

"Have you had any licorice lately?"

[JamesA]

Hey HedsSpaz,

I have added you to my ICQ list. Perhaps we can keep in touch tonight. (Assuming my wife lets me play tonight.)



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JamesA: Just a Dumbass MURCer
System Details

"Have you had any licorice lately?"

[antdude]

Finally, got to play for 5 minutes haha!

"I must say, I was initially non-plused (is that a word?) by the graphics. Most of the
things/characters are quite aliased/jaggy in the actual game."

Yeah, I noticed this. Is this only with Matrox cards or all? I also noticed the wavy effects. I got sea sick from it! Argh! How am I supposed play?

[Muad'Dib]

Well, if anyone finds their getting too sea sick, I'll gladly play for them and tell them about any bugs I come across....

I know the barbarian is supposed to be able to use 2 weapons, but the can both be axes!?! That's awesome!!!

Dimitri

[JamesA]

Muad'Dib,

Diablo II has single-handed axes. The Barbarian starts with a single-handed axe and a buckler (much like the Warrior in Diablo 1 who had a sword instead of an axe).

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JamesA: Just a Dumbass MURCer
System Details

"Have you had any licorice lately?"

[HedsSpaz]

I agree everybody, the graphics do seem a little, um, lacking. I'm hoping that this 640x480 sillieness is confined to the Stress Test and that in the full version we'll be able to do at least 800x600.

The only other graphical thing that really bugs me is the silly lightning effect. All it is is a brief flash of white on the screen. It's rather obnoxious.

So here's to hopin'.
Ian

[Muad'Dib]

sweet Sweet SWEET!!! I WANT THE GAME!!! How hard can that be people!?! I know someone needs me to dl it for them!!!

How is the sound while there seems to be discussion about the game? I remember in Diablo, the sound was really cool and for the most part, fit with the town and levels really well. Is the sequal doing as well in that respect?

I too hope that they fix the resolution problems you guys are talking about. That would really suck otherwise. I mean, I imagine this is the kind of game that should be run really high res.....

Dimitri

[impact]

640x480 you say? That sucks, I hope they will fix it in the final game.

GRRRR!

[JamesA]

I am afraid to say that from what I could gather from the recent issue of CGW, the game will have a fixed resolution of 640x480 with 256 colors. Of course, the guys at CGW could be wrong, but since Blizzard wants to keep the release schedule on target, I doubt there will be any change. Nevertheless, the graphics did improve a litte.

As for the <u>sound</u>, it is quite good. It is at least as good as the original's, if not better.



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JamesA: Just a Dumbass MURCer
System Details

"Have you had any licorice lately?"

[impact]

Hmm, but in accelerated mode you definitely will have more than 256 colors.
But 640x480 on 17" monitor = not good..

And one more thing. Anyone cares to give us the FPS he's getting in the stress test? I am really curious, since Diablo I did not allow any FPS measuring but Diablo II does. Plus some system specs.

PS: I hope Celeron 450 + G400 will be enough to play smooth or super-smooth, especially with the necromancer and the hordes of his minions.

[This message has been edited by impact (edited 29 May 2000).]

[glarec]

from what i heard, you should be able to play d2 in at least 16bit color under d3d mode(if your card supports it. and i mean it, alot of cards(ati, nvidia, voodoo, etc.. don't worry, matrox is not one of them :P). the stress test only included the 8bit to conserve space.

impact: if you think it's bad at 17".. you should see it on my 19" *yuck* also, how do you enable fps monitoring under d2? i'll be more than glad to give you the numbers if i can. just so you know. i encountered no stuttering whatsoever. rather i was walking or running, even the scene right after i killed raven (alot of light effects)

i really hope they can fix their servers soon.. they were down most of the time during the past weekend.. quite depressing. my cousin even brought his computer over to connect to my network so he can share my adsl (he was getting alot of lags on his 56k). and we end up trying to configure diablo i's depressing/outdated ipx protocol so we can play it over my network.

i did noticed that the graphics in diablo was actually a bit better than d2, probably because the chars are smaller and less detailed(mainly smaller). but we can't judge the final until it's out.

the game itself is good.. the ability to run really helps speed things up in d2.. it also makes playing diablo painfully slow sometimes :P

stress test itself is not really big.. after you killed raven.. that's about it.. the only thing that will drive you to play it again is so by chance you can get some better equip. i managed to kill raven at lvl 6. i don't know how those lvl 13+ do it to keep playing.. exp is painfully slow after a while, since you don't get to kill anything with good exp anymore.. my barb is at lvl 9 now and whenever i CAN get on b.net to play(slim chance), i can clear the whole game without lvling.

anyway.. gotta wrap this up. gotta go back to work now.. laterz



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Glarec
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bp6-(2)433(oc488) celerons, g400max, ibm ultra scsi 9.1g, sb-live value, hitachi ss-753 19", plextor 32x, etc, etc, etc...

[Mr_SpIcEz]

What ppl do to get more experience is play 8 ppl game. That way the nasties are really tough to kill and give WAY more experience.

The graphix REALLY do suck and 640 X 480 is just plain stoopid. Graphix in D1 where better, admitted they werent 3d, but who needs 3d in a diablo perspective ? Baldur's GAtes doesnt have 3d and looks better than D2. D1 was sprite based.

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bp6-(2)366@533 celerons, g400 DH 32mb Vanilla, Quantum plus KA 9.1g, sb-live value, Optiquest V95 19", Toshiba DVD 6x, HP i8100 cd-r, etc ...

[impact]

To bring up the fps counter, press enter and type fps into the window that appears and press enter again. That should do it.

[Rimfaxe]

u all know that u can play windowed-mode ! add " -w " to your "shortcut" and play, it gets sharper and not so "big" ...

/Rimfaxe