...kind of starting to think I should be doing other things instead of playing.

Cleared the game once with my main char (barbarian, level 32) and have one alt at about level 10 or 11 (monk).

It's a lot of fun to play with friends and there seems to be a lot of content, but I can't imagine how long it will take to level up to 60. Also, I cleared it last night with friends, but it didn't unlock any new difficulty, and the last boss didn't really drop any good loot (WTFBBQ!?)

I noticed Scampie is playing a LOT ;) 

Will take more than a month 

Running thru the campaign single-player at the moment, but so up for some mp laters. 

I can't imagine how long it will take to level up to 60

I noticed Scampie is playing a LOT ;)

Only level 57 on my Barbarian that I've been playing Coop with a friend. On Act2 Hell.

My Monk that I play alone is only level 34 on Act2 Nightmare.

Protip for starting Hell: go to the Auction house. The gear you beat Nightmare with will not even get you past your first champion pack. The Auction House is a really good source of cheap gear that is WAY better than what you have laying around. 

yeah, I think you're fucked if you don't go in there to buy some stuff or just get really lucky with good loot. I was playing as barbarian with 2 other barbarians, so there wasn't so much item swapping going on as if we'd all been different classes. 

...time for inferno... 

kind of getting bored of it now. I just finished nightmare and am onto hell now.

Scampie, you are insane! :) 

Yeah I beat Diablo nightmare at lvl 49 just to discover I had to be 50 to enter hell, had to grind a whole level to get access to it, that kind of sucked.
I'm still entertained enough with it, even thought it feels the Auction House destroys alot of the fun of finding cool loot, as it's simpler to just buy it cheap on the auction house. 

http://higherorderfun.com/blog/2012/05/17/on-how-diablo-iii-fails-to-live-up-to-the-diablo-legacy/ vocalises some issues I have with diablo 3 too,ie story telling and perception of the avatar, nice read. 

... they simplified the gameplay?! 

but would it be that surprising? People are getting dumber and lazier. 

but would it be that surprising? People are getting dumber and lazier.

I would say a more correct interpretation is that games are selling to a wider audience which, taken as a _group_, is dumber and lazier. 

"Simplified" doesn't have to mean dumber. It can mean refined and streamlined, which I believe is what happened here. I don't hear a lot of complaining about Diablo 3, and I know some real fanatics. They all seem happy. 

it's just hard to imagine how much more it could be streamlined from D2. Refined, definitely. 

yeah that came off worse than it should have, have just got back form 2 days of bullshit corporate speak so was in a more sarcastic than usual mood. 

i'm entering inferno soonish as i'm 59lvl atm and enjoying the game so far. with difficulty progression it indeed forces to choose abilities more carefully, watch cooldowns and get proper gear. i like all that and do not understand whines that hell and inferno are super hard.

from the other side, i'd agree with what Bal said that AH kinda destroys hardcore part of the game as u can buy practically for nothing super items (if to farm AH for certain amount of time). from the other side, AH keeps people playing and not getting frustrated with not so lucky items stats and drops.

anyway, great game, with nice dynamics of gameplay and awesome replay/farming value ;) 

It's not GOTY 2012 or anything, but it's a nice game.
It's definitely a lot funner in Hell difficulty (haven't reached Inferno yet), I love coming across a group of elite monsters and getting completely destroyed, then coming back and figuring out how to take them out most effectively.

I agree that the mood of Diablo is completely lost though (it already was quite a bit in Diablo2 as well). They've replaced dark horror with silly Lord of the Ring epicness, but considering how atrocious the story of Starcraft 2 was, it's not a big surprise. 

About to finish nightmare with my demon hunter. 

rps rocks.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/28/diablo-iii-the-unofficial-novelisation/ 

From what my rather intensive Diablo 3 playing friend says is that they've royally screwed up the highest difficulty level, mainly via loot table balance issues that Blizzard should have already learnt from WoW (if you played WoW in TBC or Wrath, it's loot was way more fucked up in classic).

Also sounds like a good example of why you shouldn't make your open beta a tiny proportion of the final game, especially in a game where items and character progression are so important. 

From what I've read, they intentionally made Inferno pretty much impossible to root out imbalances and such. You're not supposed to be able to get through it! 

I find inferno pretty fun, just don't play it alone, and don't expect to just run through it like you can do the other difficulty levels.
Not sure what is wrong about the loot there. 

You need to try http://darkd3.com/ I seriously can't play without it. 

i'm more impressed with the way that website works. that's very cool. 

Very cool indeed! http://i.imgur.com/a5uyp.jpg