Questions and answers!

[northrop]

forget the clean up... i'll just answer everything as i go..

Originally Posted by d24e

Did you get any cool drops (like unique/set in D2)?

What kind of stats did you see on items?

What are some of the more exotic stats you can find on unique items?

What is the best way to find good items? Run through instances and kill boss mobs while ignoring the trash mobs?

How long does it take to cast spells and is there a downtimer on them? Or is it instant cast/recast like Diablo 2 until you run out of mana?

When you reach max lvl and have high end equip, can you plow through large groups of mobs with ease or can they still kill you easily?

a bunch of really cool drops. the color scheme is similar to that from Mythos i think. tho, when i asked Taylor which color represents unique, exceptional and so on.. he simply didn't know. i don't think i've seen any set items, but that doesn't mean those aren't in the game.

stats: very few damage or character stat increments. some resistances. i guess you could say the typical D2 stats.

the best way to get items is to kill and destroy everything! this game isn't like Diablo, where you would TP to Baal, Meph or any other end boss, and just kill that one person. you go thru the game and kill everything on the way, because everyone is capable of dropping some really nice stuff.

casting speed depends on the spell. so for instance, casting a drone takes much longer then casting a bot. also, spring, or many blademaster attacks are instant. so it all depends on the skill you cast, class and so on. each skill has it's own cooldown time.

we didn't get to the highest level, because simply we couldn't squeeze 30 hours of main quest into 4~5 hours of gameplay that we had

[Acaulescent]

Did "bosses" guarantee a drop of an item? If so, was the item better than other items dropped from normal mobs?

[northrop]

Originally Posted by Windburn

Actually, I know Pyke is awake now, and explicitly asked us to get questions ready So this thread may as well be used as a starting point for question-bombardment!

Here's my first one:
Character creation- is there a satisfying amount of options here? Aaand...*sheepishly*...are the female toons attractive? (read: hot)

And my second one:
Attack animations! Have any new ones made it into the build you guys played? Are animations varied enough that it keeps things fresh?

character creation is satisfying, i guess. there are number of different hairstyles, facial hairs, faces, for both male and female. color palette for hair color and skin tone is preset to 30 colors (or was it 24? hmm... ). you can change the hight and "fitness" of your character, from skinny to fat. tho, you can't make them fat.. more like, fat boned. i guess it fits the game, i doubt there would be any Hunters who are fat. so big muscular body build fits the game, but the proportions are a little iffy.

animations are great. there's a great number of them, and they look very attractive. can't say which are new, and which are old. a lot has been added to the game recently. the game has improved dramatically since my last visit in October.

[XaosII]

Thanks for the updates, northrop.

[northrop]

Originally Posted by Wobbley

Does the game contain anything to do with muffins?

What items qualities are there?

What's the actualy range on meele/ranged weapons? (like can you stand miles away or are there actualy range caps on weapons)

How long did the lvling take? (If you played any lvl's and not just got random lvl's of your choice?

How does this so called "rank" system actualy work?

all weapons have a range so you have to stay within reach the whole time. when using range weapons, a range, calculated in meters will appear in red(for out of reach) or green (within reach). some Hunter skill increase the range. for melee weapons you obviously need to stay close to the demons.

leveling is pretty damn fast, so you don't have to worry about wasting hours upon hours if something doesn't work out for you. get the character to level 10, if you don't like what you have, start over. it's simple and VERY FAST!

didn't really experience any 'rank' system. so i can't comment on that.

Originally Posted by Falcon

A simple question: which enemies were in the build? Did you see any Siege Fiend?
Javi

A WHOLE LOT!

and yes! really amazing! i was like.. wow, he's kicking my ass, but he looks so damn cool!

[Hazar]

how was the questing experience?

such as: how long did each one take? did you get good rewards? do some quests share the same level with other quests?

[Mountain Man]

Originally Posted by northrop

leveling is pretty damn fast, so you don't have to worry about wasting hours upon hours if something doesn't work out for you. get the character to level 10, if you don't like what you have, start over. it's simple and VERY FAST!

How fast is "fast"? Like 20 minutes to get from level 1 to 10? 45 minutes? 2 hours?

And if the leveling is appreciably fast early on, I have a related question: how long before you reach the infamous leveling plateau?

[Destructis]

Keep posting Northrop, I am getting close

/reaches for a tissue

[TPJ]

I played multi at first with KrazyKaution, Laughing God, and Scapes. We did that for about an hour or so and I made it to level 3. After moving to single player, I made it to level 9 in about 3 hours.

[northrop]

Originally Posted by Flawless

My Questions:

- What kind of PVP (if any) did you experience? Are there arena or dueling allowed?

-I want to know how many zones there are and how big they are. I know everything is supposed to be randomized when you come back to it by they still have the same names and stuff so I am just wondering how big areas can be?

- How is class balance at this time. Were there any classes that stood out as overpowered or underpowered?

didn't get to play any PvP content.

there's a whole lot of zones, and they're quite large. they get bigger as you go, too. some of them are also very complex, with multiple levels.

there's some balance, but not a lot. Tayler was nerfing skills as we play, because some of them were just ridiculously overpowered just ask Pyke about his grenades

Originally Posted by XaosII

How long did you play for? What level did you get to? Roughly, how much money did you accumulate during that time?

This question may be impossible to answer but.... Diablo 2 ended up forcing the player to really focus heavily on a handful of skills and maximize those out. While it was ok, it made the class' style a bit repetitive. Did the skill trees give that kind of impression or did it seem worthwhile to always climb to the top/max of the tree and balance skills out more?

about 4~5 hours. depends. my computer was crashing like mad.. and was off for like 30 min or so. others were more lucky. the MP wasn't stable, and we'd experience a crash every so often. SP was much more stable.

i don't know about others, but you could more or less finish act 1 and move onto the act2 without a problem. so we're looking at about level 12 character, more or less. again, so people, might wanted to try all classes, and not have enough time to get to act 2. same with money, the further you go, the more money you collect.

at this stage i don't think it would be fair for me to say, that one build is better then other, because simply there's no balance yet. however, the game is designed in the way that, if you focus on only one skill tree, it might work for you early on, but you'll have a hell of a time as you progress. so you have to compromise on your choices. and find the optimal build that suits your gamestyle. and it isn't hard to do, because each class offers a wide range of variety in skills. so i guess, unlike diablo, every skill here is important and complementary to one another. it feels great.

Originally Posted by d24e

Edit: also another question, are there charms in this game?

didn't see any. but there is crafting of sort

Originally Posted by Brother Laz

Question for the lucky dogs: Can skills replace normal attack as your main attack, like in D2 but unlike in Mythos?

not exactly.... however, when playing with hunter, a grenade skill owned everything in the game. so i hope this will get a fix. i can't speak for other skills. i think this was the only one, that made the game unbalanced.

will reply to questions on pare 4 next