[Skane]

Hmm... some initial thoughts about the Diablo3 beta.

• First off, some context. The beta covers the first major arc of the game, which is also more or less the tutorial arc. You enter the town of New Tristram and work your way to killing King Leoric the Skeleton King... again. Bugger just refuses to die doesn't he?
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• Since it is the tutorial arc, it is next to impossible to die unless you intentionally do stupid things like melee multiple Champion Mobs with a Wizard without using spells, or stubbornly stand in very flashy whirlwinds during boss fights. I have done dozens of full runs already, and I have yet to see anybody die.
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• The matchmaking still needs some fine-tuning. After maxing out (Lvl-13) my first character (Wizard), I started a second character (Demon Huntress) and tagged her as Hardcore.
  
  Matchmaking is supposedly done by choosing which questline you want to do and they group you up with other characters on the same quest. Unfortunately, when I zoned in with my Lvl-02 DHuntress, I found out to my mortification that they were going on an End-Boss run and had already started to do so.
  
  Armed with only what can be described to be a pea-shooter and the rags on my back, I tagged along and tried not to become roadkill from the monsters who grossly outlevelled me.
  
  Fortunately, I managed to complete the run with them and got a King Leoric kill at Lvl-04. Boss was a douchebag though, who kept targeting me for his teleportation cleave attack (rips about 60% of my hp).
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• As the level cap is 13, casters are a bit held back as a lot of their juicy spells are out of reach. You will still have amazing utility though. Wizards can actually use their Frost Nova spell to freeze Bosses. Not chill, freeze. A big change from Diablo2 where bosses are immune to freeze effects.
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• Awkward as it may be, to deal the most damage in the beta, you will need to use 2-handed weapons as you don't have access to skills to boost your damage through dualwielding. This includes Wizards. My Wizard is currently using a crafted 2-handed Sword and kicking ass with it.
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• The meat of the gameplay is definitely via multiplayer. You get bonus XP, gold, and the synergy of four characters working together towards a common goal. The Boss Pinata. With a tank(Barb/Monk), 2 dps, and 1 utility, you will more or less rip through the content like a chainsaw through hot butter.
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  The Templar NPC companion is basically useless in combat. Making singleplayer a tad tedious as you need to cover all aspects to make it through. In multiplayer, you can specialise your role and really make a big impact.
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• People don't talk much. I usually have to break the ice to make sure I'm playing with fellow human beings.
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• Because people are not dying... I am having a lot of difficulty with the Achievement to "revive" a hero from each class.
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• Crafting plays a HUGE role in your equipment loadout. Most of your resources will be spent in crafting. It is basically gambling, but with reagents. Makes it hard to earn gold too, or at least, harder than Diablo2, because you will want to salvage your magical gear for the crafting reagents.
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  If the Gaming Gods smile on you and bless your craft with the right properties, you will basically not find a better drop unless it is a rare with better properties. With all the possible suffixes and prefixes, you will be gambling a lot.

Cheers.