Crono

Poor Brad. I feel for him. I really do. It's definitely not easy to divide your attention so drastically between playing a game, and giving meaningful/entertaining commentary at the same time. I bet if Brad played some games without the addition of needing to commentate on it - and just focus entirely on the game - we would see that he plays a lot better. I don't mind seeing brad "pulling a brad" it keeps things interesting.

Maybe they could get the rest of the funding from kickstarter.

@LiquidPenguins said:

Diablo 4 coming November 2013

This is Blizzard we're talking about so your joke doesn't make any sense.

Nah, I'm super stoked. The wait for the game is killing me and I haven't had a game able to give me that feeling in a very long time. I can play the game in 4 days and 11 hours from now and it feels like it will never come. Hell, on Monday they are letting us install the game in advance for the game's release (which is on Tuesday just to clarify) and I'm excited about getting to click "Install" even though I have to wait an entire day from that point to actually play!

You don't pay a monthly fee, in fact, you could potentially pay for the game - by playing it - by using the Real Money Auction House. If you're lucky (and smart) enough to find a great item and have been keeping track of prices on the auction house, you could put it up and earn a pretty penny. My goal is to eventually pay off the cost of the game this way :D but that's a long-term goal, I'm not expecting to be making tons of money on the AH - this probably won't happen for at least a year or longer.

You will be fine if you jump into Diablo 3 without having played the first 2. You will miss out on a lot of nods and minor references to past events but the major parts will be covered through the story-telling devices in the game (cinematics, cut-scenes, quest dialogue, lore books, etc.).

Blizzard has an official retrospective which you can check out here: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/media/videos/?keywords=&view#/extended-retrospective

I haven't watched it for a long time so I don't recall what all is in it, but I am pretty sure the basic story is outlined and a primer for the D3 storyline is in there too.

@Tennmuerti said:

@Crono: Do you have a 5 sided die? :)

No, but I figure if I roll a 6 I just won't play Diablo at all.

I'm gonna have a die with me when I first sit down to play D3 and the roll will determine my first hero. I like them all so much that I just can't choose on my own.

@thornie said:

Here's a dumb question for you guys...

I can't stand the character designs for all of the available classes (male and female). Has Blizzard ever sold "skins" or provided different character designs in the past? If no, do you think they would, or is it impossible? Can this be modded by the community?

No they have not done this in the past. There will be no modding tools for the game either. They have never had official mod tools for the Diablo series but this time around, with the inclusion of a real-money auction house, they have to keep everyone on a level playing field. Allowing players to mod the game could give them an advantage. You could certainly argue "but what if they only allowed them to change textures/models of characters" or something like that but Blizzard isn't going to spend the time or resources to do that, unfortunately.

I use a Razer Deathadder. It's inexpensive but still a quality product. I don't need a lot of bells and whistles, I just need a mouse that is responsive.