I participated in the Diablo IV open beta last month and it was fine. The game felt like Diablo III, only with amazing graphics - probably one of the best this year - and it was so well optimized that I didn't even have to use DLSS to run the game at 4K 60fps with all the settings maxed out. Unfortunately, once I got to the "MMO" part of the game, everything pretty much fell apart. The frequent lag was horrendous, where my druid was teleporting and stuttering all over the place. It's unfortunate that Blizzard is turning Diablo IV into a live service game, well Diablo III on the Personal Computer was pretty much that. The financial success of Diablo Immortal is the main driver of the game's current model here and you can't blame Blizzard for wanting to make money. I have always felt that it was a mistake to drive these developers away from the loot box mechanics - if you don't have self-control, that's on you and you should stop playing the games with loot boxes, there is a reason why we don't let blind people drive cars - because now they are hooked on selling season passes, and Diablo IV is the latest victim of that trend. Silly loot-box complainers thought they did something good when instead, they just doomed us all. Unfortunately, in this world of ours, there are just too many idiots and that's just the way everything works.
Still, I am very much interested in the game. During the open beta sessions, it was fun, and more importantly, it was deliciously dark, opting for a more serious tone in its overall presentation compared to Diablo III as it harked back to the first two Diablo games. Though I am worried about the online element, which I am sure will get smoothen out, I do plan on getting the game... eventually. That could mean a month after the game's release, or half a year when the game would hopefully get a discount. This was all well and good, until my significant other got into the picture. You see, as I was approaching the open beta weekend, I told him to give me some extra room during the beta period because I would be "busy" playing the crap out of the game. He is not a gamer, by the way for I am destined to only be in a relationship with a non-gamer obviously, and this strange first-time exclusive unavailability period piqued his interest in the game. I showed him the game intro, where Lilith got summoned and he enjoyed that. I told him the actual game doesn't really play like the full motion video, you know how non-gamers have strange expectations or understanding of games. After I have started playing the game, I pointed him to my YouTube archive to check out some of the gameplay and I could tell he wasn't impressed but he knew I liked the game. When the beta ended, he asked me whether or not I was going to purchase the game. I gave him the answer I laid out earlier. Then as the days went by, he kept asking and asking, and I shared with him the three-tier pricing scheme that further distanced me from wanting to get the game any time soon. When I mentioned the "Ultimate Edition", his eyes actually lit up. So the next couple of days, the question changed from "Are you going to get the game?" to "Are you going to get the Ultimate Edition?" and every single time he asked, I told him "No" and that the $100 edition is definitely not worth the money the fact that since if I were to play the game, I would probably unlock everything in the Battle Pass anyway. But as much as I tried to make him stop, he wouldn't. Every single day since it was "Ultimate Edition" this, "Ultimate Edition" that. I guess that additional title attached to the game had turned him rabid, but what can I say? I thought it was kind of cute having this grown arse macho non-gamer dude obsessing about something that he perceived as special because the word "ultimate" was attached to the title of a game he couldn't even remember. Then just the other day, he came to my Game Room, sat down next to me and said, "I want to get you your Ultimate Edition." I begged him to stop but he said he wouldn't budge until he got me the game. Yeah, this is so not me but darn it, you're now looking at an owner of this damnable Diablo IV: Ultimate Edition. Can you blame me for giving in though? The situation I got myself into was just too darn hot and too darn sexy... He may not be a gamer, but I just love this weird game he played.
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