After a Week...

I'm calling it. Diablo 3 might just be the best comeback story I've ever seen. The expansion, Reaper of Souls hit Tuesday (well, Monday night around 11 for those that pre-ordered the digital release). The loot system, which was the main thing dragging down D3, was overhauled prior to RoS's release and got me hooked. I had uninstalled the game, thoroughly disgusted, but reinstalled it after all the great buzz about 2.0 Loot. RoS took all that goodness and expanded it. It added an Act V to the game, that while seeming to be short, was very atmospheric and well done. It also added Adventure Mode, which is where the real fun lies.

Once you beat the game with a character, you can either decide to run through another playthrough of the main game with that character or go into Adventure mode. Adventure mode still utilizes the main areas of the game, but applies 5 bounty quests for each Act. These quests range from clearing levels of a certain dungeon or killing a specific creature. At higher difficulties, the quests become harder like "Kill the Skeleton King in 45 seconds or less." Yowch. You get a shot a good loot, and get lots of XP and gold for completing the quests. You also gain Keystones, which one you have five will allow you to open a Nephalem Rift to a randomized dungeon. The point of these dungeons is to fill your kill meter so that the Rift Keeper appears so you can then kill it. This gains you treasure and XP, but you also get Blood Shards which can be traded for a random magic item of the slot of your choosing. I've been having a blast doing bounty runs and Nephalem Rifts.

Diablo 3 is actually worth the price of admission now. After it's boring vanilla game, and the blatant money grab of the Auction House, it's good to see that Blizzard still listens to the fans and wants to make a great game that players will want to keep installed for quite some time to come. Well done, Blizzard, well done.