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It's alive…

It's alive…

It's alive…

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It's alive…!

AggroCast RESURRECTED!!!

Raymond Bruels: Hi! Welcome to the AggroCast. This is Ray Bruels with David Hades Becker. Today we are talking about Diablo IV. So David, I know you got to play some of the beta for Diablo IV.

David Hades Becker: Yes, I got it. I got into the beta back when I think it was around St. Patrick's Day. They opened up a few like they opened up a few channels where people could play three of the classes and then, like, the next weekend, you're able to play all five of the classes. And then there was the server slam that they did, which was like a server stress test to make sure that when the game actually launches in June, it just doesn't crash as every other Blizzard game generally does on launch day. But yeah, that was, I got to experience many different levels of Diablo IV.

RB: I haven't really looked at any of the Diablo IV. I played one, two, and three, played the shit out of three. And then for a brief moment, I downloaded Diablo Immortal and then quickly deleted that off my phone just because I was like, no, I don't need microtransactions. And as much as I love the franchise and the IP, I just cannot bring myself to do it. What classes are you getting to play in Diablo for?

DHB: Well, I mean, as of right now, I think the five core classes, they have the Rogue, Sorcerer, Barbarian, Necromancer, and Druid. I think those are the only ones they've announced so far.

RB: So kind of a smattering of classes from the other games in the franchise.

DHB: Yeah. Somewhat. Like I think a couple of them haven't shown up in other games and then some of them like not brand new, but like they're being more focused on instead of being like a DLC or something like that. It's interesting that they chose these five.

RB: Yeah.

DHB: I have a feeling there's going to be more that come down the line given that it's Blizzard and how they normally do like microtransactions or not even microtransactions like DLC or like, oh, yeah, spend another $10 here. Get the season pass and you can get this next character. It's like randomly the fighter or, you know, bring the wizard back.

RB: Yeah, kind of like what they did in three with the crusader and the necromancer.

DHB: I think it was the demon hunter.

RB: Demon hunter. OK. Yeah. And we haven't seen the rogue class since Diablo one.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: So that's interesting that they brought them back.

DHB: And I haven't had a chance to play or play the Rogue, even though Rogue is my general go to when I play like these kind of games, like in D and D or anything like that. I'm like, I'm going to play the Rogue. But of course, necromancer, they brought necromancer and I'm a necromancer through and through.

RB: I love the necromancer. Necromancer and barbarian used to be my two, mostly because I loved squishing the corpses and getting potions as the barbarian or leaping across the map to attack things. But necromancer, I always loved. And of course the aesthetic for necromancer was always cool. Cause you had the bone armor and the bone shards and you do the different summons.

DHB: You know and I know that's all back at least in the beta I played for Diablo IV is they have the necromancer and that was the one that I mained for the entire time he was you know like I said necromancer and he has has all the fun stuff I think at one point I equipped the scythe to him just because I was like I gotta have a necromancer with a scythe. And then there was all the extra summons even though at the early levels it was just mainly skeletons and zombies I can raise, but I didn't see a need to raise anything else is the weird thing when I was playing the beta.

RB: Yeah. Well, and I always found with the Diablo games, Summons really, I'm not going to say they were OP, but they certainly stacked things in your favor.

DHB: Well, they definitely do that in this one. I don't think at any point I felt like I was in danger with my Necromancer. And that's from level one all the way up to, I think I got to level 13 or 14 before the beta ended.

RB: Yeah.

DHB: And I never died once with my Necromancer.

RB: Damn.

DHB: I also don't think any of my undead died unless it was like a scripted scene where they had to die because I had to go into a town or something happened and everything on the screen died except for my character. And it feels like it was one of the weird balancing issues that I'm kind of hoping they fixed because I felt like I walked through the entire beta with almost zero issues whatsoever.

RB: Yeah and you definitely want a challenge with these games. You don't want it to be dick-punchy, but you definitely want that challenge.

DHB: Yeah. No, I mean, at one point I walked into a dungeon that was rated as a very, very like, I think it was like two levels higher than me, but because of the, I had five zombies or whatever, skeletons or whatever running around, I didn't have to use a single potion for myself. I didn't have to use almost any other items. I was just like, yeah, go kill it. Go kill it. Or even the, I didn't even have to dictate sometimes the AI just did that. It walked forward and was like, OK, we're going to kill this boss. And I'm like, well, I took zero damage. But that was also the beta. So that could also have changed by the time the game launches here.

RB: Yeah. When when you were playing the beta, did they have any of the crafting system that Diablo is known for?

DHB: I'm pretty sure it was in there, but I don't remember that being any focus that we were that they had out there for it.

RB: OK. Yeah, because I'm sure they probably had specific things they were asking folks to test.

DHB: Yeah. Well, to my knowledge, it was like, let's let's make sure everything's balanced between these character classes. They did two different betas, where I think the first one they did, they only released the Rogue, Sorcerer, and Barbarian, I think it was, or maybe it was the Druid. And then the second one they did, they added in the other two characters. And then when they did the server slam, they're like, okay, fuck it, go with everything. We have all five characters out there. You can go to, I think it was like level 20, level 25, before you hit the end game for the beta.

RB: That's awesome. And were you able to play through some of the actual storyline?

DHB: Yeah. They, so the story starts off right from the beginning where you're pretty much just abandoned out in the middle of winter scape, where you're just pretty much fighting your set, fighting your way through to get to the first town and then the first town takes you in and then you build from there and you continue the story going along. I don't think it delves deep into the overall story to keep that kind of obfuscated from the general populace, but you definitely got some of those story beats leading up to it. I almost feel like I spoiled the first at least hour of the game because that's where the main mission. Like it felt like you were playing main mission kind of content at that point.

RB: Yeah, cuz I think one point I read something that Lilith was the primary antagonist behind this the game And that it was actually kind of a flash forward like 50 years from the events of Diablo III. So it should be interesting to see what they actually do with a Storyline and the world-building because that was always a thing for me. I love world-building of Diablo and you've got the angels and the demons and all of these forces that were at work and then the Nephalem and I guess they're going to dive into a little bit of that because of Lilith. So that's pretty cool.

DHB: Well, from what I've seen so far, it looks like they might be playing with, at least further down the line, where you might get to choose a side because there's an I want to say, I almost want to say it's the Crusader that they had in the past is coming back and it looks like he's more of an angel type character. And the way they're leading that side of humanity, it feels more like a cult, where Lilith is doing the same thing, and it feels like she has her own cult your clashing. So I don't know if maybe at some point you get to choose which side you're on, because they both, at least in some of the story failures that they put out there, it feels like they're like, you get to decide, is maybe the Agents of Heaven the right side or is the Agents of Hell the right side?

RB: Yeah, that would be really interesting to actually have to pick one side over the other and actually put you in a conflict, especially if they do any kind of open play where people can play against each other.

DHB: Well, I mean, I know they do have the multiplayer in their last beta as I played, it was all co-op. So I don't remember there being any PVP when I was playing, but that might've changed in some of the, obviously some of the other stuff. And yeah, with June 6th coming up here quickly, they might've been like, okay, we're keeping this hidden from that, from everybody. This is going to be the surprise to where now you've chosen your side. And while you're in these missions, somebody might randomly drop into your game and be like, okay, well screw you. You're on Lillith's side. I'm going to kill you or vice versa.

RB: Well, I also, I wonder because they, they tried to launch that Diablo Immortal cell phone game, which was chocked full of microtransactions. I wonder how much content is, is being drawn from that into Diablo IV, because I don't remember a lot of people, at least in my circle of people, that played Diablo Immortal at all.

DHB: Yeah, I don't know anybody, honestly, I don't think anybody outside of you that downloaded, actually downloaded the game. I know you didn't even really play the game. You just, you downloaded it, you dipped a toe and you're like, yeah, that's not for me, and then kind of got rid of it. So I'm kind of, at the end of the day, to answer your question, I think at most, I'm hoping all they do is maybe do some character skins. And they kind of, and that's how they do that where they don't go. Now you've got to play Diablo Immortal to understand why XYZ happened in Diablo IV or vice versa, which I mean, it's Blizzard. Like it's seen them kind of forcing that those kinds of microtransactions or that kind of, uh, synergy between the games to be like, well, now I've got to spend thousands of dollars in Diablo Immortal to understand this one thing or get this one costume of Diablo IV.

RB: Yeah. I think I'd rather just read website.

DHB: There's there's YouTubers out there. I guarantee someone will go through that and here's all the more you need to see it. Here's how cool this is. Let me, I think it was a big, not to harp on it again, even though we've hit it so big times Marvel Strike Force, but they did the same thing with Midnight Suns. They had a couple of special costumes in, in Marvel Strike Force specifically for from Midnight Suns. And I'm like, but they didn't require any costs. You just had to do like basic game place on them. They're okay. Keep it that way. Don't make me do a micro-transaction here and there so I can have this over both, you know, in a mobile game, nobody fucking cares about as well as a console/PC game that everybody's going to care about.

RB: Well, and I think one of the things I had heard about the beta for Diablo IV, there was something about a little dog or wolf companion that people were strapping to their chests, like a Papoose or something. My head, somebody telling me about that.

DHB: Well, I think that's the, um, cause I, Bilizzard's done this in the past where it's like, if you give them your time, you give them your effort and you put in the work into their betas, they give like, they did it with World of Warcraft. Like here's a little cool little companion you get because you actually helped us try to make the game better. If I remember correctly that's what that is, is it's hey you you were in the beta here's your cool little extra thing that we're not going to give to anybody else for like another year or so. So now you can strap this little cool little dog companion to yourself and I think it might have some long game mechanics in the mix but I don't remember what instead of you have a you have a dog strapped to your chest now.

RB: Well I'm certainly hoping that this new Diablo game works out and actually builds some resurgence into the franchise. Because it is definitely one of my favorite ones.

DHB: I mean, how long has it been since we had, since Diablo III stopped putting out content? It's been a while, hasn't it?

RB: Uh, yeah, it's been a while. They were still running different events during the pandemic. I knew a lot of folks at the height of the pandemic had gone back to Diablo III because they were doing like not campaigns, but they, they were doing these events periodically. And so they were keeping people enthused and gave people something to do. But I don't know when they actually stopped creating content or putting out new fresh new content for Diablo III.

DHB: I think I was at the last I want to say the necromancer was the last thing they put out. And almost want to say it was like six years ago, like 2017 was when that DLC came out and then everything else has been kind of people doing their own little events and all that stuff. But like without any new content, they're just like, we're going to play with what we have and just keep it going. I know there was also the Diablo 2 they did, or remaster they did, and then obviously Diablo Immortal, Which we don't want to talk about.

RB: And I remember playing the Crusader because Juliet had it for the PS4, and that's where I first played the Crusader was on the PS4, and holy shit, that class was, I would say that it was OP because it was incredible. We just fucking stomped through the game without a problem.

DHB: And that's kind of why I hope that the storyline ends up leading into that. The Crusader is the other character that we're we're going to get introduced to later on in Diablo IV is like one of the other either not even antagonists, but antiheroes or something else. It's causing some kind of strife in the game. Yeah, at least as long as it doesn't do the whole like, oh, no, here's just another DLC character to download.

RB: Well, I also wonder if they're going to do anything with the henchmen Because in the past, some of the Diablo games, you could have henchmen, which I thought were kind of a neat concept. I never really did much with it, but I remember it being there.

DHB: Well, so far with the classes they've announced, I don't see where they would fit a henchman in. I could see animal companions or familiars. Obviously, the Necromancer has its undead servants, but a barbarian's not gonna really have a henchman. Rogues not gonna really have a henchman. Then when you look at sorcerer and druid, the sorcerer may have a familiar, which would just be another animal or some kind of special creature. And the same thing with the druid who might have animal pets or something like that.

RB: Yeah.

DHB: But as far as a henchman goes, I don't, I, there wasn't anything that I remember in the beta. It could be something safe for a later character, I guess.

RB: Well, and what were the graphics like for the beta?

DHB: They were very, very reminiscent of, I won't say like Diablo III, but I mean, it was still the same top-down or whatever, but they tried to upscale it as much as possible. There was obviously tons of blood and tons of, tons of all the other stuff going everywhere. But it wasn't like some of the other games where they're getting a full another entry into the franchise where it feels like they're going harder into the photorealistic or higher-res visuals. Like they're doing exactly what they need to do just to get the gameplay going. And then I guess all the higher-end stuff comes in the cut scenes.

RB: Were there any cut scenes that you got to see with the beta?

DHB: There was the intro cut scene, which was just kind of like an introduction into how you got brought into the world. And I want to say there was like two or three other ones that of introduced you and kind of pushed you through this story. But those were those were the same level that we'd expect from Blizzard at this point. Like it wasn't it wasn't in game. It was all like CGI cinematic.

RB: So I have always been impressed by a lot of their cutscenes. I always wished that they would have done a Diablo movie of some kind, because the cinematics were always really, to me, compelling.

DHB: It's funny you bring that up. So I remember somebody was talking about that specifically with Diablo. I think it was Corridor Crew. They brought this up on one of their YouTube channels where they're talking about the visuals that we see now for Blizzard, and we just always imagine that way. And they play one of the original cut scenes from World of Warcraft. And it's almost like a night and day difference where everybody's minds were blown on this amazing CGI they did for World of Warcraft. And then you put it up next to Diablo's stuff, they're like, oh no, that was child stuff. That was something from like the early 90s. And now we're talking like, like Avatar level graphics on the new stuff.

RB: It's pretty impressive.

DHB: As a small segue.

RB: Yeah, no, totally. So yeah, it gives us something to look forward to you said June 6th?

DHB: June 6th if you pre-ordered I think you could still pre-order up to as of as of when we're doing this podcast. But I think they open up an early access three to four days before the 6th. So depending on when you depending on when you buy it when you pre-order it and everything. You could be playing it as early as June 2nd or June 3rd But definitely June 6th is the official release date on the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

RB: Damn, all right.

DHB: Yeah, and possibly mobile if they're going to tie it into Diablo Immortal.

RB: Oh, yeah. Let's hope they don't. Yeah, mobile games, man, I tell you.

DHB: Yeah, I like how we try to stick away from doing mobile games. Somehow it just keeps sucking us back in.

RB: Well, I think part of that is we can blame Mr. Hartgrave for that and Marvel Strike Force.

DHB: That's where I'll pass the blame. That's why we'll keep sending him horrible things towards you.

RB: Yeah.

DHB: Yeah.

RB: So Frank, if you, if you're, if you ever listened to this, just know that it's all love and we just love to torment you.

DHB: Exactly.

RB: But yeah, it's so great. Are you actually signed up to pick that up when it comes out? You an early buyer?

DHB: Uh, I, I'm not an early buyer yet. I've got my eye on it. I have a, I have a few other irons of the fire right now that I've got to work through. Because I want to sit down and I want to, I want to just dive into it for myself, but with everything else going on in life, I've So to give it its proper due, I got to hold out a little bit for it.

RB: That's fair. Yeah, I might look to pick it up just because I know Juliet and I had a good time playing three together on the PS4. So we just sit down on the couch and just kind of hammer through that.

DHB: Well, now you guys can go get it on both your PS4, PS5, everything you've got in your PC, play with each other in the house.

RB: Yeah, scream across the house from one office to the other.

DHB: Exactly. Yeah.

RB: Well, I think that about wraps it up for talking about Diablo IV.

DHB: Yeah, hopefully everybody's enjoying it.

RB: Any last thoughts?

DHB: I think I've put out all my thoughts out there for it. I just really hope everybody who's been excited for it gets exactly the game they were hoping for. I hope it's not another Diablo Immortal type situation. And I hope everybody that did preorder it has zero server issues as soon as June 1 or June 2 or whatever the, whenever the early access kicks off, whenever that hops in. I hope you all are able to hop in and play it without any issues.

RB: And I really look forward to seeing any of the cosplays that come out of it because some of the artistry of the cosplayers is just amazing.

DHB: I forgot all about that. Like I'm kind of excited when it's dropped. I wanna see how well people do for like Comic-Con and show up wearing them for that and some of the other various smaller conventions.

RB: Yeah. Well, and of course then BlizzCon has always been a great medium for the cosplayers to go out there and really show off their talent.

DHB: Well, yeah, but they can go out for Comic-Con, show off their alpha builds, and then go to some of the other smaller ones, show off their beta builds. That way, when Blizzcon comes around, they could be like, OK, here it is in its final form where smoke's billowing out everywhere. Everything's lit up and there's skulls dripping off of it somehow. And, you know, all the crazy shit that we see out there all the time.

RB: Well, and talking about Comic-Con, we're going to have coverage. We're going to try to do regular podcast coverage as well as some written coverage while we're out there. Lots of pictures, I'm sure.

DHB: Tons of pictures, tons of video. Hopefully, the idea would be to get some kind of podcast out almost every day, recapping it, because we'll have pretty much the entire crew out there for that.

RB: That'll that'll be crazy trying to get us all on the podcast. But it'll be fun to get everybody together. Comic-Con is always a fun for us media event.

DHB: Yeah, well, it's going to be bigger this year because of a guarantee because of E3 being canceled.

RB: Yeah.

DHB: Somebody's going to have to find another way to put all that content up. But that is a whole different podcast we can go into. This is the Diablo IV podcast.

RB: Yep, so if you're listening, make sure you check back with us as we start to talk about our preliminary Comic-Con coverage and the things that are starting to roll out information-wise. But as David said, this was Diablo IV coming out June 6. We look forward to seeing the gameplay. All right, David, it was great talking to you. And those listening, we'll catch you next time.