And in non-In-Hell news…

• Azuriel of In An Age looks at the question of whether the Black Market reduces the value of rare mounts and items – “I believe the incremental gain by everyone else results in a net positive. Obviously, the average player doesn’t have the 200,000g+ that it will require to actually obtain these items, but they couldn’t get a group together to farm Kael’thas either. “
• Ravanel at Ravalation gives us a great, lengthy, and in-depth review of the new content in LoTRO’s [Shadow Of The Past update]( – “The overall difficulty seems to be pretty low though, as it was no problem at all to clear Fornost T2 and Storm on Methedras set as raid skirmish T1 with only five people. And that at our first try, with me as a leader, which is also a big handicap!”
• And Random Average writes a great post drawing our attention to what sounds like a fascinating indie multiplayer game – set after a zombie apocalypse – “You’re given a basic set of supplies and dropped at some random location on the edge of a very large map with no directions or any clue about what to do next. Everything after that is up to you, though finding more supplies is essential for survival — you can die from injuries, blood loss, broken bones, starvation, and dehydration (exacerbated by major exertion like, say, running from zombies) — and you can solve many of these problems by working with other players.”

I’d ask a question as usual here, but I know you’re all raring to get back to Diablo…

Diablo’s already sparking off a lot of discussion in the blogosphere.

Top bloggers are singling out some fascinating points about the game, and the discussion’s only just getting started:

• Tobold has visited the Diablo 3 AH, and believes that his predictions of low prices are confirmed – “. On the live servers people quickly realized that there is no such thing as bind on equip in Diablo III. Every item you find or buy, you can sell back on the AH later, even those that you used and replaced by something better. That means that each players every day is producing a constant stream of blue and better gear to feed into the economy, far more than there could possibly be demand for. “
• Remember Diablo 1? Tales of the Rampant Coyote does, and looks back to the time when Diablo arrived, and proved a dozen hypothetical design questions at once – “My attitude when I played the game – especially playing multiplayer for the first time, was “Holy Crap! They did it! These guys finally did it.” These discussions and arguments had been going on for years, in the vacuum of the Internet and bulletin board systems. It had all been theory, and the talk had felt endless.”
• Windsoar at Jaded Alt offers us a useful resource – a “what’s changed?” guide between Diablos 2 and 3 – “IF you have friends on your list who are ALSO playing Diablo 3, AND they have a public group, you can enter their “dungeon” from the character selection page. You can also choose to join public games at any time during your dungeon.”
• Matticus looks at the Diablo talent trees as a prequel of what the Mists talent system will offer WoW – “I’m hoping Diablo 3′s skill system, now that more people are exposed to it, will help open some eyes and encourage understanding to those who were vehemently opposed to Mists talent system. “
• Vidyala at Manalicious looks at the downsides of Diablo’s always-on, never-invisible social gaming – “With our current expectations of connectivity, it can seem radical or selfish to say “I’m not available at the moment,” but trust me – sometimes everyone needs a little space to get lost in the world, virtual or otherwise. “
• The Godmother at Alt:ernative looks at how Diablo 3 effectively hooks players into a new social network – “I can entirely understand the frustration of the lone player: I think the biggest single failure last night was that Blizzard didn’t make it clear that D3 is a new generation of game. It requires you to bolt yourself into an existing social networking framework, even if you have no need or desire to be part of it. “
• Beruthiel at Falling Leaves and Wings responds to players complaining about server downtime with the example of Blizzard’s astonishing decision to compensate people whose preorders were lost when a retailer folded – “Blizzard is going to absorb the loss of GAME’s poor business decisions, to ensure that Blizzard’s customer’s aren’t getting the short end of this particular stick. I haven’t done a ton of research on if other companies have taken similar steps in the past – so I cannot say that it is “unprecedented” – but I will say that this is extremely rare. And amazing. Really, really amazing.”
• Gaming For Introverts struggles with the way Diablo 3 gives you no option but to be social – “When I group with other people I feel this need to be efficient, and to be really good at playing the game so I don’t cause wipes or failures. Suddenly I’m not stopping to take in scenery, or paying much attention to the lore audio clips that play in the background. I don’t want to stop moving for too long while staring at my skills or the stuff in my inventory.”
• Finally, Scary Worlds is upset about Diablo’s DRM, but wonders if outrage can get in the way of enjoying a game – “Thinking back to my DRM chats and how much people hate it, I just wish I didn’t know about it. People like me ignore great games because they have a beef with DRM or asshats like Orson.”

Are you finding Diablo 3′s social networking aspects disturbing? Do you see gold in them thar dungeons? Let us know what you think!

So you want to know what the blogosphere reaction was to Diablo 3?

Let’s not waste any time then – heeeeeere we go!

TL:DR – Most people love it. A few are underwhelmed with the lack of novelty. Other than login woes, no real disappointments.

• Keen and Graev offer 5 points they love and 5 points they don’t so much – “Individual Loot: This has been a real joy. There isn’t a rush to pick up items when they drop. There isn’t this nagging fear that you might miss something. If something drops, it’s yours and you don’t have to worry about being too greedy or thinking about others.”
• Lorehound offers us an entertaining in-character writeup of their first day – spoilerific but fun to read – “Before I arrived at the inn I was stopped by a madman, he kept talking about this being the end of the world. Doomsayers always seem to crawl out of the woodwork when something bad happens, I gave the man no attention and walked towards the inn.”
• Ben at Scribblings On The Asylum Wall thinks that Diablo 3 will fill the gap before Mists nicely – “The story carried me along at a steady pace, and I enjoyed the voice-overs in substitution for just reading quest dialogue, although I imagine when both Suz and I are playing simultaneously that might be less than ideal.”
• Ferrel at Epic Slant is underwhelmed by the game – he doesn’t hate it, he just doesn’t feel it’s enough – “The core of the game, however, feels like Diablo 2. I haven’t seen anything that really improved upon that recipe. Blizzard took a good thing and continued it. There is value in that but with a 14 year development cycle it leaves me wondering what they did.”
• Fulguralis at Killing ‘em Slowly spent the night tied up in server woes, but still thinks the fuss over login issues was unwarranted – “Not only did they want me to play a game simulating a fantastical hell on Earth, but they really wanted me to feel it as well. This, of course, is evidenced by the server failure just as I was getting going.”
• The Ancient at Tome of the Ancient presents us with a first impressions post from the rare point of view of a total Diablo noob – “Clicking to move was strange at first, I think not being able to change the camera angle was the hardest thing to get used to for me.”
• Spinks writes a detailed and interesting post covering the first day as an overview – “I was just getting really wound up by the templar’s gormtastic moralising and cheesy combat comments (eg. “Evil has been REBUKED!”) and thinking, “You know, what my barbarian really needs is a sleazy thief sidekick who’ll spend the whole time trying to hit on me and any female associates “ and sure enough, Blizzard obliged.”
• Pathak / Malygos writes up impressions of the game, including the horror or lack therof – “D1 was a little scary, and I didn’t get far in D2. I didn’t get far in the last Doom game, because of the lighting, and even Bioshock could only be handled in small amounts. So, I was expecting to be jumping out of my skin, but it hasn’t happened.”
• No More Noob writes up general impressions including those of the game’s difficulty – “Sure you’re going to start the first few levels pretty much man handling things…then you run into a pack of elite type monster with a sub boss and your crap habit of not clearing things behind you all of a sudden turns out to not be such a great idea. If you’re not careful you will die.”
• Live Like A Nerd writes up a comprehensive first-impressions post, touching on story, online status, and a lot more – “Of course, I was curious what others think about the game, and so I went and had a look at Metacritic. I wish I hadn’t looked. Metacritic is symptomatic for what’s wrong with gamers today. “

So – are you Diabloing tonight?

It’s all about the gold in our link collection today – whether it’s WoW gold conspiracy theory, Diablo 3 gold and the guides therof, or currency-theoretically-backed-by-gold recommendations in the real world:

• The Grumpy Elf has his tinfoil hat firmly on today – but is his conspiracy theory about why Blizzard are really introducing the Black Market just crazy enough to be true? – “They want gold sellers buying new accounts, selling gold, getting banned and then starting all over again by buying another account. This way their subscriber numbers will go up while their player base gets happier because they feel like they are getting away with something and getting hard or impossible to get items.”
• Marcko, gold guide writer, responds to Tobold’s “Free Diablo 3 gold guide” of a few days ago in a really interesting, experience-driven counterpoint post – “I had more success selling “mediocre” items in the beta than best in slot ones. Doesn’t sound right, but it’s true. When I logged off for the night, I had listed affordable, yet profitable items that weren’t the best in slot.”
• And Stubborn at Sheep The Diamond makes a point about support and patronage at the same time as writing a comprehensive review of raid leading advice book “The Raider’s Companion” – “The best review I can give is this (though I’ll get into more detail in a moment): Ferrel is collecting again to revise and reprint a new edition his first book, A Guild Leader’s Companion. I am again advocating for patronage of one of our own here. “

Looks like the “Diablo 3 gold guide” argument’s just getting started – what’s your take?

So, are the massive, sprawling EVE Online battles all they’re cracked up to be?

EVE Online junkies reference the absolutely massive battles their chosen MMO sees as one of the big, big selling points of the game. Even the upcoming Guild Wars 2, they’ll argue, doesn’t have anything like the multi-hundred or multi-thousand-player battles that EVE sees from time to time.

But what’s it actually like being in the middle of a war like that? What do you do? How does it play?

And most importantly, is it fun?

Today, Flosch at Random Waypoint writes a great post detailing his experiences in an EVE Online war that was so big it caused over $2000 of real-world-cost ship loss -

“War, at least in the Uni, is weird. It’s a bit like EVE turned up to eleven: you sit around even more before anything happens, but then it all happens on much larger scales. For example, in the Uni, you are not allowed to undock during wartime if you’re on your own, you’re not allowed to fly certain expensive ships, you’re not allowed to engage in activities such as mining (although, with Hulkageddon going on, that’s hardly a limitation). So you sit in station waiting for things to happen. And wait. And wait.

And then, a fleet is formed, and you wait even more. And when you’re at the point where you think you won’t be able to take it any more soon, suddenly, you get moving. Finding a fleet, running away from a fleet, or sometimes, even engaging a fleet. Battles can be small or large, they can be even or lopsided. We’ve had it all in the last couple of days.”

This is fascinating stuff, whether you play EVE or not – indeed, I’m going to point a number of my non-EVE-playing friends at this one. The sheer scale of the conflict is mind-boggling – and the fact that there’s a real-world, four-figure cost associated is, as Flosch says, a bit of a pause for thought moment.

Flosch does an excellent job of taking us inside the war and detailing the experience, without ever dropping into impenetrable jargon. If you want to get an insider’s view of one of the most unique gaming experiences out there, this one’s a must-read.

Have you been to war in EVE?