OK, well, it’s close anyway…

So they announced the 3rd class (Wizard), which is very cool.  This site has skill trees up.

And skill customization via runes (grainy video here), which is potentially very exciting.

And two things I’m not at all positive on: skill drops from scrolls (like Diablo 1) and automatic stat point assignment.  These both sound like huge steps back to me, but I’m not going to get all crazywhineybitchy about it because a) Blizz changes things all the time, this could get fixed at any time and b) it will still be an awesome game, I’ll just be really annoyed at these two portions.  Of course it’s also possible they will come up with a novel way to implement this that combines the best of this and other systems…let’s hope for that at least.

Anyway 3/5 classes announced  = 60% done? :)

Also, they were giving out Starcraft beta keys, so that must be getting close.

UPDATE:

Joystiq has pictures of costumes here.  You have been warned.

They also have a video from the dance contest.  I’m going to skip past the warning and just tell you not to watch this.  You can’t un-watch it.

Seriously, I’m not trying to stir up the who-actually-birthed-that-baby drama again, but the whole thing is just odd.  Either: they had the hospital cover up his birth (uhh..ok…why??), she is lying about when and where he was born,  she just forgot – which would make her look stupid to say the least, or the hospital happened to lose his records.

New Republic story on Palin’s background in Alaska.  Nothing too meaty, but interesting at least.

Rick Davis & the McCain campaign.  You know, the guy that was being paid $15,000 a month by Freddie Mac for being close to McCain….

One of the head folks at Stardock on gaming & piracy and why his company doesn’t use any of the crazy anti-piracy schemes that are out there.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has some sympathy for Sarah.

Factcheck on the Obama/McCain debate round 1 – they both made a number of mistakes (surprise!).

The diskette that blew Trixter’s mind.  Good old fashioned geekery.  Not for the faint of geek.

An interesting mistake (and perhaps telling) McCain made in the last debate.

A very long explanation of the Wall Street crisis that I haven’t had time to watch yet – maybe tonight!

I know I haven’t posted that much geekery lately – politics has been too distracting.  I can’t wait for these elections to be over…either I’ll be happy, or I’ll put my head in the sand for another 4 years (because I doubt McCain would get re-elected unless we get into another war…which is entirely possible. *SIGH*).

Just in case you need a fix:  DIABLO 3!!!!!  Going to be the longest game wait ever!! ARrrrgh why do they announce this early?

Seriously.  Wow.

It snuck up on me.

You know, I dared hope in the furthest recesses of my soul that possibly the greatest pc game ever made would someday see a sequel.  You know, before my hair & teeth fall out.

Finally!! Of course, now it’s just a year of waiting…I wish they’d waited another 6 months to announce it at least, but this is the way of modern gaming: multi-year pre-announcements, “developer diaries”, months/years of delays, etc.  Still, Starcraft 2 AND Diablo 3?  Wow, it’s going to be a banner few years for gaming.

I may finally quit City of Heroes.  Seriously, if anything could pull me away it’s the awesomeness that could be a new Diablo (not to mention I’ll save some money every month since it’s free to play online…well, hopefully anyway!).  Check out the gameplay videos; it looks gorgeous and lush!!  All without giving up that 3d-isometric viewing angle (or whatever the technical name is).  I can’t stand 1st person style games for the most part – MMOs are a rare situation where I can stomach it, and I play zoomed back out and above if the camera allows it (or don’t play the game at all).

EDIT:

Here’s a post on the D3 forums going over the posted video in great detail.

EDIT2:  Some comic reactions from around the web.

User Friendly

PVP