Haven't gotten the chance to try Adventure Mode yet, since you need to complete Act V first. Did play a bit of that act though. Really dig the music in it, and love the new locations. It's been a pretty fun romp.

The Crusader class has been a blast so far. Much more so then I had expected. He seems pretty versatile. Mind you I'm no expert and this is just playing him on Normal working my way to 70, but his abilities seem damn fun. Also is it me or is the Crusaders male voice that of Balthier, from FFXII?

My Wizard now has Black Hole, which is rad, though I wish it lasted a bit longer then 2 seconds. Still it looks nice and it's pretty effective.

Anyways what are everyones thoughts?

Wont get to try it until tonight sadly, hope the servers aren't broken.

How does the way you play Crusader differ from Barbarian? At a glance, they seem like two sides of the same coin.

I was gonna skip it as I haven't played since week 2, but since the game's apparently been patched to hell I'm intrigued to see what's changed.

Enjoyed it at launch and it seems I'll pick up the PS4 version eventually.

I only played my Crusader to around 18-20 before I stopped, but in my honest opinion it was insanely boring. I can't even put my finger on what I disliked, I just didn't have fun at all. Maybe I'm just tired of the earlygame in Diablo 3, I don't know, but that's my first impression at least.

As for the new act, I'm loving it so far! Not really much more to say

I played my Crusader up til Cain and went to bed. I had fun with the abilities and I´m looking forward to keep leveling him.

I don't know, I haven't played it.

I'm really enjoying the Crusader so far. I love how it makes a shield useful.

I'm still waiting to play unfortunately. Went for a physical collectors edition instead of a digital. Probably better this way since I don't think I'd be able to focus on campus if I was carrying around RoS with me. Glad to hear people are enjoying the crusader. It looks like a melee class that I might actually enjoy.

Crusader's pretty cool, kind of dying for more skill slots to unlock. I love his spell effects for wrath consuming abilities, but the left-click attacks feel puny and have repetitive animations. Punish is really good, but it feels like I should only need to hit it every once in awhile to keep the buff up instead of spamming it while waiting for my wrath to fill.

Oh, also, I'm not a big fan of the male VA. Just doesn't have much personality in a lot of his deliveries.

I only played 45 minutes last night because real life got in way, but I really liked what I saw. I'm honestly just happy with the new tile sets, its gets boring playing acts I-IV over and over. There are a lot of event side dungeons with is cool. I'm going to have to play it by myself first time though cause last night everyone kept skipping all the dialogue, usually out of force of habit. I don't know if I'm going to play the Crusader. I only have one character (Demon Hunter), and I don't think I have the time commitment to play multiple characters.

Is anyone able to confirm if you can make a Crusader and play in co-op with people who don't have the expansion? I really hope you can...

I'll be playing it after work tonight. ugh.

PRETTY GREAT.

I accidentally decided to see what that "reset quests" button was all about. Seeing my entire progress wiped out, I hadn't picked it back up until last night, so now I'm about halfway through Act III, really looking forward to seeing the new stuff. I'm just burning through on Normal with my level 60 (Now 60+) monk.

Just beat the campaign and did an entire adventure mode clear and an entire nephalem rift run. I did it on master on hardcore, it was literally exhilerating. Almost died so many times... and the final boss? Don't even get me started with how fucking scary that was on a hardcore character. I went into this blind by the way, I didn't watch any of the beta streams or anything. I just saw the promotional stuff. Just mentioning that because my impressions are based solely on what I experienced. That said: I think the game is fucking amazing.

This is Blizzard's answer to all their fans and critics. They have finally righted their wrongs. The antagonist might be Death, but they've breathed new life into the game. The loot system, paragon system, storyline, new skills, class, act, adventure mode, the nephalem rifts, the mystic, new enemies and enemy AI... all of these things come together to create a highly polished and refined game that has markedly improved; it shows that Blizzard really took all of the fan feedback to heart and went above and beyond in rectifying the series.

I think many were hesitant about Reaper of Souls due to how vanilla had turned out, and then when they added the $40 price tag many more were dissuaded. With AAA experiences such as Path of Exile, an excellent action-RPG, going with a free-to-play business model would Blizzard be able to justify their asking price? Reaper of Souls proves that the asking price is not only fair, but also completely justified. Reaper of Souls doesn't just fix the game before it, it also pushes the series and genre ahead, all with a spit-shined polish that is unmatched in the genre as a whole.

But the biggest wrong that has been righted in the expansion? We finally do hear back from the thieves guild!

I think anyone that loves the action RPG genre but was disappointed by vanilla D3 would be blown away by how Blizzard has reinvented their own game. The team did more than work hard on this title, they worked with passion. It really shows in the end product. Following in the long-established Blizzard tradition of fixing their games with an expansion, Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls may be their finest entry into expansion territory yet.

It doesn't happen often in the gaming industry but when it does I'm impressed - they completely revitalized a game and made it better than it initially was. Final Fantasy XIV did it and not Diablo 3 did it. It's the game it should have been and the teams need to be commended.

Yeah I don't have my xpac yet but I had no problem powering my friend's Crusader from 20-43 in about an hour.

wondering how many crusaders there's going to be online...

jumped right into act V though my character was on second playthrough still in act I cause it was there when i loaded the game and thought "why not?" enjoying it so far though the weird backtracking at the beginning threw me for a loop.

also extreme bitching about the game on blizzard forums as expected (no ladders or open trading, no flexibility in character skills, etc)

Not going to get RoS for a while yet, but I finally gave the big patch a shot and I'm impressed. It's like a whole new game in some ways.

@kishinfoulux: Is there any reason to play on normal? I've been playing on master and it's still pretty easy.

Oh man really? I used to joke about that in game all the damn time. "The thieves guild...will...find you..." *dies*. Never happened. Kind of awesome they decided to do something with that.

I just assumed since it was a new character I should start on normal, but apparently you can get by on higher settings. I'll have to try that.

@kishinfoulux: I was just wondering if there's a sweet spot for leveling up the fastest. Master isn't really hard but stuff takes some time to kill if you're solo. Anyone know if it's faster to level at a lower difficulty?

I wrote a lot about it as a comment on a Gamespot article already. I came back to the game since the big changes patch up until now. So far it seems like their headed in the right direction for the most part.

I haven't been able to get into ACT V stuff yet as I wanted to finish the first 4 acts again first, but it feels a lot more "fun" now. Hard to describe as I don't mean to imply the game wasn't good before, but it's better now.

I haven't played diablo 3 since beating it on normal a month or so after it's initial release. I haven't purchased Reaper of Souls but I did start a new barbarian on hard mode and man is it a lot more fun. The combat is still pretty easy but it isn't the extremely dull slog it was originally. Also I'm actually changing gear and leveling a lot faster. It took me 20 hours to hit 35 on my demon hunter but my barbarian is already 28 and I just finished act 1. It's a much better experience so far.

I'll probably just wait for the PS4 version to try it again. The ARPG genre feels better with analog sticks, in my opinion. It makes them feel more like I am playing as my character instead of some weird, disconnected being who is just giving instructions to my character.

Just got to level 13 on my crusader. Love the passive that lets you use a 2h weapon and shield, they do a good job of making the Crusader feel like a bulky tanky class yet not making it so it takes forever to kill things.

I was also super impressed with how they handled the launch, I got in right at midnight and while it did take half a dozen attempts before it successfully created my character I was able to play with little to no lag spikes at all. Really great for an online launch.

There was some weird, weird issues trying to get my group of 4 into Act V, but the lag/server load was just about the same as it has been the past few weeks. Having a blast with an Exploding Blast build + black hole, the tilesets are fantastic, and the bosses so far that I've fought (the first two, big ones) have been challenging in a way that literally no part of vanilla was. Hell, there was an optional dungeon (I'll only say rats) that was harder than anything vanilla threw at you.

I've been playing since patch 2.0 hit, and I've found that the best way to level is to be able to kill faster. Killing 20 enemies at 100% exp is going to net you faster growth than only being able to kill 5 of those enemies at a higher difficulty. When playing multiplayer it's a lot easier to bump up a level and get support from others, but if you're playing solo, you're not going to get the gains you want from it.

@jeanluc: I started a monk after the Smart Loot system was put in (mainly because I had the recipe for Demon's Skin drop and figured that fire resistance would be OP as fuck on him...and it was). It took me eight hours straight to go from level 1 to level 60. It's not much of a time commitment at all, man.

frickin love it

Cool thing about having friends that got to 70 last night is getting them to power your new Crusader from 1-53 in an hour

I'm looking forward to the PS4 version whenever that may happen.

I notice there's 6 people on my friend's list playing D3 now as opposed to around 70 at original D3 launch.

The more I level Crusader (got him at 30 right now) the more I love him. Really didn't expect to have this much fun, with it. Calling thunder heavenly death beams and holy bolts of judgement and still getting to smack dudes in the face, with my weapon. I'm really curious what the optimal builds end up being for him. Also it's really hard to give up the Steed because I like riding around the battlefield. >_>

The launch was solid, barely any lag at all (except for a few spikes right after 12am for a few minutes). I'm actually impressed. Everyone has mentioned everything else. I will say one thing though and yes it's a spoiler.

The gameplay is a lot more fun, WAY more fun, but the story stuff was really flat to me. That ending... yeesh.

I am really enjoying the expansion. I picked up Collector's Edition yesterday, got home, and started Act V with my lvl 60 Demon Hunter. So far it is pretty great. I have only just unlocked the Mystic, but as soon as I did that I spent about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes messing with my armor trying to make myself look bad-ass. So the best things in the expansion, so far, is the Mystic which satisfies my desire to play dress-up and the music. The music is phenomenal. Much better than what I recall from the main game. I was literally perking up every few minutes with each new piece, just great stuff.

I just want to finish the campaign so I can try Adventure Mode. I will probably post again with impressions when I finally unlock and try that. But, so far, I am really enjoying what I have played.

As someone who also enjoys playing dress up in games (i'm the sort of person that prefers style to practicality even in games like those other Souls related games), what options does it give you? Like, complete texture swapping? Or is it basically just a more streamlined method for dying your stuff? Can you now at least plaster your banner symbol somewhere on your character?

@yummylee: So far I have her upgraded as far as I can and it gives you the option of changing the armor to any armor skin. Of course, the amount of skin choices is dependent on how far you have upgraded her. You can't tweek any more than that. For instance, if you liked the first leather armor that the Demon Hunter wore, you can transmute even legendary items to look like that armor without losing any of the stats or, in certain cases, the aura that they throw off. When you transmute the items, the dye color that you used before is still the color of the armor, so I had a combo of Autumn dye and Inferno dye and it carried over as I was changing the pieces. You can't change textures or put any type of banner on anything, which is crappy. I will have to put up pictures of what I did with my character and what her actual items are so you can see the changes. It's cool in that if you liked the look of an item but outgrew it and are now using an item you don't like the look of, you can change it. I only have up to Archon Armor unlocked with some legendary options. I have to figure out how you unlock the legendary options. I think if you get the legendary as a drop you can use the *skin* of it, but I'm not entirely sure. I didn't play with it enough to make that determination.

@jadegl: Wow, that's actually really cool, yet so simple! Like one of those features that make me think ''why is this is not more widespread?? Especially in RPGS!''. Then again most RPGs are on PC, or are at least better suited to PC, and ordinarily mods give you whatever you need in that regard. Still, it's a rarity for an actual developer to provide that much freedom for your appearance in a game like that, and of course it should theoretically persist in the console version too, so kudos to them.

Also, notifications appear to be broken again... Giant Bomb lolwtf.

I think I need to erase all my friends playing RoS, because I don't have the money to afford it right now and I already have the shakes. Loot 2.0 was a game changer and now I want more.

I felt the same way back when I initially took a break from playing the PC version and then tried Diablo 3 on a console. As someone who generally prefers to play games with a controller, I thought it felt better. I spent about a few weeks with D3 on 360 then took another longer break, ending up back on PC and really getting into the game after the 2.0 patch. I realized that for me at least, high level endgame stuff in Diablo just isn't feasible with a controller. There is too much precision and speed required and at a certain point a controller just won't cut it anymore.

@yummylee: You can also make your weapons look different. With my crossbow, I have a yellow rarity item, but the skin I am using is for the legendary crossbow Buriza-Do Kyanon. It costs money to do this, and to make it look like a legendary item it's expensive, I think 50,000 gold, but if you want your person to look cool, I think it's worth it. Also, I have no problem getting gold, I was over 1 million when I unlocked the Mystic, so I don't mind spending a little to make my character look cool.

It was so abrupt it felt comedic to me.

It's good. Just started adventure mode and I can see that taking up a ton of time.

But oh god what a horrendous ending. The entire story was just to bring Diablo back and WHERE THE FUCK DID THE "OH HEY YOU MIGHT BE EVIL OR NOT IDK?" COME FROM!?

I LOVED Diablo 3, and this expansion has turned a game I love into one of the best games I've ever played. These past few days have had my head spinning with all the memories of Diablo and Diablo 2 flooding back.

Also, WEAPON TRANSMOG'ing OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWNS!

It's really good. Really, really good. What the game always should have been. And the Crusaders armor looks so badass right away. Love it.

I hope they announce a release date for the PS4 version soon. Seeing some videos of the game has given me the urge to jump back in, but it's not going to happen on my PC.

It's what D3 shoulda been.