1. Demon Hunter:
• best (least annoying) male voice so far, looks pretty cool, and who doesn’t like the idea of dual-wielding crossbows
• felt a bit weak at the start of the game, got a lot stronger/easier as the game progressed and I leveled up
• personally not fond of having to keep running away from enemies (so they can’t hit me) while shooting them
• Rapid Fire works best if you hold down the key/mouse-button to use it, rather than single casting it (silly me) – does a fairly good job of taking down big mobs or groups of them
• Skeleton King battle felt relatively easy – the Chakram took care of the skeletons he summoned, and being ranged kept me out of (most of) his attacks
2. Witch Doctor:
• not fond of the (male) voice – not sure what I’d expect/prefer instead
• I don’t like the look of the witch doctor… I know it’s part of his character , but his twitching makes me think of an old man, hit masks look silly and mojos look like rubber chickens
• felt quite strong all round, between the poison from the darts (doing damage over time) and Zombie Dogs, multiple mobs were getting damaged with minimal effort
• Summon Zombie Dogs was a real game changer – they obstruct mobs from getting to you, and mobs attack them… so you don’t have to keep running away as much (see Demon Hunter)
• Horrify was also quite handy at keeping mobs away – even worked on some rare mobs and mini-bosses
• ran low on mana fairly often, later in the game  – definitely think mana-regen gear is be needed (admittedly I kept using my Poison Dart spell, rather than a bow)
• Skeleton King battle was also relatively easy – the dogs occupied the mobs and got in his way, I kept back and kept shooting at him
3. Barbarian:
• looks like an oaf, sounds like an oaf, and reminds me of the ogres in Warcraft
• starts off strong – I was very excited when the first few mobs I attacked splatted and went flying, but not so good when surrounded by mobs, even with Cleave it just didn’t help, felt like I was taking damage way too easily (died on two occasions to two Unburieds) – found myself running away from mobs and trying to take them on one at a time
• it seemed like health globes weren’t dropping (maybe I just needed them more than with the other classes?) – taking damage (being melee) while not gaining life is a recipe for disaster… definitely think life gain, or more armor, would be needed
• Leap is a great ability for doing damage to a bunch of mobs, getting away from mobs, or for moving around the map a bit easier (don’t forget you can jump up and down levels)
• got frustrated several times with a mob that would set up out in front of me (especially in a doorway) while I was targeting another mob – my character would just stand there, unable to move toward and attack the targeted, while taking damage from the mob in front of you – something to keep an eye out for :/ (ranged classes would shoot toward the targeted mob, and hit the mob in front of you in the process)
• Skeleton King battle was not fun at all – having to be in melee range meant I was taking all of his attacks while only dishing out my own, plus had the extra skeletons to contend with (which also weren’t dropping health globes!)
4. Wizard:
• quite an annoying “better-than-you” voice – fits his character, just not sure I want to listen to it all game long
• seems to do quite a bit of damage high and low level
• the “Signature” abilities don’t cost mana (see Witch Doctor), which is great
• Shock Pulse (free to cast) and Arcane Orb are great for clearing out passages, or when swamped by mobs – especially when you spam them ;)
• Disintegrate does some serious damage, but is very mana hungry, so will probably need some mana regen for it
• felt much easier to take on multiple (even special) mobs and bosses than with the Barbarian – being ranged gives you a big advantage
• Skeleton King took a little longer than some of the classes, but was easy enough – kill the skeletons with Shock Pulse, and keep your distance from him
5. Monk:
• not as rewarding as the Barbarian when melee’ing mobs
• seems a bit strange to have two swords equipped (to increase your weapon damage), but then run around punching mobs
• Deadly Reach gives you some ranged attack, and generates Spirit
• Cyclone Strike is a nice way of dealing with a bunch of mobs, but costs a lot of Spirit
• Dashing Strike is handy for getting to, or away, from mobs (a bit like Barbarian’s Leap)
• would definitely benefit from passive Spirit gain
• took on groups of mobs (even three Unburieds at once – see Barbarian) quite fine
• Mantras might be useful, but I’m not sure they’re worth a skill slot and having to recast them every 3 mins (or every 7 mins if you spend a passive skill on them)
• Skeleton King wasn’t easy – being melee you still take lots of damage – but having a (mini)ranged attack sure helped!

I thought Monk was going to be my class of choice – being able to handle groups of mobs, attack ranged, have healing spells, and Seven-Sided Strike is awesome but just such a later game skill – but I think I’m most fond of the Demon Hunter or Witch Doctor (only really due to his Zombie Dogs which make things easier).

Back on topic, there’s a great Gamasutra article titled “Postmortem: Blizzard’s Diablo II” which gives you an inside look in to the development that went in to Diablo 2 and lessons learned from Diablo 1, etc – some interesting stuff.

Next up are three great YouTube videos by “Force Strategy Gaming“, covering the Diablo Lore leading up to Diablo 3, a great way to catchup before the releases:

Part 1 – Pre-Diablo:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Part 2 – Diablo 1:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Part 3 – Diablo 2:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Looks like I’m getting better at playing Spy ;)

Download (404kb)

Market Watcher is an addon that scans the auction house and records data for specified items and assists in daily auction house shopping in general. When the addon is set to record, a price history can be displayed to assist in determining a value for items of interest.

What makes Market Watcher unique from other auction house addons is that it records multiple scans instead of just the most recent. This obviously uses a great deal of memory, so only scans of items specified by the user will be recorded. The saving of multiple scans allows for a more accurate determination of value, and allows the addon to deduce if some auctions were actually sold, so you can see which auctions are actually selling as opposed to basing a value off the prices of auctions that may not be selling at all.

While it’s a great addon, it does something I don’t like: it doesn’t let you open your trade skill windows while the Auction House window is open – the reason for this is because (normally) opening a trade skill window closes the Auction House window, but if you’re using the Auctioneer addon there’s an option to “protect auction house window” to allow you to have both open. To remove this “protection”/”feature” of Market Watcher, open “MarketWatcher.lua” in your “Interface\AddOns\MarketWatcher” folder, and find “UIParent:UnregisterEvent(“TRADE_SKILL_SHOW”);” (line 255 in the 5th Aug 2009 version) and put two minus signs (–) in front, to comment it out.

You’ll need to restart WoW, or do a “/reloadui” to apply these changes.

Note: Might not work in Skype, depending on your “Pressing Ctrl+V will” settings (under “IM & SMS”, under “Show advanced options”)

UPDATE: Fixed an issue reading in the icon, preventing the program from working :| Will probably release a new version shortly with a better quality (larger) icon.

Credits:
AutoHotKey – http://www.autohotkey.com
WowHead’s API – http://www.wowhead.com
Titan’s “xpath” – http://www.autohotkey.net/~Titan/#xpath

Download: WowItemInfo1.1.zip (201kb)

Greets to:
Ultrazor, Kymeara and Durgath. Taera (various EU realms)
GameThreat (http://www.gamethreat.net)
“Pap en Vleis” on Twilight’s Hammer EU (http://www.papenvleis.za.net)
“Murder of Crows” on Bronzebeard EU (http://www.murderofcrows.ws)

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ve been trying to get back into playing as Spy, I think I’m in the middle of the graph at the moment ;)

Click here to view the embedded video.

That said, feel free to download: Hypn’s QFG2VGA Beard Hack v1.0.zip (3kb)

UPDATE: this hack only works on version 1.0 of QFG2VGA, and not on the latest version they’ve released.