Other than some easily fixed shit happening today, I did what I otherwise said I would yesterday; I played Path of Exile all day. Tried calling the guy for Programme Reussir but he didn't answer so I left a message and went to give the game another try since the last time I played was at the beginning of its closed beta way before Diablo 3 came out over a year ago, so yeeeaaah. A lot's changed, and all of these changes were for the better. Now the game is actually a whole lot better than Diablo 3. It's basically the spiritual successor to Diablo 2, as in it was made by hardcore D2 players who thought the game needed a sequel (as I said, D3 wasn't out yet) purely for hardcore players. So they worked on the game... for seven years. Now the game came out of open beta yesterday on Steam but if you took part in the beta, you can link your account to your Steam account and keep your characters and exclusives; I have a pet kiwi 'cause I did the closed beta and helped kickstarting it :3. It's a really good game and completely free to play. I mean sure there's a cash shop but all of the items are either cosmetic or harmless, the one of which affects the game the most being adding extra tabs to your stash box so yeah, it's 0% pay to win. Plus it's intended for hardcore players, so the more casual players *coughWoWcough* will find the game extremely hard. I mean, look at the skill tree, for example.

http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/362/4/9/poe\_skill\_tree\_\_by\_jawsofhana-d4kgzrv.jpg

As you can see, the chances of finding another player with the same exact build as you is pretty much impossible, plus the max level is "only" 100 and there's no respec available other than a measly two points from some quest, so you can't afford to mess up. Especially since if you don't build your character right, you'll get murdered right and even if you do have a decent build, you'll still need to use your brain. If you run in the middle of a mob, you're dead meat. Thankfully, dying doesn't penalize you at all, other than having to run all the way back to where you died. I mean sure you could set a portal at the beginning of each room in case you die but portals are really hard to come by, especially since the game's economy runs on a barter system. That's right, there's no money in this game. The currencies in this game are mostly scrolls of wisdom, which you also use to identify items (AKA you need 'em), and multiple orbs used to upgrade and enhance items (AKA you also need 'em). Basically, you can't do like in other games; just pick up everything you find and teleport back to town when your inventory is full so you can sell all your junk, become rich, buy the best equipment available in shop and go whoop some ass. You need to really manage your inventory and pick up what you deem can be sold for something, especially since your inventory is the same size as it is in Diablo 2, AKA pretty small. You also can't afford all of the best equipment you can use in shop, since you'll probably have enough orbs for only a piece or two every once in a while, so you'll have to balance your gear too, while still keeping orbs so you can make it better.

Next, the game isn't a MMO. I guess you could call it a ARPG with a coop multiplayer option, as in you'll see other players in towns and other safe spots but once you step out of it, you get transported to a private instance of the area where only you and your party can go, like the first Guild Wars. The thing I like though is that you can still chat with players all around the server while playing in "single player", and the community is actually pretty good and full of nice, fun and helpful people, though a few WoWers pop up every once in a while to act retarded and whine that the game is too hard and generally be an obnoxious dick and stuff, but they usually quit pretty fast because hey, this ain't a game for kids. It's dark, gritty and gory just like the Diablo franchise, and it has a pretty good soundtrack. The ambiance, soundtrack and graphics blend perfectly well together to make the game very immersive and enjoyable to play and before you know it, hours have just passed by and you're starving and starting to die a lot because of it so you take a break to eat but you just want to go back to play.

I really recommend the game and as I said, it's completely free and available on Steam so why don't you give it a try, O Imaginary Reader :P?