New Computer

I recently got a new computer.  My old computer was having lots of problems.  Sometimes the computer would freeze at random times and it would run very slow at other times.  The worst was when I tried to restart my computer, Windows 7 wouldn't load for me.  I tried to run a disk scan to try to repair the Windows but that didn't work.  I even tried to start the Windows from an earlier check point but that didn't work either.  I had to dig out my very, very old computer, which I am very surprised that it even works still.  I ended up buying a computer from Cyberpower PC (details on the spec later).  My last ditch effort to repairing my old computer was to install Windows 7 all over again.  This time it managed to fix itself.  I didn't lose any of my previous files but I ended up losing all my programs.  Right now I am just running the barest amount of programs to run my games and my internet.  I don't know how long this computer will last but right now it seems to be working just fine.  I am having no hiccups, no freezing so everything seems to be good. 

As for my new computer, I haven't really used it yet.  I ended up paying lots for my computer but I think it was time to buy a new one anyways.  The following is the specs of my new computer:

• CPU - Intel Core I5-6600K 3.5Ghz 6MB Intel Smart Cache
• Hard Drive - 1TB HDD 3.5 SATAIII
• Video Card - AMD Radeon RX 460 2GB
• Power Supply - 600 Watt Power Supply
•  Motherboard - Gigabyte G1 Sniper Z170 SLI
• Memory - 4GB DDR4-3000 memory 

The new computer also came with a mechanical keyboard (my first mechanical keyboard) and an optical mouse.  The computer has Windows 10 and a very nice computer case.  My old computer also happens to be a Cyberpower computer and I am pretty sure this new computer will end up working well for me as well.  I bought my old computer around 5 years ago (I think) before Diablo 3 came out.  I wanted to be able to play Diablo 3 when I bought my old computer and it is good that I bought a new computer since there might be a new Diablo game coming out soon.

Diablo 3 Season 7 is ending next week so hopefully there will a blog post next week as to what I accomplished during Season 7.  BlizzCon is less than a month away and I am really excited about what Blizzard will be doing for BlizzCon.  There hasn't been much news about BlizzCon yet but the early BlizzCon online sale has lots of nice items up for sale. 

BlizzCon 2016 Predictions

BlizzCon 2016 is less than 2 months away and I am very excited about going to BlizzCon this year.  I am sure there are going to be lots of announcements and e-sport events going on this year.  In this blog post, I want to try and predict what may happen at BlizzCon this year.  World of Warcraft just released their newest expansion "Legion" so I don't think WoW will announce the next expansion at BlizzCon this year.  They will probably focus more on whats coming in the next series of patches for the Legion expansion.  Hearthstone just released their newest adventure expansion so they will probably announce another card expansion at BlizzCon this year.  Heroes of the Storm will probably continue push out new characters and maps plus they might finally get around to making an "arena" mode possible in the game.  The arena mode made its debut last BlizzCon but isn't in the game yet.  Starcraft 2 will probably have new heroes for their co-op mode (much like they announced Alarak at GamesCon this year). 

Overwatch might announce the arrival of its 23rd character in Sombra (which has been hinted at for a very long time).  Overwatch will probably come out with a new animated short at BlizzCon (don't know which character story they will focus on - maybe Sombra?).  At GamesCon, Overwatch did come out with the new animated short called "The Last Bastion" (it is very, very well done) and stated that there will be new sets of animated shorts in the future.  Diablo 3 will be at an interesting point at BlizzCon this year.  I don't think they will do much with Diablo 3 anymore because they might introduce the new Diablo game at BlizzCon this year.  Even if they do announce something for Diablo 3, all of the new things for that game won't come out until season 8 is done (which would be around February 2017).  I expect the PTR for season 8 will start sometime in October with season 7 ending sometime near the BlizzCon date (November 4 or so).   

I am going to expect something big for the new Diablo game.  The reason why I think Blizzard will announce something for Diablo is that the time is right to announce something big.  Like I said, if they just announce a little bit of news for Diablo 3 and nothing else, a lot of people will be very disappointed.  This will be 2 years in a row that Diablo won't have anything to announce at the opening ceremonies if Blizzard doesn't announce a new Diablo game.  A lot of fans of Diablo will feel left out if they don't announce something big for Diablo, especially since there were no major news for Diablo in the past BlizzCon and even GamesCon.  It might be that Blizzard isn't ready to announce the new Diablo game (since it is still in development) yet, much like how they dealt with new MMO game "Titan".  Which I think is fair, but if they don't announce the new Diablo game at BlizzCon, when will they announce it? 

Also, I am expecting lots of cosplaying at BlizzCon this year.  I expect to see lots of cosplays of Overwatch characters and even WoW demon hunters.  I don't know who might host the costume contest this year (maybe Wil Wheaton again?, Chris Hardwick? Jay Mohr? - there are lots of good candidates).  The closing ceremony band will also be interesting to see, although Blizzard usually picks a heavy metal band.  I am hoping that Blizzard does something different this year.  Since the movie "Warcraft" came out this year, why can't they show this movie at the closing ceremony this year?  (in fact there is little fanfare surrounding this movie for some odd reason  - poor ticket sales maybe?).  It would be neat if Blizzard fans could watch a "Director's cut" version of "Warcraft" (or even have Duncan Jones come in and do a "live" director's commentary for the movie).  E-sport tournaments for Starcraft, Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone are going to be epic this year again.  I know Overwatch will have an all-star format, which I don't think will do well (people want to see the best teams play against one another).  That's it for now, hopefully all my predictions come true when I attend BlizzCon for the 4th time. 

Diablo 3 Season 7 Update

Well I have been playing a lot of Diablo 3 season 7 lately.  I didn't get off to a good start this season but for now I feel as though I pretty much caught up to where I want to be.  I managed to hit level 70 pretty quickly but after that I was having some computer/connection issues.  It seems as though at some areas in Diablo, it would make my screen freeze off and on (I noticed especially in the Keeps lvl 1 in Act 3).  This is very problematic because I play hardcore and at any given time, I could lose control of my character and die.  It wasn't a big problem at first but after a while, there is a sinking feeling that you could lose your character in a heartbeat.  I managed to get up to paragon 300 when I was hit with my first death.  Like I was saying, it didn't bother me that I died but it did suck since I had no control whatsoever in terms of saving my character.  I quickly leveled back up to 70 again and started grinding again. 

I managed to save an extra Helltooth set so when I hit 70 again, my character was pretty much back to where I died.  Unfortunately, this season has been very horrible in terms of the quality in the drops of loot.  I was having lots of trouble finding any type of ancient gear this season.  Ironically, my first legendary that I gambled for was an ancient Uhkapian serpent, which unfortunately I lost when my first character died.  It has been a real grind to get my ancient gear so far.  I did finally manage to get another ancient Uhkapian serpent (but it took such a long time) and now finally I am starting to find some ancient Helltooth set items.  I tried to re-roll a Sacred Harvester into an ancient one but so far (after 7 attempts) none of them are ancient.  One item that I did find that really surprised me was an ancient Furnace.  It has some pretty sick stats on it:

I re-rolled to get 10% weapon damage (it came with 6%), it rolled with 1463 int (the max is 1465), it has the max attack speed 7%, and it has the max damage against elites 50%.  I have never seen another ancient furnace like this one.  I think I will send this item to the Westmarch Workshop. 

Overall, I am pretty happy where I am at right now for the season.  I am almost at pargaon 600 for the season and I am almost done with the Destroyer season journey.  I managed to reach a greater rift 66 and I know I can go higher than that.  I am hoping to reach paragon 800 and finish the Slayer seasonal journey by the end of the season.  I have another week off in September so I am hoping that I will manage to achieve these goals soon. 

Diablo 3 Season 6 Review

Well Diablo 3 Season 6 is officially done.  I managed to do very good this season.  First of all, I ended up at paragon 904, which is more than what I expected from this season.  In my previous blog post, I was hoping to reach paragon 888, which was my non-seasonal paragon level.  With little time left, I ended up doing so many greater rifts that I pushed past paragon level 900.  I think this paragon level puts me in the top 450 of all NA players for the season.  This is pretty remarkable since I only play solo and don't play in any groups at all.  I guess it shows that there was very little interest from the player base playing in this season at all.  I would guess that there will even fewer players playing next season.  My overall paragon level sits at 1035 now, which is amazing that it is above paragon 1000 now. 

Secondly, when I was pushing higher greater rifts at the end, I managed to get up to greater rift 79 in the season.  This puts me at rank 104 for hardcore witch doctors in North America.  This is really good as well since last season I only managed to reach rank 373.  I could have done maybe a greater rift 80 but I was pretty pleased with reaching greater rift 79.  Thirdly, I managed to complete the guardian seasonal journey, which was the final seasonal journey goal.  I didn't finish the guardian seasonal journey last season so I was pleased to complete it this season.  I was worried mainly about completing a rift in 3 minutes, since it was pretty hard to do but once I did it, all I had to do was another conquest.  The conquest that I chose to do was the one where you had to kill all the bosses in 20 minutes.  It was pretty easy to do since the witch doctor has the Manajuma set, which makes you run very, very fast. 

Overall, I am very pleased at what I accomplished this season.  This was the first season that I felt that everything went smoothly.  I did not end up dying at all this season and I only played one character throughout the season.  I did get lucky with my drops early on in the season but after that I was just in a good rhythm the entire season.  My season 6 witch doctor has the about the same number of hours played as my season 5 witch doctor but I feel more powerful with my season 6 witch doctor than my season 5.  For season 7, I am kind of debating of whether or not to play a different class.  With the Haedrig's gift being the Helltooth set for the witch doctor, there will be many people playing a witch doctor next season.  I might end up playing a demon hunter since I liked playing with the Unhallowed set. 

Death of Diablo 3

Just finishing up season 6 of Diablo 3.  The season will end up closing on July 22nd.  So far I have done fairly well for the season.  I managed to get the Conqueror seasonal journey complete, which ended giving me the extra stash space.  I have done up to greater rift 76, which puts me in the top 200 of all hardcore witch doctors.  I think I am able to do a higher greater rift than that since it has been a while that I have pushed doing a higher greater rift level.  I am currently sitting at paragon level 855 but I would like to get my paragon level to at least my non-seasonal paragon level, which is at 888.  I only have 2 weeks left, so I am busy trying to push myself to get those paragon levels. 

There has been lots of news lately involving Diablo 3.  First of all, Josh Mosqueira recently left Diablo 3.  This isn't good news since he was the game director for Diablo 3.  There is no word on who might be replacing him (or if he will be replaced at all).  Many people are speculating that Diablo 3 is now in "maintenance" mode, where no new features will be added to the game.  I think this is really bad for Diablo 3 since there are no new features coming in the future, many people will stop playing the game.  This is somewhat evident in season 6.  This season it seems that I am doing really good but in all honesty, there are less players playing the game right now.   I can't imagine many more people will continue to play Diablo 3 if the next few seasons don't bring some new changes.  With less and less people playing, it might seem that you could reach a higher rank but then you are competing with less people. 

With Diablo 3 entering the "maintenance" mode, there is further evidence that Blizzard might release a new Diablo game.  Whether this Diablo game will be Diablo 4 or an MMO version we do not know yet.  Currently, this new Diablo game is looking for a game director.  There might be something that will be announced at GamesCon in August or at the next BlizzCon in November.  I am kind of excited about this since Diablo 3 seems to be ending pretty soon.  I personally think that this new Diablo game will be an MMO (as I wrote earlier in my blog).  I hope that the big announcement will happen at BlizzCon because I will be attending that event again in November. 

Anyways, I am currently rushing to finish season 6 on a high note.  This weekend has double blood shards dropping so I am doing plenty of rifts and greater rifts.  I am probably going to play witch doctor again for season 7, which starts on August 5th.  It is going to be pretty easy to gear up a witch doctor again since Haedrig's gift for the witch doctor is the Helltooth set.