Anyone following the development of Path of Exile?

Just heard about a new RPG game due for release soon by a New Zeland development company called Path of Exile, trying to decide if I should buy a key for their beta....

http://www.pathofexile.com

I haven't followed it for some time. I signed up for beta back when I first saw it and then just let it lapse in the back of my mind. At the time, I was waiting on Diablo 3 but I still want to play Exile (Don't play D3 anymore, over that). I can't wait for it to go live though to really try it out rather than any betas. The skill system is what I am curious about, a more advanced method of what D3 did.

Well I think there's an open beta starting today (NZ time - just after midnight on 23rd here) going to see if I can grab it

Ok. That looks interesting. I'll have to check it out further.

I played the beta and bought a support pack for it to help development. You get a cute little kiwi bird to follow you around and make cooing sounds while you play.

I played the beta months ago, when I was disappointed in a short time with Diablo 3. It was an interesting game in many ways, but for whatever reason (could not resolve it on my end) I was constantly dropping connection so finally gave up. The skill system and tree and the way gear works is pretty cool.

The way skills and gear work is fairly interesting. The skill tree allows for some crazy customization options as well. Been playing with a friend, it is very related to the style of gameplay seen in Diablo or Torchlight.

I too was looking at this when I got disgusted with D3. I wasn't too wowed by the graphics, but it may make up for that with decent gameplay. Since I am a one game person I won't be looking for another game until I get tired of GW2.

I played this last year and bought the pack, it was good but be warned it is pretty difficult. You have to actually think about charging in to an area full of mobs or you will get pwnd in the face. My partner loves the game, I am a bit of a noob at it, but learning is fun. It is free to play so no need to buy anything other than cash shop items. Oh, and it has an awesome weta pet, it is badass!

is it open beta phase now? i consider tryin it

I like the skill tree/web/ocean and how abilities are gained by using gems in equipment. It's your typical Diablo clone as far as combat goes besides the fact that each character can have a number of different abilities and stuff. What I don't like is that besides the skill tree and ability gems they basically copied UI, game mechanics, and philosophies from games that existed in the 90's rather than adopting much improved ideas from more recent games. 1. Inventory management is like Diablo, giving you a very limited bag space, requiring you to right click an identify scroll then click on item to identify it, making you either leave a ton of loot scattered across the land or do a LOT of running back and forth from waypoints to "sell" stuff (portal scrolls are hard to come by early on). Generally you end up not picking up anything unless it has a bunch of link slots, leaving blue or better items where they sit because it's too annoying to fiddle with a constantly full inventory. I realize most games still limit inventory space but more recent games at least make it easier to sell stuff, identify stuff, etc. Welcome back to 1996. 2. The mini map is atrocious. It fills the whole screen in a see-through overlay that is VERY hard to see what is what. I find myself constantly hitting tab and squinting eventually giving me headaches. This would be so much better if the mini map appeared to the side and was more opaque so you could easily see things. Again, welcome back to 1996. 3. Loot isn't instanced. For better than grey items it puts an incredibly short lock on it for specific characters causing people to stop fighting briefly as they try to process if it's for them or not, if it's worthwhile for them to pick up after the other person's timer goes off, and consequently being pissed off that someone grabbed "your" item because you were too busy fighting for your life and couldn't click on the item yourself before them. The official word is that they want the game to be hardcore and have a cut-throat feel to it. I'm not sure how making loot easily ninja'd makes a game hardcore, but it definitely presents a back stabbing cut-throat feel to grouping. Many people avoid grouping simply because they don't have to worry about that then. At least they DID add that tiny timer, it used to just be completely free for all. Many players have asked for an option to switch between FFA, the timed (incredibly short) option, round robin, or instanced. Deaf ears and lots of immature insults from other players about being carebear ensues. 4. The skill "tree" is incredibly complex. Now that is actually kind of cool. What's NOT cool is that they don't have any mechanic in place for you to plot out (in-game) where you want to spend points. You get one point per level and I think another on occasion from quests. "Builds" often involve spending 40-60ish points for their core and there are around 111 points you can end up spending by very late game. They have a web app that lets you hover over points on the tree and it'll highlight the shortest path to get there. Even having that function in-game would be handy. What would be awesome is if you could select points in the tree that you want (maybe allowing for primary, secondary, and tertiary wants) and save them and it would show you the best route to take to get them. As it is now you spend time plotting them out on the website and flipping back and forth or keeping in mind where your next points should go. Annoying. The first three points annoy me to no end and just about ruin the whole game for me. I keep telling myself that it will be free to play, and if I avoid parties or only partying with people I know to lower my stress levels and teeth grinding, ignore every fiber of my being that wants to loot everything or anything, and keep taking Tylenol for the headaches from squinting at the damn mini-map that I can still have some fun playing the game. Or I could just go play Torchlight 2, Diablo 3, or wait for Marvel Heroes Online. They all will give nearly identical game-play, just without the unique skill tree and ability gem mechanic, and have many more modernizations that promote a smooth and fun interaction with the game rather than an interface that fights me tooth and nail at every step.

Only have a few hours into the game, playing solo. I have not played much of these type of games other than torchlight and d3 so Kalizaar's comments probably resonate more with veterans of this genre. First impression: The combat is engaging and challenging. The graphic style is gritty and I like it a lot. The amount of character customization is astounding. Just the kind of game I have been wanting to blow off some steam with and it is free! Definately worth a download. I am going for an aoe Templar build. No idea how that is going to work out but I am going to try regardless.

I think as long as you can get around those few points I stressed a person could have fun playing this especially since it's free. The skill tree and skill gem system makes for some great customization potential which is something most games in this genre lacks. I just wish they would have innovated in other areas of the game as well.

@Kalizaar, about the minimap, if you go into your options menu in-game, under the UI tab, there should be an option up at the top to enable a corner map, which adds a smaller version of the normal minimap up in the top right corner, but also with a dark background to it making it a lot easier to see. Other than that, I agree with your points you made. Just giving you a heads up so that the game doesn't cause quite so many headaches for you. :P

I like the game, but the lack of bag space drives me nuts! I guess games program us to loot loot loot so it feels odd to have loot lying around everywhere. I mean you could make endless trips to town, but that would be pretty tedious. Other than that, it is an entertaining F2P game, with challenging difficulty spikes as you progress.