There’s a Diablo-shaped hole in my soul. With Mythos gone and Dungeon Runners going, there is a giant opportunity for a action-oriented RPG to swoop right in and make a grab for the crown. If there is a game like that out there, Cronous might be it… but on the first quick look, probably not.

You get a choice of four classes — Warrior, Valkyrie, Mage and Savage. But whichever class you choose, you’re dumped nearly naked in the middle of a busy city.

A city full of people hawking their wares — the prime indicator of an Asian import. I found no obvious quest givers or clues as to what to do, so I wandered out to the newbie grounds and left clicked on monsters.

They died pretty well, and after a few minutes, I dinged level 3 and had found some armor I need to be level 10 to wear.

Any MMO these days needs something to do besides merely level to interest me. I need to be part of a story, or an adventure. But this is a closed beta and there’s not much you can say for sure about it. There are bits of graphical brilliance that implies more to come. Quests can, and likely will, be added. The graphics will be punched up. I have seen people use some higher level techniques and they are pretty impressive.

But at this stage of the closed beta, if someone asked me if there were any good Diablo-like MMOs around that could take the place of a Mythos or a Dungeon Runners, I would hesitate to mention this one.

But I’ll be keeping it on my hard drive to take another look later.

I just got into another beta, but this one has an NDA, so I’ll have to check carefully what I can say about it. More when I know.

Ooooo…. Diablo III looks so cool….

Oh, I know this is the millionth blog to announce it, but whatever :) But it seems Diablo 3 is real! My kids and I all played D1 and D2 back in the day, though I’m not sure we ever played it *together*, this being before we got that whole LAN thing worked out.

With D3 on its way, the people over at Flagship Studios (many of whom worked on Diablo II) must be wondering how D3 will impact the forthcoming Mythos and the already-out Hellgate: London.

Mythos is still technically an MMO, but since it is soloable, there likely won’t be much difference in actual play between that and D3. Soloable MMOs, after all, are just single player games with the occasional PC thrown in. I doubt playing D3 with a few friends will feel any different than doing an instance group in WoW.

Anyway, exciting news, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing it.