If you follow any gamers on Twitter, you cannot help but have heard that Season 4 of Diablo III has begun! I was excited about it, but having a bad allergy day, so I could only play for a little while. My husband, Shawn, decided to join me and that made Season 4 extra fun.
So far, all the blogging I’ve done for any Season in Diablo III looks different from the blogging for previous, or later, Seasons. There’s always something new to check out, so I end up focusing on different aspects of the game each time.
I think that my Season 4 blogging will focus on my progress as I level up my character, and also on the newly added Season Journey.
It is impossible to log into Diablo III and not realize that Season 4 has begun. A giant pop-up alerts players to the new stuff. It also notes the things that are included in Season 4 that were in a previous Season.
The helmet and shoulders transmogs, that were originally released in Season I, are back. I’ve already got them. It’s good news for players who missed out on Season I and wanted the transmog “set”.
There are some new Legendary items to scroll through and check out. The thing that really catches my attention this Season is the Portrait Frame and Pet. To get them, a player has to complete the Season Journey.
The above screenshot shows a little bit of the Season Journey objectives for Chapter I. There are a total of four Chapters for players to complete. I have not started working on them yet, but intend to soon. (Maybe the next time I play.) The Season just started and there is plenty of time for me to work my way through the Season Journey.
For Season 4, I created a hardcore Seasonal Wizard. Why hardcore? It was time. I created a softcore Barbarian for Season 1, a hardcore Demon Hunter for Season 2, and a softcore Crusader for Season 3. The pattern I created for myself meant that Season 4 would involve a hardcore character.
Why a Wizard? The short answer is that’s how the vote came out. I let the listeners of the Shattered Soulstone podcast vote on what class I should play in Season 4. I narrowed down the choices so I wouldn’t be repeating a class that I’d already dedicated a Season’s worth of time to. That left the Wizard, Witch Doctor, and Monk. I already had a hardcore Witch Doctor (non-seasonal) so I kind of knocked out that potential option. The Wizard got two votes and won. So, I’m playing a hardcore Wizard for Season 4.
I chose a female Wizard because I already have a non-seasonal softcore male Wizard (named Orlando) that I finally managed to get to Level 70 shortly before Season 4 began. My goal is to have two of each class – one male and one female – and all of them at Level 70.
I decided to name my hardcore Season 4 Wizard Sparkle. My inspiration came from the Diamond Skin skill that makes a Wizard sparkle. I also didn’t want to put much thought into her name because Wizards start out squishy and I was worried I’d accidentally end up killing her off before the Season ended.
This is what I like to think of as the “Hardcore Character Disclaimer”. It points out that death is permanent when you play a hardcore character. My favorite part of this warning is: Customer Service will not revive a fallen Hardcore Seasonal Hero for any reason. I have a feeling that perhaps Customer Service gets a lot of demands for that!
Here is Sparkle at Level 1. The banner is how I left it during Season 3. (I’m intending to change it soon.)
You may have noticed that Sparkle’s portrait lacks the little green leaf that indicates that she is a Seasonal character. For whatever reason, that has changed since Season 3. Now, the way to tell if a character is Seasonal is to look for the logo in the top right hand corner of the screen. (Oh, and it will also say so over the character’s head.) When I scrolled over the icon, it said “Hardcore Seasonal”.
Shawn and I decided to start in Story Mode and in Normal difficulty. We will probably change that later after we level up a bit more.
We started in Act I on the first night of Season 4.
I included this screenshot just because I think it looks cool. The Wizard character looks super powerful in the artwork – yet starts out squishy.
Shawn doesn’t play hardcore very often, but decided to do it so we could play together. He rolled a Demon Hunter named Kwattro.
LEVEL! LEVEL! LEVEL!
Sparkle hit Level 6 and unlocked the Mystic at the same time.
My character and Shawn’s character leveled up at the exact same time. That was convenient!
We unlocked the Blacksmith.
I think when I started, I figured that a good goal would be to hit Level 10 before we stopped playing. We ended up getting hungry and decided it would be a good idea to stop playing and go eat something. I’m fighting my way through a bad Fall pollen season, and don’t want to push myself.
Morris Jacobs, Deceased Artisan, was in one of the very first little dungeons we went into. Who is he? I’ve never heard of this character. There’s a good chance that he was just a random NPC (non-player character) for players to fight against. His descriptions says he was an artisan, though, which feels like there is a story behind Morris Jacobs. I would like to know more about who he was before he died and became a zombie.
This is a “scenery appreciation shot” of a creepy tree that was in The Old Ruins. How did those two, huge, skulls end up on the tree? There aren’t any creatures nearby that would have skulls that look like that. Are they the skulls of demons who perished in Tristram?
Diamond Skin is one of my favorite Wizard skills. It’s so bright! It also functions as a shield. Diamond Skin was the inspiration for Sparkle’s name.
This is how Sparkle looked right before we stopped playing for the night. I’ll be much happier with her appearance after I find some less impossible clothing for her to wear. I “get” that Wizards aren’t supposed to wear the nice, strong, armor that would suit a Crusader. But, what’s with the hip cut-outs? I know that I equipped her with pants. Those are not pants!
Somehow, she’s wearing pants that have no hip coverage and that have had the part that is supposed to cover the inner thighs removed. The only thing keeping those pants on is magic (with possible assistance from her belt). She had more coverage when she started with the default “underwear” that all new characters end up with. This was not an issue last Season when I was playing a female Crusader.