Path of Exile is a game that has many fans of the action RPG niche of the MMO space very excited. Later this week, PoE will enter its open beta phase of development. In the meantime, we've got a spiffy preview for our readers. Check it out before joining the conversation in the comments.

While PoE may initially remind players of Diablo and Torchlight on the surface there is much more going on for those willing to pry deeper than a few screenshots. Character classes are varied and dynamic thanks to a well set up passive skill tree. Basically, you’re presented with a map of orbs and each one leads you down a different path of abilities to augment your character with, such as mana regen or increased health and other such perks. But you can very quickly branch out from what you may consider traditional action RPG archetypes. You can make your avatar unique to your playing type by doing things such as giving your witch life boosts and opt for your spells to drain health instead of mana or augment a marauder in the exact same way and see what the results are. Folks who have played Final Fantasy X and used their orb skill system should immediately realize the potential here and be comfortable with the system.

Read more of Blake Morse's Dethroning Diablo?

once again blizzard shows to be the master of inception. even with a 65% disappointment rate D3 fans swarm upon the PoE forums demanding they add a fucking auction house. sad shit. now it's just a major fucking idea seeded in the minds of ARPG players that the games need an auction house.

i wish blizzard had perfect retention for all their games so their fucking fans would leave other products alone.

Originally posted by Raagnarz
Hands down the best arpg I've ever played. Not that it doesn't have a few issues but nothing that is distracting or game breaking for me. This game made by a small development team shits all over the multimillion dollar cash grab that is D3. You can tell this game was a labor of love by guys who really loved the genre and put their hearts into it. Ever since I got into closed beta I haven't played hardly any other games I've had installed. To think this game is totally free and blizzard wanted their hands in my pocket every step of the way.

Didn't you know? you were only renting the pocket in your pants from blizzard. By the way, they want your pants too.

Originally posted by Rthuth434

once again blizzard shows to be the master of inception. even with a 65% disappointment rate D3 fans swarm upon the PoE forums demanding they add a fucking auction house. sad shit. now it's just a major fucking idea seeded in the minds of ARPG players that the games need an auction house.

i wish blizzard had perfect retention for all their games so their fucking fans would leave other products alone.

lol

Diablo 3 fanbois going to PoE forum is telling you something.  :-))

Originally posted by WolfClaws
It may be all well and good, but I am still trying to figure out how this is a MMO, and even moreso, how it topped the Most Antipated game in development ranking.

While its not an MMO, its more like a MMO than D3 or Torchlight 2,  it is most equivilant to Guild Wars 1. When you log into this game the hunting grounds are for you and your party only. Then when you zone into town there are lots of players around in a hub. You see others running around and can trade. There is global chat as well. So I get more of a guild wars 1 feel than a normal arpg feel honestly. Whether it deserves to be talked about on this site can be up for debate by the admins, but its not out of place for it to be here given recent similar games that are here.

Originally posted by Rthuth434

once again blizzard shows to be the master of inception. even with a 65% disappointment rate D3 fans swarm upon the PoE forums demanding they add a fucking auction house. sad shit. now it's just a major fucking idea seeded in the minds of ARPG players that the games need an auction house.

i wish blizzard had perfect retention for all their games so their fucking fans would leave other products alone.

It's really not inception, you've got the syntax wrong. They were responding to demands for an AH. That part of the failure that is D3 is the community's fault and Blizz's fault for not being brave (or smart?) enough to tell them no.

Originally posted by Psychow
This thread is giving me GW2 hype flashbacks! I hope PoE is good. I intend on giving it a go...but please stop with the Diablo killer (ala WoW killer) talk.

The thing is, Diablo 3 doesn't need a killer, Wilson killed it by making a game mediocre at best, when compared to it's predecessors.

I'm a pretty harsh game critic.

PoE is a great game. Solid. Extremely unique in terms of character builds. They literally made it so that two players cannot be the same.

I mean...  look at this thing: http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree

I've sat for long periods of time just trying to come up with interesting builds. I haven't even scratched the surface.

Originally posted by Psychow
This thread is giving me GW2 hype flashbacks! I hope PoE is good. I intend on giving it a go...but please stop with the Diablo killer (ala WoW killer) talk.

 

Oh its not gonna be a diablo killer, lets face it diablo is doing a good job killing itself all by itself. What has everyone so enthalled with this game is that for the first time in 12 years it feels like the spiritual successor to d2 that we have all been waiting for. Its got a small, young, passionate dev team that made a game they wanted to play. In a time where most indie dev's churn out garbage half done buggy messes, these guys turned out what is the best arpg in the past decade.

Diablo never really held the throne, unless you count D2 ladder, which was a pitiful throne indeed, consisting of 1) players using bots to farm for items, to sell to companies, to sell to players, 2) players using bots to macro baal runs.

Only good thing about D2 was its mods, and dueling.

From the potion system of flasks, to end game Map items, to their currency system (no gold), to the PVP and leagues, the game is just dripping with an immense amount of innovation.  Also it is free to play, without pay to win items for sale.