This is something that didn't have much discussion after the recent press event. From the gameplay videos, it looks like the loot is being picked up automatically.. but, the mouse and interface is hidden so it's impossible to determine for sure.

Gamers have been asking for an auto-loot or AOE looting feature as it's been highly successful in RIFT, but apparently only gold and health orbs will be automatically collected.

According to Blizzard, they will never be implementing a "loot vacuum" function because it lessons the choices available to the player. Yes, you heard that right.

No, we want players to be clicking on items still to pick them up. Gold is auto-pickup because there's never a reason to not pick it up, but creating 'loot vacuum' mechanics for actual items removes several layers of player decision and interaction.

If this is the case, and they will never be implementing a auto-loot feature for Diablo 3 and each item needs to be interacted with individually. This makes me wonder how they'll be implementing the looting system in their console versions.

Will a selection box appear over top of loot piles and the user needs to scroll up and down to hot pick items?

Do you think that if they add auto-looting to the console version, they'll implement it for the PC to keep things fair. It might be implemented as a "new" feature at a later date.

Or maybe they'll just throw caution to the wind, implement it the way it should be done, and just say "Bah.. let's just do it and forget what we said" like so many other "Blizzard would never" statements.

It's a really awesome feature after all, and has been proven to work really well in other games. Loot vacuums are the future, and this is something that should be implemented in Diablo and WOW. Game developers borrow features and ideas from Blizzard, and Blizzard has done the same. Quality of life needs to come before pride.

If you've noticed some missing images, it's because I've been using an image host called XS.TO. Apparently, they've lost all of the images I uploaded.

It's no big deal really, I can just find another image host.. but it didn't take very long for this to happen (it might just be a highly unstable service) and I'm investigating the issue from my end.

This is a good opportunity though to test out their Customer Service department and provide a good review of the service. :)

I've already initiated a support request, so I'll let you know how it goes. Their response and helpfulness will determine my future use of the service and my own recommendations to others.

Making some changes to improve formatting and brevity. :)

True Blood 04x07

* A pretty good episode, I actually enjoyed it more than most of the season even with all of the new supernatural ghost stuff.
* I skip past all of the adult oriented scenes, so I hope I didn't miss any important dialogue that advanced the story.. I probably didn't though.
* Spoilers for Jessica, if you wanted to know if she survives or not. She was left out of the Episode 8 promo on purpose but she's scheduled to appear in the next 5 episodes leading up to the finale, so yeah - she lives. I'm none too fond of True Blood's cliff hangers that they insist on putting into every episode.. "oh man, Pam is going to kill Tara!"
* In the next episode, Jason will probably run towards the door and throw himself onto her, thereby pushing her back into the house. Of course, Jessica will be too strong for him and vampires can't be knocked unconscious so the only way to stop her is if the spell suddenly stops. Unless the writers get stupid. Anyways, Jason will save her life and Bill will forever be grateful to him.

Falling Skies 01x09

* A filler episode where they suddenly find the aliens weakness (as expected) right before the final episode.
* I was hoping that they would delay this discovery until next season when they'll finally take down a tower or find out what it's really for.
* The first entire season should have been more about survival and hiding, rather than all of the internal domestic matters.
* There was also the sudden introduction of a "stereotypical solder who only follows blind orders" storyline.

Falling Skies 01x10

* The season finale was very disappointing.
* Rick was clinging to the walls like Spiderman, but they did something a little smart in this scene. They made sure that the ceiling was cement tiled to show that it was a solid surface. If for example, he had been clinging from a suspended ceiling.. it would have been quite an amazing feat.

One thing they missed though. The ceiling in the room was actually drywall, but they changed it to cement tiling for the Spiderman scene. Oops. :)


* To further exacerbate Rick's "clingy" nature, he suddenly breaks down into fake tears and bad acting when he's rejected by the aliens. Now he suddenly misses his father? They really need to get rid of Rick, he can't possibly make it more obvious he'll betray everyone again.
* I was disappointed to learn that the harness is actually mutating the humans. I was hoping they wouldn't make it into a cliche, but they did. Maybe some improvement to the human form, mostly internal.. but they're taking it too far like every other scifi story. The reason the harness is used on the younger generation is because their minds are more malleable at a younger age. Older harnessed humans require more direct mental control and concentration (which is where those new aliens come into play.)
* There was more and more preaching about past history from the professor, and more stories about successful tactics from history. This was after the same writers also explained that the aliens were different and not anything like humans, so normal human tactics would not work.
* The drug abusing Captain Weaver goes off on a suicide mission, everyone follows along for some reason knowing that it's a trap and heavily fortified and knowing their outmatched, and they let all of the soldiers get killed so that there's no one left protecting the civilians. Not a very effective strategy.
* The reason for this? They couldn't live with themselves if they didn't try. Come. On.
* They also found a silly way to defeat their enemies... radio signals. They had a scene straight out of "Mars Attacks!". It was difficult to watch.
* The final ending was even more ridiculous and a very bad cliffhanger. It demonstrated to me that the writers have no direction whatsoever and that really concerns me for next season. It's like every episode was written on the seat of their pants.
* The aliens apparently have no concept of resistance or don't understand why the humans are resisting. If that was the case, why did they attack, destroy key cities, strategically target certain locations and groups, and use standard war tactics? For heavens sake, all of their strategies were used in the anticipation of heavy resistance!
* Tom just walks off with the evil enemy for no good reason.
* They revealed way too much too soon and it was just shoddy and lazy writing.