Diablo III Nightmare and Hell: A Comparison.

Luke and I just finished Diablo III on Nightmare over the weekend and it was a great experience.  I very much enjoyed it.  The game was challenging in a very fun way.  Nothing really felt gimmicky or stupid.

However, I noticed that the gear that was dropping wasn't ususally very good.  Infrequently, I'd get a drop that was decent enough to be an upgrade, but I'd usually be taking a hit to DPS or HP.  I tried to balance it out as best as I could, but I've totally sacrificed all of my magic find except for 9% I have on a shield.

That's right, I'm also wielding a 1h weapon and a shield.  As a Monk.  Who's supposed to be all fast and ... monk-ey.

Monkey

>.>

<.<

*Crickets*

Tough crowd.

Anyway, now that we're on Hell, everything feels like this:

Dumb

Even with 3 people, myself as a Monk, Luke playing a Wizard, and our buddy Bennett playing a Demon Hunter, we're still all running around like retards.  It's kind of lame.  I didn't roll up a fucking Monk to ... run around and not kill shit.  Because if I do stand next to any rare or champion pack, I get rolled pretty quick.  And I typically get stuck and can't move out of the shit surrounding me, whether that be walls from the mobs or the mobs themselves.

Itemization seems to be part of the problem.  We're not killing elites fast enough and none of us have enough HP to withstand the damage they put out long enough to kill them.  Blizzard has admitted to there being a problem in Inferno with too much spikey damage, and that damage was intended to be a steady drain on HP, not BLAM BLAM DEAD.

Anyway, gear improvements are coming slowly and I'm thinking there will be a lot of farming going on in Hell before we make it to Inferno.  I just hope the classes are fixed before shit gets nerfed any further than it already has.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Ah.  The Goblet of Fire.  Before the last book came out, the 4th in the Harry Potter series was my favorite.  It still is in a way.  Especially after reading it again for the first time since it was released.

While the movie was fantastic, it was evident from early on in the book that there was quite a bit left out.  Ludo Bagman, for instance.  Fred and Georges little side-story that doesn't get resolved until the end of the book.  Dobby, entirely, being left out.  S.P.E.W.  The animosity Hermione has for Rita Skeeter and what she does about it.  The fact that Rita Skeeter was getting inside scoop stories when she wasn't aloud on the school campus at all (and how she was doing it, Hermione finally figuring it out).  Harry finished the first task in the Tri-Wizard Tournament in a few short minutes, not in much danger.  The Sphinx and her riddle is left out of the maze.  Harry saves Cedric twice in the maze, once from Krum and once from a giant spider (not vines).

Quite a few things.  But for the sake of a movie, I understand why so many things were cut.

Regardless of all that though, I really enjoyed rereading this book.  It was nice to see all the little bits of foreshadowing, alluding to things that will happen and be discovered in later books.  Voldemort has his death eaters believing a potion of Dark Magic returned him to his body.  But that is not necessarily true.  He leaves out the key bit of information that allowed him to survive his "downfall" at the hands of Harry Potter 13 years prior.  Why did he only turn in to a shadow of his former self instead of die entirely?  Something kept him corporeal at least.

And we'll see a hint of that at the end of the next book.

I was able to make some margin notes while reading the ebook on a computer in a web browser.  Unfortunately the feature doesn't work (or is not available) on my tablet.  I did the majority of my reading on my tablet, but definitely some on the browser allowed me to take some margin notes.

Two particular lines, one by Dumbledore and one from Harry, are particularly vivid and I remember quite well from my first read through when I was 14.  Harry, Ron and Hermione are determined to visit Hagrid who they've not seen in a few weeks due to Rita Skeeter's article on him being a half-giant.  They demand entry, banging on the door when Dumbledore answers.

Harry is explaining to Hagrid that nobody cares he's a half-giant.  Why would anyone believe that Rita Skeeter cow --

Stopping short, he apologizes to Dumbledore for saying something so rude about another person in his presence.  Dumbledore's response:

"I have gone temporarily deaf and haven't any idea what you said, Harry".

Love it.

The next line that I enjoyed was when Harry was trying to gain access to Dumbledore's office but didn't have the new password.  Lemon drop was the old one from his first year of school, and when trying that again fails, he tries an assortment of other tasty wizard treats.

He manages to get it after kicking the statue once (and achieving nothing but a pain in his big toe) by using "Cockroach Cluster".  The gargoyle springs to life and jumps aside.

Harry's response:  "Cockroach Cluster?" he said, amazed.  "I was only joking ..."

I'm not sure why it was funny, but I laughed.

A good one-liner from Ron:  "Percy wouldn't recognize a joke if it danced naked in front of him wearing Dobby's tea cozy!"

Harry:  "Big bones ... the only thing that's got bigger bones than her is a dinosaur."

I also enjoyed the twins, Fred and George, throughout the entire book even though it was little to get into until the end.  The interaction they have with Harry upon his arrival at The Burrow is entertaining.  Both Fred and George greet Harry and then Fred turns to his mother as seeing her for the first time and greets her too "Mum! ... How really corking to see you!" as he shakes her hand.  Love those two.

I also remember a couple of the chapter headings had images of which I was very fond.  Mad-Eye Moody for instance was great.  The chapter in which Harry, Ron, and Hermione go to the kitchens (21, The House Elf Liberation Front) was also a good image (the three of them standing in front of the portrait of fruit, Hermione reaching up to tickle the pear).

It seems to me that this book, out of the first four, is the most well-written.  Her writing style had improved even further than it had in the third book.  An excellent read and I'm really pleased with how quickly I managed through it as I want to get to Order of the Phoenix and get through that ... pile of crud as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Can you tell I dislike Order of the Phoenix?  Great movie, probably one of the best in the series, excluding the last one, but I thoroughly dislike the book.  I'll explain why during that review when I'm done.  Maybe I'll have a different opinion this time around.

Diablo III on Normal

On Saturday morning this past weekend, I completed Diablo III on Normal Mode on my Wizard.  Sunday afternoon, Luke and I finished Normal mode on his Wizard and my Monk as well.

The game is really great.  I enjoyed both classes, but prefer the monk over the Wizard.  I feel more durable and less squishy.  I'm looking forward to Nightmare on both classes though.

The story is excellent.  I'm pleased with the development and how things from D1 and D2 play in to the story of this game.  Getting passed the content that was in the beta for the first time was very exciting.

My only gripe was that I wasn't able to kill Diablo on my Wizard by myself.  I might not have been using the right skill set, but after bashing my head against a wall for two hours and trying several different combinations of skills (and runes), I eventually caved in and joined a random group, in which we killed Diablo quite easily.

Luke and I had no problem killing Diablo (although he died once, but I resurrected him).  I'm really enjoying my Monk simply because she has a little bit of everything on her: defense, durability, mobility, major dps, and healing.  I use a two different skill combinations (one for clearing massive amounts of mobs, the other for single-target boss fights).

Mob clearing:

Main Attack (Left Click) - Crippling Wave with Mangle, increasing the damage to 143% weapon damage.
Secondary Attack (Right Click) - Dashing Strike with Flying Side Kick, which kicks the target upon arrival with a 60% chance to stun the target for 1.5 seconds.
Button 1 - Seven-Sided Strike with Several-Sided Strike, increasing the number of attacks from 7 to 9.
Button 2 - Breath of Heaven with Circle of Scorn, searing enemies for 80% weapon damage as Holy.
Button 3 - Cyclone Strike with Eye of the Storm, reducing the spirit cost to 30 spirit.
Button 4 - Mantra of Retribution with Retaliation, increasing the damage reflected to 60% of the damage taken, reflecting both ranged and melee (instead of just melee).

Passives:
Resolve
Transcendence
The Guardian's Path

Link to Build:  RAAAAH!

Sometimes I change Mantra of Retribution out to Mantra of Healing with Sustenance simply because it's beast. And we've taken some pretty intense amounts of damage on random mobs in act III and IV.  I basically just spam Crippling wave and dash to mobs that might be kicking the crap out of Luke.  I use Seven-Sided Strike when there are rare/champion packs, which usually kills them pretty quickly.  And then Breath of Heaven whenever I feel like I need a heal (or a little extra AoE damage).  Cyclone Strike is great for grouping up large packs so Luke can Meteor the hell out of them.  After every pack of mobs, I refresh my mantra.  I am rarely spirit starved.  That usually only happens when I'm using Dashing Strike too often.  My favorite passive it Transcendence.  It is absolutely wonderful to just pop Seven-Sided Strike when I'm below 50% hp, and then be fully healed.  Really, using ANY spirit spender with that Passive is ridiculously OP.

Boss/Single-Target action:

Main Attack (Left Click) - Way of the Hundred Fists with Blazing Fists which adds 5% attack speed for 5 seconds upon a critical hit, and can stack up to 3 times.
Secondary Attack (Right Click) - Dashing Strike with Flying Side Kick, which kicks the target upon arrival with a 60% chance to stun the target for 1.5 seconds.
Button 1 - Seven-Sided Strike with Several-Sided Strike, increasing the number of attacks from 7 to 9.
Button 2 - Breath of Heaven with Circle of Life, increasing the healing to some crazy amount based on your level and max hp.
Button 3 - Exploding Palm with The Flesh is weak, causing the target to take an additional 12% damage for 3 seconds.
Button 4 - Mantra of Healing with Sustenance, which increases the regeneration amount to a certain number that changes as you level up and is based on your hp, I think mine is 114 per second at level 42 and ~1.5k hp.

Passives:
Resolve
Transcendence
The Guardian's Path


Link to Build:  Holy Shit, Kill It, Kill it!

I use this build in a tank-and-spank fashion.  Whenever the boss runs away, rushes another target, or teleports, I Dashing Strike right to it and typically I get a nice quick stun out of it.  Breath of Heaven and Seven-Sided Strike with the Transcendence Passive keep me pretty well healed, they're great Oh-Shit buttons.  Every 3 seconds, as long as I have spirit (which I usually do), I pop one hit of Exploding Palm just to put the debuff on the boss so the damage ticks and he takes the extra damage for 3 seconds.  I try to keep that up the entire encounter.  Way of the Hundred fists is basically spammed in between, Seven-Sided Strike is used on cooldown or when I need the heal from spending the spirit.  And Breath of Heaven whenever I need the heal.  I hold on to it until I absolutely need it.

Both of these builds are obviously limited by the fact that I'm level 32.  The build will continue to morph as I level, but I don't imagine the actual skills themselves changing between the two builds because, at level 30, I have access to every skill in the Monk's arsenal.  The only thing I'll be gaining now are Runes, which will most definitely end up changing as I level.

I really like both builds; I really don't care if they're not the best or most optimal ways to play the Monk, that's fine with me.  I'm having fun not having to look shit up outside of the game.  I died ONCE on my Monk the entire time Luke and I played.  Good thing I don't play Hardcore.

The game is a blast.  I'm really enjoying it.  I played the hell out of it over the weekend and am looking forward to continue playing, although I need to keep hitting the gym a few times a week otherwise, I'ma end up a fatty because of this game if I don't.

I'm a little worried though; I'm hearing horror stories of Inferno about the two melee classes (Barbarian and Monk).  Unfortunately, the amount of melee damage being done by rare and champion packs far exceeds the damage reduction and healing both classes can do.  Sounds like the range classes, Wizard especially, have far better chances at surviving the higher difficulties which I find incredibly odd.  The Wizard was stupid squishy when I played her through Normal.  I'm not an expert gamer by far, and probably and not very skilled when it comes to a ranged character.  I like being right in the middle of things, which was why I chose the Monk.  I've had enough of standing the back of the group and flinging spells around.  I wanted to punch people in the chest and kick 'em in the head this time around.

My third class I'm going to pick up depends on what my sister plays.  I'm going to advise her on a Wizard or Demon Hunter since they appear to be fairing the best at later difficulties though I doubt that'll matter to her because I don't think she'll plan on playing that far in to the game.  She'll pick whichever one looks cool (so I'm guessing she'll pick the Wizard or Demon Hunter anyway because they look awesome.  And their primary avatars are female).

So far, having a blast.  Blizzard really outdid themselves with this game.

Diablo III - Fo Realz this time

I will be making regular entries documenting my progress, along with Luke's, through Diablo III.

Diablo III came out last Tuesday.  The release was bumpy and not very stable.  Blizzard ran in to a lot of issues and there was a period of about 4 hours of downtime Tuesday afternoon.  I have either some sort of cold, sinus infection, or severe allergic reaction to something, and so I went home early on Tuesday feeling miserable.  I figured Diablo III would perk me up.

Nope.  It was down the whole time, from the minute I got home, until right after we left to go to dinner at Luke's parents.

We played for a scant two hours on Tuesday night after dinner.  We also played for about an hour and a half last night.  I imagine we'll get several hours in tonight.

I started  Monk (like I knew I would) and Luke started a Wizard.  We got about three quarters of the way through the first sort of main quest to get to the Skeleton King and kill him.

WARNING: Spoilers ahead.  Stop here if you don't want to know any more.

The servers crapped out at 10:30 Tuesday night so we went to bed.  Last night we played through the Skeleton King and met The Stranger.  *dun dun dun*.

I'm almost positive The Stranger is Tyrael for two reasons:

1.) It sounds exactly like him

and

2.) He fell out of the sky.

Number 2 is important because of this prophecy from The Book of Cain:


And, at the End of Days, wisdom shall be lost
as justice falls upon the world of men.
Valor shall turn to wrath and all hope will
be swallowed by despair.
Death, at last, shall spread its wings over all
as fate lies shattered forever.


Let's pick that apart.  We know that the fallen star was a man.  That fits line 2 of the prophecy if we tweak it a bit:

... as Justice falls upon the world of men.


See what I did there?  Tyrael is the angel of Justice.  And, as the fallen star, he "[fell] upon the world of men" when he crashed in to the Tristram Cathedral.

What does that mean for the rest of the prophecy?  Well ...

Wisdom shall be lost ...


Malthael is the Angel of Wisdom and left the Angiris council when Tyrael destroyed the Worldstone.  Tyrael has since taken Malthael's place as the Angel of Wisdom (according to the Diablo wikia).  I'm not sure that is very accurate.  Seems odd.  The prophecy could be referring to the fact that Malthael has already gone missing, or it is referring to the fact that Tyrael, as the new Angel of Wisdom, has now essentially gone missing from the Angiris council as the fallen star.  It's probably both.

Valor shall turn to Wrath


I capitalize Wrath here because it makes it that much more significant.  Imperius, the Angel of Valor, is pissed at Tyrael, I've learned.  I'm almost positive that, instead of relying on his Valor and better judgment, Imperius let Wrath consume him and he kicked Tyrael out of the Angiris council.  He's still mad at Tyrael for destroying the Worldstone which leaves heaven and Sanctuary unprotected from hell.  It has also been suggested that Imperius may turn to Mephisto, the Lord of Hatred, for help in eradicating the humans.

... and all Hope will be swallowed by Despair.


Auriel, the Angel of Hope, will succumb to despair and become the Angel of Despair.  Pretty straight-forward.  It has been suggested though that Andariel, Maiden of Anguis (related to Despair), might kill Auriel.


Death, at last, shall spread its wings over all


Malthael is also the Angel of Death besides the Angel of Wisdom.  He further loses his mind when he views the Chalice of Wisdom a possible future that might not be quite so nice.  He also abstained from voting originally in the first vote on what to do about Sanctuary, claiming that at the end of all things only he will prevail.  Well, yeah, at the "end of all things" the only thing occurring is Death.


as Fate lies shattered forever.


Itherael is the Angel of Fate and will die at the hands of Malthael.  Itherael carries a type of hourglass, as it is a symbol of his station, and that is where the "shattered" imagery might come from.

It is also possible that Adria is Lilith, the first demon that coupled with an Angel and created the Nephalem, ancestors to the humans.  That is separate from this prophecy though.

So the Angiris council is splitting apart at the seams.  And I know that later in the game we have to fight Tyrael the Stranger and Imperius.  I forget what acts.

Getting even more excited.  Going to play a lot tonight and the rest of the weekend.  Took tomorrow off.

Diablo

What?  You're writing an entry on Diablo?  You mean the one that released back in 1996 and was a game unlike any other of its time?

Damn straight I am!  I had this strange urge to go back and play Diablo I because I realized something awful the other day.

I never beat it.

O.o

That's almost sacrilegious, considering I played the hell out of Diablo II and enjoyed every second of it (except when I died to stupid cheesy shit).

I installed the game and fired it up a few days ago; my main goal was to figure out why people loved both games so much and why they're so against the larger changes that are going to be in Diablo III (things like "skills on rails", "runes on rails", "linear story line", etc.)

Well, I can tell you for sure that people are looking back on both D1 and D2 with rose-tinted glasses from a very far off vantage point.  Specifically, I'm referring to the flaws these people refuse to see in these games.

I've described enough how dumb D2 was about specs and playing the way you want.  You basically can't, regardless of what class you picked.  This article is about D1 anyway, so I'll focus on the really awesome things about D1, and the not so awesome things about D1.

The bad first:

You plop in to the game after picking a Warrior, Rogue, or Sorcerer.  If you know nothing of those tropes, you're fucked from the start.  Most hardcore gamers like this, because it weeds out the not-so-real-gamers-that-aren't-cool-enough-to-play-the-game-because-they-don't-know-that-a-warrior-would-be-easier-to-play-than-a-rogue-because-nerds-know-that-warriors-have-the-best-armor-and-high-vitality-whereas-rogues-have-less-of-both-and-the-sorcerer-has-less-of-those-than-the-rogue.

/Eyeroll

I started a rogue.  Anaphorah plopped down in to Tristram and the water in the well wasn't brown, it was blue.  So I didn't get that quest.

Wait, you don't know what I'm talking about?  There's a quest to fix the poisoned water supply but the only way you get it is if the water in the fountain behind Deckard Cain in Tristram is brown.  If it's blue, then you don't get that quest.

See, starting out as a new player, you'd never know that.  I actually forgot about that quest until I was looking up what to do after I defeated the Skeleton King.

Which brings me to my main negative point about Diablo.  You just get plopped down in to the game without really knowing what to do.  You walk around and, if you're lucky, you find something or someone that gives you a quest.

The only other annoying part is that, as a rogue, I've had to learn to ... block mobs off from swarming me.  I'll stand right in a doorway to pick off mobs one at a time as they line up to kill me.  I've actually run quite a ways away from a large pack, and filtered them through a doorway, one at a time, to kill them.

That just seems kind of lame.  Not sure if that's really how the game should be played or not but, I'm managing through it and I'm level 17 or 18 now, down on Level 10 of the caves right now.  I've turned in the Anvil and I have the Blood Stone but don't know what it's used for yet.  I still have the quest Valor and I'm not sure what the hell I'm supposed to do for it.

Okay now on to the good stuff:

The actual game play is hella fun.  The only reason I never played it because I could never kill the butcher until I looked up how to cheat properly maneuver him in to a position in which I would not take a ton of damage.

Once I got pass him though, the rest of the game has been mildly to moderately challenging.  Nothing really difficult, just some lame mechanics that you have to experience to learn how to surpass them.  And you also have to know what Ability your character uses for attack and damage; Warrior is Strength, Rogue is Dexterity, and Sorcerer is Energy (I think, don't remember, never played a Sorc in D1, too squishy).

I've put all of Anaphorah's stat points in to Dex except for 10, two levels where I needed Strength to wield a better Bow.  I was okay with doing that simply because the Bow is awesome.

So, I've been rockin' mobs out slowly but surely.  I like playing a ranged character, I feel like I can evade mobs much easier than I could were I a Warrior.  But I still feel squishy.  I have a lot of resistances to each of the powers (fire, lightning, and frost?).  So the Slayer mobs in the caves on level 10 don't do shit for damage to me because I resist about half of the damage they do.

What I'm sad about though is that I've got a bunch of spells and can only use them once, maybe twice before I'm out of mana.  The super nice spells drain me of everything and then I'm stuck plinking away with the bow again.  Oh well, I suppose I'm okay with that seeing as I picked the Rogue to begin with.

Other than that, the game is super simple.  Hack-and-slash button smasher.  Get gud gear, kill more mobs to get better gear.

It has been very enjoyable.  I haven't died very many times, and I save every two minutes, so it's rare that I have to start over from a point way back.  Learned that the hard way with older games from the 90s.

While I'm having fun, I think I'm going to enjoy Diablo III way more.  I cannot wait for Tuesday, ridiculously excited.

Update 05/17/2012:  So I narrowly missed finishing Normal mode in Diablo before Diablo III came out.  I am level 21 in the pits of Hell on my rogue, and I vow I will come back to her one day!  Anaphorah, you will rescue Tristram!  Even if it is only doomed to be invaded and destroyed in a few years.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

I finished Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaba last night.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take notes while reading, but I definitely remembered several things that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Rowling's writing evolved even further after writing Chamber of Secrets.  I love her style.  It's very fluid and there's rarely a dull moment.  In fact, there's never a point during these first three books where I want to put them down and read something else.  I cannot say that about series like Sword of Truth and Wheel of Time.  While both series are great and I enjoyed them both, there were times in both (an entire book in one of them) where I did not enjoy myself.

Professor Lupin, as always, is a favorite in this book.  Everything that Harry learns about his father is such great insight in to Harry's lost past.  I never realized just how much Ron and Hermione bicker throughout the series until now.  Even in this book, it is obvious that they have feelings for one another.

Already knowing what's going to happen in this book makes me want to read it even more.  In fact, I think I read faster simply because I know what's right around the corner, and I cannot wait to get to it.  I've been taking my tablet to the gym with me and reading the books while I walk on the treadmill at the end of my workout.  And there have been some embarrassing moments where I've gotten a little teary eyed or laughed out loud and people around me are looking at me, thinking, "Wtf is her problem?"

I don't care though because this book was so much fun!  Hogsmeade, Sir Cadagon, Sirius, Lupin, Snape, Hermione, Scabbers, Ron, and yes, as always, Harry.  What the movies tend to lack is a feeling that this story is occurring from Harry's point of view.  It's difficult to show someone's internal monologue in a movie, but the movies always felt like it was a story about these things that happened to Harry and rarely did we get scenes that contained just Harry and only one other character.  Yes there are a few iconic scenes with just Harry and Dumbledore, or Harry and Voldemort, but this book made me realize that it was with this movie they began to change things quite a bit; a lot was left out as well.

I enjoyed every minute of this book.  I remember when I originally read it and found it to be my favorite of the first three books.  I hated, absolutely hated, waiting for the 4th book to come out.  I liked the fact that Harry found out that he was not quite so alone in this world; he has Sirius now; he's met some of his father's friends from school.  I never realized it before, but all 4 of them, James, Sirius, Lupin, and Peter (I think) all end up dead by the end of the last book.  I wonder if Rowling planned that.

I also wonder if Rowling planned the entire series out before or after writing Sorcerer's Stone.  I wonder that because Sorcerer's Stone and Prisoner of Azkaban deal little with the horcruxes.  And even in retrospect, Chamber of Secrets didn't really allude closely enough to the idea of a horcrux that I can't imagine Rowling initially created Riddle's diary to act as such.  She might have thought of it as a deeply evil creation of dark magic meant to control a new writer via Riddle's teenage memory.

Still, I'm not sure whether or not the horcruxes and Riddle's past were set in stone by the end of Prisoner of Azkaban.  I'm not convinced either way if the underlying, later main, plot of books 4 through 7 had been developed until after she finished Prisoner of Azkaban.

I think of it this way.  The first three books were very episodic.  Each book was it's own episode in a t.v. series.  Little ties the three together except that the three main characters are best friends and that they attend school together and look forward to it each year.  But the book has to be about something, so there's the ever looming threat of Voldemort's possible return to power some day.  And, yes, something does happen, as individual plot lines, in each of the first three books that is entirely wrapped around that single plot line (Voldy's attempts at returning to power, whether by him directly or his servant or magical items).

In Goblet of Fire, the story takes a turn.  The end of the book brings an actual cliffhanger.  Yes, Prisoner of Azkaban alludes to that story starting with the escape of Peter Pettigrew, which leads me to the conclusion that Rowling developed the idea of the horcruxes and Voldemort's return to power via, what are in essence, one of his lich phylacteries, while writing Prisoner of Azkaban.

I'm so glad I decided to reread these books because now I'll have a first-time shot through all seven books without waiting for a single one.  I'll retain a lot of things from the previous books that I most likely did not retain while waiting for the next one to be released.  And with this little analysis, one of the thoughts that I've mulled around in my brain since I finished the series for the first time was "Did Rowling intend the series to end up like this?  When Rowling started in on Sorcerer's Stone, was this this story she imagined?  Did it turn out like she wanted?"

If I ever get a chance to speak with her, via letter or in person, I would ask her this:  "When you began writing Sorcerer's Stone, were  you already aware of the overarching plot for the rest of the books?  Did you already know about Voldemort's horcruxes and his soul that was split seven ways, one in him and six external pieces?  Or did this all develop later?"  I'd also ask her where she got the idea of the horcrux from, because they are so similar to lich phylacteries that I can't imagine she got it anywhere else.

I thought of all this while reading Prisoner of Azkaban again, finally coming to the conclusion that some time while writing the end of this book she must have developed the rest of the story for the series.  I'm just not sure I'd believe it if she had planned the entire series out before she wrote the first book.  At least, I'd be incredibly surprised if she did because the first three books feel so different from the last four.

Anyway, thoroughly enjoyed my reread of Prisoner of Azkaban.  On to Goblet of Fire.