Player finishes Diablo III in 12 hours 29 minutes (and others in 7)

Many of you burnt the midnight oil in order to get in on the Diablo III action, even with the massive server jams, but normal human beings are properly getting their first taste of the game this morning. You're already behind: one NeoGaf forum poster has finished the game, starting at launch and playing straight through for 12 hours and 29 minutes. Playing as a Barbarian, he reached Level 32 by the time he had finished.

Yoshichan managed to power through the game, posting on NeoGaf once he had finished with his final stats: "Frenzy baba with lots and lots of mobility and defensive skills – 415 dps unbuffed, ~700 dps buffed." Some posters in the thread take this to be a sign of the game's length, but the reality is that with four difficulty modes, five classes, and randomly generated epic items with the Real Money Auction House in tow, Blizzard has designed it to be played for a long time to come.

So, what is he going to be doing next? Playing through the game again, this time in Nightmare mode. That increases the difficulty of the game, with enemies dishing out additional damage and some spells not being as effective. After that is Hardcore mode, the trickiest of all. When your character dies in that mode, it really is game over: all progress and items are lost, and you'll have to start over from the beginning of the game.

UPDATE: Looks like no one can speed run like the Koreans. MMOSite reports that several players have taken down the final boss in around seven hours, throwing up the screenshots to prove it too.

[via EuroGamer]