How did you discover Path of Exile

Was getting bored playing D3 a few months after it was released and browsed the forums.
Read a thread discussing new options to endgame and someone mentioned a map system which had just been introduced in a game, which sounded interesting, so I created an account on PoE for a chance at a closed beta key(was too cheap to buy one), then a few months later I gave up on D3 and bought the key and was hooked.

kripp and the d3 forums.

The Kripparian

D3 forums.

From Kripp.

May he rest in peace

some post on D3 about how much better PoE was.

Made an account and participated in an Open beta weekend.

Torchlight 2

Stumbled across it when researching D3 and Torchlight 2. It was still in Closed Beta. I donated and joined the Closed Beta and have been here since.

Can't remeber it was in closed beta , I recieved a key after like a month waiting .

Sometime early december 2012 (about a month before OB) I was starting to feel the arpg itch. Strongly enough that I thought starting up D3 again was a good idea even though I felt I was done with it. So started up the launcher and noticed there was an update that needed to go through first so I went onto Gamefaqs to look at the D3 board to see what had changed since I last played.

There I found a thread about someone asking for something similar. Someone in there recommended PoE and linked to the site. So I took a look at the game introduction, learned about their pay to win stance and the gem system along with the passive tree. The gem system reminiscent of FF7 and the passive tree from FFX made me immediately interested.

Next I looked up some videos both gameplay such as TotalBuiscuits WTF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8779Ff_qoc and what still remains my favourite trailer: The Templar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZycHZmvy2n0

Since I liked what I saw so far only one more thing I needed to confirm; the opinion of people who didn't like the game. So this led me to some random forum thread on some Diablo fansite somewhere (don't remember which). The creator of the thread was apparently very dissatisfied with the game and had made it in the attempt to "warn" other people from doing the same. He got questions from those who hadn't heard anything about it and agreement from some who had.

Anyway the argument about the game went on for a few pages when something incredible happened. A new person appeared asking more specifically what points made them dislike it. Guess who it was? You got it: Chris Wilson.

As it happened I had encountered his name before when looking the game up so I was aware of who he was. I had never seen anything like this ever before and was very surprised. I kept reading in my bewilderment which started changing into something resembling admiration due to how he handled the conversation. He made several people who seemed even somewhat angry at the start to calm down and give constructive feedback on what they didn't like. He then responded with why it was that way or if they were planning to address any of the issues and further urged them to try it again at a later time.

I had initially planned to wait until the soon to come open beta to get free access. After this however I immediately stopped the D3 update, bought into the closed beta and started playing. Haven't regretted that decision in the least.