Love Letters to Angry Women

Killing demons is her business, and business is good. The joy of playing a Demon Hunter is the joy of a job well done. She approaches slaying monsters with a single mindedness and focus that flirts with monomania. The character is completely two dimensional, but it lines up so well with my own desires that it is totally perfect. We both want the same thing from Diablo III, to kill everything. Forget character development, forget plot twists, just point me in the direction of something that I can shoot in the face.

                Not only does she murder with cold blooded efficiency, but she also does it with style. Dual-wielding crossbows is just ludicrously spectacular. Logically it makes about as much sense a dual-wieldingshields, but who cares about logic. She rarely even alternates firing them, she just fires both at the same time. It follows the reasoning that if one of something is good, then two will be great, and I love it. The Demon Hunter is also a snappy dresser. Hoods are sweet, but when you have sinister glowing eye to go with them, they’re magnificent (I’m actually kind of surprised that there isn’t a skill to shoot laser beams of pure fury out of her eyes). What would a hood be without the cloak to go with it? A hooded cloak is the peak of medieval style. It’s like being a really angry Robin Hood, but instead of giving money to the poor I use it to buy stash space.

These boots are made for killing, but not really walking

                Sadly, the looks can’t kill, so it is a good thing that she has skills to pay the bills. I like to play my Demon Hunter using the following abilities. Bola Shot with a Volatile Explosives rune is my favorite signature skill (when it comes to explosions, bigger is always better). Area of Effect (AOE) damage over 14 yards is nice and the explosion delay is fun. I can stack some bolas on a demon and then cold bloodedly turn my back as they struggle with the death clock wrapped around their neck. Bolas also bring back fond memories of an old Jurassic Park game, which is nice. For my main AOE damage I use Multi-Shot, because it is basically just a 60° wedge of death. I used to think that the Diablo II Multi-shot was a lot of arrows, but wow, in Diablo III it’s like she made and entire tree into arrows and then fired them all at the same instant. Single target damage is all about Impale. Nothing beats finishing someone off with a throwing knife, and on larger enemies I get to reenact a favorite scene from Problem Sleuth. I even have the “Sleuth Roll” covered with my Vault skill. Vault is not just a handy escape skill, but also helps me move around faster than running (which is sometimes a problem when I show up to fights with no discipline). Caltrops are just so practical and useful for slowing and snaring enemies that I can’t even think of anything absurd to say about them. Having all the skill I need to slay any ravening horde of slavering beasts, for my last skill I decided to go from something a little calmer, friendly even. I got myself a companion, because under all that anger, deep down she is an animal lover (but only when they are spiders, ravens, and the like, because she has a reputation to consider). I prefer to roll with the ferrets, because gold is good, and they are just chock-full of charisma (I call them Codo or Podo).

The Team

                I’m not ashamed to say that I love my Demon Hunter. She gives me everything I want and nothing I don’t, by fully embracing my Diablo philosophy. You just smash everything, collect the loot, and then move on to the next bloodbath as quickly as possible. Who cares about dialog, quests, and story? It is all just a job to her. Just tell me who to kill and where I can find them. Don’t worry about payment, I do this because I enjoy it. Like I said before, killing demons is her business, and business is good.

Day 1

The End of Times are upon us, and I feel it is my duty to record my experiences of the first day for those who may survive (too much caffeine and too little sleep can kill right?). To follow are my thoughts and impressions of my first experiences with Diablo III, written mostly as it happened, with a few comments added in editing (the raw form had a little demonic taint to it, aka terrible sentence structure). CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS as far as the Beta content went, so you have been warned.

5:45 Game downloaded, servers up, time to rock. It’s quit convenient that the US Servers came up just when I needed them. Blizzard was probably waiting for me, so sorry everyone else who couldn’t play for a while until I was ready. I’m rolling a Demon Hunter for my character to co-op with Eli, who will be joining me on this adventure. My ranginess should go well with Eli’s barbarian melee action. Went with a female character, as is my style. This should be good.

6:15 Ran into my old friend Deckard Cain. He didn’t even bring up that I have quite a treasure in my Haradric Cube, so that was nice. The dude was old when I last saw him twenty years ago, but he doesn’t look much worse for wear. In fact his graphics are much improved. I also met his niece. She seems nice, even if I hear Donnie Iris every time I talk to her.

7:00 I really like my character animations. She really leans into her Rapid Fire, and it makes me want to man yell every time I use it (in a good way). I also like the fact that she wears leather pants.

Kakakakakaka

7:45 Grabbed a banana before the fight with the skeleton king. Feeling refreshed and everyone knows that potassium is the most important mineral for blowing stuff up.

8:00 The Skeleton King has died by my hands, or at least by the crossbow bolts I shot with my hands. Oh, and there was this other dude bashing his skull with a couple of axes, so whatever, he’s dead and I helped. I am rewarded with a rare drop and some actual story (in a Diablo game!?!). Eli has to cook dinner so I am now on my own, so it is time for some wizardly face melting!

8:30 Arcane orbs kick ass. It is pretty much a case of ^Rwhatever she hits, she destroys^R (the R quote mean that you should read that with a Russian accent, and if you say that I can’t just make up my own punctuation all I can say is that I just did). I also like pony tails, it is the best female hair style ever (what is the best male hairstyle you ask? This guy). Pony tails are functional, I find them attractive, and they are fun pieces of game physics.

A nice quiet moment of reflection. 

9:15 I’m having some connection issues. In a single player game of all places!?! Disconnected twice and I think I am going to call it a night. Cob out.

There you have it. Some primary source material of this (probably not) historic day in human history. To be totally honest, I did play some Beta, so I only had about 30 seconds of actual new game experience. But the Beta isn't really the game, so I’m still calling it first impressions. I leave future generation to determine its historic and cultural relevance (but I will bet you twenty dollars it falls in the miniscule to infinitesimal range).

End of Days

Here we begin,

Time is creeping slowly as the beginning of the end is coming fast.  I stand ready to defend Sanctuary from the powers of Burning Hell. Take up the fight.  See you all soon on the fields outside New Tristram.  May your blades be shape, your spells powerful, and your courage enduring.

In the beginning, there was Diablo II

        So to talk about Diablo III, I need to first talk about Diablo II. In two words, these are my feelings about Diablo II, REDICULOUSLY AWESOME (I yell because it is true). But sadly the meanings of these words have been diluted by overuse. Please do not mistake this description for the likes of an eight year old describing his recess antics. There is sincerity and depth to my usage. I am realizing now that two words are insufficient to convey my intended message. Rather than write another description, I will describe my reasoning behind these two words.

Hanging with my boys

        First, REDICULOUS (still yelling because it is still true). Anyone who has ever played a Frenzy Barbarian, a Meteor Sorcerous, or a Multi-shoting Amazon may know what I’m talking about. I use these three examples because they are all instances of when playing Diablo II, I sat back and objectively observed what was going on in the game, and then began to laugh maniacally (I summoning necromancer could also be mentioned here, but that is the main character I play, so I’ve become jaded). Seeing a burly, half dressed man sprinting around, wind-milling two weapons like a lumberjack on speed; flaming boulders raining from the sky, leaving nothing but flames, corpses, and loot behind; or just so many arrow, just… just so many arrows. The characters and their shenanigans aren’t even the thing I find most outrageous about the game (changing up the word choice using the power of synonyms). The concept of the game and its mechanics are completely absurd. The whole game is just killing many, many things, and collecting loot, and that is what I love about it. It is just a simple concept taken to extreme measures. You can practically go through the whole game without any dialog, and all of the quests are optional (although you would have to be insane to pass up free skill point quest rewards). Another preposterous thing in the game that I love is the names. Who wouldn’t love someone named Puke Grumble the Unclean? Oh to wield the Hibernal Battle Scythe of Anthrax.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, BOOM          

        And now, AWESOME. The way I play is thusly. I have only ever played single player and TCP/IP games since I have trouble playing my characters every 90 days on Battle.net. I might have edited my game to run multiple copies at once, so that I can trade between my own characters (another reason I like TCP/IP). All of my characters can share loot, so they are all well-equipped. Normal and Nightmare difficulties are played at a frantic pace, with the difficulty cranked up to eight players. Hell difficulty is where the best loot is had, and where the game is at its best. Diablo II is almost certainly the most intrinsically fun games that I have ever played, with the only rival being NBA Jam on the Super Nintendo (but not tournament edition, because you can’t break the backboard in that one).  Just a rewarding system of leveling and looting, and fun and exciting ways to kill stuff is all that I need in a game. If I want to destroy enemies with an increasingly godlike character, Diablo II is generally the only place I go. Sometimes I like games that have story, strategy, or immersive worlds, but I have come back to Diablo II again and again for all of the nearly 12 years since I started playing it. Possibly the most stupendous thing about the game is how consistently good it is. Every single class has been fun to play in my experience, and most of them have multiple interesting ways to play. The skill system that rewards focusing on only a few skills is something that I enjoy (I have always had a respect for tools that only do one job, but do them well). Everything is so simple, yet so very good.

        Without a doubt, Diablo II is my favorite game of its type. I have high hopes for Diablo III, but to be honest also some fears. I have a history of hating sequels to my favorite games. I do know that if Diablo III stays true to the core themes of Diablo II, I will not be disappointed.