Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Diablo II, a game I very much remember picking up in the store. In fact I remember that pretty much the entire office ran out at lunch to pick the game up. A few years back we tried to play the game for the AggroChat Game Club and found that it does not hold up anywhere near as well as our memories of it. If you log into the game right now you get a free set of “prime evil” wings, which are sorta ugly as sin… but it is also free cosmetics so yay. If you so choose there is a big post with various Blizzard voices talking about what the game meant to them. There is another post up on the official site talking about the various things in commemoration of the event including the wings.
For me Diablo II is a weird sign post, because it represents a schism in the ARPG crowd. It is the game that a certain group of players hold up on a pedestal as being when the game was perfect and pure. I on the other hand happen to love Diablo III and am quite honestly afraid that Diablo IV may not be a game I actually want to play based on how hard it seems to be drawing on those grim dark vibes. The key problem I have going back and playing Diablo II these days it is that the game play feels so damned sluggish and slow. I am used to zipping around the field and the rushing through rifts style gameplay of Diablo III. There is also the massive problem of having to decide upon your build the moment you start playing instead of constantly being able to evolve it as you progress completing resetting it at any time you choose.
Diablo IV seems compelling, but when there is talk of World PVP… I start seriously tuning out. I don’t want PVP in my Diablo period… and if it has to exist for the vocal edge case folks then I hope it is walled off much like War Mode in World of Warcraft. I am already not super certain what I think about having players blended into my world, because Diablo for me is a very solitary or small group activity. I don’t interact with the larger community and I have never once grouped with someone I did not already know in Diablo III. After looking forward to the game for so long, a fear is starting to set in that it might not be a game I actually enjoy playing. Hopefully Blizzard will continue to support Diablo III at least their current lackluster support mode so I can keep playing it if the fourth game and I don’t get along.
Diablo III Season 21 – July 3rd
This is also your friendly reminder that along with logging in to get your wings, you should be logging in to get your mailbox straightened out. On July 3rd they are starting the new season and once again I plan on playing a seasonal character. The goal right now is to play up another Crusader because Haedrig’s Gift is Invokers… my favorite Crusader set for pushing. Since this is an extended weekend I am hoping to be able to stay up later than the average seasonal start and push most of the way to the level cap. I said yesterday on twitter than the season is almost a religious experience for me and that is absolutely true. While the experience is ultimately short lived, I look forward to it each time.
Iron Banana
Additionally this week I have the beginning of the first Iron Banner of Season 11, and it is my goal to make a significant amount of progress prior to getting sucked into Diablo III on Friday. I plan on logging in tonight and beginning the grind on my Hunter then following the path through Warlock and finally ending up on my Titan for maximum light gain. Additionally in answer to something I threw out there yesterday… it seems like we are shaping up a raid team and have all of the necessary players and a few extras to hopefully make that happen. For those who are looking for friendly conversation while doing the Destiny we have my “Beyond the Light” discord community that you are more than welcome to join. We spent some time yesterday commenting about my apparent clairvoyance with naming the community damned closed to the upcoming “Beyond Light” expansion back when the game launched.
All in all it has been an exceptionally stressful time for me at work, but the gaming front has procuded some fun activities for me to devote time and resources towards. I ran a few nightfalls with Chef and Prae last night which were a blast, though fell significantly short of the 100k needed for rewards. The fun part however is probably the most important aspect, and hopefully we can hook up over the next few nights to do some banana.
I greatly preferred DI to DII. Being locked into a build was really frustrating, Pure luck determined whether your first build was any good if you didn’t do research out of game before you started playing. I honestly have never understood why DII is on such a pedestal. I to this day would much rather play DI, DIII or even Angband.