By zuul on 7/5/00

Article Discussion Forum

The morning of June 29, 2000, started much like any other morning until my boyfriend _fo0k called me into the spare bedroom and said, "We have to have a serious talk before you leave for work." With foreboding in my heart, I sat down and waited for some sort of ax to fall. He looked at me earnestly, stood up and began..."You need to decide what character you plan to play in Diablo II because we will be playing tonight. And what sort of character you choose is very important." What?! This is serious? OK, sometimes I think we have different priorities, but I was at least relieved to know that was all that was on his mind. I pretended to take it just as seriously as he did for as long as I could stand it, but that wasn't long. You see, I was not a hardcore gamer...at least not yet.

Imagine it, the most anticipated game of the year (according to my friends), Diablo II, and I get to really cut my gaming teeth on it! I was nervous about really trying to get into any game, but considering Diablo II is the one that my boyfriend has been talking about ever since he saw the preview at E3 '98, there was even more pressure on me to love it, if not live it. Everyone around me was so excited about its June 29th release that I felt myself getting caught up, and by the time I got my hot little hands on my own personal copy, I couldn't wait to get home and pop it in. And that's when the trouble started...

So, the server was down. I installed the game with no problem. I decided to be a Paladin, so I created my awesome character and tried to connect to Battlenet for some kick-butt fighting, but I was stuck playing single-player for about an hour to begin with because the server was mysteriously down. Little did I, or anyone else, know that this was to be a sign of things to come. Single-player was cool to learn on, and _fo0k showed my around and how to use my character so I wouldn't feel so lost when we got into Battlenet. I discovered that I really like having a big club to whack people with! Apparently I have a little violent/destructive streak in me. I was able to build my Paladin, "zuulkeeper", up to level 4 with no problem, and after running around alone for a while, I was ready to get into Battlenet and get serious.

So, the server was down. Eventually, both _fo0k and I got into Battlenet, but there was no one else around that we could find, so we just decided to play by ourselves. After only a short time, however, I discovered that I like playing alone at the early levels because I get all of the loot and experience. Plus I get to whack everything! Occasionally we would rejoin so that he could give me better armor or weapons since no matter how hard I tried, I could not seem to find anything cool. I found myself getting very frustrated and frantic if my character was overwhelmed, but once _fo0k assured me that I would lose nothing but gold if I died and could easily retrieve my body, I started relaxing and really getting into it. That first night, the server went down a lot, but I could feel myself transforming into a real gamer.

So, the server was down. Friday evening after work brought more of the same problems. Fortunately, I was able to get in immediately, and I stayed on for a full hour before the server crashed, but there was another problem. Although, I had not really experienced too much lag the first night, Friday was a little worse. Still, I managed to happily run around killing things up until sometime around midnight when my connection was interrupted for around the 4th time in 6 hours. At that point, I figured it was time to take a break anyway. As I drifted off to sleep, with visions of Undead and Fallen dancing in my head, I thought about the bugs and issues that had plagued play the first two nights. I decided that it was probably because everyone was trying to get on at the same time after work, and I had faith that I would easily get into Battlenet in the morning while the rest of the gamers slept.

So, the server was down. Hmm. I am sensing a trend here. Are you? There were more of the same problems on Saturday, and I canceled plans to go to a concert (for free) so that I could play since the server was down almost all afternoon. (I am starting to sound like a hardcore gamer now, aren't I? Scary.) Once I finally got in, several crash-free hours rolled by while I obliviously got sucked into the game. My trusty Paladin was up to level 12 by the end of Saturday night, and I was really enjoying it. On Sunday, the lag was a lot worse than I had ever seen it, and I was pretty frustrated, threatening not to play anymore. At one point, _fo0k told me I had died, and when I realized I must have been lagged, all I could do was sit there and watch as my Paladin ran around mindlessly and finally died...two minutes later. It was almost more than I could take, but I found myself going back in and dealing with it. As annoyed as I got, and as loudly as I complained, I just could not walk away.

Now, I realized that there are a lot of people out there who are playing Diablo II, and a lot of you are complaining even more than I am in the chat rooms. Yes, the lag is awful, and the server is down more often than not it seems, but come on, when you finally get a good stretch, it really is pretty damn cool; for instance, I have managed to pick up a healing aura, a might aura, an aura of thorns, that reflects damage back onto the attacker, and an aura of defiance that seems to really protect me, and my party when I have one, until you get to the big mama at the end of level 1. And I found a cool spear that does tons of damage and had my boots imbued. Now who can argue with that? So, I guess we are all just going to have to suck it up until the kinks get worked out, which they will.

In the meantime, leave a message at the beep 'cause I am unavailable...

Now then, select which answer best describes your Diablo II experience: