Absent friends: Diablo 2
It’s the fourth hour of my gaming session. For the entirety of my evening, I have been hacking a bunch of monsters to bits with my axe, looting their corpses, then reloading and killing the same monsters all over again. I am hitting the Council for Charms, and if I don’t dick about, I can do it once per minute. I have therefore done 240 Council runs this evening, and so far I have not found a single charm worth keeping.
I am having fun playing Diablo II.
My girlfriend lies on our bed, unfulfilled, while I stab frenetically at the left mouse button and mutter to myself about how Wyand Voidbringer is possibly the most selfish prick on the planet, seeing as I’ve murdered him two hundred times and he has so far failed to cough a charm out of his dying sphincter. Later, my girlfriend and I will do The Nasty Dance, but I won’t be thinking of her. I’ll be thinking of my level 87 barbarian. At the moment of climax, I will blurt out “I LOVE YOU, SH’GGGNXRKX!” and will quickly roll over so that I don’t have to witness my girlfriend’s stifled sobs.
Had this happened to me, I would not actually have been surprised.
This is what Diablo II does to a person. Its fatally well-balanced blend of simplicity and depth is more addictive than a Kinder Bueno filled with heroin. It’s basically you, in a field, with a bunch of monsters whom you are supposed to hurt until they die. The more monsters you hurt, the better you get at hurting monsters. Every time one of them dies, out pops a random item which may or may not be of use to you; some items are very common, and some are fabulously rare.
And that’s it. Throw in a bunch of other human players, and you can spend entire months of your life killing things and looting their corpses over and over again, searching for that one rabid hedgehog who is for some reason storing a unique battleaxe in his stomach. Not every hedgehog is equal, however, and the complexity of the game lies in working out the places where you’re most likely to get a certain drop. And then going there and killing the same hedgehog, over and over again, for the rest of your crumbling life.
It’s the gambler’s obsession. Diablo players are only one step removed from those flaccid, corpulent ladies who pump coins into Las Vegas slot machines until they quietly expire and are disposed of by the staff.
The blue items are magical. The green belong to a set, and the brown… oh god, the BROWN… sorry, I appear to have made a mess
To me, Oblivion felt like a “good” addiction, because it made a genuine attempt to involve you in its story. It may have been addictive, but it had class; the Laudanum of the gaming world. Diablo II, on the other hand, feels more like cheap meth smoked out of a crystal clog. Despite the wonderful music and great cutscenes, Diablo’s core gameplay is quick, dirty and horribly compelling, and if you stop to think about it, you shouldn’t find a single reason why you would want to stay addicted. But you don’t stop to think, because you’re too busy levelling up, planning your skill tree, and scamming other players out of items they don’t even realise are valuable.
Yes, Diablo can turn the most generous soul into a greedy, conniving fuckbucket who would mug his mother if she stumbled over a sweet drop. After a few weeks, people become less important than words written in brown text. A couple of years ago, I actually managed to convince my Finnish girlfriend to play this game with me, and our happy relationship morphed into nothing but Diablo sessions separated by some tedious conversation and the occasional bout of payment cunnilingus. I would mutter cryptic phrases about “twatty sandcrawlers” in my sleep, and if I was shaken awake, I would reflexively sit bolt upright and scream “NOT YET! I’VE GOT TO ASK DROGNAN ABOUT THE STRANGE DARKNESS!”, and then burst into tears.
It had to end. But how?
In retrospect, the solution was a blinding flash of genius. Get dumped. Afterwards, my schedule was far too busy for Diablo. In between the sobbing sessions and the angry, reproachful masturbation, there was barely time to prepare my thrice-daily packet of mushroom Super Noodles, never mind spend six hours a night hunting for a magic ring which would only get stolen by some cunt in Germany anyway.
Misery, you are my faithful friend.
Filed under: Gaming nostalgia
Diablo 2 is a shit of a game. I had the exact same problem, every single night would be another welcoming party for endless grinding. Thank GOD I was involved in theatrics my senior year otherwise, I’d still be sucking on that night after night.
When you think about the grind, it’s ludicrous that you could ever enjoy playing a game like Diablo. But you do, in massive amounts. I must admit that the game world drew me in, basic as it was. The music was absolutely superb too; it wasn’t just the constant gambling for shiny things that made this game so addictive, although I still feel a vague lurch of desire when I think about SOJs.
Mushroom super noodles?
You make me sick, sir.
Chicken, sure, curry, of course. BBQ or the “fancy new flavour with a fancy new pack that wont be available next month but has a funny picture on it” if you are adventurous, but mushroom?
You lost me there.
Back in college I very nearly took a lighter my D2 discs so I wouldn’t be fatally distracted. Instead I decided to pass my classes by crying and begging a lot.
Ahhh the halcyon days of my youth.
You’re so right: I WAS ‘those flaccid, corpulent ladies who pump coins into Las Vegas slot machines’, execpt for the penis.
I mean playing this demonic necronomicon of game was like:
5 hrs: fun.
7 hrs: sucks.
7 hrs 5 min: HEY! A green thing! COOL.
12 hrs: desperate fun - looking for more green things.
15 hrs: sucks. no green stuff. I hate you LoD!!!
15 hrs 3 min: YoooHooo! Another green thing! doesn’t fit to the other set… I better keep on searching for the rest of it! *happiness*
…
and so on and so on.
This fucking game just knows the right time to feed you some sugar.
And if I’m looking at the comments I see there were millions of fools to fall for this game.
Thanks Tim! This is like a self help group.
Hi, my name is Frankie. I’m a Diablo2-crack-whore.
SHIT! I have to work, and can’t think of nothing else but diablo! thanks! FUCK!
You should just promise yourself not to do stuff twice in one day and always keep “the story” moving forward. Invite some friends and have a lan party. That way you can have lot’s of fun. Also cheat and make things with 100% more chance of finding magical items.
“I’VE GOT TO ASK DROGNAN ABOUT THE STRANGE DARKNESS!”
Classic, Cam. The days of frantically trying to piggyback someone else’s Hell Rush… those were the days.
I also fondly recall those happy times spent dungeon crawling while some 11-year-old repeatedly yelled “CAN SUM1 DO ANCIENTS WITH ME COME ON DO ANCIENT WITH ME YOU FUCKIN FAGG0TZ U ALL SUCK COME ON PLZ”. So relaxing.
I don’t deserve anything better. When I’m in the supermarket, I look at the packets of chicken, or curry, or Super Novelty Texmexican, and I think to myself “I am not entitled to these hallowed heights of flavour. A man as worthless as me deserves the very worst life has to offer”.
Then I go home and watch Hollyoaks while drinking Harp lager.
This game is so addicting, I got hooked on a DEMO VERSION. One where there was just one dungeon level, with a finite amount of monsters, which you reset, but you got to keep your weapons and loot. So I was endlessly roving the same dungeon, eventually getting powerful and kitted-up enough to be swatting away monsters like insects, yet still endlessly refreshing the world for more monsters to kill.
\Someone should do a study on this sort of crap. There’s probably something very profound about the human race to be observed here.
I’m actually starting to wish I’d never made this post. All day I’ve been unable to get smegging Diablo out of my head. I go for an hour or so without too much trouble, then I’ll get a sudden image of my barbarian owning Oblivion Knights in the Chaos Sanctuary as I listen with glee to the PING sound of flawless gems falling to the ground.
Or how about opening a random chest in the Maggot Lair and staring in disbelief as an ist rune pops out.
Or taking down Baal in an 8-person party, seeing a unique ring drop, and darting in to grab it first. Then screaming to myself IT’S AN SOJ IT’S AN SOJ IT’S AN SOJ it’s a fucking Ravenfrost.
I know for a fact that re-installing this game will make me miserable and destroy all I have worked so hard to achieve. And yet I still want to do it, because I am an unmitigated spazztard.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo quick try masturbating the D2 away!
Also listen to the new Tilly and The Wall album, it’s excellent.
I’d never heard of Tilly And The Wall before. They’re really fun. Do they have permanant tap-dancers? Because that would be pretty much the most awesome thing ever.
Oh god, my Diablo craving is getting worse. I made the mistake of visiting the forums at http://www.planetdiablo.com and within two minutes I was fighting off the urge to rush a sorc and start doing Ancient Tunnel runs. This is HORRIBLE and STUPID and I feel like a KNOB-WRANGLER.
Tilly and the Wall totally DO have a permanent tap dancer. They set up a special little stage for her with mics under it when they play live, and it’s awesome.
That is all I have to contribute since I don’t know from video games. What you need is more talk of knob-wrangling.
I first read “do they have permanent lap dancers?” and thought naughty thoughts about the knob-wrangler thing too. Maybe you need more of a filthy mind to keep distracted from diablo II. Although I feel the urge to bash my way to act I with a lvl 30 barbarian just for laughs. Ah man, I feel for you they could be working on diablo III right now (release after starcraft) and you are never going to feel the bliss.
I’ve never played Diablo, but one thing I’ve always liked about it (whenever I see a screenshot) is that gorgeous blue sphere that serves as a health gauge… or mana gauge.. or something. It’s so spherical and shiny and crisp.
That’s the mana gauge. Blue seems to be the colour of magic in several games, including Bioshock; I wonder which game started the trend. Probably the original Diablo. Unless games like Eye Of The Beholder did it first? You know what, I can’t remember, although I do remember the complete lack of maps in old-school RPGs. We are a bunch of gaming pussies nowadays.
They ARE working on it! Well, probably. http://www.diablo3.com has suddenly been bought by Blizzard, and gaming mags are dropping huge hints about “hell” and “cows”.
If the rumours are true, I might as well lightly sautée my balls and garnish them with parsley, because this game is going to eat them.
Also- on a totally unrelated note, TIM! I was just watching that show “Spaced” and “Because We Want To!” by Billie Piper was in an episode. It reminded me of you. Thx for teh laughz
Oh man, I completely forgot that song was on Spaced. Which episode was it?
If you need another Billie Piper fix (and I’m sure you’re hooked by now) then check out the indescribably brilliant awfulness that is Honey To The Bee.
Come on, buzz me up to heaven, baby!
If other people are wondering why I would link to such a… song, check out this post on GooglyEyes.com
I think I only ever played online a few times as we had shitty dial up and I kept getting kicked off all the time. But there are two things two occurrences that I remember very clearly:
you were a sorceress and I was an amazon and we were comparing breast sizes and saying phwooar and such, then some random person happened to drop in said ooo errr and buggered off again!
You are so very right about the Germans as after killing some badass one of them shouted at me DAS IST MEIN AMULET! Did I give it to him? Did I fuck.
Heh. I totally stole the “das ist mein amulet” line from you, because I remembered you talking about it with great amusement.
I AM A FRAUD AND A SHAM
this post made me cry. I have now reinstalled the game for the 7th time since I got it. and since teusday, I’ve been playing it for 3 hours a day, and rejected all plans for the weekend just to play a 12 hours marathon til I drop.
Which char did you choose, and what is your skill strategy? I need to know so that I can make myself deeply unhappy for a prolonged period of time.
The irony is Tim that it wasn’t even that good an amulet. I’m afraid I can’t be more specific and say it was called something like Windtalker’s Bumrush or some such.
The story is out people and you know where the material really comes from…
im that girlfriend…it sucks