On Diablo 3 Season 5 started on Friday. Our author Schuhmann shares his experiences.
The more I write about games, the harder it gets to find time to play them in peace. While I used to spend days with my guildmates in World of Warcraft, I now prefer small doses of Hearthstone, Armored Warfare, or checking out the latest game during beta or launch that we report on.
My old buddies, on the other hand, play one League of Legends match after another for hours, are engaged in team shooters like Payday 2, or suddenly fall victim to the Fallout virus.
The Diablo virus infected my friends
It’s rare that we play together anymore. For years, I was particularly envious of the Diablo 3 craze that seemed to infect them about three times a year. Then they would play like crazy for two weeks, shouting “Schnitzel! Schnitzel!” into TeamSpeak and were like hypnotized.
I hadn’t bought Diablo 3 back then. My last experiences with the Diablo franchise were a wonderful summer and incredibly high phone bills. My father still reminds me of that old Telekom bill.
Diablo 2 was my first “real” online game back then, and that was before there was flat-rate Internet here. Not a good combination.
In Season 4, they left me behind after a bathroom break!
In any case, I eventually gave in last year, bought Diablo 3 and the expansion. And I was ready when Season 4 started. A few old comrades and I leveled up in a trio. I could at least keep up with them for about 2 or 3 hours. Then they said: We’re taking a bathroom break, and while the other two crazy guys were back in 2 minutes, I thought: No, I’m getting too old for this. I need at least thirty minutes. And that wasn’t really up for discussion.
When I logged in the next day, one of them had played all night, the other had slept for 6 hours but was already back in at 5:00 in the morning. Both were completely out of reach, and I only found my footing again when they were leveling their twinks.
This time, it should be different! My goal: An intense Diablo session – right from the start!
Obstacle I: Getting out on time despite The Division
Now it happens that Season 5 for Diablo 3 started at 5:00 PM on a Friday. And that just happened to be the day we had more work in the office than usual.
In the morning, the beta data for The Division came in, Bungie had somehow arranged the vendor Xur in Destiny poorly again, and he had to be repositioned. Additionally, at 7:00 PM, the head start for Blade & Soul began – I really should check that out too. And those were just the highlights.
My plan: To have everything done by 4:00 PM.
I somewhat organized the day, gave the succubus enough food so that news would still appear on the site after 4:00 PM, and wanted to make my escape when exactly then the worldwide embargo for “The Division” broke and my boss, despite the stress, just kept throwing links of articles at me that we absolutely had to do.
After my reasonable and composed response: “Dude, it’s 4:10 on a Friday! I want to play now!” we decided to postpone it to the next days.
Obstacle II – “Actually, we’re not planning anything, we’re just coincidentally online together”
However, it is impossible to coordinate any appointment with my online colleagues to play Diablo 3 together.
Because, according to their statements, they never plan to play together; they’re just online at the same time and then don’t log out for the next 16 hours.
When I landed with them around 4:40 PM, they were already “coincidentally” ready to get started again. I had actually planned to play a Crusader this season. But that was already taken by someone else – and since I assumed we would start together, I made myself a Barbarian.
Then, after some difficulties logging in, the surprise: They didn’t even want to play with me, those jerks. They had gotten some guide that said “Solo to level 70 in these handy 432 steps!” and had to play solo like crazy now.
The first 5 levels on “Master”, then lower the difficulty to Hard, then Nephalem Rifts, then craft this weapon, get that armor set, do this, do that.
Well, nothing came of the shared journey again. I tried to struggle through on my own and pull a few pieces of information from the complicated mumbling the others were giving, which led to me biting my teeth on mobs at the completely wrong difficulty level and quickly being 20 levels behind.
When I finally reached level 70, 24 hours later, the others were already in triple-digit Paragon levels. Again, I couldn’t keep up.
It’s just Diablo
The funny thing is: In the end, it didn’t make a difference, it was a great evening. Because as a latecomer said, whom I hadn’t seen in months: Man, my whole Battle Friend list is online and everyone is playing Diablo 3.
The TeamSpeak filled up over the course of the evening, a lot of nonsense was talked, people were seen again whom you had missed, and in the end, you didn’t have to play together to have fun. Just exchanging in TeamSpeak was enough. The season start for Diablo is like a class reunion.
When I finally asked towards the end: “And how is the new season going?”, I hoped for some polished responses, but received a mumbled “It’s just Diablo.” in between hacks and clicks.
Upon further inquiry, there were a few details: The massacre bonus is cool, the speed bonus when destroying things feels cool too, and the displays are better now. They then raised it to “It’s just Diablo, but a bit more convenient.”
Oh yes, and that Kadala is a “bitch,” I should also pass that on.
How was your weekend with Diablo 3?
