I'm sure the Diablo fans out there, or anyone who posts in the video game forums, knows of this, but D3 has been announced. I'm not making this post to talk about D3, however. Instead, I wanted to take a trip back to memory lane and revisit my past, and discuss why Diablo II had such a big impact on my life.

I was about to be a freshman in highschool when the new PC game Diablo II hit the markets of summer 2000. Being someone who had played Starcraft I knew who Blizzard was and what Diablo was, but I never played the original. This did not stop me from becoming totally infatuated with Diablo II. There was something about this game that I couldn't put my finger on. Without knowing much about it besides it being a hack 'n slash RPG game, reading no reviews or information on the game, I purchased it almost immediately after it's release. I stepped into the Diablo universe with my newly created Necromancer, joining someone's game randomly (I went straight for online, none of that single player business), and spoke with an old man named Deckard Cain. I spent my time learning the basics of the game, and my journey bad begun.

For a while I mainly kept to myself when playing the game. I would join parties and quest, but I never really befriended anybody. That all changed after a few months of playing when I met a guy who I began talking with on a more constant basis. I ended up losing contact with this guy around the release of Lord of Destruction. It was a bummer to play without him because it had gotten to the point where we always played together, but because of my love for the game, I kept on truckin' it.

Before discussing LoD, there are two more things I wanted to mention. As I said previously, I began playing D2 as I was about to go into my freshman year of highschool. I ended up failing a lot of classes my freshman year. Math, science, and history, I failed. The only main course I passed was English, and my selective courses. I fully and completely blame the awesomeness of D2 for causing me to fail my freshman year. It consumed hours out of my life every single day. The following year I had to take special courses to make up the credits I had not gotten.

The second thing that happened was that I got my feelings substantially hurt one day while playing D2. I had heard about this new thing called "duping", where a person could make multiples of your items. I should have known better, but I was young and naive, and I gave my trust in this guy. He told me what I needed to do and I followed his instructions. I don't recall exactly how it went, but I do know it did not require me to give him any items, nor did I have to turn on the option to drop my items upon death. Because of these two reasons I felt I had nothing to lose. He had me follow these steps, and finally told me to come outside to where he was. He PK'd me and all of my gear dropped to the ground. My heart stopped as I could not believe what had just happened. I didn't understand it. I didn't have the option turned on for that to happen, so why did it? Later on I found out it was just a bug in the game where if you followed these certain steps (I really can't remember how it went), and a person PK'd you, your gear would drop like you did have that option turned on. The bug was later fixed, but it was too late for me. I lost my Ume's Lament wand and Wormskull helm, both of which were pretty rare items back when I had them. I didn't play for a while, and really felt like just quitting the game after that incident, but I just couldn't resist.

A year passed and Lord of Destruction was released. I was extremely excited. I was playing D2 more than ever before. I didn't have any friends at this point, so I was back to joining random games and just questing with strangers. After a while I finally ran into another guy I began talking with quite often, his name was Brian. Brian had much better gear than me, and seemed a lot more experienced with the game, so I looked up to him as a mentor of sorts. After a while Brian introduced me to his friend Matt (which also happens to be my name). As time went on, me and Matt became better and better friends, as Brian sort of drifted away. The thing about Brian was, he was an extremely addictive gamer who really looked out for himself. To put it simply, it was as if he chose gear over friends.

Even so, I kept contact with Brian and Matt for the remaining years we played D2. We had tons of great times, joining rooms and PKing newbs, fucking with Koreans (kakakaka, act1 gogogo~~~ -.-;;), and leveling up all types of characters. Killing cows never felt too monotonous when you had friends to kill cows with.

We ended up playing D2 for about two and a half years after meeting. Total I played D2 for about 3 and a half years. I had times where I took breaks, but if I had never taken breaks my time may have exceeded 4 years. It got to the point that we just couldn't go on playing. The game had become plagued by glitches and exploits. Everyone was duping, everyone was cheating. There was no reason to play legit, and we had been playing fair for so long that it didn't feel right to join in on the exploiting craze (although we did in the final days of our playing. I duped myself some gear, but it didn't make me happy. It made me feel like my D2 days had come to an end). Finally the inevitable time came, and we ended up leaving D2.

I still kept in contact with Matt, although at this point I didn't talk to Brian often. Matt, however, still spoke with Brian on MSN occasionally. More time passed and Matt told me that him and Brian had started playing a new game, Asheron's Call. I wanted to experience those same sensations I had back in the D2 days, so I jumped right in with them. I didn't play AC for very long, maybe 6 months. Brian played the game for a few years, becoming a very well recognized AC player (you know how I said Brian would always choose gear over friends? It never showed more so than when we played AC). I ended up joining with the notion that Brian and Matt would help me get started, since they had already been playing a while and had established themselves. It ended up just being Matt who really ever did anything with me in that game. Brian was always off doing his own thing, telling you "he will help you with that later", but later never came. Because of this Brian grew distant between me and Matt, and once we left AC we basically lost contact with Brian.

As far as me and Matt, we still talk today. We started playing WoW together as well about a year and a half ago, and as much as we enjoyed it, we could not get that same feeling back that D2 gave us, no matter how hard we tried. We have already basically stopped playing WoW too. Matt was busy with college and couldn't afford to invest enough time into WoW to make use of it. I was beginning to not enjoy playing alone, and I got tired of paying the $15. I canceled and renewed, and I canceled again and renewed again, but I just couldn't keep myself playing. It just wasn't the same. It wasn't Diablo II.

A few days ago Blizzard starting showing their infamous splash screens. Me and Matt talked about them each day they came up, hoping and praying it was D3. We would talk about D3 here and there, making jokes about how it would ruin our lives if it came out, wondering what it would be like if we started playing again. I always felt it was inevitable that D3 would release, as most people did, but I just didn't know when. And when it did, would I still care? Then, it happened. Earlier today in the wee hours of the morning, Blizzard announced D3. Matt began messaging me on MSN in a wild frenzy of excitement and disbelief. He was watching the live streaming footage of gameplay and had just told me about the trailer they showed. I couldn't connect to the video, so I just had to listen to Matt talk. After the show was over they put up their website page and I went there immediately and watched the footage and began reading. I had an excitement in me that I had not felt for other video games in a very long time. Now I knew what it was like for fans when they were highly anticipating their favorite game.

Now, we wait. Matt and I were thinking of getting into Warhammer once it released, and still talked about whether or not we should get back into WoW, but we both agreed that any interest we had in other online RPG games had been totally eliminated with the announcement of D3.

The question now is whether or not D3 will give me that same feeling I had so many years ago. I'm a lot older now, gaming has changed, me and Matt have changed. I keep wondering if I'm just feeding off the nostalgia of my old memories of D2. To be honest, I don't think I am. I am genuinely excited about this game, so much so that I pissed my girlfriend off by waking her up and telling her they announced D3.

Before I end this post I just want to talk about why I thought Diablo II was such a great game. Besides playing with friends, what made Diablo II such a memorable experience? In my opinion, this game is the epitome of what gaming should be. It's a simple game that sucks you in and can make you lose track of time. It has extremely high replay value, and you become attached to it because it awards your dedication to the time you've spent playing. It has an interesting and fun storyline, but the storyline doesn't try to smother you, and it doesn't try to make the game. It seems these days a lot of games are so story driven that they are sacrificing gameplay for a more cinematic experience, and that's not what games should be. It's brutal fun that involves you chopping enemies to little bits and pieces. It doesn't take a whole lot of smarts to fight enemies, but it does take a bit of thinking and planning when picking out the stats and skills of your character. It's a lot more fun to play in a group because it doesn't involve you having to micro manage every little aspect of the fight. You all just go in and start beating the shit out of monsters, being able to relax and not have to worry about communicating over Ventrillo to be successful. It's extremely easy to get into a game and begin playing. No need to join a guild and schedule dates, and no need to take an hour to organize or find a party. It is the embodiment of what a game should be. It is pure, simple entertainment, and my panties have never been wetter.

Only one question remains: How much fucking longer is Blizzard going to make us wait?

Lately I've been thinking about what I want to do with my life. Not that I hadn't thought of it before, but I'm 22 years old and really haven't started figuring things out yet. I'm getting to that time in life where a person needs to establish who he is going be and where he is going to go. The fact is I have been wasting my time. Years have passed by so suddenly that I can't believe how little I've accomplished. I have friends who are graduating college now, and I never even started college. I've just worked shit jobs and I'm in a no better position today than I was five years ago.

I'm not trying to sound melodramatic. I'm not depressed or anything, I'm generally a happy guy. I just need to set my ambitions higher and try to get my life moving. So, with that said, I think I've decided what I want to try and do...

I've always wanted to write, ever since high school. Hell, even in grade school I was writing, and I won a competition to meet Lois Lowry, the author of The Giver. Writing always seemed tangible to me, it was something I felt I could do better than others, and it never felt like work. My dream has always been to become a published author, and it still is, but I need to start somewhere. Try something small and move up. I've thought about my hobbies, and only one really stands out; video games. Nothing in my life has been more consistent than video games. I've been playing them since before I ever even started school. To this day I still play games religiously. It wasn't just a fad, or just a moment in my life. I would have an empty feeling inside of me if I were forced to stop playing games, as cheesy as that sounds. They're just video games, but I love them. I think it's good to have something in life you care so much about, and video games are one of my biggest passions.

With that said, I think I've decided to try and revolve video games around writing. Mix the two up and see where it goes. Just the thought of being a video game journalist makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. The problem is that so many people seem to want the same thing. There are countless video game websites on the internet, and bloggers; the competition is fierce. I'm not really trying to make a living off of doing this (although I wouldn't mind it if the opportunity arose), but it is something I want to try. I have no college education and no experience, so trying to get a job doing it is out of the question. Thankfully, nobody needs a college education or experience to succeed, not when you have the Internet! I figure I will start off very small, and slow, and see if I enjoy it and where it goes. I'll write about video games and related topics, mostly opinion articles, as an experiment. I suppose it won't be much different than any blogger out there who does the same thing, but maybe I'll be able to do it better.

So, Newgrounds, what do you think of this idea? I'll start by keeping a blog on Newgrounds, and try to make weekly posts. Would you read it?