Diablo II - Are We Just Nerds?
by El Flesh

Settling down for sleep next to my wife the other night, I was just thinking about the new gear I had found on the Glacial Trail. Somewhat smugly satisfied with myself, (as we all are when we find some new goodies that we've never seen before), I thought about how much time I'd invested just to find "just a few items more". That phrase has been around since the original Diablo showed up in late 1996.

I don't like thinking about how much time I waste on this damn game. Time that could be spent doing research, studying astronomy or paleontology; time that is effectively wasted. What will they write on our tombstones when we die, "Played over 100,000 hours (i.e. about 11.5 years) of D2"?

So you manage to LEGITIMATELY complete the set that makes your Necro look like a vampire. (Shaddap, Flux) So you have an unbeatable Hardcore PK. How many hours did it take you to accomplish this?

Even if you take the shortcuts, the rushing, finding ways to dupe (and it won't be long after 1.10 that it will be possible again). Still, you have invested a very significant chunk of time into it. How many people have flunked out of their term in college because they couldn't stay away from the game? I'm lucky that my wife is a TV fiend, because otherwise, she could rightly accuse me of not paying enough attention to her throughout the evening. Dinnertime, and then again an hour or so before retiring for the night is not enough interaction. Lucky we don't have kids. I would have to give up my favorite entertainment.

I'll bet that this damn game has broken up relationships too. Own up, how many of you guys are guilty of ignoring your girfriends to play the game? Maybe they found out the hard way that you were not quite the sensitive guy they thought you were. Or maybe even the cool guy. I don't know about the kids of today, but in my time, (way back in the 80's), you weren't cool if you were absorbed by video games. You were expected to be good at them, but a junkie? Not cool. And how many dressed up like ANY Diablo character for Halloween? There are people out there who really want to wear REAL Topaz jewelry for lightning resistance. Just think: there probably are some curse-bitch wanna-be's out there, constructing their real wands, and chortling over the revenge they'll have on whoever's humiliated them.

This also reflects the changing attitudes towards this entertainment form. Somehow my wife and I got onto the topic that video games Ð are for kids.

(I can almost hear your grumbles, gentle readers.)

At first I couldn't believe it; I had to flatly deny it. Come on, how could they be for kids? D2 is so very complex, it requires very good planning, and has very adult themes. I've even had an article responded to by a 72 year old player. How could it be for kids?

She told me, of course it's for kids. The companies have taken advantage of the marketing potential for adults when they found it was there Ð but the games are primarily for teenage kids. It makes us adults feel a little foolish when we realize it, doesn't it? Like being caught enjoying your nephew's Lego set a little too much. At least a buddy of mine has less illusions than me Ð he immediately agreed with my wife: of course we play with toys. It's just a question of how expensive they are.

I also play Galactic Battlegrounds. How is that so very different from playing with Kenner figures and vehicles as a kid? Jedi Outcast, or any other Doom (Treasure of Tarmin Ð refer to my previous article) variant Ð running around the park in the mid 70's with a vaguely gun-shaped stick in my hand, pretending to be a stormtrooper on the Death Star. And I sure can't wait for a first person Diablo Ôshooter'.

I look around me. What are other guys that do different things up to? They work themselves into the ground. Trying to get ahead in the rat race, and for what? An 401K plan and an early grave? Maybe "Played 100,000 hours" isn't so very bad. This has to be my rationalization, or is it logic: "choose your poison". If your form of entertainment is puttering around in the basement and never actually getting much done, much less building anything, then more power to you. I, on the other hand, see nothing interesting in that, nor in watching network TV, and so, I will actively participate in a story that goes somewhereÉagain and again and again.

I have called D2 "that damn game", as if the game itself were sucking me in. The truth is that I want to be sucked. So do you. It's a much more exciting world than the real one out here. So long as we can balance ourselves between our manufactured and purchased fantasy, and our real lives, we should be mostly OK.

Just don't have any illusions as to what's fantasy and what's real.