Chapter 1: My First Night With Diablo 3
Chapter 2: My Bout with the Skeleton King
Chapter 3: All About Death

Chapter 4: The End?

by Theresa Garcia

The night after my first death I encountered my first evil. It was one of the lesser evils mentioned in the first Diablo. I was feeling anxious to get a piece of him. I’ve wanted to fight him for years. Finally, I was able to.

He did not disappoint. For the first few moments I thought he was as much a pushover as the Skeleton King. Then something big happened and it completely changed the playing field. We were overwhelmed. My companion and one other person we were partied with died quick. I immediately started resurrecting my partner because, unlike WoW where I usually have to follow some logic with my resurrect, in Diablo, I can choose to help the person I’ve been playing with before helping anyone else.

For most of the fight I did a good job not getting hit. In truth, he spent a lot of time attacking other people. However, at some point toward the end of the fight, he got me. I got killed but was quickly resurrected and continued fighting. Not long after that, we killed our first of the Great Evils (of this game, of course, we killed a number of them in Diablo I & II).

It was a very satisfying fight. Unfortunately, it was the most satisfying fight of the whole game. I set up my character to have a lot of stuns. My secondary attack stunned which I use quite frequently and my quaternary skill also acts as a stun. To my disappointment, every boss after Belial was stun-able. Acts 2 and 3 went by very quickly.

My favorite part about Act 2 and 3 wasn’t part of the gameplay itself. It was that the day we played those acts we also joined up with a girl whose battle tag I got from a forum. It was nice to play with another girl who shared some of my interests and I finally see the positive side of always-online. While the lag, even in single player, sucks, realizing someone on your friends list is playing the same part of the game and inviting them to join you is super great.

Her pacing was a little faster than we were used to but she was really nice. She even gave my companion some gems. She offered me some but I declined. It was a social interaction that had to extend beyond the game. We connected on a forum, found each other in the game and even though we didn’t really know each other we enjoyed a game together.

After our session, normal was over. We beat it and saw the credits and even though it ended somewhat abruptly, it was still a grand game that was only made more amazing by the people I played with. My story ends here but I could see myself playing this game, much like it’s predecessors, for years to come.

The End?