I'm in a writing mood. Curious to see what'll happen myself.

I was never a huge Diablo fan. For me, it was one of those games you played because your friends were playing it, and as repetitive as it was, you would have fun running through the dungeons of Sanctuary killing things with each other. I never finished the first game; I did finish one playthrough of Diablo 2, though I also never picked up the expansion. Skip ahead about 5 years and suddenly my friends had a craving to play it again, and I remember reinstalling it and playing a new character. Actually, it was recent enough that I named the character - a sorceress - after someone at the site here. In any case, that didn't last too long either.

Skip ahead to this year. A ton of my friends were getting super excited about Diablo 3. They were all chomping at the bit, reading up on everything about all the characters and whatnot. A few even started considering future Diablo 3 cosplays. Again, I was never super interested in it. Kinda felt like maybe I'd pick it up eventually if it went cheap or something so I could play with everyone else - like I said, it is admittedly still tons of fun when you have people to play with.

Well, one guy at work made the decision for me. Last May, he bought me a copy, told me it was an "early birthday present", and then went home to play his collector's edition that came with the giant Diablo's-head-USB-hub.

So now I had the game. And then I heard about how terrible the game's launch had been. And eventually I installed the game. I guess I was committed now.

Already, I knew a few things that would be true about this new game dynamic: I was going to have at least two friends who would be the especially hardcore players, crunching all the numbers, knowing exactly what skills and what equipment would work the best (and in the process probably rag on everyone who was doing otherwise). I knew the one friend that got me the game was probably going to the play the hell out of it and most likely make tons of Paypal money on the Real-Money Auction House. I knew a few friends would casually enjoy it, would play it for kicks, and otherwise be pretty decent folk to play with in an easy, relaxed manner. I figured that's about where I'd be.

Which then brings us to "Arya", my friend.