She named her demon hunter Arya after the Song of Ice and Fire character, so we'll call her that.
Arya grew up with games much like the rest of us at our age, starting with an NES and going through everything along the way. Curiously, I've gotten the feeling that her NES was the last system she owned before getting her Xbox 360 last year. Regardless, she had always been able to acquire systems from friends to keep up with all the recent games that have come out along the way. She's the kind of girl who'll tell you that Gears of War is her favourite game series of all time, that "VI" is her favourite Final Fantasy after "IX", that she has a long line of Soul Calibur cosplays on her wish list.
And through all that, she has never played Diablo. But, everyone was talking about it, she dug the character designs, and also figured she would have a lot of fun running with everyone else.
Hell, during the week of Diablo 3's release, she even went out and bought a brand new laptop just for the game.
Anyway, some friends had decided that that Friday we needed to have a Diablo 3 party at my place, so everyone came over bringing laptops and game copies. One friend didn't realize I actually had the game already on my computer, but didn't dwell on it before sitting down at my desk and logging in to show us his character so far.
Beyond that guy, by night's end there were four other people in assorted areas of my living room with laptops, all playing Diablo 3. It was a little bit hilarious and I have the photo to prove it. But, as is funny I suppose, I was unable to play the game in my own house as my desktop was occupied.
Every now and then that particular friend would comment how much of a pain in the ass it would have been for him to bring his laptop as well. Sometimes I wonder if he ever considered how much of a pain in the ass it was for me to not even get to play the game in my own house... in any case, any time he complained about death by lag during a boss, I can't say I felt too sorry for him...
I didn't mind, though. Honest. Not playing the game actually gave me a pretty nice opportunity to help Arya out with starting up the game. I had a bit of time to cut my teeth on the first five or seven levels the night before, so I had a fair grasp of how this game worked (at least compared to the older ones). Arya didn't seem to mind the extra set of eyes.
She also didn't seem to mind the extra finger willing to hit "Q" to use health potions; it took her a couple days to get used to that.
There was a lot of laughter that night: watching the one fellow's sprite hobble along on Arya's screen compared to the jittery, laggy screen of the actual player next to her; listening to Arya go "ewwwwwwwww" when Haedrig's wife projectile-vomited and zombified; watching everyone try to eat pizza while refusing to put down mouse and key. Helping the newbie was fun, and it felt nice to have a new game to play with friends who until now had been mostly incompatible gaming-wise.
It was going to be a fun May.
