[pixelation | weekly gaming column every wednesday]

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Diablo II turned ten yesterday. Wait, what. Really? Ten years. Jesus Christ. So that wretched, chill-inducing screeching I hear is in fact time being dragged down the corridor all too quickly. Why, it feels like just yesterday I was sitting in my room, covered in a pile of Pepsi cans, trying my god damn hardest to farm Mephisto for ill loots. Caloric intent high. Sleep minimal. Bone marrow? Yep. Laced to to the very core with caffeine.

Then is now.

Now is then.

Diablo II is one of those touchstone games that you can go back to. If you’ve played it. It’s the sort of game you can drunkenly bring up with a pack of friends who experienced it and just smash the red button labeled “Holy fuck, Nostalgic Trip” while buckling the fuck up. In almost no time, the people around you will be awash in a vernacular they don’t understand. “Motherfucking Stone of Jordans” and “Fucking Mephisto runs” and “Dude, dude, remember when the shit I traded for was actually duped, and when I logged in, it was gone?”

It’s deep, yo. Deep within my breastplate of rot. I can’t ever become jaded, Diablo-fueled nostalgia keeps me warm.

A decade ago. Fifty pounds heavier. One worn and gooey virginity card tucked into my pocket. God, was I going to hold that thing forever. Long shitty hair. But still super-pumped. But still super-enthused. About everything. A summer like this. Like any other summer. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. The crack. Before World of Warcraft stole my life, there was Diablo II. It cracked my Ridiculous Gaming Sessions hymen. Gouged with a sharp-stick, thrust with ill-intent.

Oh for sure I had played games for ten hours in a row before Diablo II. Oh sure, I had cranked out entire games in a couple of sittings. But fucking Diablo II, yo. That shit wasn’t a game. It was crack. I didn’t just play it. I lived it. Senior year of high school was merely seven hours of diversion before I could go farm Act III for another five hours. The repetitious gameplay giving away to an insatiable need to have better shit. God damn Blizzard. A decade later and the same technique still drives people who play WoW.

The mentality is simple: I need better fake things, and because I need these fake things, I’m going to stay up real late and compulsively play and ruin my real life.

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Blizzard pretty much has a license to print money. Because World of Warcraft addicts do retarded things. Like pay twenty-five dollars for celestial donkeys to ride around with in-game. And I’ll be honest, I’ve been tempted to be that asshole. However, now Blizzard is going to charge people to use the game’s Auction House outside of the game.

via kotaku:

Blizzard has rolled out the first phase of the remote World of Warcraft auction house, allowing players to browse auctions on the web or via iPhone, with subscription-based bidding and auctioning coming soon.

Earlier this year, Blizzard revealed that it was working on a remote auction house, allowing players outside of the game to browse, bid, and post auctions from the web and mobile devices like the iPhone and iPod touch. Now that service becomes a reality, with the 2.0 version of the World of Warcraft Mobile Armory now available as a free download via iTunes, along with a page on the web-based Armory dedicated to auction stuff.

Players can browse auctions, get notifications on when their items sell, and view the status of their pending auctions for free. Anything more than that, is going to cost you.

Coming soon, players will be able to pay $2.99 a month for the premium features of the Remote Auction House. Subscribing will allow players to bid on auctions, create new auctions from items in their in-game inventory, and collect gold from items sold, all without ever having to log into the game.

Several things.

First, I realize it’s an out of game service, so maybe it’s not fair to complain about them charging for it. But I’m going to anyways.

Secondly, I can’t imagine a world where I need to POST AUCTIONS SO BADLY that I am going to pay THREE FUCKING DOLLARS A MONTH to monitor bullshit. If I was rich, sure. Whatever. But I ain’t. And most of the people I know who play WoW are either on Food Stamps, unemployed leeching college assholes like myself, or suffer from disabilities such as Lazy Assholitis. We’re not rich folks. So it seems extremely, insanely luxuriant.

What a terrible idea, suck the players into the game even when they’re away from the keyboard. Or maybe what a brilliant idea. Fucking posting stacks of Heavy Borean Leather from the dinner table.

The sickness spreads.

…And another thing about zombies. Does Jesus Christ coming back from the dead and raising EVERYONE from their graves count as the zombie apocalypse? Cause it sure sounds like it to me. Some creepy long-hair duded drudging up skeletons.

Furthermore, is Jesus Christ the progenitor of the necromancer from Diablo 2? Let’s see. Raises the dead. Has sweet flowing hair.

Discuss.

I feel like fucking Joey on Dawson’s Creek. I have these two beautiful lovers pining for my existence. They cry to me, for my gamer ovaries! They want me oh so badly. And I love them, I love them both.

Modern Warfare 2 and World of Warcraft.

I thought I had moved on from Dawson…fuck, I mean WoW. I thought I was done. We had spent some good time together, don’t get me wrong. Years and years had passed while we grew closer together. But eventually, yeah, eventually I had gotten pretty fucking bored. Everything was the same, everything was boring.

My interest with Dawsoncraft plummeted right around the beginning of the Fall. The newest dungeon Trial of the Crusading Warrior Champion or whatever came out and it was fucking boring. BORING. It was a room. Just a room. Filled with dumb bosses. Seriously, I mean, that’s it? I’m a lady, god dammit! I expect to be treated with dignity! Warcraft had taken me for granted, and I swore I was over him.

It wasn’t the first time I thought I was done with Warcraft. There had been ebbs and flows in our relationship. I mean, that’s how every relationship is, right? Boredom gives way to violent sex, gives way to fun nights watching Spielberg movies, gives way to an enjoyable comfortableness. But this time, I swore to myself, the boredom was different. It seemed more final. I was done.

And then there was Modern Warfare 2. So edgy. So totally sexy. Sort of like how Pacey in Dawson’s Creek. Pacey fucked his English teacher! How fucking awesome was that? Totally awesome. Especially since when I watched the show back as a freshmen in high school, I had the hottest English teacher ever. Little did I know, at the age of fourteen, I wouldn’t lose my virginity for another ten years. Holy shit! Anyways.

Modern Warfare 2 came along, and I was like, this is it, I’m sold. It was so much more accessible. Unlike Dawsoncraft, who insisted on having me on a tight schedule, I could fool around with Modern Warfare 2 like I wanted. What if I wanted a quick fling during the day? Done. Totally cool. What if I wanted to romp around in the middle of the night? Also awesome. No more of Warcraft’s neediness. No more having to show up at a certain time, to perform a certain task. So needy! So needy!

And I mean, things began getting serious pretty quickly. Modern Warfare and I were together like totally all the time. Time just flew by when I had him in my hands. We’d stay up late together, screaming obscenities and shooting people! True fucking love! I mean, is there anything more romantic than sticking someone with a semtex grenade and then giggling as their organs are liquified? I don’t think so. Do you?

And so I thought I was done man, I had found my new love. Weeks passed, and Warcraft creeped further into the back of my mind. Forgotten. Stuck next to old books I could barely remember, horrific memories of girlfriends with enormous pubic bushes, and the list of times I had shit myself. I kept playing Modern Warfare 2, certain it was the newest gaming addiction in my life.

And then I saw her. WoW came out with version 3.3, and I couldn’t help but bask in the eyes of the Icecrown Citadel. Well then! This sort of changed everything. Despite still playing Modern Warfare 2, I still had this new longing for the old days, for the lost love who had improved themselves and wanted me back.

I TRIED TO SHUT IT OUT AS HARD AS I COULD. But then last night? I came. I came back. And I came again. I just couldn’t handle it anymore. As much as I hated to say it, I needed Warcraft. I wanted Warcraft. I couldn’t leave Warcraft.

But now I’m stuck! I’m fucking stuck. I know they’d totally be pissed if they knew I had feelings for the other, but I can’t deny the way I feel! And it’s going to be too tiring. Logging off of Modern Warfare 2 to steal some hours of WoW, only to sneak back onto Xbox Live later that night and having Modern Warfare ask me where I’ve been. I can’t lie to either of them. Their faces are so innocent, so beautiful. And yet, I can’t choose either.

What’s the answer?! What do I do?!

Three-way.

Double-gaming penetration.

Why didn’t Joey every think of this?!

Yeah well fuck me, I didn’t get this thing up yesterday. No good excuses, aside from poor time management. My brother works seventy-five hours a week and then churns out an Octoberfeast everyday. File under: Why  Pepsibones has a 4.0 and I’m a slacker. Let’s do this anyways.

Every Monday I’m going to detail the various things I’m either currently or will be watching, reading, playing, and listening to in the next seven days. It’s Monday. You’ve got a long week of school, work, or compulsive masturbation to get through. Tell me the arts that you’re indulging in, to stave off suicide.

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The pile of money that Blizzard execs use to wipe their ass and snort their coke with just got a little larger. That’s right, today the long-awaited Faction Changes!!! went live. Which means that you can now change your fruity night-elf hunter named “Leggolazz” into a Tauren hunter named “Leggolaughz”.

For thirty fucking dollars! Not bad!

God damn, Blizzard knows how to make them ducets. They know we’ll pay for name changes, they know we’ll pay $40 to watch a god damn live stream of their press conferences. Of course we’ll pay to transmute our dwarf mage into a blood-elf! DUH. I can’t even fault the bastards, they have me wrapped around their finger too. In fact, faction changes ain’t the last thing comin’! Soon we’re getting inter-alliance race changes. For money. Of course.

Too slow Blizz, I would have paid for a year ago!

Last year I used a three way swap between friends to get myself a Draenei hunter. I was tired of being all beautiful and female (this is before sex changes, which yes now do exist for money) and night-elfy. I traded a copy of WotLK to a friend, who then traded his warrior to another guy, who gave me his Draenei hunter.

No, I’m not fucking lying.

Blizz, they know us, they know us all too well. Soon they’ll capitalize on that shit too.

At some point in my life, I had to make a solemn pledge to myself. There came a time when I had to hold myself to a certain promise, no matter how painful it became. You see, there was a time when I said:

Ian William Drinkwater, you will not, I repeat WILL NOT play World of Warcraft instead of hanging out with your friends, or your girlfriend, and so help me God, if you turn down sex to make a raid on time, I will kill you. Which is sort of like killing yourself.

That I even had to have this conversation with myself is indicative of how addicted a player can become to World of Warcraft. If you don’t play the game, you won’t understand it. And if you do play the game, you’re probably thinking: No way bro, no way you’ll hold yourself to that standard.

And sometimes, sometimes it gets hard.

All of this is rummaging through my head as news trickles out that Blizzard’s COO wants us idiots to play their new MMO on top of WoW. The delicate balance that socially functioning nerds have between their crack and their lives always threatens to tilt and sway towards the darkness of empty soda cans and baggy eyelids.

There’s been this shitty fake bow that I had been sweating forever in Ulduar, the latest virtual weapon that means nothing in real life that has no impact on my existence. And yet it does. Week after week it eluded me.   I swore and swore and found new exciting ways to chain together vulgar words like a fucking Ultra Combo in Killer Instinct.

And that’s what kept me coming back. Despite the monotony of the same fucking dungeon every week, despite the knowledge that I was squandering my life not writing, sitting in front of a computer screen, eating too much and staying up too late.

I needed that fucking bow. So I could shoot bad guys bigger, faster, more pwningly.

I had always defended my raiding life through various skillful rationalizations. You see, my guild raids at 10 p.m. It is the blessing/curse of my friend Brian choosing a West Coast server four years ago. So my rationalization always went like this:

Well, it’s a week night. And my girlfriend, being a functioning human being, who contributes to society, has to go to bed. She must sleep, because she isn’t a worthless parasite like myself. And so if she has to sleep, then I’ll be fine.

And to an extent, that’s true. If I lived on the West Coast, I couldn’t be raiding. In some ways, having to raid into the early morning is the only way it could work for me. There’s no way that I could spend every night from 7 p.m. until 10 p.m. in front of a computer. I’d miss dinner; I’d miss quality time with my girlfriend and friends.

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Blizzard knows it’s fanbase well. You see, according to the Blizzard COO, they don’t intend on cannibalizing their own WoW install base for their next MMO. No, they intend on us playing both of them.

Via Wired:

“I think the (new MMO) is going to be significantly differentiated enough,” Sams said. “Such that, you’re not going to feel like they’re one and the same resulting in that you have to pick or choose,” he said.

“If the bad thing that happens to us is that they leave WoW and go to this other thing of Blizzard’s, then we’ll work through that pain,” he added.

That’s fucking ludicrous! That’s absurd.

That’s exactly what’ll happen.

Forget practicality. Forget that there’s Star Wars: The Old Republic, forget all the time you’re going to be playing Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2. If you’re like me, you’re going to make this work somehow.