In Brief: Hell Really IS Other People–And That’s Pretty Cool #Diablo3
I have decided that I really like the benefits of “always on” Diablo 3. I haven’t actually used it to insert myself into someone else’s narrative (that is not a euphemism), instead relying on my cadre of local friends to party up with. Among everyone else, even though we’re pretty social about adding one another to our friends lists, I’m not sure people are feeling universally comfortable exercising the benefits of what Diablo 3 provides in inviting yourself to someone else’s world.
But that’s still OK, because even when you’re not actively beating back the forces of Hell at each other’s side, you are still connected to one another. You see the achievements of the people who are on your friends list. You can chat them up with a flick of the mouse. It’s like being a guild, without having any guild mechanism in place. It’s pseudo-social, without that creepy feeling you might get in otherwise imposing your presence on another person who only has a few minutes to play before they have to dash out on an errand.
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#2 written by Chris Smith 12 months ago
Maybe it’s just me who feels invasive XD Also, I have to admit that I’m apparently slower than a lot of other people I see online, who are WAY ahead of me. I’m also not sure how jumping around messes with the story…I think I heard someone say that if you jump ahead of your current bookmark, you can’t go back…?
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I couldn’t agree more. While I’ve turned off the “allow instant jump in” while playing, it’s only because currently I’m working through the game for the first time, and am very much savoring the single-player story. But I know I have many hours of multiplayer goodness ahead of me, and I really like seeing other people’s accomplishments, and wishing them the occasional “gratz!” and what have you.
It does an extraordinarily good job of capturing that “playing alone, but with other people” feeling that many of us MMO soloe-ers have talked about enjoying before.
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I’d actually recommend turning that back on, at least for friends. As I commented above, it doesn’t really feel like invading. Suddenly they are there, their characters might talk to some of the NPCs at times, but it doesn’t really impact your own storyline I feel.
To each his own, of course. But I personally think you’re missing out on a really cool feature.
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I’ve only had one weird encounter so far with the friends joining. This weekend I was going along and someone on my RealID list from WoW joined my game. Now I had this person on RealID because I raided with him but he also played alliance. This was a way I could contact him if we were short and needed an extra. I haven’t raided progression in close to 5 months let alone be on WoW so I haven’t really spoken to him in awhile. Well he joined my game and didn’t say a damn word. Not hello, not how you doing, not a damn thing. I tried repeatedly to get him to say something. I couldn’t figure out how to boot him either cause I thought that was fucking rude so I just logged off. Later that night I turned friends can quick join. What I really need to do is take him off my friends list.
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What I really like about the multiplayer is that you’re not really invading anything if you jump into another player’s game, I find. I jumped into Breki’s (of Claims of the Normal) and his girlfriend’s game, as they were making their way through act II. They were level 20+, while I was still level 10 – despite that obvious disadvantage, it was my job to keep myself alive, not theirs. I wasn’t really in the way of anything.
After a few minutes, one of my friends – that has no connection to Breki – came along as well on his level 7 DH. I had to leave because of cat-issues, but he stayed behind. The drop-in drop-out features of Diablo III works really, really well in my mind. If you ever catch me online (which I doubt you will, since there’s still a divide between US/EU), feel free to join me wherever I might be at the time and we’ll kill stuff together.