08-18-2011, 08:11 AM
(08-17-2011, 01:53 PM)lyyn Wrote: Up until now, I had zero interest in playing online. Actually, that’s only half the truth. Worse: Pretty much most of what I read here and on other sites made me VERY wary of venturing out there. Sounds like a sure way to catch a lot of grief and/or aggravation. Both of which I don't need. I play to unwind if I can catch an hour or two, not to get riled up.
The online experience with people you can trust is quite worthwhile in my opinion. It is quite pleasing to progress through the levels using teamwork to cover each other's weaknesses (especially if your team is using some odd equipment setups to make things challenging).
Like others have mentioned earlier, once all team members have a "meeting of the minds", there is very little need to communicate. Hotkeys f9 through to f12 have pre defined messages that you can use to quickly notify team members. There is a little text document in the diablo directory where you can change the content of these messages.
If you are looking to find decent people to play with on bnet, you can visit this site. Of course it goes without saying that you should get to know the people before deciding to play with them. Keep in mind that this site condones the use of 3rd party programs such as "scanners" and "item savers" (You can ask many knowledgable lurkers here about those subjects).
http://freshmeat-blog.de.tl/
and the forum http://freshmeat.freeforums.org/portal.php
To keep things shorts, its is possible to derive some enjoyment from public games (as long as you don't use a character with good gear). However, more often than not you will have to put a little effort into finding out if they are trustworthy. Even if they are friendly enough, I have entered enough public games to know that its rare to come by good teamwork.
In the USwest gateway, channel diablo usa-1, you will often see a bot which allows you to search for public games. However you will need to message the bot owner in order to get permission to use the function. I sometimes explore public games simply to observe the behaviour of other players. I guess I'm just a very curious guy (or have a deathwish).