A dillema

[Magicbag]

Warning, the following may be slightly long (I feel the need to provide background) and somewhat of a rant, so feel free to get off the bus whenever you like.

I played beta D1. I've played D2 and LoD since the beginning. I really like the game and the evolution it has taken. I created my own guild around D2 ,mostly in the hope that some cool guild features would be implemented, but also to have a nice player base to play with my friends.

I was an addict. I played a ton with my friends and guildmates and we rose quickly. My first character was a paladin but without fine advice from sites like this, I assigned points terribly. My second character (my mule) became my main. Magicbag the sorceress. It was a reference to the DnD bags of holding, a bottomless mule. Ha. My plan was to nest cubes. Too bad.

I am a collector by nature so I sacrificed everything for magicfind. In D2C this meant that I was stuck in act2(hell), because the euipment I was wearing didn't permit me to go much further. Eventually I got the gist of meph runs and was able to start compiling a pretty nice collection.

About this time I was reading d2 sites, especially tradng forums. Trying to collect everything is hard without trading. I met a similarly minded individual on a trade forum, and long story short, we merged our guilds and created a common armory so that anyone who wanted to try a piece of equipment could.

Thinking about it, it was amazing. We could twink new characters, we could fill special requests, it was an item freaks dream. People would contribute items that they felt were good, but that they wouldn't use. For a while this worked well.

To rush things along, eventually the guild grew to a point where A-holes in hiding slipped through the cracks. They bided their time (about 6 months of facade) and stole about 3 accounts of high end gear. To add insult to injury they stole our Act2 skipping accounts (the ones with the character who has just completed inserting the staff and is saved that way). Oh well, tough lesson. We didn't die.

People were still playing but no one trusted each other. It had gotten more about the items and gotten less about the people. I hung around about 2 years to see the real rise of the D2X sorceress and capatalize fully. I made back a lot of what I lost and with a tightly held guild vault key things worked out ok again. Most of the guild splintered just from time passing. We didn't want to add new members much because of a trust issue. So I gave up.

I tried my first MMORPG (Dark age of Camelot) and found a new world waiting to be explored. It was fresh and fun.

I knew I didn't want to leave D2 forever, so I gave my accounts to a few trusted people. The accounts would be maintained (14 I think) and my collection would be preserved.

DAoC was fun, and I dove into it with the same vigor I once gave d2. My account guardians were fairly clueless and definately lacked some equipment, so I encouraged them to use whatever they liked with the understanding that I could have the items back whenever I wanted.

Fast forward 2 years and most of the mules are missing or empty. I don't fault my guardians much for this as the latest blizzard mule thrashing wasreponsible for most of it. The guardians have become quite accomplished on their own. They have (or had) large collections, but the same mule bug bit them as well.

That's the bckground. If you're still here, thanks for reading this far. Now the dillema:

I'm kinda sick of DAoC, and I'm very exited about the patch. I've been playing some HC and some SC bnet chars with my old friends, including the account guardians. As you probably expected, getting my orignal equipment back has been impossible. I've been furished short-term loaners that fall short of what I had assembled for myself. I've been told by one of the guardians that I have to give his stuff bac, but the other guardian is using my stuff and won't part with it. This isn't really about the equipment. For me I'm over it. I could start over at this point I think and be OK.

What's really bugging me is the state of the games. Between the three of us we can fill a game. Yet more often than not it seems that these people actually prefer to play by themselves these days. I don't know if it's because they can't share drops, can't agree on what to do in game, or just can't build characters that mesh well. They each have over 30 characters easily, so I can't believe that's the problem.

The main dillema friends is what happens when D2 becomes so much to these people that they really don't want to be in the same game as you? (for reasons mentioned above). When someone you really enjoyed playing games with for a long time (pre-d2) starts saying "Get out of my area! you're going to #$%& me up." The game ceases to be fun when I can't play with my friends and share things in a game. Heck my 2 year old does a better job.

I've found HC to be a lot more open and fun and I still have friends who play there. I tend to stress more when playing HC though and this is not a good thing for me. My question to you lurkers is: What do I do now?

I fully intend on playing a ladder character when 1.10 goes live. I'd like to play with my friends, but it has become a depressing chore. I'm looking forward to Worlds of Warcraft and I'm hoping that 1.10 could tide me over until then.

Should I give up on the armory dream and let the guardians enjoy what I've given them? Should I make more of a stand for my stuff? Should I call them on their wacky behavior? Fun continues to be my main goal, and I believe many of you share it. How do I have fun with D2 again? are there any small guilds that would like another player? I consider myself a fairly experienced D2 player and would love to have a good game again.

I'm not trying to delude myself, this is really the way I see the situation. If you'd like to flame me go ahead, maybe I'm the one who needs the wakeup call. Just try to be constructive is all I ask.

Thanks for listening. Any replies appreciated.
-MB

[omgsoup]

......

[dahak_i]

I don't know, but I usually like to avoid conflicts that can never be truly resolved. I prefer realist over pessimist, but you're probably not gonna get your items back. So just write the stuff off...

If you still have the passwords/access to the mule account, take what you want or even just change the password. Otherwise, get some people together that you know in real life, or even just fairly well online. Find a few lurkers ;-) (I play HC on USEast). Share in drops, and simply play by whoever picks it up gets it, as long as it isn't useful for the other specific character. As in if a bow drops, and your barbarian partner picks it up when you're an amazon, you still get it if you want it.

If someone is greedy, stop playing with them. Keep individual mules, and trade freely between each other. Also have a joint account, where you keep the mediocre/twinking equipment, partial sets for low-mid level chars, etc.

Basically, just play honestly and courteously, and try to find good people. And don't think twice about leaving a greedy player in the dust.

Hope that puts it in perspective.

[Kevin]

It seems you got your enjoyment from collecting in the past. You say that isn't what you want anymore. If you truly want to play in groups, etc, then it sounds like the old guild simply will not work for you, that guild was built around items and attracted people that just want items, so trying to change their behavior to suite your new mode is not going to work.

Hit the Pandemonium Fortress here and try playing with some other Lurkers, you should be able to find some other people that just want to play the game, and don't care about collecting.

Heck, you might even want to destroy all your mules and play without any, it makes the game different, it makes you have to decide what to keep for later, what you can sell, what you think you can try to trade for something else, but your limited.
I like to collect, but I found that most of the stuff I collect I never use later. I just enjoy going around and finding things and using them as I go. If my equipment is really starting to cause major issues, I may pull in the odd mule that I have, and use an item they have so that I can still have fun without a crap load of frustration.

I hate the idea of magic find, and I generally don't use any of it unless it happens to be a mod on something else that I have. I took a char (a sorc) who had completed the game and happened to have some decent magic find stuff to begin with and made a magic find character out of her. I just stopped playing her, finding items isn't my cup of tea.

I like finding stuff, but I get so much more joy out of finding it while I am just playing along and there it is. I keep mules for some of the stuff that I have found that I may want to put on another char, or is something that you could build a char around (yes I know I said I don't really twink much, most chars will end up getting equip off a mule in Hell, maybe Nightmare, but I rarely plan on using it, and I figure out what I want by bringing in the mule, looking at what it has and then saying, yeah, that will work). So I have a few chars that are built around using one or two items because I want to use them, but I have no current char that would really benefit from it.

I find enjoyment playing this way, you might as well. I have a small group of friends I play with (which is why I still haven't bothered getting involved in a Lurker game) and we make a few theme parties at times, and we have games where we just bring chars in and adjust our play to work best with what we have. I like playing it without a lot of preplanning. That just makes it feel too much like work for me. O.K. here's the plan, now lets go and get him to level 18 so I can wear this, then L32 so I can wear this, then I'll do 15 runs here so I can get this level and do this. I know you don't have to be that strict with it, but too much planning makes the playing feel like you are playing for the plan and not playing for the game. But again that is me.

There are a lot of ways to play D2, since the way you had been playing was no fun for you anymore I am just suggesting the way I play as something you might enjoy. I too have played Diablo since about a month after D1 came out, and I still haven't stopped playing the games, D1 still gets about an hour or two a month at least, and D2 still gets around 10 a month still (sometimes more, sometimes less). They both used to get a heck of a lot more than that but some of the people I played D2 with don't really play anymore, and some of my friends prefer other games (and I like lots of computer games) so I play that one with them. But when I probably only play 20-50 (yeah, 5-12 hours a week sounds right with most of that on the weekend) hours a month of all computer games that I play, Diablo games are still a large part of that of that time.

[Magicbag]

Thanks for the words lunkers, it's true, I have changed a bit. I mean I still like items and such, but it's not really the driving force anymore. I like the flexibility to be able to equip new builds with stuff that will help them though. I think that giving that up will be even less fun.

I really just want the people I play with to be less selfish and/or rude. But if friends and family can't play well, what hope do I have of finding strangers on Bnet who do? I shall try finding a few in the lounge to play with I suppose.

-MB

[Brista]

I think you might be pleasantly surprised :)

Should you not find a good group through the Pandemonium Fortress consider the Amazon Basin

Good luck!

[protoshoggoth]

Thanks for the words lunkers

Lunkers? How dare you mention those damn splitters, those pompous asses who broke off to form the "LunkerLourge", around here! You're playing with fire, son.

I thought we'd heard the last of them, they're almost as bad as the LarkerLounge crowd.

[BlackLightning]

Hmmmm....

Very interesting problem you've got here Magicbag. Though, what you say is true. I guess there isn't much unity running throughout the Diablo 2 community anymore. I guess some players have been too concerned with petty differences and have forgotten the meaning of "guild".

Apparently, people have become a bit too obssesed with items and equipment or whatever, and it would be surprising to see more than 10 guilds or clans that haven't suffered because of feuds or such.

I suggest not taking a stand for your stuff, since from what I've seen on Battle.net these days, it is incredibly hard to reclaim any items you've lost. Your best bet is to start over, but don't start a guild until 1.10, and until you've got a tight community, with no cracks or leaks, and only expand once you think it's safe.

Hope my advice helped! :D

[kier]

One word is all that is needed

Greed

People are so greedy, there is little trust left. I have never stolen an item, never snatched a drop, whatever the drop may be. I have seen mav's armour drop and offered it to my friend (allthough he kindly gave it to me).

Yet many people are out there who play the game in the goal of greed. They seek to be the best, not in friendship, nor skill, but through wealth. And this causes greed. I may be poor considering how much i play the game, but I like to think of myself as a good player.

I have had many items lost due to people being greedy, and allthough none of my friends have betrayed me, i have had friends who have lost alot through this, and not just items.

The way to combat this is to not be greedy, to have good honest friends, and treat them well. To form comunitys and clans, and to prove that items are not all that it takes to be a good player.