Hey Marion, how are you today?
–SaintWaldo
Hello, Marion’s father here, Marion Senior. I am sorry, but Junior couldn’t be here this week to write his own column because he’s a lazy good-for-nothing freeloader. The fact that he even has a job surprises me. Not that I approve of his lifestyle, I always knew he’d wind up as a leftist pinko journalist or on some street in San Francisco snorting Marijuana and LSD. I certainly didn’t serve my country as a mess sergeant in Korea to watch my kids grow up into drug-crazed cyber-Bolsheviks, but since he’s paying for my heart medicine these days I decided I’d do my best to make sure he gets his and I get my pills.
Marion Jr. was supposed to be writing about his trip to Blizzard Entertainment to play some Mexican game named Diablo 3. He got back last week but with a severe case of the Pig Flu he probably got from eating all that foreign food. I’ve told him many times that I am not the welfare office, but he keeps asking for things like water and says things like, “kill me now,” whenever he reads over what I’ve written. I don’t know why, he’s so worried about it. I did a lot of research on the YouTube about the game. I even took the time to read over the comments and discovered that some of you think that Marion is a girl’s name.
Well, it ain’t. In fact, the Cox name is synonymous with a long line of a valourous assortment of men named Marion. The first Marion in our line was Marion Eleanor Cox, Earl of Wigtownshire who was lucky enough to avoid the black plague by surrounding himself with rat-killing cats. Unluckily, he later he suffered feline dander related dementia and choked to death while trying to inhale a toenail.
During the Civil War, Major General Bogbottom Geyspears McLanaclan asked a certain Lieutenant Marion Keybridge Cox to turn 12 death-row prisoners into a special infiltration unit that would go deep behind enemy lines on a suicide mission to free a cotton farmer named Ol’ Pete Kinshaw from his Yankee captors. The mission ended in a horrific cannibalistic tragedy, but his memory lives on in his decedent’s blood. In fact, we’ve honored that family tradition by naming all three of our children after them: Mary Ann Cox, Marian Cox and Marion Cox and I assure you, they’re all men’s names.
But I am sure that you folks are not here to read about the Cox’s family history. I know you’re itching to know what my son thinks about that Satanist game, Diablo 3. Too bad for you that Marion wrote it down on loose leaf paper which suffered an unfortunate end when I mistook them for fire starting materials. I mean, how was I supposed to know that the microwave didn’t need some tinder to get it started?
Regardless of the missing notes, I’ll do my best to fill in the blanks, but I don’t really know much about the game beyond what I’ve seen on the moving picture machine and what Marion has yelled at me from his incoherent ramblings about old people and computers.
[Editor’s Note: The following was taken from Marion’s notes made a week earlier while attending a showcase for an alpha-build of Diablo 3. Due to illness, some of the following had to be reconstructed by Marion Cox, Sr.]
Diablo 3 is a game. Players take the roles of a Monk, Barbarian, Witch Doctor and a fifth yet to be announced class that is most likely the Rainbowmancer. Blizzard wouldn’t comment too much on the details but told me that the Rainbowmancer potentially could harnesses the power of colored light to smite evil and distract enemies by sending them on foolish quests in search of pots o’ gold. Each class gives players the option to play as a male or female character, but those differences are merely a cosmetic choice. The female barbarian, for example, does not have any bonuses to cook wild animals or wash the party’s loincloths.
Another aesthetic choice Blizzard has also addressed is the concern from fans that the game’s graphics may be too vibrant. For this reason, Blizzard has given players the option to turn off your monitor and play the game “as it was meant to be played.” True fans of the series who expect dismal washed out graphics should be more than happy with this new option. Casual gamers can enjoy brightly colored environments and spell effects like the girly-men they are.
Gameplay is still largely based on mugging natives and then fencing their stolen possessions to feed your ever-growing addiction to healing potions. However, many tweaks to the experience come from the game’s unique crafting system. Players are now able to raise crops and animals on a farm in real time. They can then sell these commodities to other players on the online farmers market, trade with their friends or team up and build larger farms with up to four of their friends.
But the biggest surprise from Blizzard was that for all the work that had gone into polishing the pre-alpha demo is that there’s still a lot more to come. In fact, Blizzard has assured me personally that the game would not be ready for many years to come. This largely due to most of the original staff being tasked to help with a future World of Warcraft expansion tentatively titled: The Kodo Uprising.
You may have also heard some hubbub about how the game will be priced. Let me guarantee that you will eagerly pay the fifteen dollar a month subscription fee to play this game; it’s just that good. Additionally I expect many players will invest a great deal of money into Blizzard’s new virtual item service, ItemNet. The network will replace the often cluttered and highly frustrating trade channels that plagued both Diablo 2 and World of Warcraft. Now players will be able to pay for high-level items and special experience bonuses directly through their credit card without needing to ever interact with other players.
My experience with Diablo 3 was overall a positive one, but there is still a long way to go before the game is released. We’ll just have to stay tuned and see how development of the game goes over the next 20 years.
Marion Cox thinks old people should stay away from computers.
Published: Dec 5, 2009 03:00 pm