I realise that I start almost everything I write with some equivalent of “I don’t know where to start”. I should probably just delete the first paragraph of everything I write. I’m not going to do that now, because not only do I not know where to start, but I don’t even know why I’m writing this. I think I just need someone to bear witness to what I’ve done.
Jesus. Now you have to picture yourself tied to wheelchair in front of a projector.
About a month prior to writing this I finished what I decided was going to be my greatest endeavour. None of that curing cancer or volunteering for charity muck here. Not doing anything positive, or just bringing some light into the world. Oh, no. Not me. I was going to completely dominate all the console versions of Diablo 3! That’s Diablo 3 on Xbox 360 and PS3, and Reaper of Souls (or the Diablo 3: Ultimate Evil Edition) on Xbox 360, PS3, Xbox One and PS4. DOMINATE!
Well. Not DOMINATE dominate. Almost immediately it felt like a manifesto of compromise. Firstly, I had considered doing all the in-game challenges but then I looked at them. Even I have limits. Not only are some excruciatingly specific and nitpicky, I also know from experience that they are fairly glitchy not to mention there is an entire section of challenges set aside for co-op. What kind of loser would do something like this with friends?
Someone WITH friends I would imagine.
Anyway, I dumped the challenges idea early on, which also allowed me to leave the PC version off my list. It’s not that I don’t like the PC version, it just doesn’t feel as immediate or responsive as the console versions. It looks amazing, but the great graphics and ability to properly aim spells don’t negate the click-to-move, lack of dodge and (admittedly infrequent) hitches due to always being online. So no PC version. Phew.
Secondly, you could never stretch the truth to the degree that you can say that the Diablo games have a difficult achievement/trophy list. About the hardest achievement is to get a Hardcore character to level 70, but playing as a Monk way down on Expert difficulty makes even this achievement a matter of grinding rather than an actual challenge.
Want to shave some time off the whole process? You can, of course, transfer your characters from Diablo 3 to Reaper of Souls, so my Xbox 360 save with a full complement of level 60 characters and a level 30 Hardcore character acted as my base for Reaper of Souls on Xbox 360, Xbox One and Playstation 4. In the end, all I had to do that was time consuming was a complete Playstation 3 playthrough including that insane “5 million gold picked up” Trophy.
Thirdly, it wasn’t as if I was putting a time limit on anything. You might see all these fancy speedrunners doing things all quick and impressively. Ha! I barely strive for the dizzying heights of mediocrity! I had already finished Diablo 3 on Xbox 360 and Reaper of Souls on both Xbox 360 and Xbox One on launch, then Reaper of Souls on Playstation 4 the following year. Nearly 4 years can’t be counted as any kind of time limit.
And so it came to be that my grand adventure boiled down to – “I will play two old Playstation 3 games!”
So, with my parameters set generously wide, I steamed forward with my “challenge”. After two days, the relief I felt when my old phat PS3 was turned off for the day was amazing. You have never truly known silence until you have turned off the gushing roar of an old PS3 after 4 hours. What had previously been a joke became reality, I bought a newer PS3 just to play Diablo and it was fantastic.
With renewed vigour, I played on. All I could imagine was glory.
How many people had tackled this exact journey?
How many had fallen by the wayside?
I blasted through all the trophies until boredom set in during the fatal “Pick up 5 million gold” Trophy. Now, Diablo 3 boredom is a very different kind of boredom to normal boredom. It’s not that I ever want to stop, it’s just that I need something else to do. I had exhausted my podcast collection, the TV was being used for Diablo and my poor wife had temporarily lost her husband. So I bought a monitor. We could watch Star Trek “together” as I muddled through my obsession.
As The Next Generation became Deep Space Nine, Diablo 3 became Reaper of Souls and my eyes were opened. It was like a brick wall.
This is pointless.
Who will ever care?
One day you will be dead and this was it, was it?
What is wrong with you?
To limit my compulsive behaviour, I interspersed my Diablo 3 sessions with Skyrim. That was a great idea! Rather than obsessively chasing gold, I would obsessively collect every item in Skyrim! Foolproof!
It was with a lighter heart that I hit Reaper of Souls. It came and went and the hollowness of that platinum trophy was palpable. It plinked up, I teleported back to town and was dashed by a wave of existential emptiness. These characters were dead. I would never play them again. 691 hours and they weren’t even my mains. Not only that, but that time could have been spent on gearing my PS4 characters. That was it done. Over. Did anything good come of this?
No, not really, unless you count an awareness of how truly pointless my chosen hobby is. Oh, and I (as a fully grown adult man) now have what I unironically began calling my “Battle bridge”, a little table that holds my gaming monitor and laptop.
I even made a little table of cost to my life this has had to try to put it into perspective.
| Game | Platform | Hours Played | Cost |
| Diablo III | X360 | 475 | £39.99 |
| Diablo III | PS3 | 503 | £13.99 |
| Reaper of Souls | X360 | 380 | £39.99 |
| Reaper of Souls | PS3 | 390 | £24.98 |
| Reaper of Souls | XONE | 241 | £39.99 |
| Reaper of Souls | PS4 | 1300 | £33.98 |
| Reaper of Souls | PC | 50 | £35.98 |
| 3339 | £228.90 | ||
| Playstation 3 | £30.00 | ||
| Monitor | £90.00 | ||
| Days | 139.13 | £348.90 |
So, I found out that I spent nearly £350 on (or as a direct consequence of) Diablo 3, as well as VOLUNTARILY giving the game nearly 140 DAYS of my life. I didn’t really know where to go from here.
I went back and played a little with my PS4 mains for a while, but became frustrated with constantly pressing the “Share” button thinking it was “Select”, as I had used the DualShock 4 on my PS3. I gave up and decided only to return when the Necromancer pack comes out.
All that remained was to find something to play while watching Voyager. So rather than play another sprawling, grinding Blizzard RPG… Oh, wait…
Never mind.
Wull Scott 