What if “The Hokey-Pokey” is really what it’s all about, and we’re expected to put our right feet in and out thousands of times a day?
What if Peggy Lee’s song, “Is This All There Is?” really is all there is?
Actually, if those two prospects loom horridly ahead of you, take hope and inspiration. I can absolutely guarantee that neither of those idiotic things are The Actual Meaning of Life.
What if playing Diablo 2 is actually The Point of Life? What if that’s what is called “The Great Work”?
Well, it is.
That’s right. I’m here to tell you that a videogame created as a virtual Middle-Earth playground fantasy game is actually a teaching mechanism and an actualizing device that works to create heroes who pass through a variety of levels of gaming challenge, the least of which is Planet Earth.
Yeh, that’s right — the Really Big Shit comes next. I freely use the word “shit” now that it has become a part of daily television speech.
The Virtual World gets tougher the better you are at the game, because you take on more challenge and have more time on your hands, and the game has a way of meeting your expertise more or less directly — the more players come into the game, the harder the monsters and the more of them there are, until it’s downright overwhelming, which is the idea, isn’t it???
In short, Diablo 2 is the classic struggle between Good & Evil, in which you take the part of Hero of the Good Side, pretty much how you envisioned yourself all along.
Of course, if The Chosen One were on your side, you’d win every game, but that’s not the case.
The virtual game environment provide a functional “Active Shooter” background against which the player can test skills to take down hordes of indecently evil creatures, some of whom will profoundly remind you of someone you know or have heard stories about, I’m sure.
I’m that sure, because the game is modeled after human life, somewhere around the iron age of the West, so expect a lot of blades, crushers, maces, swords, archery gear and of course, leather, chain and plate armor and helms.
It’s all you can do to sort the junk out, and that’s part of the work effect, just as other parts will create work effects — issues beyond game-play, such as point assignment, selection of runes, pickups of drops and of course, side-missions and the general beneficial effect of not playing ahead of experience point awards — meaning, don’t fight above your level because they just won’t give you credit for it.
There’s a chart that indicates which level will give you the most experience points, so you can level up reasonably soon, like within a couple of days, not months or years.
In order to effectively become part of your work life, Diablo 2 must be played incessantly, obsessively and calmly.
It’s a meditation, and your VOLUNTARY relaxation is vital for it to act in that way, so relax. Everything else is extra.
There’s a strategy to everything you do along the way, and it’s not just battle tactics — you need some sort of plan, but you know what happens to the best laid plans of mice and men. That’s right — they gang agley, whatever the hell THAT means, eh?
Well, it means they wander abaft, if you get my drift.
So I’m going to take some precious time out of my Diablo 2 gaming schedule to give you a few pointers on how to work Diablo 2 as a Career Move rather than a mere Side-Hustle.
So what are the important First Steps in the pursuit of the Wisdom of the Ancients as has been more or less accidentally enshrined within Diablo 2?
Oh, it’s not anyone’s fault. The entire mechanical universe is set up to work exactly as a video game works, and nothing happens in here that isn’t programmed in, such as Donald J. Trump, who provides us with endless hours of entertainment and hysteria.
Beginning Diablo 2 starts with downloading the game off the internet or loading it in from a CD, which is the original marketing delivery package.
When you purchase the game, you get a code, and there are some deals where you get the game totally free, but beware of any rogue sites offering this deal — I think it’s possible to get it from steam, but haven’t checked it lately, and those sorts of things do change often enough that it’s worth checking every few months, if you’re working with a group and there are new players coming on board.
Sure, we could duplicate Diablo 2 in the GoDD™ Engine, but since Diablo 2 has everything we’d want to put in there, AND it’s set up for easy multiplayer internet access on their own private gaming net, it’s definitely not worth putting out the effort to create a 3D clone of what is essentially a 2D browser game, similar in some respects to Second Life and Team Fortress 2, both of which use browser tech to create an animated screenshot.
Many recent video games merely project movies of what they think must have happened in the room where it happened, but Diablo 2 gives you a more or less real-time representation of your actual moves, although the combat detail is somewhat ordered by the game.
Even so, when you take an action, you see that action on screen, and when you press the right hotkeys, things happen in a detailed way, such as conversations with NPCs and reading of scrolls and cryptic messages.
Cryptic messages are part of the game system, and you should at least be somewhat familiar with the backstory and storyline as it advances through the levels of challenge, and that’s another thing — there is a definite upward curve to the level of challenge, from Normal to Nightmare to Hell.
Beyond Hell? You wipe out your character after about a year’s work to level it up, and start over, which is called Spawning by gamers, and Birthing by civilians, meaning non-gamers.
If you’re using video gaming to rid yourself of evil impulses and to get out some of the anger, forget it — you’ll never work The D2 Hustle when you’re saddled with psychiatric issues. It’s best to just get rid of them.
Now that you’ve done that, you’re ready to begin the Diablo 2 Hustle experience.
The Diablo 2 Hustle
First of all, I want to welcome you into the ranks of millions of D2 players, most of whom are only too well aware that there’s a Diablo 3 out there, but frankly, it sucks, and the reason it sucks is because Blizzard Entertainment, the makers and designers of Diablo 2, didn’t listen to their clients and won’t listen now.
At least the Battle Net is still there, and Diablo 2 Ladders are reset periodically, so there’s little lost on D3, and most good players strictly avoid it. We tried to contact Bliz to tell them what’s happening on the street, what the Kid Talk is, but they’ve got a stone wall up that’s more impenetrable than a Republican Defense of Donald J. Trump’s latest crime wave.
Speaking of Crime Waves, you’re about to lay waste to a whole world of evil, one small district at a time, starting with just figuring out the Rogue Encampment, which is a safe space, a town space, where nothing more violent than an accidental sale of a Windforce Bow or Enigma Armor can happen.
Now that you’ve installed the game on your computer, you’ll need some help setting up the sounds so that they don’t have to get pulled in every time something makes a sound, and that kind of help is what you get when you see if you’re qualified for our Bardo Safaris.
If you aren’t, you can find out how to get qualified.
On a Bardo Safari, you’ll get constant guidance on many issues, not just combat and travel — there are HUNDREDS of things to keep track of in the INNER PLANES, such as come up when you press the “C” or “T” buttons on your keyboard. They’re hot-wired to “Character” and “Skill Choices”, many of which are co-operative, or “synergistic”, and you’ll be learning all about that as you go up the levels.
You don’t have to concern yourself about skill point assignments anymore — they’ve put in a remedy for reassignment of all points, and you get to do that three separate times, if you just can’t make up your mind what you want.
There are some speedy solutions to being weak and helpless, but they all involve learning some alchemical tricks with your Horadric Cube, a sort of oven where you can bake up great weapons, armor and other Middle-Earth goodies.
Monsters? Sure, we got ’em, we got plenty monsters, and that’s great, because you need to learn the basics of Monster-Handling, as well as traversing spaces and transcending levels, all of which happen in Diablo 2 if you stick with it.
Of course, if you try it once, it’s like anything you try just once. You’ll fail and you’ll hate it and quite justifiably avoid whatever it was that frustrated your demand for instant success, and this effect we want to prevent from happening, so we work toward TOTAL MASTERY of the Diablo 2 playboard and all the gimmicks and tricks and traps that are common to our character class.
Character Class? That’s something you’ll learn about, but it gives you a profoundly good vantage point from which to determine the PLACE of any given creature in the biped population and some of the quadrupeds as well.
Diablo 2 has a LOT of killing — a LOT of killing, but it isn’t a violent game. The deaths are just a part of Middle-Earth living. There are a LOT of things that can do you, and when you’re on a quest to take back your planet from evil beings who have corrupted it and hijacked it for their own pleasure, a lot of killing happens, at least in Diablo 2, it does.
You’re experiencing a different culture, in which overcoming evil is nowhere near as easy as a simple Senate Impeachment and Removal from Office would be for the average working Joe or Jill.
In short, life is tough, then you die, then you respawn, life is tough again, then you die again, then you respawn, and so it goes. If you can’t handle that, you shouldn’t have taken rebirth in the first place, but you already knew that.
So you’re thrust unknowingly into a totally alien culture and what’s worse, you’re unarmed, nearly naked and afraid.
Stocking up on hundreds of Life Potions will make you feel more secure, but you can’t take them fast enough, when you’re a total combat newbie.
Face it, you’re going to be wiped off the face of the map and you’ll never know what hit you.
That’s like being asked in the Afterlife, “How did you die?” and you have to tell them the truth — “I stepped on a rake”, you pathetically admit.
Well, that’s not likely to happen in Diablo 2 — you’ll get yourself gutted in no time, and within the first hour, your character will have been ripped to shreds and given a new asshole — again, I’m using the word only because I see it on TV so often these days in the mouths of Republican Senators.
Learning about another culture, especially one so absolutely alien to our modern way of life, where war is unthinkable and every nation obeys the Rule of Law, can be very challenging and disturbing, and the screen graphics make another set of challenges until you understand what each graphic effect is supposed to be telling you.
Of course, in the Bardo Safaris, you have more than just the opportunity to screw things up — traveling with the Pack of Green, your Bardo Companions, you have a real chance to screw things up for EVERYBODY.
Introductions never quite live up to the expectation, but I’m hoping that this short OP-ED about D2 as Spiritual Gaming will give you some idea of what’s ahead and what you can expect.
You’ll be working on, and exercising skills in, many different areas, starting with Multiple Attentions and Deep Relaxation, Mindfulness and all the other neat things you’ve been hearing about for years and years.
Well, here’s a chance to USE those ideas, not merely read about it and discuss with friends. That gets you exactly nowhere.
In the end, it’s all about information and your ability handle it.
Okay, enough with the introduction — let’s roll!
See You At The Top!!!
gorby