Diablo 3 - Darling, Come Home: A Quieter Criticism

My WoW guild master linked this Diablo 3 post on her Facebook page.  I read it and agreed 100% with the poster.  It so accurately describes our ... unrest ... that I felt the absolute need to post it here.

A very teeny tiny amount of background: Diablo 3 has been broken for reasons we just can't understand.  It's almost like the designers forgot why we've all loved the Diablo franchise for so many years.  I can't really go into more issues without possibly nerd-raging about lag, deaths, no power, less loot, less gold, and real money auction houses.

So, I'm just going to point you to this very well written post on the Blizzard Diablo 3 forums.  If you have an account there, and you agree with what he says, please, "like" the post and request a sticky.  Maybe, just maybe, if enough of us do it, the developers will see it and make some real changes, or at the very least, respond.

Darling, Come Home: a quieter criticism by FluffyMuffin

I will share a few of his words here:

Fun is a subjective thing. I've never cared about competing. And I know many people who live for it. I'm fine with that. But this was my sanctuary. The sports-lovers played Starcraft. The gear-mongers played WoW. Diablo was never a sport, it wasn't about "progression" in a rigid structured sense. Diablo existed for 1 reason... to beat monsters until they exploded like blood-filled loot pinatas. That's all. And if you should so happen to set foot outside town, and look at someone the wrong way... maybe you'd be the blood-filled pinata. But in the time I played D2, it never happened unprovoked.

Another:

And yes, I realize test monsters with 1 HP explode no matter what attack you use. But again, this is what we saw, and this is what we fell in love with. If my barbarian charged across a bridge, blew apart 50 monsters, and all the resulting carnage and gore being rendered crashed my computer, I'd laugh maniacally and reboot just to do it all again. Why? Because it's fun.

And one more:

Treasure Goblins are, in my eyes, the last glimmering hope. In the middle of all this, there's a nasty little psychological gimmick. How great is my greed? And with child-like glee, and mindless recklessness, I plunge headlong into a group of monsters to chase down a goblin with a bag of goodies, so I can beat him mercilessly to death. The most innocent and innocuous of monsters. He counts his gold, and runs away, because he doesn't want to fight. Yet we slaughter them amid laughter and cheers. This, my friends, is Diablo.

 We don't want balance. We don't want to be held by the hand and shown how to play. We don't want safe secure new ways to burn real money. We want to be unleashed on a world full of evil, demonic, hellish-looking sacks of blood, guts, and gold... and we want to be encouraged to play it exactly as we want and find fun for ourselves. We want to feel this intangible, non-existing "too much power." We want the Blizzard and the Diablo we know and love back.

Please - read the thread.  It has to be one of the best written posts I've ever seen on a gaming forum.

Darling, Come Home: a quieter criticism by FluffyMuffin

Turbo Jam - Week 1, Days 1 & 2

Okay, so I know you were breathlessly awaiting my post yesterday on how my first Turbo Jam, Learn & Burn, went.

Weren't you?

Huh?

Bueller?

You didn't get one because as excited as I was to start it, I didn't actually do Turbo Jam yesterday.  I did Diablo III Jam.  TH and I had a marathon.  We got both our main characters into Hell mode, got our first set of alts into Nightmare mode, and finished making TH's Staff of Herding.  We then had to go check out the area Staff of Herding unlocks, which is called Whimseyshire, and it was quite hilarious by the way.  I definitely recommend checking it out if you have the chance.  Tell me you don't laugh hilariously.  Just don't pee in your pants because I'm totally not responsible for that.

So, I did two sets of Learn & Burn today.  I was going to add in a Cardio Abs from Insanity, simply as a "Haha, you didn't do your workout yesterday, so now you have to do another one" type thing, but I was so frustrated that I just turned the DVD player off.

Not because it was hard or ineffective.  Quite opposite actually.  Learn & Burn takes the moves that you'll be using for the next two months, and teaches you how to combine them to effectively work your body. 

The problem lies with me.  I'm not coordinated.  AT ALL.  If I learned anything from doing Learn & Burn today, it's that the cats have to go away because I don't want to fall on them when I trip over my own feet and that I mostly likely will have a black eye at least once during the next two months because I will end up punching myself in the face.

Yeah, that's how uncoordinated I am.

Now, I will tell you that during doing Learn & Burn twice in a row, things got a bit easier, but not a whole hell of a lot.  And I will tell you that the exercises I did where I didn't manage to maim myself or a feline actually felt good to do.  Those muscles are a little achy now, which I've totally missed since I ended Insanity a few weeks back.

I have a feeling Turbo Jam will actually be the workout to get rid of most of my flab if I can actually get my body parts to follow what the people on the screen are doing.  :)  Oh, and if I do happen to punch myself in the face, or trip over my own two feet, I'll post pictures to prove it. I'm going to go make myself a kick ass glass of Chocolate Shakeology to reward myself for a good day's work.

See ya tomorrow!

Insanity - Week 8, Day 2 - Double Trouble!

Have you ever been denied something you really wanted?  You coveted it?  You dreamed about it?  It was the first thing you thought of in the morning and the last thing you thought of before going to sleep, only to dream about it?

Lorraine Swiss Cheese.

I want it.

Bad.

The kick in the butt is we have some in the fridge.  And I can't have it because I'm still on the Shakeology Cleanse.  As soon as I woke up on Monday, I wanted it.  I have been coveting and craving that single piece of goodness for three days.

Insanity - Week 8, Day 1

Week 8 has started off great!

Can you hear the sarcasm in that?

For one, I'm doing everything a day behind when I normally should, which throws me off completely. 

For two, I'm doing the Shakeology Three Day Cleanse, which leaves me begging for energy about halfway through the workout.  If I could harness the power of anything to get through them the way I know I can, I'd be a happy camper.

However, I'm not a happy camper.  I should have listened to myself and waited until AFTER Insanity was over to do the cleanse.  I almost hurt myself twice today doing Max Interval Plyo because I got light headed.  If you're not used to doing a cleanse, have never done one before, or are not used to exercising, I highly recommend NOT doing one while doing Insanity.  Do it before you do the program, or after.  Just not during.  Maybe it's just me, but yeah.

So, Max Interval Plyo.  My friend.  How I will miss you when I'm bouncing around doing Turbo Jam in two weeks.  (Did you see the sarcasm there too?  LOL!).  I know the workouts haven't changed, and I know I've beat this poor horse to death before, but I swear they come in, steal my workouts, and switch them with modified ones.  They always seem harder than last time.  I guess that either means I'm slacking or I'm pushing myself harder. 

Knowing me - it's probably both.  :)

I did do 7 S-S jumps today during the first group of intervals though.  That made me happy.  I still can't keep up with the machines when they are doing Level 3 Drills though.  I just go at my own pace, and it seems to work.  I'm not a huge fan of what I call "burpies" (Level Drills to Mr. Shaun T), and I've never been able to do them well.  Getting on the floor and assuming my body is going to catch itself is not going to happen for a very long time, if ever.

Oh, and the knee step things - I can't remember the real name at the moment - I love those.  They hurt, but they feel great at the same time.  :)

I'm seriously debating whether or not to do Max Cardio Conditioning tonight, or just push this whole thing back.  MCC is more intense (for me) than Max Interval Plyo, so I'm thinking I'm just going to push this entire week back one day.  If I wasn't doing the cleanse - yeah I'd push myself to do it.  But, this just means my FINAL FIT TEST (yay!) will be on Monday instead of Sunday.  I'm thinking that sounds just fine to me.

Besides, if I push it back it gives me more time to play Diablo III.  Which I'm going to do right after I proofread this and publish it.  :)

See ya tomorrow!