Monday, September 20, 1999

Rummaging through the Diablo 2's discussion forum today I found a posted message that'll keep you hollering and laughing :). It was written by an author who clearly demonstrated his/her view of every Diablo fan's long waiting frustration to the tee. Thus, it's worth the read.

Here are my predictions of the Diablo II community's sad future:

Late of 1999: Tension is growing, and Blizzard STILL has yet to announce the beta in Septemeber OR October. Many people begin speculating that Diablo II won't get released in 1999, while others remain confident that it will get released in the very near future. These two groups of speculators form clans, called the Delayers and the 1999's. The Delayers hire the Russian Mafia to settle the matter, as several of the enemy clan's leader "mysteriously" dissapear.

End of 1999: Diablo II is delayed until approximetly 2010. Those who believed that the game would be delayed brag about their supperior skills of deduction.

Around 2005: New screenshots become more and more rare, as almost every part of the game has been revealed, except for the las act. The screenshot of the week is still active, and eact time Blizzard releases a screen shot, servers crash due to the number of people accessing their site.

Late 2009: Fans grow more and more restless at the time that it's taking Blizzard to finish the game. An angry mod of protesters forms at Blizzard headquarters and storm the building. The entire night they play the yet to be released version of Diablo II. Then they steal all the pre-release-copies of Diablo II and run off. These copies are later actioned off at eBay for over 5 million each.

Mid 2010: Diablo II missed the summer release date, and is now heading for the Blizzard style "Some time in 2010" release date.

End of 2010: Once again, Diablo II is delayed. E-mails storm Blizzard's computers, crashing their servers. Fans who weren't able to send hate-e-mail to Blizzard go to California only to discover that Blizzard hasn't been working on the game, but has instead been playing Diablo II and Everquest the whole time. These rebeling fans knew all too much, and were killed in Blizzard's underground execution chamber. Other fan's commit suicide, claiming that Diablo II will never be released.

Around 2027: The screen shot of the week grabs Time's "Object of the Year" feature. It is proclaimed as the most influental online feature ever, getting millions upon millions of hits each time a new one is released. Presidential candidates get their pictures taken while looking at the screen shot of the week. Boxes of cereal has printed copies of the screen shot of the week in them as prizes. Blizzard now has 20 servers to deal with the number of fans and people accessing their screenshot of the week feature.

Late, late 2081: Diablo II, after more than 80 years in development, is finaly released. Stores stock up with thousands of copies, and they are sold out in a matter of minutes. One line at Comp USA take up the entire store. Many people died over fights for the last copy. Desendants of the original fans who got their copy played for hours and hours. Getting onto battle.net, however takes at least 5 hours of attempts, due to the unbelievable number of people trying to get on. The game receives a 101% rating from PC Gamer, the highest rating ever.

Early 2083: Blizzard anounces Diablo III, and promises to release it by the summer of 2085.

- Hobobo

PS: In case you didn't notice, this was a joke. You know, ha ha.