TIPS AND STRATEGIESMany websites provide players with strategy tips and hints in order to help them excel at the game. To become more adept at killing, to better use their class of character, to hunt and defeat the more difficult creatures in the labyrinth. These are all fine and dandy, and very helpful, but here at our palatial Guild headquarters we thought we'd provide tips on how to deal with the most dreaded monsters on Battle.net - namely... humans.
Your first stop when entering Battle.net will be a chat room. You'll be dumped into a 'Diablo Retail' room. This is like B.net's lobby. The only people who actually hang around in these rooms are newbies and those who've been beaten up so badly in other chat rooms they need a rest from the abuse. The brave adventurer will want to move into one of the many rooms available, all named to indicate the type of players who congregate there. For instance, in the 'Bounty Hunters' room you'll find people with a grudge trying to get the bounty hunters gathered there to stop screaming at each other long enough to actually go hunt someone. Or in the 'Guild Recruitment' room, you'll find players hoping to link up with a clan trying to get the guild members gathered there to stop screaming at each other long enough to actually recruit someone. Each room varies.
Now that you're in, stay quiet for a moment and try to gauge the tone of the room. The tone of a room can veer from hostile, to abusive, to cruel, to meanspirited, to obscene, and then probably back to hostile. Hostile is the best you can usually hope for, so you might want to prepare even before logging on to Battle.net. There is a simple exercise you can perform to get you in the mood, or 'limber you up', so to speak. Practice typing these phrases as fast as you can: "Your mother sucks"... "You all suck"... "Your father sucks"... "Your dog sucks"... and the always popular "Yeah? Well you swallow". These will get you started in those first few dizzying moments when abuse flies around your head like flak over Germany in 1944.
Now that you've acclimated yourself to the tone of the room, and have even tossed off a few clever bon mots about someone's sister and her fondness for farm animals, you're ready to rock. The first rule of engagement in a chat room is: DO NOT USE ALL CAPS. Those who use all caps are, ironically, usually those with the least to contribute. And all caps really tend to grate on the nerves after a bit. So if you're arguing with a caps lock junkie, just type normally. Soon you'll find that others will spring to your side just as an excuse to yell at the person who is causing them eye strain. Rule number two: Use complete sentences and correct punctuation. This will make you appear clever, even when suggesting that another player rend themselves anally with the Empire State Building. Now, we know that the temptation to get that witty remark onto the screen with all possible speed is powerful, but take the extra five seconds and type it correctly. It makes you sound as though you completed junior high - which puts you head and shoulders above many of those you'll run across. Third rule: No profanity. Staying away from obscene language makes you appear rational and coolheaded - much more intelligent than the all-caps potty-mouth you're conversing with. As an added bonus, when you avoid profanity it makes the rare use of a dirty word carry that much more weight. That way it'll really MEAN something when you call someone a fucknoid.
So you're in the chat room, you're typing correctly, and you've really pissed off some level 50 warrior named 'GutEater'. You've pissed him off so badly, in fact, that now he'd like nothing more than to get you into a room and stomp you into mulch. He issues a challenge before the entire room - "LET'S DUEL". What do you do? Well, it's easy to get nervous in the face of such a situation, but there is one overriding fact that should help you keep you perspective - IT'S ONLY A DAMNED GAME! 'GutEater' isn't some huge, musclebound psychopath from a dark age when monsters and wizards ruled the land. He's probably a 13 year-old in Wisconsin who's only online right now because his parents told him to quit spending so much time in the bathroom. So duel the little wanker. What's the worst than can happen? You'll lose half your gold and an ear. Whooptie-shit. But a loss only offers you a possibility to REALLY get old 'GutEater's' goat (actually, don't touch his goat, that'll only make him jealous) - go back into the chat room where he's gloating and show no anger. Even joke about it. Nothing pisses the winner of a duel off more than discovering the person he vanquished couldn't care less. See, Battle.net is a place where perspective gets very skewed very quickly. As a result, if you manage to keep your head, you'll win more psychological skirmishes than a level 90 cheater wins on the battlefield. He may have your ear... but you screwed with his head. That's a victory in our book every time. La la la la la...
These are just a few strategic tips about how to handle yourselves when dealing with the human monsters on the Battle.net. There'll be more to follow, in chapters such as 'You killed me to see if you could TRUST me?', 'Look, the rogue is only a drawing, quit telling me I have a nice butt', and 'Run like a pussy'.
