Join the new world

I often play video games in groups with my friends; we'll all pick up a game randomly from time to time to play it. Often enough it is a free-to-play game because we're not all made of money like some big movie actor. But we have plenty of paid for games as well, which is where this aside is coming from. It's usually a jolly time for all.

A few weeks ago we decided that, with its recent changed to core mechanics and revelation of a new expansion, we would all play a bit of Diablo 3. An ARPG made by Blizzard (World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Hearthstone) that involves you, a whole host of bad guys, demons, skeletors, and mobile loot bags in a world doomed to ruin and left with ending on par with Man of Steel, or worse. You kill things, things try to kill you, and everyone hides their valuables in unlocked boxes in the middle of nowhere.

Diablo 3 is not a game that I was new to. I had purchased it not long after it came out because I expected it to be more or less like the game that came before it: Diablo 2. We're not going to get into how I lost a $60 bet, but the point is that I finished the game with a character (wizard) at max level (60.)

For those of you who know the game, this is before paragon levels were introduced.

I didn't look back at the game for a long time, not until we picked it up a few weeks ago. Unknown to me, long ago after I had stopped stripping the gold from demons, stopped slaying evil lords of hell, someone had gained access to my account without me knowing and had used it for their nefarious deeds, probably laundering money or something equally pitiful. Obviously without me caring to log back into the game, they got away with their shenanigans for an unknown amount of time--open season with my account. Well, at some point in their nonstop glory train through the world of Diablo 3, these account burglars messed up.

My account was banned at an unknown point, and I only discovered this a few weeks ago when I tried to play again with my friends. You can guess that I was at least a little bit surprised, possibly dismayed--more annoyed.

Surprisingly, Blizzard does very well with customer care in this regard; or, they did in my case. I submitted a nice, heart-felt support ticket to them and instead of telling me my account was permanently suspended or taking four weeks to reply, they unbanned me the next day. Things were looking jolly again.

Then I learned part of what truly may have happened with my account, dashing my expectations against the wall. My first character, my old wizard character (aptly named Crazierinzane,) was still the same as I left it. Still sporting the same jaunty gear and color scheme, no had touched my original character in any noticeable way. No, that they did go after was my newest and only other character that I had created on there: my level 30-ish monk, named Angel, which has nothing to do with the show Angel Beats.

Base level 60, paragon level 110. My new character was wearing the best gear they could buy at the time, and I had a wealth of cash on me that could purchase almost any item. To put things into perspective: I played at most 50 hours over my entire playthrough of Diablo 3 when I still had the account--more than it deserved at the time. This monk, this lowly new character that I gave up on, had been granted over 600 hours of playtime since my departure from Diablo 3.

A fair amount of compensation for having an account stolen and being momentarily banned? For my intents and purposes it is. Can't say I feel sorry for the previous party.

I discovered today, under the same guise as wanting to play Diablo 3, that my Star Trek Online account has been banned unbeknownst to me. Here's hoping.

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Obviously the only way to succeed in video games is to be banned from them.

Everyone get to it.

Report back with promising results.