Battle.net Gods Take Revenge on the Carl

Not content to bat us around like a chew toy, Battle.net also mocks us with a very sucky torch.

Some of our uneducated readers may not realize it, but the Carl was spawned at the feet of Battle.net. If Shawn is the grandpappy and the other Carls his unwilling partners in a lunatic coupling to create the off-spring, Battle.net was the back seat of the car in which the dirty deeds were done in birthing the Carl.

The Carls don't spend much time on Battle.net these days as their fickle attention is now focused largely on Arena.net. This morning, however, the Carls returned in full force to their old playing grounds for a little romping in Uber Tristram (for what is commonly called a "Pandemonium Event"). Uber Tristram is a special place where steroid-enhanced and crazed versions of Baal, Diablo, and Mephisto hang out waiting for earnest heroes to show up and bat them around for the chance at a special drop, a Hellfire torch large charm. The best of such charms give +3 to skills for a certain class of hero and 20 to all attributes and 20 to all resists. The worst will give +3 to all skills and 10 to all attributes and 10 to all resists. What's more, some classes are more desirable than others. Only smelly loonies enjoy playing assassins, for instance, so that is the least desirable class to receive such a charm for.

Not only are they huge and comical, but they, of course, do not stack in the stash.

Making one's way to Uber Tristram is not easy. You must first rough up several bosses in hell level difficulty and shake them down for pandemonium keys. You need 3 of each key and that in and of itself can take awhile as the keys drop in about 1 in 10 or so trips to the each boss's house. Since they aren't big on unannounced visitors showing up at their tea time and asking them to empty their pockets of goodies, it's not exactly a picnic running them. They're grumpier than Sharon gets when you don't listen to her and run off and angry up a bunch of enemies and facilitate a party wipe.

Once you've laid down the smack enough times for 9 of the correct over-sized novelty pandemonium keys, you have to use them to open up 3 portals where you encounter the semi-uber bosses. The main problem for the Carls is that Lilith, who has large naked breasts and is constantly bending over and attempting to stab the heroes' eyes out with her nipples, is very terrifying to the mammaphobic types (cough, Shawn, cough). Each of the three ubers leaves behind a juicy body part (horn, brain, eyeball) which you then used to cook up a portal to Uber Tristram.

Uber Tristram, the gateway to untold misery.

Now, the road has already been long, hard, and expensive so, once you generate that portal, you don't want Battle.net to do one of its drunken hiccups, toss you out into the lobby, and throw your game with it's rare and valuable red portal into the trash can. However, Battle.net is an extremely jealous entity and it does not take kindly to deserters. In retaliation for our dalliances with the likes of Guild Wars and Arena.net (that hussy!), Battle.net smacks us up real good during our sojourn into Uber Tristram. Oh, it let us get our body parts from the semi-ubers just fine and open up our portal, but then it played a mind game with us that even the most neurotic stalker girlfriend wouldn't inflict on you.

First, it let us make the portal and go in. We had encountered Uber Mephisto after a careful lure and beaten him down to a sliver of life when the screen froze then flashed us all a "You Have Lost Your Connection to Battle.net" message and tossed us into the lobby. Panicked that the game and it's hard to generate portal were now history, we jumped back in and issued a sigh of relief that the game was still intact. Now, our well-planned and executed lure of one of the three ubers is in tatters and they are all on us so we smack the nearest one and that's now Uber Baal. Bear in mind that, the longer you take to kill the ubers, the worse the situation gets as each one is constantly summoning minions out of thin air. We get Baal down to a sliver and the screen freezes and we're tossed out again. Once more we beat a hasty path back in before the game collapses.

Now, we're sensing a pattern, but we're gullible enough to try again and the same thing happens as we once more pound down an Uber to a sliver of life. We decided to jettison one of the players in hopes of placating Battle.net with a human sacrifice (bye, bye, Shawn, the large-breasted will trouble you no more). No dice. We kick another player out knowing that life is going to be very hard with only two of us in the scramble and Sharon gets sent packing. Two Carls are out and two are left (my husband is the other Carl).

Keep in mind that my husband has not been toying with that slut Arena.net as the 3D camera effects make him motion sick. He and I go back in and my ass is handed to me immediately and I exit the game and come back so I can collect my body more quickly. Meanwhile, in reward for his loyalty, Battle.net lets him wipe out Uber Meph all by himself while I scramble to pick up my carcass and jump back in through the red portal. I believe it is no mere coincidence that he alone was spared as the lone faithful boyfriend of Battle.net.

In the end, we got the torch, but the stats and hero class made it clear that Battle.net is still feeling uppity and felt mocking us was in order. We're going to have to work hard to placate this gaming service scorned. Sacrifices of Jell-o (what corn is to Arena.net, Jell-o is to Battle.net) and plush wombats will have to be offered on bended knee. If all else fails, it can have Shawn as a grubby, but passive, slave boy provided that it keeps Lilith away from him.