the net raiders

You might call it sucking up, but I call it credit where credit is long over due…

Back in the old school days of 1998, I founded a Diablo 2 guild called “GreySoul” with a couple of buddies of mine. I was nominated to do the web design for it, never really thinking that I would fall in love with the craft. Sure enough, I really dug my heals into the design, programming, and server side scripts. We needed a place to host our site since we were getting to big for xoom.com, and after a few quick emails back and forth with Elly, she was able to set us up with a sponsorship to, what was then, “Diabloii.net.” From that point on Flux, Rush and Elly herself did one hell of a job promoting GreySoul which eventually shot it up to over a hundred members strong.

The promotion, linked with the overflow of members gave way to the complete overhaul of the guild site. I spent countless hours, toiling away on the Diabloii.net/Diii.net server setting up the appropriate CHMOD’s and CGI-BIN’s to get the new forum setup. Once that was done, I uploaded the brand new flash site which eventually won me a regional graphic design award in Marin County, CA. Now several years later, and one year since the announcement of Diablo 3,  it is good to see that Flux and the gang are still at it doing exactly what they love. Building up a Blizzard community based off of one hell of a game.

Why the nostolgia?
I was chatting with my Girlfriend’s cousin this weekend and we got on the topic of how the Net Raiders (myself and Jeremy) are heading to Blizzcon 2009 this year. She then mentioned that she had played Diablo 2 back in the day. “Yeah,” I thought to myself. Girls don’t play Diablo. Or atleast I am yet to meet one. Sure enough she explained how she had a Hammerdin that used to run Baal runs. Well, that’s pretty legit right there. She even knew how to combine synergies for the blessed hammer to really own up on the damage. And it just got my thinking about how polished and approachable the whole Diablo series was. You could pick it up and play without any prior knowledge, and get going within minutes. It really is a damn good series. Which lead me to the Diii.net shout out.

What’s this about Blizzcon 2009?
As I said, fellow Net Raider Jeremy and myself are going to be heading down to Aneheim this August to report the latest and greatest at Blizzcon 2009. I am personally excited for the Diablo 3 information and am anticipating an announcement of a 4th Diablo 3 class, or something large to that extent. Not to mention, try out the game in whatever state we happen to find it in. If it was playable last year, then there must be something pretty solid waiting for us to test right?

What is this business about GreySoul?
I won’t delve into this very much because it’s serves my own selfish needs, but that was the old Diablo 2 guild that we used to run up until winter of 2000. If everyone asks nicely we might just bring it out of retirement if Diablo 3 offers anything impressive in the way of a guild system or even some sort of guild housing.