Alternate Clones

I started the game last night about 7:10 pm, 50 minutes before Alice said she might be able to play. I created the game with my barbarian PackMule character so I could play while I waited for her and have Anya's portal in case Alice wanted to visit Pindleskin. PackMule has made it to the Arreat Summit atop the mountain, but has not fought the ancients yet since he still wants better gear.

I didn't know where Alice might want to explore so I didn't take him to any area in Act 5 that way all monsters would be intact when she arrived. He went to the River of Flame waypoint and ventured east into the Chaos Sanctuary and cleared the area. He released the monsters from each of the three live seals but did not open the last two empty ones to release Diablo.

Afterwards I took him into the Rogue Camp and here is a group picture of him in the middle and my alternate clones as we stand in the rain.

The term "alternate clones" is one coined by Alice a few days ago. When we were playing she asked if my other characters were twins or clones. I said something like: If they are clones then their DNA has been altered a bit since they don't look anything like me." (Remember, the "me" character is a sorceress.) That seemed to tickle her and she started calling them my alternate clones.

So, let me introduce them to you. In this next picture you can see Jessie_Starter, the Assassin. I created her first to start the games for us when we were in Act 1. This lets us re-run boss monsters and especially the Countess with improved odds of good things dropping.

Starter is also used to hold extra things we might need or want later in the game or as we find some new items. For instance, at one point I had all of my resistences maxed but found the Sander's Taboo Heavy Gloves. With their +20% increased attack speed and +40 to life, I chose them over the gloves I had at the time. This then dropped one of my resistences too low so I swapped with some items Starter was holding to compensate.

Now that we are in Act 5 and I have accumulated more stuff, I have organized them so each holds a more generalized group of things. Starter now holds my extra jewelry which consists mostly of +resistence amulets and rings, and she has the extra runes and various gems. This lets me keep all the chips and flaweds and cube them up to better grades without having to worry about stash space.

This next picture is PackmuleToo, a Paladin. I created him when I needed more space. He now holds mostly charms and full rejuvination potions.

As we started getting better clothing items to wear, I wanted to save the old stuff for each of these characters to use in case I play them through normal difficulty and then they can be in our game when we start nightmare. This next character is Jessies_Clothes, a necromancer. He now holds just the hats, armors, belts, gloves and boots.

I specifically chose to make each mule character a different class so I would get experience playing other characters. (I've only seriously played a barbarian and a sorceress.)

Oh, and for those of you not familar with the game, another reason to have all of them in while we play is that it makes the experience gained per monster kill higher and increases the odds of good things dropping.

Well, Alice didn't get into the game so that means she was tired and needed her rest. She has to go to school this morning. (Actually, she's already there since she is 8 hours ahead of me.)