User:Flux

Lunching at Flagship Studios, August 2007.

I began working on this website in the summer of 1998 (yes, that long ago) when my interest in Diablo I and Hellfire brought me to Elly's old D1/HF site, long before she'd secured the diabloii.net domain name. That site was very basic and just hosted on an extension of a gaming cafe she ran, but it was the only decent online source of Hellfire information, and when I started sending in emails with comments and corrections, Elly was always quick to reply and update the info. It wasn't too much longer before Blizzard North announced that they were working on Diablo II, and as I read the pre-game info and saw the early cinematics, I grew more and more interested in the title.

In those early days of the Internet, there weren't a lot of fansites and there was very little pre-game hype or fan activity for even the biggest titles. When Elly started putting together a fansite for Diablo II, and she asked me to help out on it, I wondered what we'd find to write about, with the game so far from release. (Imagine if we'd known the title would be delayed 18 months?) Needless to say, we managed to find quite a bit, gained a considerable online audience, and came to the attention of the D2 team, who invited myself, Elly, and our third early writer, Gaile Gray, to visit their offices in San Francisco in December of 1999, as Diablo II moved towards the beta testing phase. We were the first and only fansite so honored, and I was fortunate enough to be invited back several more times (including a chance to advance test the long-awaited v1.09 patch in 2003) before the founders left (to form Flagship Studios) and the company folded.

I shared news duties with Elly and Gaile, and was the primary content writer for Diabloii.net from 1999-2003. Features I introduced and managed included the Fact of the Day, Hardcore Graveyard, Strategy Section, Items Section, Screenshot Galleries, Articles Section, and more. I especially enjoyed turning out some holiday-themed D2 fanfic, with a new story each Halloween. Real life started to intrude in 2003, when I moved from San Diego to the Bay Area to live with my girlfriend, and I had less time for or interest in Diablo II. I continued to update sporadically through 2003, but by 2004 I had pretty well retired from working on this website.

I returned to fansite involvement in 2006, when Elly convinced me to run the network's new Hellgate: London site. I enjoyed that project, felt anticipation for the game, and it was fun to see all the old gang from Blizzard North in their new studio. Unfortunately, when HGL was released in a buggy, unfinished state on Halloween 2007, fan interest dried up and my hoped for payoff (a share in the ad revenues of a busy fansite) for my year and a half of part time work, vanished.

I returned to working on Diabloii.net in early 2008, and am now managing the wiki and assisting Elly in refurbishing the rest of the site, which will shortly relaunch in an entirely new design and a modern, web 2.0 structure, as we tune up for the upcoming/eventual announcement of Diablo III.

Personal

February 2008: In real life I'm a recent college graduate, a applying grad student, and an aspiring novelist. I separated from Malaya, the girlfriend I moved up here to live with, in late 2006, but I still live in the North Bay, about 15 miles north of San Francisco and 30 miles north of the old Blizzard North offices. Since 2002 I've maintained a personal website that features my writing, a daily blog, and years and years of wandering discourse on news, human psychology, politics, culture, and much more.

July 2008: The Diablo III wiki is underway. And there was much rejoicing!