Rest in Peace Devilian

As expected, the contingent that gathered was very small as more PC’s on an older build became patched with the 1709 build of Windows 10.  Since the closing announcement was made on January 19th, the population of long time players has also continued to dwindle (some hit by the update while others moving on angrily on their own).  The end result was the sub-20 player count of those who showed up in channel 2-1 (there were some AFK characters in 1-1).

At the same time, there were also many newer players (spread out timezone wise as far as when they were playing) who were low level with virtually no chance of ever seeing end game content.  The majority were on limited accounts which meant they could not use megaphones and could only be heard if they were in the same general vicinity on the same channel.  And they of course could not initiate any trade adding insult to injury.  Some weren’t even aware of the impending closure (even though the launcher graphic clearly mentions it, leading me to believe some were unaware what sunsetting means).

I happened to meet several as the clock ticked down to this day and did what I could to help them level and get geared up.  It gave me a reason to login and actually run content.  I fortunately had a huge stockpile of rare enigma boxes and ended up with several hundred dungeon invasion tickets.  I happened to meet one of these players while chatting with a veteran who was logging in for the last time.  Since we were typing over global announce, I received a friend request and then whisper from this low level (48) who mentioned she had been playing for only 3 weeks (start of January), felt it was a beautiful game, and wanted to see it out until the end.

The cannoneer in the panda suit in the video thumbnail is her (max level with some endgame Chimera legendaries equipped).  Out of all the players I was helping to level, she was the most dedicated being there almost everyday, taking in the game.  And despite the limited time until closure, she was soaking up information like a sponge.  We’ve since developed a great friendship and I look at her as the little sister I never had in real life.

I also met some of the nicest and kindest individuals in the last 4 weeks from all parts of the world and from different walks of life.  That made this closure feel a lot worse in the process because all of these players were losing a game they found fun to play and thus loved.  The closure of the Korean server paled in comparison to how I began to feel as I reviewed this video.

I had originally planned to go through my videos in chronological order (reviewing CBT footage and working towards the close) for my Memories of Devilian playlist on YouTube.  And I had originally planned to edit in small pieces of moments as transitions in the sunset video.  I changed my mind on both as I reviewed the video after.  There were things I wished I had done differently (like forgetting about refining that piece and just soaking up the moment).  Not fully concentrating on chat at the time, I was missing a lot of things being written; things I could’ve responded to in that moment.  The gear stuff I was doing was all symbolic (like when I extracted the rune from the Chimera piece that I was going to replace with the one extracted from the Capricious item) given that there was no time to make actual use of it.

I was also alt-tabbing out to look at a checklist of things I had wanted to do during the closing moments and several of them never happened.  I had earlier in the day pre-positioned all of my characters in the open plaza section of Asperon which I planned to switch to one-by-one in order to say my final goodbye.  I originally did not expect anything to be done in-game but Devilian’s former senior producer Rick “Din Othar” White did show up.  I asked if he could open up rifts in Asperon and he did.

It unfortunately was taking place to the right of the central fountain area (away from where I had staged my characters),  And that area also does not provide a lot of space for taking screenshots or zooming in without cutting off players on the right.  It was all beginning to feel a bit chaotic and the time was ticking down faster than I expected.

With 10 minutes left, I began switching in my characters.  Precious seconds ticked by from not just the loading, but also running them down from where I had pre-positioned them.  On several characters which I had not yet friended my “lil sis” with, I did that as a symbolic gesture where we’d be friends forever in this final state of the database when the game was brought down.  I managed to get all of them switched in but it ended up being a rush towards the end (not the slow zoomed in view I was going to do for each).  I barely got my main loaded back in and unfortunately, was unable to have my character standing side-by-side as I wanted since I had to position in the front in order to capture everyone in the above video.

Sure, it is just digital data and pixels that make up these virtual worlds and characters.  But there are people (the players) who breathe life into these characters and give them their own unique personalities in the process.  As one of my former guildmates said about the last time he logged in to his evoker, he was just awaiting his characters final execution once the servers went offline.

With some games, the client remains open with a server disconnected dialog box imposed over it.  When the server was pulled offline for Devilian, the client terminated immediately (when that happens, OBS just records blackness).  When I got to that part in the video, the swiftness of that finality really cut deep; it hurt (the reality of human emotion).  You were immediately cut off from not just your character, but everything you visualized about the game world as well as the chat that was happening.  You were suddenly all by yourself sitting there staring at your desktop (or in my case, looking at the above image with the launcher saying “OFFLINE”.  And it felt horrible (because as I mentioned, there were many kind players I had met who were seeing their beloved game disappearing).

Fortunately, I had already setup a text chat on Discord which allowed some of us to communicate via after the fact.  I’ve talked to far too many players who had nearly the identical thing to say; the sadness of the game closing and no longer being able to play their characters and the game plus their absolute hatred of Trion and Bluehole.

For myself, my brain is still processing the array of emotions where I know the anger phase is inevitable.  While I had written before that I had stopped playing for periods of time during 2017, the last 6 weeks since the closure announcement was made translated into many hours in-game and a completely topsy turvy sleep schedule.  When it suddenly stops cold turkey, that void becomes noticeable/palpable.  Basically, the feeling of loss this time is much greater compared to when KR shutdown where it is going to take several days to go through the entire range of emotion as well as going back to a normal playing and sleep schedule.Rest in Peace Devilian, my beloved characters and my wonderful in-game friends.  You will all be missed dearly!