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[ScrambledGregs]

So a few nights ago I was talking to a friend, and then another friend, and long story short...I went out and bought the Diablo Battlechest since it was on sail at Circuit City for $27.99 and I'm fully addicted to Diablo 2 again.

Is it just me, or is Diablo 2 one of the best games of the past 10 years?? The one friend I was talking to was saying how he doesn't follow videogames that much anymore, and doesn't feel there are as many great games that you keep coming back to over the years and playing over and over. 1UP's Retronauts podcast devoted an episode to the Diablo series recently, so I said to him "well, what about Diablo?? It came out in 2000, but it's relatively new." His response was that it's a fantastic game, but it's no fun to play online anymore because the game has become the playground of assholes. I suggested that he and I play online together in password protected games, and here I am. At the same time the other friend I know from work is the epitome of a casual gamer, but yet he has Diablo 2 and apparently never experience the joy of playing online.

Now that all that boring stuff is out of the way, let's talk shop. I don't consider myself a hardcore Diablo fan in the "I must beat the game on Hell and get the ultimate items and do so for every character!!" but I have spent far too much time in the past (and in the past 12 hours) playing the game. There's just something that makes me obsessive with games that are pick up and playable and yet have depth to them like Diablo. It's far too much fun to think of character builds and party combinations and so on. For what it's worth, they recently released a patch for the game and now creating a Necromancer skeleton based summon build is viable.

[SomeOtherGuy]

Diablo 2 is like crack covered in bacon fried sauteed in the tears of angles.  everytime i see it at the store i almost get it but don't because i know it will take over my life for the next six months.  but ahh i do miss making trapassins, swordbarbs, and various other chars.

[Johnny C]

I was playing this system the other day, it was called the "Playstation 2." It was really fun! You should give it a shot.

[Xamira]

Please dont mention that name, Ive tried to block that part of my life out

[thepugs]

I still play occasionally on USEast.
I've got an 80something javazon, and a 60something barb and 60something hammerdin.
Maybe over the summer I'll pick it up a little more, but as it is exams are a monster.

If you feel like adding me as a friend my acc is "thepugs".

[godinpants]

haha i re-bought this game recently after i couldnt find my old copy.
I havent been playing too much due to an influx of uni work.
But ill get around to it soon.

[0bsessions]

I had a slight relapse in the middle of this past winter. I never took it very far, though. I hadn't played since maybe 2001 and just got the sudden urge. The problem was, I couldn't find a copy of the Battlechest ANYWHERE! Considering my specific urging was for the Druid class, I needed both and I wasn't gonna shell out $40 for anything BUT the Battlechest. It was perplexing 'cause it WAS readily available EVERYWHERE still, but NOW I was having problems.

Unfortunately, by the time I finally found a copy, the craving had almost passed and I only ended up playing as far as the second chapter. I might pop in the disc and give it a little time tonight. It's an off day for the Sox and I've got about four hours between the time I get out of work and when Heroes starts. I never much got into the online thing as the only other friends I had didn't have internet at the time and even then it was just a playground for assholes. Hence, my characters are all long since gone. Just as well, though, most of the fun stemmed from building the character up into an unstoppable werebear killing machine with a pack of unstoppable animals at my disposal, anyways. There's very little more broken of a character than a high level Druid with werebear, maxed out spirit wolves (Or the grizzley, he's fun too), a murder of crows, a carrion vine and heart of the wolverine (I think that was the one that upped your attack stats, I forget).

Now, why the Hell do we NOT have a Diablo MMO yet?! I know Blizzard loves their little WoW, but hop to, people!

[McTaggart]

If we do get a d2 mmo I want it to have ruthless pvp and completely open corpse looting rules. Pvp ain't no fun if there no loss.

The beauty of d2 was that every top end character was completely broken to about the same degree.

[0bsessions]

Hell, nobody's gonna be looting corpses around me while my carrion vine's devouring them for the sake of regenerating me while I maul you to a pulp. Ah, such a great game...

[Orbert]

I still play Diablo II. The whole thing where areas are different each time, and there are a zillion ways to build each class, totally works. The game was designed from the ground up to be replayable forever, and after six years, damn, I'm still finding new stuff and playing characters different ways. Yeah, it's pretty much crack for your PC.

[ScrambledGregs]

I was playing this system the other day, it was called the "Playstation 2." It was really fun! You should give it a shot.

I'm used to elitist PC gamers, but elitist console gamers?? I never...

For what it's worth, the only new PC game I've played in the last 6 years has been Diablo 2. Otherwise I'm an all console guy.

[0bsessions]

While that entry seemed like mostly snark for the sake of snark, I have met REAL console "elitists" and let me tell you: they're about the only kind of gamer more annoying than a PC elitist. They're the type who need the bleeding edge tech at the expense of fun, but they're clueless as to the fact that you're not going to get most of the "bleeding edge" tech from consoles outside of the first year of a console's lifetime.

Games are fun and bleeding edge tech can enhance that, but more often than not, it makes the developer lazy. A lot of times, a developer will just make it as pretty as possible to cover up obvious flaws in gameplay (Squaresoft is one of the biggest culprits of this idea). Sometimes, you'll get an incredible looking game that's just downright a blast to play (Gears of War springs to mind, quickly). Elitits in general are just annoying in the idea that they are prejudiced towards certain genres or consoles.

I'm a console gamer at heart (Mostly for the convenience compared to PC gaming and you don't see a lot of the genres I aim for end up on PC), but damned if I can't appreciate some excellent PC games (Or console games that work better on PC, I find KotoR is a lot better on PC) or admit that Diablo II is easily one of the top ten games of the last decade. I wouldn't mind a graphical update to be sure, but it's hard to beat that sublime perfection of addictive, mindless and repetetive gameplay that STILL draws you back for more every time.

Damn, I wish I could turn into a bear at will.

[Johnny C]

I'm used to elitist PC gamers, but elitist console gamers?? I never...

For what it's worth, the only new PC game I've played in the last 6 years has been Diablo 2. Otherwise I'm an all console guy.

Actually I was trying to think of a more modern PC game that I play and I realized that my best PC games are the Pirates! remake and Half-Life 2 and those are both a couple of years old so I'd still sound like a chump!

Anyhow I still play Civilization II, SimTower and Super Nintendo so who am I to judge?

[Johnny Evilguy]

Scrambled fight it! It is possible! I've had Diablo relapses and it can take houuuurs away, and give Blizzard credit for refining digicrack to a science... If only WoW had more the grittier, bloodthirsty environment Diablo has, as well as their pvp mechanics, I probably would have gone back...

However that'll be impossible... too many people would whine to the developers for easy mode....

Question: do they still do patches? or is it 24/7 hack-fest?

[Orbert]

The Diablo II v1.10 patch was the biggest recent one, a few years back, and they totally revised the way the skill trees work (while not actually changing the skills themselves, if that makes any sense).  Since then, we've have v1.11a through v1.11d, which fix a number of little things that they broke with v1.10 and added some more RuneWords.  It was the 1.10/1.11 patching that renewed my interest in the game, since I'd beaten it in 1.08/1.09 with at least one of each class and a number of subclasses. 1.10/1.11 is much harder, but has a bunch of new stuff too.

[Trollstormur]

I'm a recovering wow addict. 18 months sober.

[Catfish_Man]

I wish wish wish they let you archive characters in D2. I'd still dust off my level 84 Meteorb Sorc sometimes... but alas, she is long gone.

[Orbert]

I almost never play on Battle.net. Single Player for me. There are lots of reasons, but I suppose one of them is that you keep your characters, not them.

[ScrambledGregs]

Diablo 2 is so much god damned fun but it's so difficult to find reliable people to play it with online. When you do manage to do so, it's one of the most satisfying game experiences you'll ever have. Single player is great, too, but managing hirelings isn't the same as working with characters who are the same class as you but have wholly different skills, and so on.

[Orbert]

Oh, I agree. Playing cooperatively with other people is sweet; it's the part about finding someone to play with online that catches me. My wife, son and I all play, so we do MultiPlayer via LAN at home. We can use our Single Player characters, and get the benefits of combining different player classes. To me, that's about as good as it gets.

[imapiratearg]

Diablo is SO DAMN HARD.  I actually commited a videogame sin, and played Diablo II without playing Diablo I first (Please don't kill me!).  Blizzard has a nack for putting out incredibly addicting games.  If they ever made a WoW-esque Diablo MMO, i would pick it up in a heartbeat, and subsequently, lose all motivation to do anything else for at least as long as the subscription lasted.

Druids FTW!

[ackblom12]

Diablo II was such a ridiculous improvement over 1 that I can't honestly say you're missing much.

[imapiratearg]

I think Blizzard should do a graphic rehaul to Diablo II honestly.  Not to like, next-gen graphics, but enough so it looks nicer.

[ScrambledGregs]

Like ackblom said, Diablo 2 is an improvement over the first game in every single way so you are not missing a thing. I played the original for a bit before I got back into Diablo 2 and it is painfully outdated and slow.

Also, the Lord of Destruction expansion did up the resolution to 800 X 600, but I know what you mean. I still think the game looks fantastic, and I hope if they decide to ever use the Diablo franchise again they keep the same look/feel only make it high res and in the same isometric perspective.

[imapiratearg]

Diablo's probably the only game i've ever seen use that perspective, and have it locked like that, and have it be functional.  I agree with you, even after how long it's been out, it's not a bad looking game, and the cinematics are easily some of the most gorgeous and well done movies i've ever seen in a game.

[ackblom12]

Actually, most of the CRPG's from the late 90's and early 00's used the fixed isometric perspective to great ends. It was a wonderful time period for CRPGs... now I have to wait to see if Fallout is added to my list of repeat rape victims.

I'm still really curious what they're gonna do with the eventual Diablo 3. Think Hellgate will be a good indicator of how it will turn out?

[Orbert]

I think Hellgate: London will be a good indicator of what Diablo 3 could have been. Flagship Studios was founded by most of the Blizzard North team that created Diablo and Diablo II. They left after Blizzard absorbed Blizzard North and changed a lot of things (including introducing a strict 8-to-5 workday - anyone who's ever programmed professionally knows what a ridiculous idea this is). Other members of that team have moved on as well.  There's almost no one left at Blizzard who worked on Diablo, so I would say that Hellgate: London will be much closer to the Diablo series in terms of both quality and "feel" than anything Blizzard is currently capable of producing.

[miss mephisto]

Diablo 2 is a fun game to keep coming back to. It gets old pretty fast once you've beat it a million times but I still enjoy going back to in on occasion and obsessively playing it for weeks on end.

Of course, I'm one of those assholes. I love all the hacks they have for making people drop armor and such. But seriously, if you're stupid enough to follow a link a stranger gives you in an online game you deserve to lose all your possessions.

[Storm Rider]

Actually, Orbert, I've read that there is a growing movement within the games industry to streamline the work week more. In light of overtime disputes with publishers like EA and Activision as well as the gradual maturation of the designers (the people who are making the games are getting older and starting families, so they can't work 14 hours a day) have lead to more companies switching to a less spartan work schedule. I know Supreme Commander specifically was produced with drastically less overtime work than most major games.

[ackblom12]

I think Hellgate: London will be a good indicator of what Diablo 3 could have been. Flagship Studios was founded by most of the Blizzard North team that created Diablo and Diablo II. They left after Blizzard absorbed Blizzard North and changed a lot of things (including introducing a strict 8-to-5 workday - anyone who's ever programmed professionally knows what a ridiculous idea this is). Other members of that team have moved on as well.  There's almost no one left at Blizzard who worked on Diablo, so I would say that Hellgate: London will be much closer to the Diablo series in terms of both quality and "feel" than anything Blizzard is currently capable of producing.

Good point, and it makes me a little sad. I'm just hoping they can keep the financial side of the business going and not go the way of several of my favorite Dev groups.

[Orbert]

Actually, Orbert, I've read that there is a growing movement within the games industry to streamline the work week more. In light of overtime disputes with publishers like EA and Activision as well as the gradual maturation of the designers (the people who are making the games are getting older and starting families, so they can't work 14 hours a day) have lead to more companies switching to a less spartan work schedule. I know Supreme Commander specifically was produced with drastically less overtime work than most major games.

That may be true, but the fact remains that Diablo and Diablo II were created by a team of guys who worked ridiculous hours because they genuinely loved what they were doing, and loved the freedom to do it their way. When that was taken away, they left.

I'll admit to having worked for two pretty big corporations for the past 12 years. But my hours are flexible. I come and go pretty much as I like (they do like to have people in by 10am - I usually make it by then), and my bosses have told me that as long as 40 hours show up on my timesheet somewhere and all my work gets done, they don't mind.

I understand the corporate bean-counter mentality that states that creativity and productivity can be turned on and off like a switch. They expect their people to punch a clock like some kind of factory production-line worker and "be creative now". This works for some people, but not all, and certainly not for most programmers I've known. What's the fun in having a creative job when they make it just as boring and lame as any other job?

[ScrambledGregs]

SO HEY GUYS LET'S TALK ABOUT DIABLO 2 NOW!!

In my solo game as a WolfDruid, I am now in Act III. I forgot what a pain in the ass this chapter is; all the quests seem like they take too god damn long to do, since there's 3 or 4 dungeons you have to tromp through for each one. Of course it doesn't help that I obsessively take items to sell in town instead of just only taking the yellow items or taking shit I can use. I'm also seeing the incredibly annoying part of playing as a WolfDruid, because I have no area attack skills at all, and my Dire Wolves don't kill fast/smart enough. Oh well. Diablo II isn't the sort of game I ever finish; I pretty much start a build and play until I get bored.

[imapiratearg]

Yeah, Act III is a bitch.  I think my characters are always terrible, because it takes me like, hours just to kill the bosses.  I think i died about twenty times when trying to killed the Act II boss.  Mephisto probably killed me dozens of times.  Somehow i made it to Act IV (I think it's act four, right?  the one where you go from the angel's base thing to hell?) as a level 26 necromancer.  Thusly, i had my ass handed to me every time i tried to go anywhere.

One thing that always perplexed me about that game was the Horadric Cube.  The one thing i did know that you could do with it was get to the secret cow level.  But that wasn't going to help me at all.

[lb969]

(including introducing a strict 8-to-5 workday - anyone who's ever programmed professionally knows what a ridiculous idea this is).

8 to 5, a 8 hour workday with an hour lunch IIRC...

Crap, I was lucky if its 6-7 with 15 mins to refill the coffee pot!

One thing that always perplexed me about that game was the Horadric Cube.  The one thing i did know that you could do with it was get to the secret cow level.  But that wasn't going to help me at all.

I normally use it as extra storage...

Horadric Cube recipes


I was last running an uber Necromancer that concentrates on summoning skeletons and a dual scimitar Barbarian. (I prefer to do medium damage very quickly than heavy damage slowly)

[imapiratearg]

Yeah, it's handy for storage.  I knew about that site, but it didn't help very much.  There's so many formulas, that i could never find one that was useful for my character.  Also, i would never have necessary materials to make anything cool.

Besides the portal. 

[Tyrial]

I had to forcibly stop playing Diablo II, that thing consumed many, many hours of my life. Now I rely on WoW for that

But Hellgate: London will be an awesome spiritual successor, check out the set gear: I give you the 'Hive Blade Set':

[ScrambledGregs]

I always use the Cube to make three lesser quality gems into a single better quality one. Same with health potions; later in the game you still get Lesser/Light Healing potions which aren't much help. But you can transmute three together to make a better one.

[will: wanton sex god]

i played a bunch in .09 then i had a zealot back in 1.10 that had defense and ar in the XX,XXX figures and it was just getting ridiculous so i quit.  then i built a wind druid with enigma, perfect hoto, etc, quit agian, and then i played with my friend on ip games till about level 40 and quit agian.

[imapiratearg]

I always use the Cube to make three lesser quality gems into a single better quality one. Same with health potions; later in the game you still get Lesser/Light Healing potions which aren't much help. But you can transmute three together to make a better one.

Yeah, i do that too.  But you can make like, swords, and armor and enchant them, which is what i wanted to do, but i never had the correct reagents.

[epifreak]

Yeah, Act III is a bitch.  I think my characters are always terrible, because it takes me like, hours just to kill the bosses.  I think i died about twenty times when trying to killed the Act II boss.  Mephisto probably killed me dozens of times.  Somehow i made it to Act IV (I think it's act four, right?  the one where you go from the angel's base thing to hell?) as a level 26 necromancer.  Thusly, i had my ass handed to me every time i tried to go anywhere.

One thing that always perplexed me about that game was the Horadric Cube.  The one thing i did know that you could do with it was get to the secret cow level.  But that wasn't going to help me at all.

Nah, Act II is actually the hardest of any of the bosses in that game. Mephisto was too easy to exploit and Diablo and Baal were easier than half of what you had to fight to get to them in the first place. On a related note, am I the only one who ever had an inordinate amount of difficulty fighting Andariel? I'd face her at the right level, with the right equipment, and for some reason, I'd have my ass handed to me every time. I'm not really sure why.

[0bsessions]

Your thoughts on the difficulty are entirely subjective. It depends on the player's skill and their class.

I had a summoner/shapeshifter Druid and personally, I found Act II to be the easiest, by far. Diablo himself always gave me the most outright trouble.

Andariel gave me serious trouble my first time through the game. The poison and my early tendency to just charge in were my biggest problems. I'd get poisoned and then mobbed by her minions. If you've got plenty of potions and pick off her minions before getting too close to her, she's easy enough. That's why I always found Diablo to be troublesome, he's without minions and he can still smack you around on his own. A druid excels on bosses with minions and suffers against solo bosses. summons can keep the minions busy while you tank it with shapeshifting and a carrion vine'll keep your health up.

[Lines]

I went to a LAN party once with some people and I played Diablo II for about 6 hours straight with them. (It would have been longer, but I had to leave early.) Fun game. Fun, addictive game. I think this was right after it got out, so there were no assholes that I remember playing with, so it was a really fun experience. I think Blizzard should make it an MMO, but like someone said earlier, they're a little obsessed with WoW. (Nothing against it, but really when you mention you play WoW, you get the "Oh, you're special" look, which Diablo II doesn't. I don't like the "Oh, you're special" look.)

[ScrambledGregs]

I think the problem with Diablo 2's Acts is that they're all pretty different and the difficult ramps up too fast between them. Act I is so retardedly easy that when you get to Andariel you expect to stomp her easily, but then you ruins your shit. Whenever I play any kind of melee type character I just wear her down my attrition, losing a lot of gold in the process.

But you leave Act I being able to walk through every area if you want to, but as soon as you get into the first quest of Act II you start taking more damage. And in this Act is also where elemental resistances begin to play a big role. I always nearly die fighting those beetle enemies because they spew lightning everywhere when hit. I think this Act is great until you get to the fucking Arcane Sanctuary, which has to be the most annoying area in the game. It feels like miles of paths you have to traverse, and at the same time you're fighting enemies that leech your mana and health. Then you get to the part where you have to use teleport gates to move around, and even though it's not required to finish the quest, I didn't know that at the time.

Act III isn't so much difficult as irritating. I don't like the way the areas are laid out, and the third quest is one of those "go to a bunch of dungeons for one item and then combine them all together" deals that was tedious in Act II except that in that case it was only three items. I realize the whole point of this is to keep you in each Act long enough to level up enough to eventually beat Diablo, but couldn't they just make the quests shorter and the enemies more difficult/give more experience??

[Catfish_Man]

I found Andariel easy, Duriel incredibly hard (at first. We took him down in a hell difficulty coop game in about... 15 seconds? I guess the key is meteor and having two people, neither of which I had in normal difficulty), and Act 3 hard. So I suspect that your experience is just that, your experience. Mine was very different.

[imapiratearg]

The Arcane Sanctuary's layout was based off of the painting Waterfall by M.C. Escher.  They did it specifically to make you get lost and confused, and essentially, piss you off.  Act III is defenitely my least favorite, because the whole making Khalim's Will quest was just the assembly of the Staff of the Horadrim quest, rehashed.  Not only that, but the enemies were a pain in the arse.  Those fucking pygmies.  I never noticed it before, that it was a half-assed act.  It's the longest though.  That's mostly what i didn't like about it.

[The Cosmic Fool]

Really is a good game as much as the uptight, elite games like to say it's not.

If you actually get bored of plain D2: LoD, there are alot of great mods out there that breathe new life into the game.

http://modsbylaz.planetdiablo.gamespy.com/ - This one is callled Median 2008 and it basically revamps all the monsters, replaces all your skills with new ones and adds a whole new system for items. It's practically a new game.

http://homepage3.nifty.com/miyoshino/es/es3top.htm - This one is called Eastern Sun and I've yet to try it but basically it's 75 mb worth of weapons, items and various different additions to the default game. I haven't played this one yet, as I'm still on Median 2008, but this one looks like it adds ALOT of content. A billion new weapon suffixes, new sets, new gems, the whole works. Highly looking forward to this one.

[epifreak]

As for mephisto, equip a bow, and it's game over for him if you're careful. If you carefully walk up, you can catch the edge of where you can target him. You can then pop off shots at will, as Mephisto's attack script doesn't kick in for at least a few more pixels. Essentially, he's a free kill.

[ScrambledGregs]

So! I finally fucking beat Diablo!! It was probably a 20 minute fight and one of the most exhilarating boss fights in the game. Turns out it was a bad idea not to keep leveling up before you fight him, because I barely scraped level 29 before I got to him and so died at least two dozen times. However, using town portals and sheer bloody minded persistence, I wore the bastard down.

Now I just have to power through Act V and I can tick this game off my list of "Always Meant To Beat" games. Oh, and start playing it for the fun of it.

[imapiratearg]

A game should always be played for the fun of it.  Regardless of whether or not you've beat it.

[ScrambledGregs]

But when I feel as though I HAVE TO beat it, it becomes an assignment. I still have fun with it, but I'm playing the game to beat it, not to dick around and never finish.