Slashdot Mirror

seirui writes "Blizzard today announced the beginning of the public beta test for the Diablo II: Lord Of Destruction 1.10 patch. Conspicuously absent from the downloadable-now beta patch is Battle.net support (both open and closed), but present are a multitude of little changes, including a rollback.bat file for reverting back to 1.09 to play online. Now that hell has frozen over, the quest for items can continue! Here's a BitTorrent link for the 5mb patch." An anonymous reader also points to a hands-on account at DiabloII.net describing the changes for V1.10.

pixelblur writes "An update over at fan site DiabloII.Net points out that Blizzard has deleted 112,000 Battle.net accounts for Diablo II." The official post from the Battle.net team in part reads: "Numerous.. ..accounts were tied to the use of a hack or cheat program while playing Diablo II on Battle.net. In keeping with our aggressive stance against cheating, we have permanently closed over 112,000 of these accounts and documented the CD keys with which they were used." This clean-up comes ahead of the forthcoming 1.10 patch for the seminal title.

colaco writes "After more than a year waiting for the 1.10 patch, Diablo II gamers now have an inside scoop at changes that it will implement. Most of the info on new items and gameplay rules (eg: ladder characters) have been available on Arreat Summit for the past few hours, and are now displayed on DiabloII.net. Blizzard has also offered some clarification. Sources inside Blizzard indicate that more info will be given at E3."

||Plazm|| writes: "I read an update over at Diabloii.net that talks about how some items in the game are producing sizeable income for some people. It points to an article at the San Francisco Chronicle describing some of these money makers. One banker claims he's made $25000 since he started with Diablo 2 and Ultima Online! Who are the people paying real money for this stuff? A few bucks is one thing, but a few hundred? I believe this has been talked about on /. before, but is the 'problem' getting worse? Is it a 'problem' at all?"

Weyoun writes "All those who play Diablo2 know that their characters on the battle.net 'Realms' servers are supposedly secure and unhackable. This has been the case up until a few days ago, when a group of crackers discovered a method whereby they could log on as any character. Since then, they have reigned over a virtual apocalypse as hundreds of the top ladder players have seen their items stolen (including that of one well-known Blizzard employee). Even worse, beginning last night one of the hackers began systematically murdering the top hardcore ladder players, by logging in as them and getting them killed (death is PERMANENT for them). As of yet there has been no official reaction from Blizzard, but the entire community is in a state of shock over this situation." Update: 01/02 04:30 AM by T : It appears that Blizzard has now corrected the problem. See below for more.

Gaile - DiabloII.Net sent this update: "Blizzard has posted their response to the Diablo II Realm Character losses on their Realm Status Forum. The losses have been stopped (as of this morning), and characters are secure once more on the Realms. In addition, dead Hardcore Characters will be restored automatically, on January 8th, as outlined here:

[On] Monday, January 8, we will be reviving all hardcore characters who died between December 19th and January 1st. The restored hardcore characters will be revived with the experience, skills and items possessed as of Tuesday, December 19th. This restore will be automatic and players do not need to contact Blizzard to request that their character be restored. Note: Only dead hardcore characters that died between December 19th and January 1st will be revived.

In addition, a mechanism is in place for the retrieval of items, as well. The Blizzard post is on the Blizzard Site. We'll have more soon in the DiabloII.Net Bug Bytes section, which is an overview of the current game build."

Weyoun writes "All those who play Diablo2 know that their characters on the battle.net 'Realms' servers are supposedly secure and unhackable. This has been the case up until a few days ago, when a group of crackers discovered a method whereby they could log on as any character. Since then, they have reigned over a virtual apocalypse as hundreds of the top ladder players have seen their items stolen (including that of one well-known Blizzard employee). Even worse, beginning last night one of the hackers began systematically murdering the top hardcore ladder players, by logging in as them and getting them killed (death is PERMANENT for them). As of yet there has been no official reaction from Blizzard, but the entire community is in a state of shock over this situation." Update: 01/02 04:30 AM by T : It appears that Blizzard has now corrected the problem. See below for more.

Gaile - DiabloII.Net sent this update: "Blizzard has posted their response to the Diablo II Realm Character losses on their Realm Status Forum. The losses have been stopped (as of this morning), and characters are secure once more on the Realms. In addition, dead Hardcore Characters will be restored automatically, on January 8th, as outlined here:

[On] Monday, January 8, we will be reviving all hardcore characters who died between December 19th and January 1st. The restored hardcore characters will be revived with the experience, skills and items possessed as of Tuesday, December 19th. This restore will be automatic and players do not need to contact Blizzard to request that their character be restored. Note: Only dead hardcore characters that died between December 19th and January 1st will be revived.

In addition, a mechanism is in place for the retrieval of items, as well. The Blizzard post is on the Blizzard Site. We'll have more soon in the DiabloII.Net Bug Bytes section, which is an overview of the current game build."

Weyoun writes "All those who play Diablo2 know that their characters on the battle.net 'Realms' servers are supposedly secure and unhackable. This has been the case up until a few days ago, when a group of crackers discovered a method whereby they could log on as any character. Since then, they have reigned over a virtual apocalypse as hundreds of the top ladder players have seen their items stolen (including that of one well-known Blizzard employee). Even worse, beginning last night one of the hackers began systematically murdering the top hardcore ladder players, by logging in as them and getting them killed (death is PERMANENT for them). As of yet there has been no official reaction from Blizzard, but the entire community is in a state of shock over this situation." Update: 01/02 04:30 AM by T : It appears that Blizzard has now corrected the problem. See below for more.

Gaile - DiabloII.Net sent this update: "Blizzard has posted their response to the Diablo II Realm Character losses on their Realm Status Forum. The losses have been stopped (as of this morning), and characters are secure once more on the Realms. In addition, dead Hardcore Characters will be restored automatically, on January 8th, as outlined here:

[On] Monday, January 8, we will be reviving all hardcore characters who died between December 19th and January 1st. The restored hardcore characters will be revived with the experience, skills and items possessed as of Tuesday, December 19th. This restore will be automatic and players do not need to contact Blizzard to request that their character be restored. Note: Only dead hardcore characters that died between December 19th and January 1st will be revived.

In addition, a mechanism is in place for the retrieval of items, as well. The Blizzard post is on the Blizzard Site. We'll have more soon in the DiabloII.Net Bug Bytes section, which is an overview of the current game build."

Fiwer wrote in with some interesting news with the only game I'll run windows for (god I wish they'd release a Linux port). They've announced an expansion pack that will probably be out next summer. Will feature Act V, as well as 2 new classes: Asassin and Druid. You can read the story on DiabloII.net or the Game Center Version (which has more screenshots, but requires you to click through one page-at-a-time. I hate that. I'm still wandering around as a sorceress named CmdrTaco (currently in Hell Act 3) and running into quite a few Slashdot folks out there. Not that its got me a stone of jordan *grin*