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Diablo 2 Finally Hits Shelves
Diablo 2 arrived at Babbages today. CowboyNeal picked up our copies this morning. I'm a level 10 Sorceress named CmdrTaco, so if you see me, give me cool amulets or something. They pre-ordered 1.5 million copies... 1.5 million sick days are expected to be called in tomorrow as 1.5 million users sit and home and swear that Blizzard's servers keep crashing. So far its been a lot of fun (excluding the stability problems: we were about to open the door to the boss that concludes act I when the servers melted down hard core). Update: 06/30 01:11 PM by CT : Pater & I are hanging out by the rogue encampment waypoint in a game named 'Slashdot' on USEast. We're just idling, but feel free to deposit tips at our feet so that we can be more 31337 ;) We beat Act I already: this is a damn addictive game.
" I'm a level 10 Sorceress named CmdrTaco"
Now, we all know that some of the beta testers were supposed to get "CmdrTaco," "CmdrTac0," and all other variations on the spelling so that our good friend, Rob Malda, would have to register as George Washington an yet another online service.
Tsk!
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Apparently the patch is rather critical as it fixes several serious (i.e. they'll crash your box) bugs that must have somehow sneaked past the QA team. This is according to Computer Games Online. They have a short article on "first impressions" of the game in the "Quick Takes" section today.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Apparently the patch can, in some cases, ruin your single player save game. Patch early.
Instead of supporting Blizzard and their franchise, you could check out some great opensource projects that Blizzard basically repackaged, made real-time, added fancier graphics, and sold to Joe Consumer.
Rogue is the grandaddy of everything. Including Diablo. See where it all began.
Angband is my favorite Rogue-like. It has incredible depth, hundreds of monsters, and hundreds of magical items. #angband on Othernet usually has at least one developer in it.
There are also a number of Angband variants such as Zangband and Pernband. Zangband even includes a multitude of quests, for those who like a little story-line to their dungeon crawls. These can all be found at the Angband link above. Graphical Tcl versions of Angband also exist, for the graphics-needy.
Others include Nethack (a light-hearted, often humorous Rogue-like), ADOM , and Moria
So, instead of marching to your local EB, why not download one of these (I heartily recommend Angband) free games and save the 40$ that Diablo 2 would cost you? You could even contribute to the project, play with the source, or add your own monsters, items, and spells. Have fun!
Since they weren't in the story...
http://www.blizzard.com/
http://www.blizzard.com/diablo2/
And there's already even a patch 1.01: .com/support/diablo2/information/patch.shtml
http://www.blizzard
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"Those who would sacrifice essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Blizzard can get on with its legions of fans spending countless dollars on its incredible games. 1.5 million were preordered. 1.5 million .
They will eventually port it to Linux (via their extraordinary and friendly staff, or thrgouh another channel, like Loki), as I have read, and can afford to. If you don't want to play an extremely high quality game, fine, don't buy or warez it. But Blizzard won't be crying about not satisfying the Open Source OS crowd immediately when they have already presold 1.5 million copies. They'll be smiling. On giant piles of money.
By the way, I've heard Warcraft 3 will be released on all OSes at once (Linux, Mac, Windows). This is just a rumor, however.
As to quote or paraphrase another poster's insight "It says news for nerds." not "News for Linux/BSD/Unix Zealots who have nothing better to do than make fun of Microsoft and Windows".
And finally, here's the Diablo II Character Guide for those who didnt catch my Anonymous Coward post above.
Well, first of all it's not that different. It looks and plays very much like the first Diablo. But there are some key differences:
:)
1) the maps are _much_ bigger.
2) due to 1), you can now run as well as walk. This is a Good Thing.
3) the combat is more or less identical (stand and slash), but you can now simply hold the LMB down and your character will repeatedly hack away. No more RSI!
4) you can get NPC characters who follow you around and help you fight.
5) the skill system is much more involved (it's now a "skill tree").
6) small but cool difference: "socketed" weapons. These are weapons that have sockets for gems you can collect. Naturally, the slotting a sapphire in to a club makes the club a better weapon (!?).
And that, as far as I can tell, is the extent of the difference! Oh, the character classes are different, yet somehow exactly the same
If it ain't broke, don't fix it =
grib.
maybe
Some time ago, there was a story on Slashdot that dealt with Men Playing as Women, as I see CmdrTaco is now doing. Here's a quick list of some possible reasons why the commander is playing a female...
Now, given that request for amulets, I'd have to say he's playing a sorceress for that last reason there. So all you guys out there playing male characters -- might I suggest you make Taco work for those items by forcing him to flirt outrageously with your characters before you give him anything?