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New Diablo II Patch Finally Revealed
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."
Oh, wait...it's not 1998.
I swear, I really didn't NEED to have a life. I don't know about many of you, but Diablo II ended up being THE most addictive game I've ever played (eclipsing both Nethack and Civ II no less!). Now there are even MORE things for me to try and figure out (including a bloody new tweaked skill tree? God save me!).
Well, I'm happy to hear about all this though. I'm hopefull that it will at least dampen the number of rushes and cow levels for a few days. While blizzard has been known to throw a few curveballs with thier patches to Diablo, I'm extremely excited about the chance to jump on there and give them a shot and go hunting after some of the new uniques. Ok. I've wasted too much time talking to all of you already. Off to battle.net.
-- If you can't laugh at yourself, someone else will do it for you.
But we will see it released in the next year?
So.. much.. cool.. stuff.. can't.. take it.. *blacks out*
Blatant self-promotion: Jerek.net
What have you been doing in the meantime, living?
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
And he promises to rain more hell, on more occasions, with more ferrocity than ever before.
Make your peace.
Diablo v1.10
this It takes the whole uniqueness of classes away. I guess it could be interesting.
Much of the stats on diabloii.net for unique items, runewords, set items and skills are all wildly inaccurate. I have so far heard two Blizzard representatives saying they were "WAY wrong" and "ancient data". The leak of information was unintentional and an unfortunate side-effect of a mistake during the web server upgrade process. The leaked patch data seem to be from 1.10 in an early stage of development, likely even before their Quality Assurance team has tested the stuff for balancing, since they are still doing it.
So... Before you complain about the items and runewords being too powerful (there have been some complaints like this) and that the Necro/Druid didn't get their necessary skill changes, remember that much (most?) of the "revealed" data on the diabloii.net site is simply incorrect or missing.
For correct information, check Arreat Summit (official Diablo II information site) and the information that will be released during/after E3 (i.e. May 13 - 16 or shortly after).
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
To say that this has been one of the most hotly anticipated patches of the year is an understatement. Hell, it's been one of the most hotly anticipaed patches of almost the past TWO years.
The information went up by mistake Thursday night in the midst of a Blizzard webserver upgrade, and it ended up getting a virtual Slashdotting as thousands upon thousands of information-hungry gamers descended upon the server.
The problem was corrected Friday morning, but so much of the information has disseminated itself around the Internet that Blizzard posted a partial update Friday afternoon to appease the masses. A Blizzard programmer who had been working on the patch commented independenty on a couple of other message boards that the information that had been uploaded was somewhat inaccurate (is he implying that the items as they are now are BETTER?).
Any time a patch comes out for a game nowadays, thousands upon thousands of hungry gamers flood the Internet to get it. In the case of Blizzard patches, it seems, getting even a *preview* of that information is enough to clog the hell out of a webserver. Just wait until the patch actually gets released... *g*
Diablo 2, released years later, was nothing more than more of the same. What a disappointment! It was repetitive and tedious: click-die, click-die, click-die.
D1 was also the same. Could it be the game genre you don't like? All Action RPG's I know is click-die. When they start having more RPG elements, the "Action" part of the genre is usually dropped.
What made it worse is that saving the game doesn't work. You can save anywhere, but you start back in "town," and all the baddies that you've tediously killed are back alive again. For that "feature" alone, I gave up playing after only a week.
Waypoints are saved. The reason to why the game state aren't fully saved (dead monsters coming back to life) is because it doesn't make sense in multiplayer and on-line play. And I have a feeling D2 was always much more geared to this environment than D1.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Diablo II is a great game, definitely worth £30/$50/whatever of any gamer's money, but it's a shame that the online experience has been ruined for many fans by the ridiculous number of hacks that have spawned up since the game was released.
Credit to Blizzard, the game's another masterpiece that's playable way past the point where most games just become boring (yes, I know DII can be repetitive, but it's repetitive in a fun way) and it's done all it could to patch hacks, exploits, etc when they've surfaced, but all the duping, hacking of uber items, etc really spoilt a great game for many players.
I know that I, several friends and many others all stopped playing DII for that very reason.
I suppose, in a way, Blizzard should be flattered that so many people out there were so obsessed at having the best of everything that they were prepared to hack the game to death. Nobody writes hacks for awful games that are barely played. But that's scant consellation for those of us who's experiences have been soured by a small, mindless minority.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
It's nice to see a gaming company support an older game, for no more reason than to keep making it better. They didn't need to (the game is far from bug-free, but it's still very playable), and it makes little economic sense to devote resources to it.
By most accounts, the 1.10 patch introduces some pretty amazing gameplay changes. It's almost like another expansion.
Way to go, Blizzard.
-DeeBye
The skill system will be drastically changed so you'll be able to create new viable character builds with the use of new skill synergy bonuses. The gameplay will also be more challenging and get more random monsters. Ladder characters will be introduced.
IMHO, a patch unlike any scope I've seen before. Thankfully, the patch won't change its its game genre (Action RPG, i.e. "killing everything that moves"), so those of us who bought Diablo II for what it offered back then won't be screwed.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
D1 was also the same. Could it be the game genre you don't like? All Action RPG's I know is click-die. When they start having more RPG elements, the "Action" part of the genre is usually dropped. What about PlanetSide? An MMORPG that's been combined with an FPS. Looks good, but my computer isn't good enough to run it. :(
Still boycotting, still haven't bought War3, still have no plans to buy world of warcraft. Did we forget already?
Keep your repetitive games that haven't changed since 94 (or whenever Warcraft 2 was released), you fucks. You'll get no money from me until you jump off the bandwagon of sue-happy corporate morons with no concern for civil rights whatsoever.
Does it run on Linux?
Does it? Does it run on Linux???
Yeah. Under Wine.
Check this out:
http://www.latte.ca/D2LOD/
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
> The skill system will be drastically changed so
> you'll be able to create new viable character
> builds with the use of new skill synergy bonuses
If that's the same as my barbarian can kick even more ass, then I'm in!
"Has [being a kidnapped teenage girl, raped repeatedly for months] changed you?" - Katie Couric to Elizabeth Smart
You act like this Website has anything to do with Linux :)
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
...this is great. For those of you who don't kow, we get games rairly on our favorite OS so when something as small as a 3 year late patch comes out it's like getting a new game to us. And it's FREE! :)
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
look, this game is over 3 years old and Blizzard is still working hard to add value to it! how can you complain? they're fixing and improving so much, it's, well, it's like a free expansion pack really. Blizzard once again asserts itself as the number one game company in the world. this patch shows why. this patch will generate virtually NO new revenue for them. all it will do is improve their game. kudos to you, blizzard, don't ever change!
i could live a little longer in this prison
Does that mean that I have to rummage through piles of long forgotten CDs for the play disk? Or the ol' lvl 99 necro saves? Even the old framed screenshots of glorious battles started to fade on the wall.. Alas, the saga never ends. Off I go then, polishing that bonespear tip.
--
We apologise for the inconvenience
" Imagine a Barbarian who can shape-shift into a Werewolf."
Is it just me, or does this send an odd tingly down the spine?
Seriously, I have been waiting for a year for this patch. At times I've seriously doubted that it would EVER happen.
Back before Diablo II, and Lords of Destruction, my and my freinds used to joke about Blizzards inability to EVER come out with something on time, they suffered massive Vaporware Syndrome. (not as bad as 3drealms, of course). But Diablo II came out ON TIME, then LoD came out ON TIME... They got their vapor revenge with this damn patch though.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Especially, for the Ladder Play. I, for one will start a new character every level, just to challenge it in a new-style economic system. The smallness of it will make things interesting.
I'm actually hoping that this patch will be annouced at E3 along with Diablo III. It would be a perfect match actually. Diable III could be announed for release fourth quarter this year and to tide all of us Diablo fans over, we get this great new patch! Looks like it could be Win-Win for Blizzard and for the players.
Now I just gotta keep my fingers crossed for a week straight...
-my other sig is your mom
New character types! Finally, spearazons can exist, seeing as their are some elite polearms and spears. Also, many other elite items means more character builds. Finally, barbs that AREN'T swordies (I always went with an ax barb). It took a little too long to come out (after December, which was 3 months after they claimed they would release the patch, I gave up).
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
Are people still playing this game? I'm no gamer, but i bought diablo 2 for a friend's christmas gift 2.5 years ago for $20 US (approximately one-third of what was charged for it when it was first released). Just playing devil's advocate, but doesn't anybody think this could be a veiled attempt to get all the (Star|War)craft folks to fire up diablo 2 again?
just a thought...
well, it's nothing one behind the ear wouldn't cure
Good for you, then your missing out. I agree with Blizzard, and will continue to agree with Blizzard, until MS buys their parent company, and everything becomes Xbox exlusive, then Blizzard can screw themselves.
But right now, I would elect Blizzard as God, or Cheif Designer of the Universe. They are the only game company who has come out with QUALITY games, the FIRST time. Every Blizzard patch is like a mini-expansion, rather than a bug fix caused by rushing development.
What company cold EVER hope to match Blizzards line-up of games? Blackthorne kicked much ass, RnR Racing also kicked ass, Diablo I wasted my whole highschool existance (well, that and MUDs), Warcraft was the first genre making RTS, Warcraft 2 was the best RTS until... STARCRAFT! Any game that causes Koreans to starve, must be a damn good game. Then we have Diablo II, the most anticpated game of 2000, and the only game to live up to it's hype. Then LoD, which also lived up to it's hype. Then of course Warcraft 3, which is a new genre making RTS, on that caused those silly command and conquer people to copy it's formula (to a point), and the upcoming Worlds of Warcraft look like it may just be the ONLY MMORPG that I will consider playing, which is saying alot since I HATE that genre. And from the Frozen Throne previews, it looks also like quality stuff.
My only complaint is Ghost. What a steaming pile of crap, not releasing it on PC. I don't WANT to buy an Xbox, or a PS2, or even a GC, my compy works fine for gaming, and I just spent $300 to be DoomIII compliant, and Unreal 2 capable. And now I'm supposed to fork over however much for a damn peice of propritary console crap, just to play a game... bah.
I'm rambleing, just woke up, got sake hangover... I'll shut up.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
After playing the game for over two years, making a lot of cash on eBay, and basically living off the proceeds, I can say one thing, never, never believe what blizzard says. Until 1.10 comes out nothing is final, nothing they have said could/will happen, its still up in smoke (prolly the illegal smoke aswell)... they keep bumping up the date, then taking back what they said, It was supposed to be out last october but was delayed, there seems to be something to always delay it. They also say they are working on deleting bugged/duped/hacked items and they never do, and people are still running around with these crazy insane items. They then post stuff on there site pertaining to the patch and then remove it hours later saying it was a mistake, so what do you believe, all I know is it will be out whenever blizzard gets off there ass and posts the patch.. And I heard that there shipment of monkeys (for the beta test) was delayed so who knows when it will be out.
Diablo 2 died when Blizzard went 2+ years without releasing a sorely needed update, and except for a few small instances, turned a blind eye to rampant hacking on the realms. Although this could help keep a few people playing it a little longer, most of us who finally realized that Blizzard didn't give a damn, gave up and won't be coming back.
The guys at Paradox Entertainment, the makers of Europa Universalis II and Hearts of Iron, also release patches years after the original game had come out while working without pay. Now, that's what I call true gamer geek spirit.:)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
...but I'll be excited when I download it. However, I have more faith in Blizzard than say, Team17, who've promised us patches to Worms Armageddon for even longer.
You can twist around the no extra revenue argument and say that companies have no reason to update "old" games, but you need only look to Half-Life to see how much supporting your fanbase can get you. For Team17 however, I'll be holding off on Worms 3. Not an outright boycott, but I want to at least wait a month or two. Team17 haven't been doing well in keeping up with their games patch-wise, and I sadly don't anticipate Worms 3 to be much different. Hopefully they will prove me wrong and buck the trend.
Also glad that a company should be vilified for stopping rampant piracy.
Ahoy Me Matey!
ok, maybe it wasn't funny, but why is sueing(sp?) Bnetd.org stopping rampant piracy? If they where really worried about it, they would make their servers the best so that no one would want to use the bnetd servers. (gasp!) No instead of putting out a superior product they claim DMCA violations and copyright infringement.
Of course, that just makes us 'self-rightous' whiners.
Vertical
72 CD D7 52 D0 7E D8 47 44 91 D5 84 D1 59 F1 A9-This is my 128bit integer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Say what you will about MS.... But Dungeon Siege is to Diablo II what Quake was to Doom. Fully 3D. Better graphics, characters, game play and story. Plus the ability to control a large group instead of just one character.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
Profits can be had by other means than retail sales. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a, "Hey! Remember this!" ploy in advance of a Diablo III.
http://www.stratorgy.com ... as long as everyone else is posting d2 sites they know of. ;) ..few people talking about the update there too. Just in case anyone cares.
From the reading I've done about this patch, it's my understanding that Blizzard QA does a 3 week testing cycle... and if they find a bug, the bug is patched, and they start the 3 weeks over again... so even if they're 22 hours in on the last day, and they find a bug, it's going back to be fixed and another 3 weeks of testing await... Blizzard is to be lauded, if nothing else, for the fact that it's taken so long for this - the only thing I can think of that they should've done was made this 3 week cycle more well known, so that people would understand why it's taken so long.
You can't please everyone all the time, but for anyone who's ever programmed, they know what it's like to come across some really obscure little bug, and have to retest the whole thing. Blizzard wants nothing more than to put out as tight code as possible, and I for one applaud them for that.
-TKK
>since 94 (or whenever Warcraft 2 was released),
>you fucks. You'll get no money from me until you
This is true. I'm not boycotting Blizzard, but to a large extent *gameplay wise* Diablo 2 as it currently stands is mainstream RPG lite. The LOD game expansion only really made the game worth looking at..."Classic" Diablo 2 was almost completely unplayable to my mind, due to very rapid onset of boredom. The game is phenomenally well packaged, with outstanding MAX work, it's true...including raising the bar as far as in-game cinematics are concerned...and it's also true that on a purely stat level, some of the weapons are nice...but I can't remember the last RPG I've seen for the PC that didn't have substantially better gameplay than D2...It's mind-numbingly repetitive for my money.
The annoying thing is, that while they got some things right, it could have been a much better game than it was...Some ideas for Diablo 3:- (assuming it ever happens, of course)
Blizzard obviously
I have used Filter Level 5 for years. I never realized I'd miss out on all these great ASCII penis pics : Who knew?!
Diablo2's Direct3D support may have problems.
Diablo2's DirectDraw support is the only way for non-3Dfx users to play.
Diablo2's Glide support is excellent and to this day even on Linux and Microsoft Windows systems; running Diablo2 with Glide on a 3Dfx graphics accelerator yields the best framerate and lowest latency...i'm a Voodoo2 SLI owner, it's faster than my highest ranked GeForce 4 Titanium.
Obviously, what would make an excellent companion with Diablo2 patch 1.10 would be an openGL renderer, but Blizzard is bussy with other things (War3, Diablo3, masturbating on the battle.net servers, etc.)
Another thing that will piss off linux users is Diablo2's use of SecuRom technology that prevents natural use of the programs. The Diablo2 playdisc is using SecuRom technology; it is not available on standard Wine (http://www.winehq.com) and is only implemented in the *registered* version of WineX (http://www.transgaming.com) unless your friend gave you their *registered* WineX or you found it on a file sharing network. Hence, because of SecuRom and it's anti-freedom patents against its opensource usage, you can't use Diablo2 on standard Wine without a custom Diablo2 patch and this somtimes has problems when using the battle.net service; battle.net checksums the game.exe file IIRC and the common-day dload.exe doesn't always hide game_crk.exe correctly ontop of game.exe. It's been a while, maybe standard Wine has finaly abled itself to implement this redirect properly, but I'm busy obviously with other tasks suited to world domination...
I'm anti-Microsoft all-the-way, so this isn't an option for me to use Wine or any shitty Microsoft flaw-reimplementation projects. Give me native applications (full-performance), or give me death!
My Diablo II character was just deleted because I dared to have a life for 3 months (second time this has happened). Well, I guess I could always start over again.
So only pirates use Bnetd? Stopping that awful program will wipe out pirates? Pirates of D2 are unable to go online?
......guess.....play on line. Can he play on Battle.net? Yes, but not if I'm playing also. Can he play on a Bnetd server? yes. Can he play me online? In an open game. Can he play solo? yes. Can he make multiple copies and play with people on a local net? yes.
No, No, and NO!
I can make a copy of the 3 disks and send them to a friend, he can then install D2, start an open TCP/IP game and
So please, please, I beg you. explain how bnetd promotes piracy? What? They don't check for CD-keys? OMG! Those bastards! (slight reality check: They have NO way to check for keys)
So my solution is a solution...because if it was that damn good....I'd pay to have a full legal copy. And if I didn't think it was worth it...I'd not pay for it.
What you are saying is that pirates wouldn't pay to play....So how do you know they would anyway?
Vertical
Sorry if I don't see it. I do love D2 and have 2 legal copies. I also have a Bnetd server on my home lan. Oh well, I'm sure you're going to tell me how everyone else who uses Bnetd is a pirate and I'm really rare. Maybe I just want to believe that piracy isn't as big a problem as Microsoft/RIAA/MPAA/etc. would have us believe.
72 CD D7 52 D0 7E D8 47 44 91 D5 84 D1 59 F1 A9-This is my 128bit integer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
In case anyone thought Diablo 2 was no longer relevant in the PC market:
c kh awkdown/news_6026076.html
u er generals/news_6026444.html
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/deltaforcebla
Best-selling PC games for the week of April 13-19, 2003:
Rank / Title / Publisher / Average Price
1 / Delta Force: Black Hawk Down / NovaLogic / $39
2/ Command & Conquer: Generals / EA / $46
3/ The Sims Deluxe / EA / $44
4 / The Sims: Unleashed / EA / $29
5 / Battlefield 1942 / EA / $47
6 / Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets / EA / $18
7 / Zoo Tycoon / Microsoft / $28
8 / CSI: Crime Scene Investigation / Ubi Soft / $30
9 / Diablo II / Vivendi Universal / $21
10 / Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos / Vivendi Universal / $39
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/commandconq
Best-selling PC games for the week of April 20-26, 2003:
Rank / Title / Publisher / Average Price
1/ Command & Conquer: Generals / EA / $46
2/ The Sims Deluxe / EA / $42
3 / Delta Force: Black Hawk Down / NovaLogic / $39
4 / The Sims: Unleashed / EA / $29
5 / Battlefield 1942 / EA / $47
6 / Diablo II / Vivendi Universal / $21
7 / Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos / Vivendi Universal / $36
8 / Zoo Tycoon / Microsoft / $27
9 / CSI: Crime Scene Investigation / Ubi Soft / $30
10 / Battlefield 1942: The Road to Rome / EA / $19
-----------
That's right. #6 and #9 for the most recent weeks of PC sales data.
Pretty amazing for a 3 year old game.
-Michael
Threshold RPG
...when Ragnarok Online is still free?
Anime-based MMORPG with players from all over the globe, free (for now at least). Grab Beta 2 while it's hot.
Oops!
Sadly, I'm not exaggerating any there.
I had the same concerns as you did, but in the end I finally broke down and bought a Gamecube.
The reason (at least what I keep telling to myself): even though my computer is a P3 w/ a GF2MX Graphics card, I don't really want to upgrade it yet again only to play games. The other things I use my home computer for are web, email, transfer music to my minidisc and some light Java development for moonlightning jobs, and it does all those functions pretty well. Even the games I've been playing lately (RTCWolfenstein and Warcraft 3) get a decent framerate on my machine.
And consider the games. You HAVE to play the Zeldas on the Gamecube. And Metroid Prime. And Ikaruga. They are all great games. I am a huge Metroid fan, and have played through all of them (except for MFusion), so when I noticed the great reviews the GC version was getting I finally made up my mind.
It also helped me for the decision that I managed to combine a couple of offers Nintendo was having at the begining of the year, so I got a free game with the GC (Metroid), and Zelda64 with the new Zelda game. The console, some memory, and 3 games for less than it would have taken to upgrade my PC.
They have actually been very good investments, I am still playing Z:OoT and haven't even started Z:WW, and I got the GC in february. (been very busy at work - see below)
The only place I play network games is at work (after hours, of course ...), and the machines there have more than enough capacity for this and the next generation of games - right now we're playing UT2003 and a little WC3.
So far, I've been very happy with the purchase.
-.
Why are patch releases being posted on Slashdot? If every patch release were posted on Slashdot, then there would be no space for other articles. That being said, why single out Diablo II? I could just as well send in an article about the Descent 3 1.4 patch, or at least, I could have, when it came out. Are we now going to get a Slashdot article where people can talk about how long they've waited for this patch to come out all the time? Surely there's better news than this.
Perhaps you will rate me as flamebait, though I assure you that this is not meant as such.
-Dae
"Alle reden vom wetter. Wir nicht." - SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund.
j00 4r3 3n73r1ng l337 w0r1d.
I notice that the standard of spelling is particularly bad in the new games section. Shocking.
Not only that it's a piece of M$ hardware (on Slashdot!!), it's also a exceptionally shoddy piece.
Natural Keyboards aside, the other hardware M$ has to offer - albeit somewhat better than their software - is usually overpriced and not very good.
Whatever, please use a CH Joystick or a Razer Boomslang for an Icon. I'm serious.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The graphics acceleration under OS X is totally hosed, it makes the game *slower*. Will 1.10 fix this, I wonder?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
As it stands, I am not going back just for this patch. I've kind of realized how stupid the game is in the period of time since I quit...
If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
Amazons can distract monsters with Decoy and Valk
Assassins can use traps and shadows
Barbarians can Howl
Druids can summon pets
Necromancers can cast Terror
Paladins can use Hammers, Fists, and Vigor
I'd much, much rather have increased difficulty in corpse recovery and remove the accidental chance of your corpse popping and losing all your items. Not to mention the various lameass stunts that people do to try to get your corpse to pop.
It's not like the penalty for dying in Diablo II softcore is very great anyway. Might as well make dying slightly inconvenient.