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."

Comments

Fervor in patch information

[Navaash Fenwylde]

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*

Re:Kudos to Blizzard

[critter_hunter]

Amazing gameplay changes?! From now on, players above lvl 70 will require more gameplay time, killing even harder units, to gain more worthless levels (since really, levels get increasingly useless, since the items you can use are much more powerful than the additional levels' effects). Add to that that they've added more items, most of which are Elite uniques, and more Runewords, probably all wildly powerful, and Diablo II just becomes even more item based.

And let's face it, starting a new game every 30 seconds to make another Meph run is just SOO much fun! Go! Kill Meph! Kill him again! and again! ad nauseam!

Re:Ack!

[bigman2003]

I agree. They called it Diablo, because that game truely was the Devil. I spent/wasted waaaayyyy too many hours on that game. Hundreds.

Then finally I was in Hell, in Hell mode (single player) and something happened to my character (barbarian), and I lost my entire inventory.

Another time I was using an assassin, and put way too many points into some of the simple skills, which left me unable to kill that big maggoty thing at the end of Level II in Hell mode.

Then another time I had a sorceress, and I couldn't get through one of the spider lairs in Level III (hell mode)

The list goes on and on....I've played every character through the game twice, and but could not get through hell mode. I think the barbarian could have done it.

I eventually had to un-install it, and GIVE THE GAME AWAY just to get over my addiction. But I am frequently heard saying "I can't wait until Diable III comes out...Diablo III is gonna be awesome".

Diablo 2 is *still* a top selling PC game, weekly

[ThresholdRPG]

In case anyone thought Diablo 2 was no longer relevant in the PC market:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/deltaforceblac kh awkdown/news_6026076.html

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/commandconqu er generals/news_6026444.html

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

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That's right. #6 and #9 for the most recent weeks of PC sales data.

Pretty amazing for a 3 year old game.