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Blizzard Issues Update For 16-Year-Old Diablo II
Blizzard this week issued an update for the popular Diablo II game. The update, dubbed v1.14a, comes roughly five years after Diablo II was last updated, and four years since the release of Diablo III. Blizzard says the update aims to resolve glitches introduced by modern operating systems. While Blizzard's commitment towards its 16-year old game is unquestionably commendable, it appears the new update is causing issues for some.
It seems that updating an existing install (with all the patches and workarounds required to keep it going on a Intel-based Mac) is problematic.
Backup your game-characters and delete the game. Then download and re-install from scratch. That works fine.
The download doesn't show for some reason in the normal clients-download under "My Account" on Battle.net (only the Windows version).
If you go to the generic downloads section https://battle.net/account/clients it is there.
Please note: For LoD you need to download/install DII first then LoD.
You don't need the original game CD's, but you will need both the game-keys.
You can easily find those in your account settings on battle.net if you previously registered.
Just got LoD going on a iMac 5K. Pixels are really big :-) because the 800x600 display gets stretched (thankfully with correct with aspect-ratio) to full-screen. Leaves a big black border on left and rights sides, but that doesn't really bother me.
Mouse-handling seems quite imprecise (hard to pickup stuff from the ground), but I'm using a MagicMouse. Must see if USB works better.
Not always so easy.
For one they may be using third party libraries that have no source for and agreements not to distribute those libraries as part of a source code.
Secondly they have interest in the Intellectual property of the game where they may port it to other devices. This update shows that it isn't abandoned.
Just releasing the source can cause a bunch of support problems. With unauthorized patches.
Finally knowing how blizzard codes may mean the ability to hack into their battle net servers
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Yesterday I was trying to install D2 and LOD from my account into a Windows 7 install and it just would not work.
So, I put in the good old Blizzard support ticket highlighting all the issues I had.
Today it's been fixed and works perfectly.
Not saying that I caused this, but you are all welcome anyway ;-p
Leg Godt!
It sure is tough to keep one running. Finding ribbons is tough but have you tried locating daisywheels lately?
Wow... I really feel old.
Blizzard is planning to update Warcraft 3 this week as well, bringing player communication improvements as well as some surprises with the new 1.27 update.
Twinstiq, game news
DII uses BINK video codec. RAD would never allow the codec to go foss.
Proprietary game tools are totally a thing. DII is not fully home grown like the DOOM engine was.
Also, the battle.net protocol used for DII is already broken, and fully emulatable. (In Europe. Illegal in the US.)
Grew out of a now defunct project called BnetD. Now called PvPGN.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
DII installs do not know the difference between a PvPGN server and the real Battle.net server farm.
I have seen the Diablo II Battle Chest for $19.99 at WalMart as recently as less than a year ago.
By 'previously hidden bugs' you mean code that worked perfectly when run on the old Operating System? Why would developers only be allowed to write code that strictly follows Microsoft's API? Even Microsoft's Office developers aren't that slavish.
They went to the trouble to include a native Mac client, but they ignored Linux. It's a nice effort to get back to the reputation of the old Blizzard, but it still seems a little half-hearted. It's a cruel criticism, I know, but even Microsoft is taking Linux seriously these days, so I'm not sure why big game studios are still dismissive.
We're talking the year 2000 here, buddy :) That was some good hard cash going over the counter.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
You are only half right. PvPGN can facilitate communication with the server, the actual emulated server is D2GS.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
I've been Modding Diablo2:LoD for several years, and while it's neat to see an official update, most Modders I'm aware of use a base version of 1.10. Blizzard removed some really useful bug-features with v1.11 that make the later versions less open to modification.
I'm using Windows 8.1 and running Diablo2 v1.10 without trouble, but I can appreciate where Apple's chip changes in the last decade could be problematic.
Up until last year, the Diablo 1/2 battle chest was still selling in my local Target and other places for $20. 15 years after release. I asked a clerk once when the last one was sold and he looked it up and said a month before. Pretty amazing for a 15 year old game.
Blizzard will NEVER release any source code -- remember these are the people who sued the opensource bnetd project even though they used ZERO Blizzard code and got an idiot judge to agree with them.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
As an example, SimCity had a bug where it continued using memory after freeing it. It worked, if only accidentally, in Windows 3.1, but the Windows 95 team had to add a special shim for SimCity to put the memory allocator in a special mode where it waited a short while before *really* freeing memory. This shows at once a) the folly of your position and b) that Microsoft is going through a lot of trouble for backward compatibility and that if your application breaks the rules and therefore breaks itself in the next version of Windows, you only have yourself to blame.
Slashdot here with another story that's over a week old! News at 11.
I've been playing it on Windows 7 just fine, I was hoping this update would focus on spam bots.
I can't enter a game without the max number of players immediately joining, spamming the entire chat for several minutes shilling for cheats or websites that sell items, then leaving.
It used to be that you could set the maximum level difference and all bots were level 1, but now they use leveled bots.
Freaking spam fest.
The topic of this post asked if it was easier top open source it. Not if it was possible. A rewrite doesn't constitute easy.
Source code isn't the end all be all. A good product can be made on crappy code. Often crappy code is needed to tweak for performance, or to meet deadlines. I still go back at some of my old code and marvel at the ingenuity that I took with some code without the benefits of a modern technology and I also cringe at many of the stupid things I did at the time. Because every day I can't bring my A game.
They own the rights having to give away the game source could cause actions that create a lot of copyright claims. Not just copying the software but the game itself. How many tweaks will it take to make Diabold II to not be it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Blizzard will NEVER release any source code -- remember these are the people who sued the opensource bnetd project even though they used ZERO Blizzard code and got an idiot judge to agree with them.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Idiot judge? I might not like the law, but Bnetd was a circumvention tool -- circumventing the checks that Blizzard's servers run. Whether we think such a law is moral or not, the DMCA makes pretty clear the legality of distributing tools to circumvent in the US.