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PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

New Diablo II Patch Finally Revealed 161

Posted by simoniker from the the-devil's-seasonal-ladder-of-doom dept.
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."
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New Diablo II Patch Finally Revealed More

New Diablo II Patch Finally Revealed

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  • Wow, this is neat! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Trespass ( 225077 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @05:58PM (#5927665) Homepage
    Oh, wait...it's not 1998.

  • Ack! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by edgezone ( 51898 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @05:58PM (#5927666) Homepage
    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.
    • I don't know about many of you, but Diablo II ended up being THE most addictive game I've ever played

      Nope, it wasn't addictive to me at all. It was a decent game, but it got dull very quickly for me. I only played it for about a week.

      I'm glad the people still playing it finally have this patch though, it sounds like some good things have been added.

    • Re:Ack! (Score:2, Funny)

      by pHatidic ( 163975 )
      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!).

      More addicting than Nethack? DIE HERETIC DIE! And may the RNG spit upon your grave.

    • Re:Ack! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by bigman2003 ( 671309 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @11:34PM (#5928965) Homepage
      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".

      • Re:Ack! (Score:2, Insightful)

        by TalonKarrde989 ( 637177 )
        I gave away the game 2 times to try to get over my addiction. Then I went out and bought it again. I finaly got to the point online where I had a char selection screen full of level 99 characters, 10 mule accounts, 3 of which having nothing but SOJs, until I finaly got over it. I. Was. Addicted. So was the rest of the "clan" I was in.

    • Re:Ack! (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by DrMrLordX ( 559371 )
      Um, why would this patch interest anyone? The game has been screwed up ever since the 1.06 patch.
  • But we will see it released in the next year?
  • So.. much.. cool.. stuff.. can't.. take it.. *blacks out*
    • And then there's the little tidbit that says, "You can no longer equip items if you have a corpse." making corpse retrieval all but impossible for any class that's not a Sorceress. Even for her it will be difficult. Sure, it solves a bug in the game, but geez, talk about a serious handicap....
      • 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.

  • I'd like to point out... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mononoke ( 88668 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @06:01PM (#5927688) Homepage Journal
    You've been waiting over a year for a GAME to be patched??

    What have you been doing in the meantime, living?

    • Same thing that happened with Star Trek:Armada. Although I think it took longer than this.
    • I'm not twiddling my thumbs and waiting for the patch, really... I play 1.09 when I feel like, and do other things when I don't feel like it.

    • Re:I'd like to point out... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by juggleme ( 53716 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @06:32PM (#5927815)
      The game doesn't need patching in terms of bugs. I'm not saying it's bug free or anything, but the game is definitely worth playing in its current form. Think of this "patch" as a bucket of extra goodies to entice you to keep playing this addictive game until the next one comes out.

      Oh, and I've been playing Angband. [thangorodrim.net] Almost as addictive, but it doesn't require as much adrenaline. I've do play other games; it's not like Diablo is the only game in town...

      • I would like to think that this patch has fixed some problems with all the hacks out there.
        • Check this post [battle.net] by the admin of the Arreat Summit; he lists the major changes in very broad form, but new "anti-cheating measures" are among them. I've never been a big fan of playing on the realms, but I might have to try building a ladder character or 3 just to see how well I can do...

          • Re:I'd like to point out... (Score:4, Informative)

            by afidel ( 530433 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @11:08PM (#5928888)
            Don't bother, the top ladder characters will be built using teams playing a group of characters 24X7 until they get one to level 99, basically they build the team to level 80+, then they repeatadly kill everything in a level except for a boss, work the boss down to a few hps, then the char they are trying to get to 99 comes in and kills the boss. They use a couple teams so that the target char can jump from game to game repeatadly killing bosses. Last time I played they had level 99 done in under 36 hours.
            • And in the post on the Arreat Summit they specifically list that they're making it much harder to advance beyond Level 70. It also looks like they're fiddling with the Boss monsters so that they are worth more the first time they are killed, and less subsequently. It's hard to say if this will totally eliminate rushing, but it looks like they are trying to address the problem.

              All of this on a game that is over five years old. Pretty impressive considering that Blizzard's chances of making any additional re

  • I'm not sure I like... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mdbales ( 611785 ) <mdbales@gmail . c om> on Saturday May 10, 2003 @06:07PM (#5927711)
    this [battle.net] It takes the whole uniqueness of classes away. I guess it could be interesting.

  • Please notice! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @06:07PM (#5927712) Journal
    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 [battle.net] (official Diablo II information site) and the information that will be released during/after E3 (i.e. May 13 - 16 or shortly after).
    • Hail Jugulator,

      Come now, you know that the AS is not exactly guarenteed correct information: even what is on it now - and how long after 1.09 came out? - a good deal of the information on the page is still wrong. That almost every item of Set and Unique armour is still listed incorrectly shows where the attention to detail has been...lacking.

      Really, there is a lot of misinformation floating about on 1.10. I say we wait and see what happens: I know I already know the details of quite a few changes, and the
      • Ah sorry. I should have been more clear that what I was referring to as the "correct info" was the 1.10 info that is currently posted there, as opposed to the highly incorrect info at diabloii.net. The Arreat Summit holds a tremendous amount of information and statistics otherwise, so I'm sure there are incorrect stats over there, although I can't say I agree that almost every item is incorrect. At least when I've checked items, they've matched what I've got. :-)

  • Fervor in patch information (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Navaash Fenwylde ( 35067 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @06:07PM (#5927717) Homepage
    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*

  • Hacking ruined Diablo II (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WIAKywbfatw ( 307557 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @06:16PM (#5927749) Journal
    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.

    • Re:Hacking ruined Diablo II (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @06:28PM (#5927802) Journal
      I agree with you, and I guess this is where the idea with MMORPG's and a constant income for the game company to continue supporting the game with a dedicated team comes into play.

      Blizzard are continuing to ban hackers and recently banned 130k accounts (!) but it doesn't happen that often, and it's actually cool they do it at all since I don't think they earn much money from the game anymore, especially when you take the bandwidth costs for their free servers into account.

      Diablo II is a game I think should really benefit from the MMORPG game model.
    • I stopped playing it when the expansion came out and they changed a bunch of the rules so that a non expansion player couldn't possible play the game. I had a rogue (level 7x) that I could take through hell on the nightmare level by herself. After the dust settled, I was lucky to play the second scene by myself. I refused to be blackmailed into buying the expansion.

      I'm almost over the addiction now. When I read the headline my hands only quivered for a few minutes and my heartbeat slowed back to norma

    • Whoa... A minority of players cheat on DII? That is new to me. I've been playing for well over 2 years now, and at the very least over 95% of the players use maphack. A cheat. Hacks, dupes, trojans, and otherwise malicious cheats are now and have been a part of the culture of DII for a _very_ long time. Nonmalicious cheats simply added another element to the game, and gave me more code to play with! It is sad that this drove you away, but why not just go with the flow?

      To answer another question altog

  • Kudos to Blizzard (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DeeBye ( 573733 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @06:18PM (#5927762)
    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
    • Actually, it makes quite a bit of sense economically for Blizzard to continue patches. People are still buying Diablo II and the expansion new off the shelves (I work at a video game store, so I know). Not only that, but how many of us have bought Blizzard games because we are confident of the support (Fuck you, ATI!)? After Warcraft II, I was confident that Blizzard games aren't going to just end up "Game of the Minute" like AvP2 and JK2 did, and so I put up the cash for Diablo II. It definately pays t
      • AvP2 game of the minute ? How do you figure that ?
        That is one of the best FPS I've played, mood, decent balance if you enforce it, it actually requires team play :) JK2 was about as deep as a teaspoon I agree there wholeheartedly.

        You have driver issues with ATI ?!?! I finally got my 9700pro to work correctly and I love it but I do sympathize, it took nearly 6 months and a bazillion driver combos...Turned out to be old Via Hyperion 4in1 drivers :(
      • In "Game of the Minute," I'm not referring to the quality of the game, just as in how popular it is (judging by game sales and how often it's played at the LAN parties I go to). It was really big for about three or four months, then suddenly no one played it anymore (and JKII was part of that).
      • "I put up the cash for Diablo II"


        But you say you work at a video game store? Is there something wrong with this picture? ;)

    • Re:Kudos to Blizzard (Score:4, Interesting)

      by critter_hunter ( 568942 ) <critter_hunter@hotm a i l .com> on Saturday May 10, 2003 @06:46PM (#5927858)

      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:Kudos to Blizzard (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb&gmail,com> on Saturday May 10, 2003 @08:08PM (#5928156) Homepage
        You're kidding, right? Everything you described (especially "even more item based") is exactly what people wanted when they bought the game, and it's CERTAINLY what people who are still playing the game want - I'm not one of them but I might give 1.10 a try when it arrives.

        I'll admit that "amazing gameplay changes" is hyperbole but what the heck is wrong with someone still enjoying a game and being excited about it? If you enjoy making these kinds of comments, might I suggest visiting the message boards of GameFAQs [gamefaqs.com]? You certainly wouldn't be out of place there.

        Whatever changes end up coming in the patch, Blizzard is indeed to be commended for their seemingly endless support of an old game for which they charge no extra money to play online.

        • Re:Kudos to Blizzard (Score:5, Insightful)

          by critter_hunter ( 568942 ) <critter_hunter@hotm a i l .com> on Saturday May 10, 2003 @09:34PM (#5928524)

          More items IS a good development. The problem is that these items are so rare, it destroys the game. Instead of simply having to level up to gain power - and lets face, going around killing thousands of monster certainly is enjoyable - you have to selectively kill the "big drop" monsters in the game repeatedly to be able to survive the harder difficulty levels. By repeatedly, I don't mean a dozen times, or even a hundred. I mean THOUSANDS of times.

          By adding even more emphsasis to the necessity of having the best items, you make it pretty much impossible to do anything in the game without making that three thousand Meph run.

          I don't know. Maybe people actually enjoy killing the same enemy over and over again, every damn 30 seconds. I personally think it encourages people to use bots to get them the items so they can actually play. Ain't enhanced gameplay to me. (and no, I don't use bots. I usually just stop playing for a few months once I can't get any further without spending days chasing after the game's most elusive items)

          • Anyone who'd actually do what you describe is a sick, sad loser who's in desperate need of therapy. But hell, anyone who'd play this game over and over and over again probably fits the bill anyway.

            Well, at least you aren't out strangling hookers or sacrificing babies. I suppose it could be worse.

            Max

  • Still Boycotting... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hilleh ( 561336 ) <hilleh.email@com> on Saturday May 10, 2003 @06:33PM (#5927816) Homepage
    Still boycotting, still haven't bought War3, still have no plans to buy world of warcraft. Did we forget already? [bnetd.org]

    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.
    • Viva La Resistance!!

    • Biting off you nose... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Omestes ( 471991 ) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {setsemo}> on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:27PM (#5928023) Homepage Journal
      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.

      • Every Blizzard patch is like a mini-expansion, rather than a bug fix caused by rushing development.

        ... wow. You really missed out on last December's server patching, eh? Go rummaging around forums, and _eveyrone_ legit and non-legit players were being constantly kicked for 'excessive packet usage' because they set their filters too tightly. This was the most poorly thought out patch for any game that I have seen.
        But hey, I usually don't play games -- DII is just the heroin of video games... one tr

        • I agree, the server patch was pretty henious. And come to think of it, 1.08 was REALLY nasty. But the server patch is pretty much okay in my books, since I really dislike bnet, nice in theory, but in practice, you get what you pay for, a bunch of '1337" lamers. And the server patch was trying to semi-fix this problem, and if it went to far, GREAT, at least their trying. Most gaming companies wouldn't care, you already bought the product, so who cares about the enviroment, I mean DII isn't marketed like

      • 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),

        People who say Warcraft 3 was a "new genre making RTS" must be blind.

        War3 takes many ideas from its predecessors and quite a few ideas (namely, heroes that level up and replay feature) from the Myth series. One could argue that 3D terrain sort of followed so it isn't taken directly.

        And in my opinion, Myths work better because there's no micromanagement w

    • The DMCA-wielding jackbooted thugs didn't see a dime from me since the bnetd assault, either, and never will.
    • >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

      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 outs

  • ...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! :)

  • 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.
  • " 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 ca
  • 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.
  • 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).
  • 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
  • The guys at Paradox Entertainment, the makers of [paradoxplaza.com] Europa Universalis II [gonegold.com] and Hearts of Iron [gonegold.com], 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.:)
  • ...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 do
  • 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.
    • But Dungeon Siege is to Diablo II what Quake was to Doom.

      Naah...

      Dungeon Siege is to D2 what a retard is to Einstein.

      Even Diablo II: The Point & Click Adventure look amazingly complex when compared to the DS Auto-Play System. It's a great sleep pill though and half-way to Progress Quest [progressquest.com].

      Seriosly, I find DS to lack character and atmosphere. You just kill and get the combat and magic skills distributed for you depending on how you kill the guys, with even the killing more automated than in D2, and wit
    • Dungeon Siege certainly is pretty. But game play? The only thing I ever did of any consequence while "playing" was to press the all drink potions button. Other than that it pretty much played itself. And the characters, items and spells were just generic. All that happened as you leveled up and found new stuff was that the numbers got bigger. No new strategies opened up. No cool new moves. Nothing. At least the world builders did a good job. I think the only thing that made me finish it was being
    • 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.

      Except that I could play Diablo II just fine through a firewall performing NAT, but the MS Direct Play crap didn't work at all unless I opened inbound ports and did manual static mappings. Screw that. I threw the game away after getting bored with the single player game and just went b

  • http://www.stratorgy.com [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.

  • People just don't understand... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 10, 2003 @10:32PM (#5928744)
    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

  • Hrmm (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Fancy78 ( 471787 )
    I have used Filter Level 5 for years. I never realized I'd miss out on all these great ASCII penis pics : Who knew?!
  • 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.

    • 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.

      Could be worse.

      On my system Direct3D 8 blew up and didn't work for over an year. Luckily D3D7 and earlier and OpenGL games worked just fine, and as long as I got Neverwinter Nights and Myth series and Mechwarriors and Warcraft 3 things were just fine. (And Nethack, of course, ran. =)

      When I finally was able to fix that, well, I didn't have

      • Or you could be in my situation. OS X 10.2 broke D2:LoD and reinstalling hasn't helped. That and Blizzard support keeps telling me how to make it work under OS 9, that's real useful.

  • Diablo 2 is *still* a top selling PC game, weekly (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ThresholdRPG ( 310239 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @02:17AM (#5929476) Homepage Journal
    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

    -----------

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

    Pretty amazing for a 3 year old game.
  • ...when Ragnarok Online [ragnarokonline.com] 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.
    • This current beta stage is absolute hell thanks to the throngs of freeloaders that swarmed in and sucked all the fun out of it. I'll play again when I'm sure I can go five minutes without some jackass stealing my monster drops and calling me a "n00b" because I didn't pick it up instantaneously. Yes, "SSJ4GOKUVEGETATRUNKS27", obviously I'm the clueless newbie.

      Sadly, I'm not exaggerating any there.

      • Out of curiosity, what server are you playing on? I've been playing on Loki and I can honestly say that my time with Ragnarok has been really positive; that's why I'm recommending it. There were some idiots, but idiots are present in any online community. For the most part, though, the people I encountered were friendly and experienced, though often hilariously illiterate.

        "How do I get to Izlude?"
        "u go down sum ten turn kthxnbai"
  • 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 flame

    • Re:This ... on Slashdot? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by k_187 ( 61692 )
      Because the Diablo II 1.10 patch was supposed to be out "real soon now" (tm) for over year. All my friends that play D2 have been complaining that Blizzard shifted all their focus away from D2 to Warcraft III and so the 1.10 patch became something like Duke Nukem Forever albeit on a much smaller scale.
  • 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.
  • The graphics acceleration under OS X is totally hosed, it makes the game *slower*. Will 1.10 fix this, I wonder?

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