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Games Entertainment

Diablo 2 Finally Hits Shelves 207

Posted by CmdrTaco from the gimme-some-of-that-diablo-luvin dept.
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.
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Diablo 2 Finally Hits Shelves More

Diablo 2 Finally Hits Shelves

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  • Anyone how often will EB stores restock D2 orders? I was unable to get it from three local EB stores. :( Does Best Buys and CompUSA (too expensive) have them yet?

  • Only 8 players per session as far as I know...

    -Veldrane
  • Those are great games. But are there multiuser versions of some of them now? I think that's what makes Diablo and similar games so attractive (in addition to the graphics).

  • In case you haven't noticed, tons of people start big ambititous software products in Linux, but nobody follows through. I frequent linuxgames.com and happypenguin.com but I'm sick and tired of reading about this or that new project when 90% of them go unfinished. I just wish someone would do a -mildy- ambitious game and finish it, something along the lines of dragonwarrior 1 for the nes or something...

    Frustrating? Definitely. Surprising? No.

    I've been on the other side of the fence, involved in trying to produce a multi-scrolling beat-em-up as a collaboration over the web. And the one thing that kills off more projects than anything else is RealLife(TM). A lot of projects are started by students who have long summers to stir projects into life and get something going. And then they get jobs (in the case of my cohorts, that included jobs with Psygnosis) and any release of that software is suddenly off the cards. Sometimes that can be due to contractual obligations - most software companies require their employees to NOT work on projects similar to their actual employment. Some companies even go as far as 'Intellectual Carte Blanc' and say any software written by the employess is owned by the software company, regardless of the fact that it was written in the employee's weekends...

    Contractual obligations aside, I see signs that projects which reach a critical momentum do not fall by the wayside. Good examples of open-source games which have reached fruition are Xpilot, Angband and it's many offspring and FreeCiv. There are many other 'small' games, such as the ones distributed with Gnome, and quite a lot of really pretty good card games.

    So, if you are fed up of seeing games projects fall apart, the most useful thing you can do is locate a project which you think looks promising, and help it. This can be graphics, sound, music, suggestions, gameplay ideas, UI improvements. It's not just coding that makes a good game, so even if you don't want to offer programming skills, there is plenty that can be done in the way of support. To be honest, it's often a great help to the author to know that someone likes the project - feedback is often infrequent and patchy. If the author gets feedback, then the author usually feels that it is worth continuing. Maybe that is all that stands between some finished projects and the rest.

    Cheers,

    Toby Haynes

  • What fuckin' luck... I'm moving and USWorst won't have my damn DSL moved until the 17th. Anyone know how successful a lawsuite for depriving me of Diablo 2 for two weeks would be? What would I sue for? Emotional damage?
  • Race out and buy Terminus. Not only does this badboy support Linux (*Ahem* after two patches, however), but it's darn fun. Graphics might not be on par with Freespace, but they're up there with Tachyon:TF (for any Bruce Campbell fans out there, this Windoze-only game is a must-have). The Newtonian Physics flight model is just too cool, I have to say. Haven't gotten too into the story mode just yet (a few routine patrol missions, mine-hunting, etc.) But it seems very promising.

    You might want to rush out to whatever EB is handy; when I got mine, the clerk said they'd only gotten two copies in (now they have one! *grin*). She'd also never heard of the game and after taking one look at the box, said "Wow, this looks great! Why have I never heard of it?"

    Oh, did I mention it supports Linux, 'doze and Mac out of the box?

    -------------
  • Diablo was originally based on nethack, the designers have admitted this.

    so here is a new linux version of that, Gnomehack:

    http://www.xmission.com/~andersen/erik/gnomehack /gnomehack.html

  • If a game has no challange then it's NOT going to be played long by many people. It doens't have to be chessmaster to be challenging.

    I found Diablo to get really boring really fast and now that i've learned that Diablo II is more of the same I'll skip it. Diablo II has huge advance sales I wonder how much it will get as reccomendations from players?

    My question is why did something that's basicly an expansion pack take so long to release? And then release with a massive amount of crash bugs?
  • I just found out EB stores will restock at around noon. I hope so! Must get!

  • Actually, this is why I like Diablo/Diablo2. I love nethack, adom, etc. I play Rogue on my Palm. The thing that initially interested me about Diablo was the very nethack-ness of it. Combine the real-time and graphics with the multiplayer aspects, and you do have something that isn't just a re-packaging of the originals.
  • I agree. I think vampire has the opportunity (with all the java scripting) to be very cool. I've done a couple NPC re-skins so far, but I haven't had time (damn work) to get into changing game mechanics and disciplines.

    BTW, currently (6:50PM PST) the highest bid on a ebay collectors edition Diablo 2 is $99. Someone put one up for $250 but noone's buying. Personally, I think it's silly to spend an extra $50 on the "collector's edition". Sure, I bought the collector's Vampire: tM-R, but it was only like $8 more for the pre-order.

    If you can't get it in the store, just wait, they'll make more :). I may pick it up off the cheap rack, but probably not, I didn't think Diablo 1 was all that great (and the beta didn't convince me otherwise about Diablo 2).
  • This is probably obvisous to most, but it took me a while to track down (mainly because blizzard sites has been sllloowww!

    If your getting tired of battlenet crashes, "private" games can be set up on the net, if you have a NAT box you need to open/redirect PORT 4000 to the "host" computer. We played till 5am without a single crash! For hosting a game on battle.net you'll need to also open up 6112 through 6119 (both TCP/UDP). This info is from the FAQ on blizzards site.

    Negative, is our characters don't show up on the ladder, but it was nice quality time with my brothers. . .

    BTW, Necromancers rule. I love having a clay thug to beat up evil demons while I watch.

    -MS2k
  • Ugh! Warcraft 1, and 2. Starcraft. Diablo. Now D2. When will Blizzard finally wake up and push for a simultaneous Mac/Windows release date? It used to be that they'd use the Mac version as a little extra profit boost after the fact, but now with the advent of the iMac and the crushingly fast G4, why can't Blizzard acknowledge the Mac as a legitimate gaming platform? Don't give me the FUD about Windows' user base, the Mac user base right now on June 29, 2000 is such that Blizzard could stand to make a nice profit given the obvious popularity of the windows stress test. if they had really wanted to win the hearts of all the gamers out there, they would have gotten in bed with Loki way back to get this thing out for Windows, Mac, and Linux all at once. I hereby pledge undying loyalty to any game company that can accomplish that.
  • It checked for 3dfx glide during install too.
  • A good portion of the stuff is done server side now, so it's much much much harder, if not impossible to use a trainer of any use,.
    ----
    Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?
  • I presume that was a troll, but I am replying anyway. I have always been of the opinion that it is much more fun to be a low level character and work your way up. Just like in D&D (roleplaying geek alert!), its actually more fun IMHO to play a low level character most of the time. (Thats the first time I've ever used IMHO! ACK!)

    -Phredrick Dobbs
    Emperor of the Universe
    Grand and High Protector of Everything
  • Diablo II is no more the same game than the might and magic games are all the same, or any other series games that actually keep a consistent game play style (unlike, say, final fantasy).

    I for one am overjoyed that diablo II is sprite based. It seems like every game that comes out anymore is 3d, and personally i think sprites look Much better. They're pre-rendered so you don't have to worry about polygon counts, you can have way more frames of animation with less hardware usage, you can have more variety since sprites are nowhere near as big as 3d meshes, and i for one think the un-antialiased, low-poly, flat textured look of 3d games is just plain ugly.

    And as for linear.. yeah, diablo and diablo II are linear.. so are pretty much all games to one extent or another. I like non-linear games as much as the next guy, but i like novels too.. and a well made, linear game can be just as involving as a linear novel.

    But i digress. Different strokes for different folks and all. I like sprite-based graphics, i like diablo's gameplay, i like its multi-player (though i really prefer single player most of the time), and given the sales of the games apparently alot of people agree. That doesn't make me 'right', but don't slam the game for not being your cup of tea.


    Dreamweaver
  • As opposed to the game being no challenge at all?
  • The collectors edition comes with a DVD of the ingame cinematics and a copy of the AD&D Diablo rulebook (which you can buy seperately)

    ----
    Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?
  • Yes! Thank you!
    Hey, is Blizzard HQ anywhere near Redmond? If so we can head over there after we're done with MS. Are you going to be joining us?
  • The "problem" you are encountering is probably a result of one of the popular anti-piracy CD hacks, which are incompatible with some drives. They put these in because most retail stores will order fewer (or no) copies of a game that doesn't have some kind of copy protection good enough to stop casual users.

  • Someone's not been doing their GiS homework. (Score:4)

    by Inoshiro ( 71693 ) on Thursday June 29, 2000 @01:16PM (#967120) Homepage
    " 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!
    ---

  • The Patch... (Score:5)

    by Danse ( 1026 ) on Thursday June 29, 2000 @01:16PM (#967121)

    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 [cdmag.com]. They have a short article on "first impressions" of the game in the "Quick Takes" section today.

  • It is not a MMORPG.

    if it holds true to the multiplayer stress test, the max number of characters in a world at a time is 5 (i think. i'm not at home so i cant check).

    anyway....this is not competing with UO, Everquest, AC, etc.

    it's closer to competing with Neverwinter Nights and Vampire.

  • I was wondering by the office was so empty today...and now I know.
  • VMWARE, if you can deal with the speed decreases
  • From Interplay [interplay.com] and their studio, Black Isle, with an engine from Bioware [bioware.com], comes Icewind Dale [interplay.com], the latest AD&D RPG, a sort of follow up to Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast (the expansion pack).
  • If you want info on Diablo II mechanics, go visit www.diabloii.net. Enjoy "May the force be with you Luke!"
  • I'm sure they are, expansion release date #1 is set for 7/00 Postponed release #1 is set for 1/01 Postponed release #1 is set for 10/01 Postponed release #1 is set for 5/02 ... should see an expansion by the next presidential election.
  • It's not an expansion, its a sequel. You want to know why it's 640x480, because it was started 4 years ago when 640x480x16 was really nice.

    I mean, what about quake, gameplay for it hasnt changed since quake 3 and all they did for that was take out the gameplay part.

    Diablo II will be played for a long time, just like Diablo. The skill tree system makes for awesome char customizing. You can have all of your chars do something different. The game is great, even if the graphics look a bit dated. But then again, 2d probaly just dosent excite you.

    Oh well, I'll play D2

    -B

  • Then we would see more ports of games.

    I'm all for linux games, but linux just is not ready for games yet. Until linux gets a stable API for gaming, it's not going to happen. Sure you can use DRI (which, is a wonderful step in the right direction) but hardware support is lacking, although nVidia's drivers work very well on Q3.

    Stop complaining about not supportling linux games. Just face it, most games on linux suck ass. If i wanted to play Q3 at 15fps then I would use my P200.

    -B

  • Oh good tao! They have to map the other buttons to the option and command keys! It might take a whole 5 minutes, if that! THANK you for showing WHY those companies always release Mac version so long after the PC versions.
  • I was a stress tester and let me tell you, the servers would go down every day, constantly. battle.net was NOT a haven...

    Of course, first thing ya notice is a new patch out already.

    I saw CmdrTaco and said Hi... during the "Meltdown" he talks about. He went from level 10 to 8 for that crash he said. I did not seem to lose a darn thing. My wife did not either...

    So anyone got quick ways of getting perfect gems?

    AS TO The linux vs windows thing. I hate MS, but I have win98 on 2 of my 4 network computers.. It is very simple... the games are not out for linux yet, and when they do, I buy them. But until then, I gotta get my Age of Empires 2, Homeworld, Age of Wonders, Diablo 2 FIX... I jones for good games..

    I play HOMM3 on linux :)
  • No. What he is saying is that if he buys windows games, then the demographics say 'well, we sold enough windows ones that we dont need to do a linux port, they all play it slowly through wine.' Whereas if he buys linux games, then those demographics start showing the people do buy games for linux, and there is a market. If nobody buys linux games, there will never be more.
  • I'm a huge Warcraft II and Starcraft fan. I think Blizzard is amazing for creating games which such incredibly well-thought-out, well-balanced gameplay. But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't understand why so many people, my friends and colleagues included, liked Diablo so much. It seemed that all I could do was run around dungeons and madly click on the bad guys. If it had had various types of attacks which depended on what key I was pressing (while madly clicking), at least then there would have been some skill involved. As it was, I was bored to tears. Granted, playing as a sorceror was MUCH more interesting than playing as a warrior. But as far as skill requirements goes, it wasn't even close to W2 and SC. And its role playing aspects were far inferior to other fantasy games like the Ultima and Wizardry series.

    So can someone please explain to me what exactly the appeal of Diablo is? What was the one thing that it did so incredibly well? And don't get mad--I'm by no means trying to ridicule those that liked Diablo, this is just the first game I've encountered in whicyh I genuinely can't understand the popularity.

    I really wonder if it would have been so popular if it hadn't been for the loyalty that fans had for Blizzard as a result of the huge success of Warcraft II.

  • You gotta be kidding me. I thought that the mulitplayer is a joke in V:TM! Most of the time, there is no structure w/ a ST that is just spitting out a monster here or there and handing out weapons and XP like candy.

    All of the characters hacn't been built up properly so it's no fun. It's like D1 when everyone was cheating!
    --

    A mind is a terrible thing to taste.

  • ...they've removed the ability to cheat like one could in Diablo I. Then I might just have to play this beast.

  • Glad to see that Slashdot has seen a decline in productivity that parallels my own. Since getting the game yesterday lunchtime I have been trying to not get caught playing in my office (fast connection) whilst building my array of characters.

    BTW CmdrTaco's choice of playing a female is not that unreasonable. If you want to use magic then there is not male magic user so a woman you must become. Of course, this only adds to the net history of men assuming women's identities, but that is another story.

    See you on Battle.net

  • I was in the beta-test, and was curious about this too. But soon after starting the solution they've taken immediately becomes apparent: *everything* goes through their servers.

    For example, if you click on an item in your inventory, there's a noticeable delay as (presumably) their server is contacted to verify the action. Then there's another delay when you drop the item in its new location.

    In addition, you can only play online with special 'secure' characters, every facet of which is also controlled by the server. With all items and characters being controlled centrally like this, I'd say it will be very difficult to fabricate your own mega-magic items or characters, since none of this information is actually authoritatively stored on your own PC.

  • You don't say and there's no link.... we're not all psychic you know.
  • Note that us foreigners don't get a look in as Blizzard decided to do an exclusive deal with Electronics Boutique, so exclusive that its Australian branch could not get copies of the collected edition.

    I had an order through Chips and Bits website but they did not receive any due to this exclusive deal.

    I would have ordered from EB's site if they had a sensible shipping rate to Australia, $50US flat rate granted this is probably per shipment.

    Yeesh. Guess I'll settle for the standard edition. Once again the rest of the world comes off second best to the US.

    Rant over.
  • By the way, Diablo II uses either DirectDraw or Direct3D, which fairly quickly rules out WINE. Would be nice, though.
  • First off let me say that I have not yet picked up my copy of Diablo 2, but I was a "stress tester". It was my understanding that at the end of the stress test the characters were going to be erased and everything was going to start fresh. Meaning, we couldn't keep using our level 15 Barbarians anymore. I assume that this is because ST users would have an unfair advantage over newcomers. Odds are that all the variations _were_ gone, but were erased when everything was reset.
  • The full install does not require you to swap cds, BUT... BUT.. here is an excerpt from the readme..
    Hard Drive Space: The Single Player installation requires
    600 MB free space on your hard drive. The Multiplayer installation requires 900 MB free space on your hard drive. The Full installation requires 1.4 GB free space on your hard drive.
  • It's a tossup for me: do I wait to see if the expoits continue in the sequel, or do I rush out and buy it so I can play before the cheats come out?

    Oh what, Windows only, you say? Cough. I don't pay money to reboot.
  • I think everyone rushed to a computer store when they saw this article. All I see are trolls replying.
  • From the readme:
    Operating System: Diablo II is a Windows 95/98/2000/NT game that utilizes Microsoft DirectX. Diablo II will run under DirectX 6.1 or higher, but we recommend updating to DirectX version 7.0a. You may install DirectX 7.0a using the Diablo II Installer.
    There you have it.

  • Re:Er, what is diablo 2? (Score:3)

    by technos ( 73414 ) on Thursday June 29, 2000 @12:52PM (#967146) Homepage Journal
    A kick ass multiplayer video game, the sucessor to Diablo.. Basically you run around in a dungeon trying to kill "Diablo"s current incarnation.. The graphics were (are?) a bit cheesy, reminding me of Fallout2. But the orig rocked my ass off, and this one will too! Get yerself a copy and enjoy calling in sick fer the next three days!!
  • It's worth noting that the patch came out several days ago. I can't think of another time when the patch was actually released ahead of the project (in the games biz, anyhow). What does that say about game S/W development?
  • I always new you had that crossdressing side! When are we gonna hook up?
    I could see you and hemos in sequined dresses at the next Linux Expo!
    #include caffiene.c
  • "...Diablo 2 arrived at Babbages today..."

    ...and I don't even like computer games, aside from maybe Tetris or Freecell or Dope Wars, but hey whatever you kids wanna buy, I'll sell it to ya! hahaha



  • Or, at least, it was there when I was picking up a few new hubs for the suits around lunch time. ;) They (they being the store I went to in Sunnyvale) had a fairly large display filled with the game, so if you get there soon enough after work closes this evening, you can prolly get lucky. Game *was* going fast, though, so unless you got lucky, it's prolly too late.
  • Not to knock the Prey team but I thought I heard once that the sequel to Prey was released before the original (which isn't out yet, is it?)

    Could someone clarify that for me?

    -Vel

  • How likely is it that people who didn't preorder will get a copy? Should I even bother to try yet, or should I wait for the next pressing or what ever of CD's?

    My roommate ran over to CompUSA (Austin, TX) and picked up two copies earlier this afternoon. He said that they had plenty left. YMMV

  • sure - the house of evil -aka fry's- got the regular edition on the shelves mid day today

    if you want one of the 70000 collectors editions, i beleive that they were all presold - picked mine up yesterday. i hear its going for $100+ over cost on ebay already.

    anyway, you probably ought to pick up your phone book and call first, unless you are just looking for an excuse to go to the store anyway.

    good luck
  • How much you want to bet we wont see a Diablo III till 2010?
  • Yeah, I like spending $50 for a game and then constantly getting an "insert CD message" just because the assholes who make the game hate their customers so much that they use a subchannel protection scheme that screws over a significant portion of users.

    And once I finally got a hacked version that didn't have this problem, I'm playing it for a few hours thinking "this is what they spent the last three years working on?"

    They should have called it Diablo 1.5 and released it a year and a half ago. Then it would have been a good game. I'm returning my copy and checking out IWD.
  • TCP = bad for network play.

    TCP always sends packets in order, and doesnt drop any packets. If a packet is lost, its resent, and you have to just sit there and wait.

    UDP has no error control. If it gets through, it gets through, if not, its lost. The packets are in no guaranteed order. It might sound bad, but TCP is much worse for real time gaming.
  • And that strategy has worked so well for Mac Zealots, I'm sure their fantastic success will be repeated with Linux.

    Seriously, if you want to see more Linux games, then you had better hope that Linux market share goes way up, because the game companies will always run with the herd.

  • To me, 3D just isn't believable in a fantasy setting. I've never seen a 3d fantasy game that looked convincing as a fantasy setting. 3d works in a scifi setting but for some reason a warlock/wizard/skeleon etc. looks better as a well drawn sprite.

    And, D2, it's cool. I like it. Not the graphics really, though they are pretty good for sprite-based animations. it's more the atmosphere. The music is pretty good too, reminds me of my old Castlevania days.
  • I got this game last night, and the name "Golias" is already taken on BattleNet! I mean, how weird of a name does a guy have to use to keep it unique!?

    I logged in a HeMightBeDave instead.

  • Would you care to explain how those were "made real-time"?

    Besides the fact that the games you describe aren't multiplayer, they're just not that interesting to look at. And this is coming from a guy who just spent a month playing Moria from work at slow times. So it's not that I don't like the old games, but they're really not in the same league.

  • SDL's well worth the bother (not that I've ever had any bother with it). Trust me. Particularly if you're a developer. Even if you have to compile SDL from source yourself, it's not too hard (ain't autoconf grand?)

    Indeed, given the trouble it sounds like you've been having, it's probably well worth installing from source. You can find it at www.libsdl.org, btw.
  • That seems pretty stupid, considering they already have the unique CD-Keys for copy-protection.

    Any retailer dumb enough to not want to sell a TON of Diablo II copies because of a lack of Copy Protection is only short-changing themselves.

    In the tiny town of Cedar Falls, Iowa, Software, Etc. had 175 copies pre-ordered. I can't imagine the volumes sold in many bigger markets. Of course, this pales in comparison with the pre-orders of some consoles and their titles.
    ---

  • Get that patch! (Score:4)

    by bswick ( 29721 ) on Thursday June 29, 2000 @01:42PM (#967170)
    Apparently the patch can, in some cases, ruin your single player save game. Patch early.
  • Aha! Now we know the real reason Slashdot has been so flaky the past day or so....

    b7
  • Oh no! You mean I have to wait until Q3 to get my copy? Everyone's going to be high-level by then. (Even worse, they might get tired of the game.)

    Hopefully the insanity will have died down in time for the Macintosh release.

    It would be nice if companies actually started releasing Mac and PC versions simultaneously. I guess that would be too much to ask though, right? Oh well, back to my Alpha Centauri.
  • But when a woman has a name like "CmdrTaco", it inspires a lot of crude lesbian jokes doesn't it?

    (Or maybe my perspective is a little warped because I rented Chasing Amy again last week...)

  • Dual

    Boot

    Almost all Linux users also use MICROS~1 boxes. Get over it and move on with your life.

    I'm a freakin' Macintosh bigot, and I have two Windows systems (one of which is about to become a SCO UNIX box), a Linux PC, a G3 that boots into OS8.6 and LinuxPPC, and an old PowerBook Duo that I take everywhere and beat the hell out of.

    Some of us have grown up a little from the days of Holy Wars and just want to use the best tool for the job. When the best tool is Linux, that is what I will use.

    If M$ wants to charge me a C-Note for their OS, and I want to play a game that runs on their OS, I will buy it. You can scream all you want about how I'm not 31337 enough because I'm not a "pure" FSF freak, but I really don't give a crap.

    Here endeth the rant.

  • Better, Free, Open-Source Alternatives to Diablo2 (Score:5)

    by potsy2 ( 170854 ) on Thursday June 29, 2000 @06:20PM (#967194)
    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 [win.tue.nl] is the grandaddy of everything. Including Diablo. See where it all began.

    Angband [angband.org] 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 [nethack.org] (a light-hearted, often humorous Rogue-like), ADOM [www.adom.de] , and Moria [csuchico.edu]

    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!
  • There's a bit of a political issue. I'm only interested in supporting games that run under Linux with my hard earned dollar. This way, I can play Linux games in the future. This is common sense and logical in theory, but in reality, it takes some actual willpower.

    I will warez and borrow Windows-only games, and purchase them when they become available under Linux.
  • The Software, Etc. where I picked my game up today (Cedar Falls, Iowa) opened my box in front of me, as they did everyone else's.

    I think what I would do in that situation is say:

    "You know, I've decided I don't accept the license for this software, so I want to return it since I haven't opened it."

    --
  • - He wants horny guys to give him free stuff.
    You know what really pisses me off about people who do that? It works. At least, it works in EverQuest... Diablo 2's graphics might be too primitive to trigger those protective instincts.

    I've wasted so much time and money helping out naked wood elves. I know they're all played by creepy middle-aged men, but... they're just so cute!
  • If you look on the little yellow troubleshooting note that came with the game. It says "Some Kenwood drives may have problems, check out http://www.blizzard.com/support/ for the solution"

    Guess who has one of those Kenwood drives? Guess who can't install the game? There's no info there pertaining to the problem, and an e-mail to their tech support 4 hours ago hasn't produced a response yet.

    Meanwhile, I'm now installing the game from my CD-RW drive. It only writes at 2X, I'm hoping it reads faster than that, or that the full install doesn't use the CD much.

    If all else fails, I'm going to have to yank my Kenwood 52X and put in a DVD-ROM drive I brought home from work. I was a closed beta tester for this game, and I had the same problem then. Why didn't Blizzard fix this? No other CD has problems with my drive.
    ---
  • if they had really wanted to win the hearts of all the gamers out there, they would have gotten in bed with Loki way back to get this thing out for Windows, Mac, and Linux all at once. When a game is more than a year behind schedule, you get it out the door - fast. Simultanious development can often push release dates back, and given that Diablo II is "old school" compared to the EQ/UO/AC trend as it is, they could ill-afford to delay even longer just to make a handful of Mac and Linux zealots happy.

    1.5 million pre-orders, baby! Are there even 1.5 million iMacs out there yet?

    Disclaimer: I love the Mac and do stuff at my G3 every day. I'm just a realist about gaming markets. My advice, keep doing your Photoshop and Dreamweaver on that Mac of yours, and pick up a cheap PC for a gaming console (and a second one for a *n[iu]x firewall, while you are at it).

  • The whole random dungeon layout thing really bothers me. While it technically adds 'infinite' variations for gameplay, I prefer to hack and slash in a dungeon or realm which has some semblance of coherency, history and intention behind it. Diablo is good at simulating this, but sometimes it's too damn easy to see the 'randomness' at work.

  • Two points I want to make.

    1) There is a pretty good majority that want Windows only games in their own catagory. Windows only games are something that's mentioned alot and there should be it's own icon. Picture of a Sidewinder maybe, or that "pc cd-rom" symbol that is on Windows game packaging. Quake has it's own section, other specialized things have their own. The same should hold true for Windows only games such as Diablo 2.

    2) Nice to hear the vast majority of the Slashdot crowd supporting Windows only games. What better way to show that you want Linux ports of games then ot rush out and get Windows games the day they come out.

    I respect that people run Windows and they buy games for their platform. But most of us run linux, FreeBSD, etc. and want games for OUR os. But most don't back up our words with our pocket books and rush out and buy games on the first day that will never see the light of day on anything else but Windows.

    Do I have "sour grapes" over what games are avaliable for Linux over Windows? No. I'm happy with Sim City 3k Unlimted, Solider of Fortune, Quake 3, Unreal Tourney, and the load of other fine games that will apear on shelves for linux this year. These are the games that will get my gaming dollars.

    All those that support Windows gaming will get a reward. It will be more Windows games. My reward for supporting Linux games is that there will be many ohter Linux games to purchase. Most of the slashdot readership WANTS more linux ports of games. Show that support by not buying Windows only games, and spend it on a game for your platform.

  • Re:The Patch... (Score:3)

    by Sethb ( 9355 ) <bokelman@outlook.com> on Thursday June 29, 2000 @02:11PM (#967224)
    The Software, Etc. where I picked my game up today (Cedar Falls, Iowa) opened my box in front of me, as they did everyone else's. Apparently they received several copies that only had two of the three CD's inside. They were missing the Cinematics disc. Thankfully, my copy had all three CD's. Did anyone else experience this, or are the guys at my store smoking crack?
    ---
  • Diablo 2 hits the shelves...and the FTPs and Warez Sites! I knew a friend was downloading the game from an FTP before I knew it was available for purchase. (Okay I really didn't care when it came out, but I still plan to play for hours on end).

    Very popular, long awaited game. I think its going to be one of the more slower downloads, as everyone is going to want it.
  • 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 (!?).

    Never underestimate the power of a pointy rock.

  • Duh! -- Britishing . . .

    Damn it. My DSL won't be ready for anotehr four weeks, at least. And the network at the office blocks UDP. God damn, I feel left out!
    ---
    seumas.com

  • I'm assuming you're a techie.

    You would love it!! The pay is substandard, the hours are longish, but when was the last time you got to play video games on a half million dollar machine?? Or take a $90,000 Compaq home for the week to make sure it was 'up to snuff'?? Or do things to a powered S80 that would make hardened IBM engineers blush? Or juggle $150,000 processor plates from an IBM 370 mainframe?

    Nuff said.
  • The only political issue would be the purchase of Windows to run the game; The game companies could care what platform they wrote the game for, as long as they could sell it.

    Using Wine to keep cash out of the pockets of Gates & Company is not poiltical. It's the right thing to do.. Pirating Win32 games does nothing to improve the situation, it's just wrong.
  • Well, there were about 100,000 testers in the stress test, and as far as I know none of them figured out how to cheat... I'd say this game is fairly cheat-proof if you ask me. All your character info is stored server-side rather than client-side, so it's not a matter of "decode the file format then hack your char to your heart's content" like in Diablo 1.

    -colin

  • URLs (Score:4)

    by ay2b ( 21556 ) on Thursday June 29, 2000 @12:55PM (#967240)

    Since they weren't in the story...
    http://www.blizzard.com/ [blizzard.com]
    http://www.blizzard.com/diablo2/ [blizzard.com]

    And there's already even a patch 1.01:
    http://www.blizzard .com/support/diablo2/information/patch.shtml [blizzard.com]


    --
  • Diablo II is very late - and nothing new. The game is the same, the play is near the same - and unless they have unveiled a SUBSTANTIALLY larger world - pointless.

    The game employs features that have been around for ages, is sprite based, and has a very linear gameplay. BORING.

    Now pool of radiance seems to be the better fit for yall ex nethacks... Remember when RPG/Fantasy games actually enthralled you with a story.

    I am absolutley amazed at how Diablo II can even sell. It is obvious that ppl are getting it just because they liked Diablo (which was goodfor its time - um... 1995!!!)

    rant rant rant

    5 years WAY too late. I mean, UO had better gameplay/everything and it was released in 97....
  • WINE

    Seriously.. I'd betcha WINE runs it..

    CmdrTaco?!?
    Cowboy Neil?!?!
    Someone cycle their dual-Xeon back into Linux and check for us!
  • This popular game store in Helsinki, Finland might get "only" 1000 copies. I'm sure glad I made a pre-order on mine, as they are very likely going to be drained out of the store by end of the day. The store opens in about 10 hours.

    I have a pint of beer that says Diablo 2 becomes the best selling PC game in history, by end of September. I'm obviously biased by the stress test, but any takers on a bet?

    Kudos to Blizzard for finishing the game (finally) even if they lost several of the core guys to startups. Lookin' good, too.

    Tidbit of semi-useless information; in Japan it's apparently illegal to publish role playing games on weekdays as the number of sickdays become a big issue in the promised land of the otaku.

    Jouni
    --
    Jouni Mannonen : 3D Evangelist @ SurRender3D.com [surrender3d.com]

  • Presumably the storyline and the quests are different -- that's a given. I'm interested in reading about changes in the game mechanics. Can anyone give us some tasty nuggets to chew on before we actually go out and buy the game?

  • There's no game there, but there's two isometric tile engines for WorldForge [worldforge.org], namely uclient [worldforge.org] and anvil [worldforge.org] as well as a couple 3d clients too. Free for anyone to use for their own games (they have no game-specific code in them, WF is more of a toolbox for RPGs, with a med/fan world as its flagship implementation). And the art [worldforge.org] is better than anything else I've seen in an open-source game.

    <plug>WF could always use artists, writers, graphics and AI coders, etc. Go on over there and check it out.</plug>

  • Look... (Score:4)

    by Shut ( 164630 ) on Thursday June 29, 2000 @03:29PM (#967267) Homepage
    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 [galactus.org] for those who didnt catch my Anonymous Coward post above.
  • It doesn't even start for me - I don't think the copy protection likes the add on ATA-66 controller my dvd drive is hooked up to.
    --
    Email address is real.
  • I dunno if it's just me, but after a while the gameplay in Diablo/Diablo II just gets boring for me. I think I'll just stick to Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption and it's wonderful Storytellers mode. Games are much more fun with a ST/DM type running things and controlling NPCs. That and VtMR is much more flexible when it comes to game mods. There's a SDK out that allows you to make new levels, templates, even a scripting language that lets you change almost anything in the game or add your own code.

    The Codex scripting language is a derivative of Java, a programming language, with a number of special native function calls that allow interaction with the game engine. Most standard Java code should successfully compile and run in the game.

  • Re:What's the difference? (Score:5)

    by gribbly ( 39555 ) on Thursday June 29, 2000 @01:05PM (#967277)
    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.
  • "But most of us run linux, FreeBSD, etc."

    Just nitpicking here. Where do you get your information? How do you know? While this is a site that strongly supports alternatives to Windows, I'm willing to bet that many of its readers (possibly even a majority) use win xx as their primary OS (if they even use more than one OS).

    "All those that support Windows gaming will get a reward. It will be more Windows games. My reward for supporting Linux games is that there will be many ohter Linux games to purchase."
    How can you both get different rewards? This doesn't make any sense to me.

    "Most of the slashdot readership WANTS more linux ports of games."

    Once again, where do you get your information? How many Slashdot users are there? How many posts do articles on Windows only games generally receive? How many of those posts say "I want a port of this." I have no idea how you can take 5 or so posts and their upward moderation to mean that the majority of slashdot users want more linux ports.

  • Do you have a mouse in your pocket? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    To whom are you referring when you talk about _us_? I think it quite arrogant to think you can speak for the whole of the /. reading community.

    Personally, I love linux and I do pay extra respect to software companies that develop for multiple platforms, but I don't hate companies that choose not to do so. And I don't feel that I need to be branded a traitor to the linux movement because I don't boycott Diablo 2 on principle. I am not that petty.

    The reality is that Blizzard is one of the largest game companies out there, and sorry to say it but the fact that Blizzard is a BUSINESS means that judgement calls are made regarding what platforms to support and when. I am sure that everyone, including many people within Blizzard itself, would love for every new game released to be on windows,linux,mac,be, etc., but unless they can convince the people at the top whose primary concern is the bottom line, we are booting into windows to play Diablo II. And I hate to break it to you but most of the people at the top are not programmers and could give two shits how many platforms are supported as long as the profit margin is maximized.

    Life sucks, get a f**king helmet.
    -Dennis Leary

  • I've had to do the same thing (install from cd-rw) because my 32x mitsumi died about a month ago and i don't game much. Apparently it *does* read from the cd fairly often as the game lags like mad when i move from one area to another.. though you've probably already discovered this.

    As a side note, if you think the game's not running when you start it from CD, just wait about 10 minutes.

    Anybody know of one of those cd emulation programs so i can just run it off my HD?
    Dreamweaver
  • So I guess CmdrTaco is one of the 50% of guys that like to play as females in games. Or maybe he just likes to dress up in women's clothes and act powerful? By the way, is this a MMORPG? I didn't play the original Diablo but heard it was a lot of fun. Just wondering how they plan to avoid the common pitfalls of MMORPGs if it is...

  • So, why is CmdrTaco playing a sorceress? (Score:5)

    by Guppy ( 12314 ) on Thursday June 29, 2000 @01:08PM (#967299)
    "I'm a level 10 Sorceress named CmdrTaco, so if you see me, give me cool amulets or something."

    Some time ago, there was a story on Slashdot that dealt with Men Playing as Women [slashdot.org], as I see CmdrTaco is now doing. Here's a quick list of some possible reasons why the commander is playing a female...

    - He likes the way the sorceress looks.
    - He likes the technical characteristics of that character class.
    - For, um... exploration of gender issues.
    - He wants horny guys to give him free stuff.

    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?
  • Another roguelike to add to the roguelike games list. Pity I don't do Windows...

    I wonder why we haven't seen a isometric graphical roguelike for Linux yet. I don't reckon it'd be all that hard to code one. UO was OK except they dropped Linux support and we were basically paying to beta test for them anyway. Worldforge seems to be making good progress, but I'm not entirely certain how to classify them yet (Are they a roguelike?) and it looks like they'll be in development for a while yet.

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