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Diablo II: Resurrected

diablo2.blizzard.com

131–140 of 191 posts

Re: Diablo II: Resurrected

#131

If anyone is looking to play a modern version of Diablo 2, the spiritual successor is probably more a game called Path of Exile (rather than Diablo 3 or this). The developers managed to capture the aesthetic while improving the game in the direction of what gave the original game its replay-ability. Their development cycle of new content every 3 or 4 months with a league reset is unique and keeps things fresh. They'r…

Having been hooked on Diablo 2 in high school, I made the terrible decision of playing Path of Exile (POE) last year during thanks giving break (cuz we had 5 days off, I thought hey maybe I can play POE for a few days).

Since then, I have been playing POE non stop. I'd wake up at 3am and play until 8pm. I'd drink alot of water before going to bed so I can wake up early to play.

I stopped caring about work, I just played the game. To complete my work tasks, I hacked together my tasks in 30 mins before the end of the sprint with some of the shittiest code I've ever written.

Somewhere along this journey I decided that the only way I can stop my addiction is to completely finish it. I spent around 12k buying stuff for the game. The way it works is... you play to find and collect "currency" in the game. But instead of spending the time, I buy in game "currency" from other players. Its frowned upon and getting caught will get you banned, but part of me secretly wished my account would get banned so I could quit. I never got banned, so I got bolder and eventually I was spending $800 / day.

This week, I finally feel like I have finished the game. It finally got boring after building my character to the point where I could breeze through everything in the game. I was finally able to work this week and correct the bugs I introduced and get back to focusing on work.

I have yet to digest what happened in the last 3-4 months.

Its crazy how addictive these games can be.

Re: Diablo II: Resurrected

#132
post #30

I wonder if they are using the same backend servers as old client or if that got a rewrite as well and players will be in separate environments. I played a couple months of evenings of D2 during the pandemic: the online experience was quite a mess. Got temp bans several times for switching characters soon after login. Rampant botting to the point that people made bot services that would give you waypoints upon reques…

I remember towards the end of my time playing d2, bots were everywhere. At some point, I will admit I started to do it too. I actually really enjoyed the scripting behind it (in Lua) and the technical challenges behind it. Funny, it looks like d2jsp is still a thing.

Oh man, this brings me back to writing Redvex plugins long ago... looks like it's gone far, far away.

Re: Diablo II: Resurrected

#133
I've loved the Diablo and Warcraft series but I will never buy anything from Blizzard again:

> In the Blitzchung controversy, the company withdrew the prize from the winner of an online game tournament after he wore a mask and spoke in support of the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests in a post-game interview, stating "Liberate Hong Kong, the revolution of our times". The company is partly owned by Tencent. In August 2020, Activision Blizzard removed imagery of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests from its trailer of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.

Re: Diablo II: Resurrected

#134

If anyone is looking to play a modern version of Diablo 2, the spiritual successor is probably more a game called Path of Exile (rather than Diablo 3 or this). The developers managed to capture the aesthetic while improving the game in the direction of what gave the original game its replay-ability. Their development cycle of new content every 3 or 4 months with a league reset is unique and keeps things fresh. They'r…

Having been hooked on Diablo 2 in high school, I made the terrible decision of playing Path of Exile (POE) last year during thanks giving break (cuz we had 5 days off, I thought hey maybe I can play POE for a few days). Since then, I have been playing POE non stop. I'd wake up at 3am and play until 8pm. I'd drink alot of water before going to bed so I can wake up early to play. I stopped caring about work, I just pla…

This reminds me of an anecdote I once read or heard about a person curing their World of Warcraft addiction. The person used an unofficial server with cheats to instantly get the best gear, then proceeded to one-shot the toughest boss. After that, playing normally felt pointless to them.

Re: Diablo II: Resurrected

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been hooked on Diablo 2 in high school, I made the terrible decision of playing Path of Exile (POE) last year during thanks giving break (cuz we had 5 days off, I thought hey maybe I can play POE for a few days). Since then, I have been playing POE non stop. I'd wake up at 3am and play until 8pm. I'd drink alot of water before going to bed so I can wake up early to play. I stopped caring about work, I just pla…

This reminds me of an anecdote I once read or heard about a person curing their World of Warcraft addiction. The person used an unofficial server with cheats to instantly get the best gear, then proceeded to one-shot the toughest boss. After that, playing normally felt pointless to them.

"The person used an unofficial server with cheats to instantly get the best gear"

> Smart, unfortunately I didn't think of this. I feel like if I did, maybe I wouldn't have spent so much time on this game. My addiction to the game really took a toll an people around me who cares / loves me. I feel bad, but really there was nothing I could do except finish.

I'm wondering if there is a certain personality / mindset that is susceptible to gaming addiction.

Re: Diablo II: Resurrected

#136

It looks pretty good, but seems to me that each of the elements look a little too distinct from each other in this hi res version. There needs to be a little bit of fog or something to make it more cohesive.

To be more precise, I am saying the spells and character effects could be more integrated a little more into the entire scene, like in D2. Otherwise it looks amazing.

Re: Diablo II: Resurrected

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been hooked on Diablo 2 in high school, I made the terrible decision of playing Path of Exile (POE) last year during thanks giving break (cuz we had 5 days off, I thought hey maybe I can play POE for a few days). Since then, I have been playing POE non stop. I'd wake up at 3am and play until 8pm. I'd drink alot of water before going to bed so I can wake up early to play. I stopped caring about work, I just pla…

This reminds me of an anecdote I once read or heard about a person curing their World of Warcraft addiction. The person used an unofficial server with cheats to instantly get the best gear, then proceeded to one-shot the toughest boss. After that, playing normally felt pointless to them.

I've done pretty much the same thing with idle games. They make me really obsessive. I edit a save file or inject some javascript in the console once I've decided to quit. Once I have infinite resources, I can see how shallow the endgame is and I lose any will to play.

Re: Diablo II: Resurrected

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want something in the vein of Diablo 2 but with a different aesthetic (and not always online) then try Torchlight 2.

While Torchlight and Torchlight 2 have a lot of "quality of life" improvements and are decent games in general, I've found that they lack the replay value which Diablo 2 (with LOD) has. I can't exactly say why but this is how it felt to me.

You might have been older when you played Torchlight 2 than when you played Diablo 2?

Re: Diablo II: Resurrected

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are quite a few games that are neither pay 2 win nor selling data. They are the middle ground of cosmetics only. All of Valve free games fall under this category.

I don't know, but can't you buy loot crates in valve games that have non cosmetic abilities?

All of their free games do have "loot crates" system, but in Dota 2 and CS:GO, it's only cosmetics. TF2, you can also get weapons and in theory all weapons are "balanced", though in practice perfect balance doesn't exist, and also having more options available + being able to switch loadout during a match can be more OP. That being said, the weapons themselves aren't very rare, and you can get most of them fairly quickly, or craft the ones you need. Hats are more rare but those are again just cosmetic.

Re: Diablo II: Resurrected

#140
post #2

Oh man - quite possibly my favorite game of all time. I find it funny that the remastered graphics look exactly like how I remember the game (though they're clearly improved).

I was looking at the graphics and wondering if they just had those 3D models all this time, because they had to make them for 2.5D rendering in D2 and just swapped the assets now in a sense (and the engine too of course)

That's an interesting thought, but I'd assume 20 year old 3D models wouldn't be much use today, would they?

I know they were thinking about making D2 a 3D game at first, like Runescape, but then went with 2D, because 3D technology wasn't at a point that allowed them to carry over the gritty and dark theme they wanted for Diablo. And then went on to make D3 look as cartoony as it does... They used photos of clay figurines for Diablo 1, would be fun if they remade that with 3D scanning techniques. Do check out David Brevik's post mortem on D1 from GDC by the way, it's fantastic: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VscdPA6sUkc

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