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Blizzard to restore Classics: Diablo 2 Resurrected September 23rd!

RoeRoe Always to the EastRegistered User regular
edited June 2021 in Games and Technology
Compelling stories. Intense multiplayer. Endless replayability. Qualities that made StarCraft, Warcraft III, and Diablo II the titans of their day. Evolving operating systems, hardware, and online services have made them more difficult to be experienced by their loyal followers or reaching a new generation.

We’re restoring them to glory, and we need your engineering talents, your passion, and your ability to get tough jobs done.

So if you like wearing many hats, know small teams are the most effective, and look forward to challenges that will create millions of new adventures for our players: we would love to hear from you.

Responsibilities

Make gameplay first again on modern operating systems.
Create conditions for experiences that look as good as they play.
Own implementation and curation of features new and old.
Combat hacking to improve multiplayer.
Diagnose and fix all the things: crashes, deadlocks, overflows, heap corruptions, etc.


Diablo 2: Resurrected's street date was announced at e3. It is launching on the 23rd of September of this year!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DttPBtsZ5fc

Diablo 2 Resurrected is a remake of Diablo 2 with upscaled graphics, item art, music and is going to be integrated into the Battle.net launcher for safe, cheat free experience.

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Roe on
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    Knight_Knight_ Dead Dead Dead Registered User regular
    well there goes a blizzcon reveal.

    gonna be a job listing for hr soon too.

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    urahonkyurahonky Registered User regular
    As a man who put thousands of hours into Diablo 2... Please don't. I don't know if I can handle it.
    Please do it. I'll buy it again and again.

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    reVersereVerse Attack and Dethrone God Registered User regular
    For tablets, not PC.

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    RoeRoe Always to the East Registered User regular
    reVerse wrote: »
    For tablets, not PC.

    Where did you hear this?

    oHw5R0V.jpg
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    urahonkyurahonky Registered User regular
    That would be a horrible decision that would make me sad.

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    WingedWeaselWingedWeasel Registered User regular
    There have been rumors about "Warcraft 3 hd" for a long time. If they add the few features that I am looking for I don't picture playing any of the modern offerings ever again.

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    PinfeldorfPinfeldorf Yeah ZestRegistered User regular
    Roe wrote: »
    Compelling stories. Intense multiplayer. Endless replayability. Qualities that made StarCraft, Warcraft III, and Diablo II the titans of their day. Evolving operating systems, hardware, and online services have made them more difficult to be experienced by their loyal followers or reaching a new generation.

    We’re restoring them to glory, and we need your engineering talents, your passion, and your ability to get tough jobs done.

    So if you like wearing many hats, know small teams are the most effective, and look forward to challenges that will create millions of new adventures for our players: we would love to hear from you.

    Responsibilities

    Make gameplay first again on modern operating systems.
    Create conditions for experiences that look as good as they play.
    Own implementation and curation of features new and old.
    Combat hacking to improve multiplayer.
    Diagnose and fix all the things: crashes, deadlocks, overflows, heap corruptions, etc.

    This is amazing news for fans of all three games. Personally, Diablo 2 remade would be a dream come true.

    Brother Laz could remake Diablo 2 for modern OSes by himself in 8 months. The biggest issue there is he knows better than to try to get a job at ActiBlizz, so it'll probably get done slower and worse by people that are only interested in phoning it in for a paycheck. Probably.

    I hope I'm wrong, though.

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    Wraith260Wraith260 Happiest Goomba! Registered User regular
    Roe wrote: »
    reVerse wrote: »
    For tablets, not PC.

    Where did you hear this?

    to be fair if they focus on making the new versions for Windows 10 then there wont be any difference. factor in cross-buy/cross-play and cloud saves and you could be able to play at home on your PC and while travelling on your tablet.

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    dporowskidporowski Registered User regular
    Wraith260 wrote: »
    Roe wrote: »
    reVerse wrote: »
    For tablets, not PC.

    Where did you hear this?

    to be fair if they focus on making the new versions for Windows 10 then there wont be any difference. factor in cross-buy/cross-play and cloud saves and you could be able to play at home on your PC and while travelling on your tablet.

    They will 100% do a Mac release simultaneously. It's their thing.

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    urahonkyurahonky Registered User regular
    Pinfeldorf wrote: »
    Roe wrote: »
    Compelling stories. Intense multiplayer. Endless replayability. Qualities that made StarCraft, Warcraft III, and Diablo II the titans of their day. Evolving operating systems, hardware, and online services have made them more difficult to be experienced by their loyal followers or reaching a new generation.

    We’re restoring them to glory, and we need your engineering talents, your passion, and your ability to get tough jobs done.

    So if you like wearing many hats, know small teams are the most effective, and look forward to challenges that will create millions of new adventures for our players: we would love to hear from you.

    Responsibilities

    Make gameplay first again on modern operating systems.
    Create conditions for experiences that look as good as they play.
    Own implementation and curation of features new and old.
    Combat hacking to improve multiplayer.
    Diagnose and fix all the things: crashes, deadlocks, overflows, heap corruptions, etc.

    This is amazing news for fans of all three games. Personally, Diablo 2 remade would be a dream come true.

    Brother Laz could remake Diablo 2 for modern OSes by himself in 8 months. The biggest issue there is he knows better than to try to get a job at ActiBlizz, so it'll probably get done slower and worse by people that are only interested in phoning it in for a paycheck. Probably.

    I hope I'm wrong, though.

    I would share this cynicism if Blizzard games didn't still get released with incredible quality.

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    StericaSterica Yes Registered User, Moderator mod
    edited November 2015
    Knight_ wrote: »
    well there goes a blizzcon reveal.
    I think they're just updating the games to be compatible with modern systems and probably hook them up to today's Battle.net. Maybe some bells and whistles like higher resolutions and improved control options, but it's not going to be like DIablo II running on the III engine or anything of that nature.

    It's an "oh that's nice" and nothing earth-shattering.

    Sterica on
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    Wraith260Wraith260 Happiest Goomba! Registered User regular
    dporowski wrote: »
    Wraith260 wrote: »
    Roe wrote: »
    reVerse wrote: »
    For tablets, not PC.

    Where did you hear this?

    to be fair if they focus on making the new versions for Windows 10 then there wont be any difference. factor in cross-buy/cross-play and cloud saves and you could be able to play at home on your PC and while travelling on your tablet.

    They will 100% do a Mac release simultaneously. It's their thing.

    oh i'd be surprised if there wasn't. despite Apple's lack luster support of gaming on their platform i think most PC devs have been in the habit of dual PC/Mac releases for some years now. hell back before Steam it was just one disc that served both platforms.

    but with the tablet comment the issue is whether they are focused on iOS which could be a different situation altogether. ultimately its a matter of whether they're shooting for a standard PC/Mac release* or chasing after the tablet/mobile crowd**. the 3rd option of course would be to chase both markets and right now Windows development seems the easiest path to do so***.

    of course, all just hypothetical speculation since we have little to go on. and in all honestly i expect Blizzard will want the games to be played as many people as possible on almost any device they choose. at this point i'd only rule out console releases.

    *and why wouldn't they?
    **think Civ Revolution 2 and of course Hearthstone.
    ***if perhaps not the guaranteed money maker just yet.

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    RoeRoe Always to the East Registered User regular
    edited November 2015
    Own implementation and curation of features new and old.

    Well, I believe they are going to be doing enough to make a future purchase. Blizzard is known to not do half-baked work, or they will put more work in due to popular demand.

    IMO, any work on the gameplay will be great, the game has a list of issues that need work and a blind man could write a list to make the game worth playing again.

    Also, any attention to the game that equals a new patch (1.10 I'm looking at you) and some anti-cheat measurements, and lots of people will be day one buyers.

    Roe on
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    Knight_Knight_ Dead Dead Dead Registered User regular
    Knight_ wrote: »
    well there goes a blizzcon reveal.
    I think they're just updating the games to be compatible with modern systems and probably hook them up to today's Battle.net. Maybe some bells and whistles like higher resolutions and improved control options, but it's not going to be like DIablo II running on the III engine or anything of that nature.

    It's an "oh that's nice" and nothing earth-shattering.

    probably, but i'm sure they'd rather the news come out on a stage as a nice interstitial moment and not through a HR request on their job board.

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    WingedWeaselWingedWeasel Registered User regular
    Has anything been announced so far regarding this at blizzcon? I don't know what the schedule is.

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    RoeRoe Always to the East Registered User regular
    Has anything been announced so far regarding this at blizzcon? I don't know what the schedule is.

    I have a feeling that if it were true, they would unveil it at the opening. I'm still hoping for a surprise announcement on Saturday though.

    oHw5R0V.jpg
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    Wraith260Wraith260 Happiest Goomba! Registered User regular
    there was an official response the other day saying that its largely for on going maintenance of older titles so that those still playing them can continue to do so on modern OSes. there may still be more to it, but for now it they're just claiming that its upkeep rather than full on remakes/remasters.
    "We need engineers to help maintain our legacy games. We have a history of maintaining our games for many years. Our earlier games are still played and enjoyed today, so we want to continue to maintain them for those communities."

    http://www.gamespot.com/articles/blizzard-looking-to-revive-these-classic-games-upd/1100-6431991/

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    ShadowfireShadowfire Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
    Where's my classic update of Blackthorne? Lost Vikings?

    WiiU: Windrunner ; Guild Wars 2: Shadowfire.3940 ; PSN: Bradcopter
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    BladeOfSanjuroBladeOfSanjuro Registered User regular
    I would just take "launches any of these legacy games from the Bnet launcher", but sure, update them more!

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    WingedWeaselWingedWeasel Registered User regular
    I guess there is still a chance remaining this weekend for additional details, but I won't get my hopes up. Unfortunate as this is the best thing coming out of blizzcon (sorta).

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    DrakeDrake Edgelord Trash Below the ecliptic plane.Registered User regular
    What no love for OG Diablo? I really miss that game, even though Diablo II eclipsed it.

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    StormwatcherStormwatcher Blegh BlughRegistered User regular
    I would just take "launches any of these legacy games from the Bnet launcher", but sure, update them more!

    native support to stuff like 1920x1080 would be lovely

    Steam: Stormwatcher | PSN: Stormwatcher33 | Switch: 5961-4777-3491
    camo_sig2.png
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    SmokeStacksSmokeStacks Registered User regular
    edited November 2015
    Years ago I forgot my security question to my Battle.net account years ago, and the last time I tried to do an account restore Blizzard wanted me to send them a photo of my ID card, and I said ehhhhhh no. Every once in a while I get a jonesing to play Diablo 2 again, but not enough to send some company a picture of my ID or to spent the $20 they're asking for the game and expansion pack, so I don't.

    Would be nice to play it again in a proper modern resolution though.

    I wish they'd tack the original Diablo in there, if only to get better support for a modern OS. I lost a decent chunk of time during my teen years playing Diablo at LAN parties with my friends.

    SmokeStacks on
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    see317see317 Registered User regular
    Years ago I forgot my security question to my Battle.net account years ago, and the last time I tried to do an account restore Blizzard wanted me to send them a photo of my ID card, and I said ehhhhhh no. Every once in a while I get a jonesing to play Diablo 2 again, but not enough to send some company a picture of my ID or to spent the $20 they're asking for the game and expansion pack, so I don't.

    Would be nice to play it again in a proper modern resolution though.

    I wish they'd tack the original Diablo in there, if only to get better support for a modern OS. I lost a decent chunk of time during my teen years playing Diablo at LAN parties with my friends.

    I wish they'd redo Rock 'n Roll Racing too. Spent a lot of time racing in sci-fi super cars back in the day.
    Ideally they'd keep the isometric third person view, but I think it'd be fun even in a first person view like most other modern racing games.

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    WingedWeaselWingedWeasel Registered User regular
    while blizzard is allegedly working on their remake there are some other mods for SC2 that are coming out trying to accomplish the same thing. armies of azeroth is getting demo'd over on twitch.tv/back2warcraft (pretty big WC3 stream, they cover a lot of the weekly tournaments).

    although it is still missing a lot of stuff (night elves and undead, bloodmage, apparently you can't cancel a building once it starts (?) a bunch of other stuff) and some things are different (mana regen seems better), but it is a playable demo and looks pretty awesome. the new models look really good. i am looking forward to this actually getting released (alpha...or beta...or some other preview version was supposed to hit 12/31/2015 but that didn't happen).

    as to the official stuff there are rumors that blizz is talking to some WC3 pro's for balance modifications but i don't think there has been anything officially stated.

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    Panda4YouPanda4You Registered User regular
    What's the name of the sc1/broodwar campaign in the sc2 arcade? It was mentioned a couple of weeks back in some thread but I can't remember for the life of me. :(

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    ToyDToyD Registered User regular
    This is a real shame. I loved Blizzard games. A Lot. I'm ready for new games, not replaying the old games.

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    DrakeDrake Edgelord Trash Below the ecliptic plane.Registered User regular
    There is something to be said for curating your body of work. Especially classics like these. Hell, I'd like a restoration of the original Diablo while they are at it. I really appreciate that I can download Half Life on Steam and just fire it up whenever I want, no hassles. I think it's pretty cool that Blizzard is going to do the same sort of thing. And they've got new stuff on the way, I'm more excited for Overwatch than I've been for a Blizzard game in a long time.

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    WingedWeaselWingedWeasel Registered User regular
    ToyD wrote: »
    This is a real shame. I loved Blizzard games. A Lot. I'm ready for new games, not replaying the old games.

    i mean they are making overwatch so it isn't as though they are not making new stuff. however personally i would be fine if they just perpetually updated WC3 forever. i still play frozen throne relatively frequently (although lately i haven't had the chance to), and i would love to have a few of the new b.net improvements and maybe a minor balance pass.

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    GnomeTankGnomeTank What the what? Portland, OregonRegistered User regular
    Not sure about StarCraft and Diablo, since the sequels to these are released, and sold gajillions...but a WarCraft 3 HD makes a ton of sense. People know "WarCraft" as "World of WarCraft" now, if they just released WarCraft 4 out of the blue it would be real weird. Get a WarCraft 3 HD out there, introduce a new generation to where WarCraft actually came from, then announce WarCraft 4.

    Sagroth wrote: »
    Oh c'mon FyreWulff, no one's gonna pay to visit Uranus.
    Steam: Brainling, XBL / PSN: GnomeTank, NintendoID: Brainling, FF14: Zillius Rosh SFV: Brainling
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    UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    Years ago I forgot my security question to my Battle.net account years ago, and the last time I tried to do an account restore Blizzard wanted me to send them a photo of my ID card, and I said ehhhhhh no. Every once in a while I get a jonesing to play Diablo 2 again, but not enough to send some company a picture of my ID or to spent the $20 they're asking for the game and expansion pack, so I don't.

    Would be nice to play it again in a proper modern resolution though.

    I wish they'd tack the original Diablo in there, if only to get better support for a modern OS. I lost a decent chunk of time during my teen years playing Diablo at LAN parties with my friends.

    I know this post was from back in November but @SmokeStacks I don't think you need to do that stuff to play Diablo 2, unless you purchased it digitally and that purchase is tied to your BNet account.

    A few days ago I broke out the old discs and installed it again. Accounts in Diablo 2 are fickle things that you can create easily and you lose characters after 90 days of inactivity anyway. Forgetting your password there isn't a big deal.

    If you want to play Diablo 2 in a modern resolution, there are mods for that (single player only, you'll get banned online), but I've heard these also can break the game because you can attack enemies off screen who can't even see you and won't retaliate. AI is only active a little beyond that 800x600 window.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU3t-HBFnAg

    Switch Friend Code: SW - 5443 - 2358 - 9118 || 3DS Friend Code: 0989 - 1731 - 9504 || NNID: unclesporky
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    FiggyFiggy Fighter of the night man Champion of the sunRegistered User regular
    @SmokeStacks

    Just send it but black out everything but your photo and name? I don't get the apprehension over something like this. You provide just as much info introducing yourself to someone.

    XBL : Figment3 · SteamID : Figment
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    LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    Now that we're 5 seasons deep in D3, we've had multiple systems updates, multiple loot fixes, the removal of the Auction House, and all of that, D3 is a superior game to D2 in every way. It's hard to see that because Nostalgia is a very strong thing.

    But D2 wasn't all roses. The charm system was terrible. Having to carry around an inventory of crap to augment your dude was terrible, because it meant never picking up loot. Likewise, the original Horadric Cube was crap because there was no in-game documentation for ANY of the recipes except the story recipe to craft the Horadric Staff and open the temple of blah blah blah.

    Also, class balance is way better in D3. Blizzard has always been committed to the long-term life and upkeep of their games, and they put a lot of patches into Diablo 2 back in it's day. Some patches with some amazing things. But there are still tons of things that got overlooked, ignored, passed over, and all that. Like talents that are completely worthless. Talents that don't work as advertised. And builds that just flat suck.

    The D3 team has done a way better job of ensuring that there are multiple viable playstyles per character than we ever had in D2.


    That's the long way of saying this: D2 was great, and if they add it to the modern BNet client, I will buy it. But there's no way D2 can compete with D3. D3 is a way better game by leaps and bounds.

    The only thing D2 even remotely has in it's favor is a better story, and let's not kid ourselves. Nobody cares about the story of Diablo. It's all about loot runs.

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    urahonkyurahonky Registered User regular
    I like the skill/stat system of Diablo 2 and the ability to run bosses for loot. Also the music/setting was better.

    But yeah D3 is better in every other way.

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    LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    They added loot chests to bosses, which have the same loot table as killing an elite or champion pack, so there is a bonus reward to killing bosses now. You get drops directly off the boss itself, and then you get the bonus Boss Chest.

    Opinions are just that. But I think the D3 system of Rifts/Bounties and adventure mode in general is way better than repetitively clearing Mephisto over and over ad nauseum.

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    SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    All three of the games are playable in Windows 8.1 pretty well (I'd know--I have all three installed).

    What I'm really, really hoping for personally is that Warcraft III Complete in HD might be testing the waters for Warcraft IV (maybe some sort of synergy business bullshit tie-in with the Warcraft film).

    I am that desperate for Warcraft IV. That being said, I will play the shit out of a pretty version of Warcraft III with no promise of a sequel (and maybe some streamlining of mechanics).

    In the area of wishful thinking, besides Warcraft IV, I'd kind of like them to try something different with scale. We've had 20 years of Warcraft RTS games where everything is more or less the same size (which probably has multiplayer reasons as well). As is the case for Starcraft and its sequel. Maybe mix it up a little bit in single player? Huge ass city and castle environments, massive dragons that literally force other air units out of the way or can crush troops under the talons, that sort of thing?

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    Inquisitor77Inquisitor77 2 x Penny Arcade Fight Club Champion A fixed point in space and timeRegistered User regular
    I could never get into D2 precisely because it was so repetitive. Like, you didn't even kill different monsters. You literally did the exact same run to fight the exact same mobs over and over and over again.

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    RoeRoe Always to the East Registered User regular
    edited January 2016
    I could never get into D2 precisely because it was so repetitive. Like, you didn't even kill different monsters. You literally did the exact same run to fight the exact same mobs over and over and over again.

    Depends on what patch you played and if you played the expansion or regular.

    It also mattered how you played.

    Roe on
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    urahonkyurahonky Registered User regular
    Lucascraft wrote: »
    They added loot chests to bosses, which have the same loot table as killing an elite or champion pack, so there is a bonus reward to killing bosses now. You get drops directly off the boss itself, and then you get the bonus Boss Chest.

    Opinions are just that. But I think the D3 system of Rifts/Bounties and adventure mode in general is way better than repetitively clearing Mephisto over and over ad nauseum.

    I know exactly what you mean. D3 at release was a mess and compared to D2 it was awful. D3 now vs D2 is actually a toss up. For me nostalgia always wins. I play D3 at the start of a new season for maybe 2-3 days and get bored and quit. But if I installed Diablo 2 right now I would play it for months.

    But I like the customization of characters that D2 provided.

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    TheCanManTheCanMan GT: Gasman122009 JerseyRegistered User regular
    urahonky wrote: »
    Lucascraft wrote: »
    They added loot chests to bosses, which have the same loot table as killing an elite or champion pack, so there is a bonus reward to killing bosses now. You get drops directly off the boss itself, and then you get the bonus Boss Chest.

    Opinions are just that. But I think the D3 system of Rifts/Bounties and adventure mode in general is way better than repetitively clearing Mephisto over and over ad nauseum.

    I know exactly what you mean. D3 at release was a mess and compared to D2 it was awful. D3 now vs D2 is actually a toss up. For me nostalgia always wins. I play D3 at the start of a new season for maybe 2-3 days and get bored and quit. But if I installed Diablo 2 right now I would play it for months.

    But I like the customization of characters that D2 provided.

    The character building was pretty much the only reason I played so many hundreds of hours of D2, and probably the biggest reason I haven't bothered picking up D3 yet.

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