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

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  • KelorKelor Registered User regular
    I still hold a great deal of affection for Diablo, Orcs and Humans and Starcraft.

    The main dealbreaker on all of those for me is the resolution, particularly Starcraft.

    I still have all of my old discs (and even the manuals) and would love to be able to play slightly tweaked and updated versions of them without having to worry about compatibility issues.

    Plus the soundtrack for Warcraft 1&2 was amazing.


    I remember my dad getting home with Orcs and Humans and we sat down and he played it while I read through the manual to tell him what to buy. That mission to rescue Lothar was tough.

    It lead to my hate as a kid of RTS missions where you're given a limited amount of troops to make it through a map.

  • chrisnlchrisnl Registered User regular
    My best Diablo 1 character was a Bard, which I don't think was ever technically added into the game but there was a mod / fan patch that unlocked the class in the expansion. It was a completely OP class, which is of course why it was disabled in the official version, but it was a heck of a lot of fun.

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  • StormwatcherStormwatcher Blegh BlughRegistered User regular
    Sure you CAN run those old games, but slightly updated versions capable of gracefully dealing with modern resolutions and integrated with the launcher would be really swanky.

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  • Warlock82Warlock82 Never pet a burning dog Registered User regular
    chrisnl wrote: »
    My best Diablo 1 character was a Bard, which I don't think was ever technically added into the game but there was a mod / fan patch that unlocked the class in the expansion. It was a completely OP class, which is of course why it was disabled in the official version, but it was a heck of a lot of fun.

    It wasn't even a mod. The expansion had the Bard and Barbarian as hidden classes you could unlock by adding some line to a property file (along with a few other things like a cow quest). Bard was the Rogue with rebalanced stats and Barbarian was the Warrior but with Magic capped at 0 so he couldn't learn spells. Then both had different class skills (forget what, I think the Bard had identify?)

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  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    Kelor wrote: »
    I still hold a great deal of affection for Diablo, Orcs and Humans and Starcraft.

    The main dealbreaker on all of those for me is the resolution, particularly Starcraft.

    I still have all of my old discs (and even the manuals) and would love to be able to play slightly tweaked and updated versions of them without having to worry about compatibility issues.

    Plus the soundtrack for Warcraft 1&2 was amazing.


    I remember my dad getting home with Orcs and Humans and we sat down and he played it while I read through the manual to tell him what to buy. That mission to rescue Lothar was tough.

    It lead to my hate as a kid of RTS missions where you're given a limited amount of troops to make it through a map.

    The manuals (for Warcraft II in particular) are nothing short of masterpieces. Yes, Chris Metzen can occasionally be a hack, but that doesn't make them not masterpieces. Come get me, American.
    Sure you CAN run those old games, but slightly updated versions capable of gracefully dealing with modern resolutions and integrated with the launcher would be really swanky.

    The issue is, of course, the 2D engines sort of force you into old resolutions (it's why Warcraft II ran fine in Windows 95, but the editor was the only mode that ran at higher resolutions via a normal window, as I recall). Warcraft II ran at 640 by 480 whereas Starcraft ran at 800 by 600, I think--you can't really "upscale" these games (I think that's what you'd call it) without the visuals getting extremely block extremely quickly. Which lends itself for an interesting style, but is arguably not really an improvement over just running them at low resolutions. The alternative--simply raising the game resolution--gives you the sort of awkward experience of playing the likes of open-source Transport Tycoon Deluxe, where your screen covers a huge amount of space even at the highest level of zoom, which is okay for a map-based business empire simulator, less great for a RTS.

    I guess there might be a market for a completely redone Warcraft II with drawn sprite graphics again, but rather than I think we'd just see a straight port of the game (like with the versions of Starcraft and Diablo II included in those collector edition's), or less likely, something done in 3D.

  • Warlock82Warlock82 Never pet a burning dog Registered User regular
    As much as I'd love sprites, it would just be way too much work when Blizzard already has so many talented 3D artists as well as existing 3D engines to fall back on. I have no doubt given some time they could recreate those games in the StarCraft 2 engine (hell, HotS was made with that engine)

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  • urahonkyurahonky Registered User regular
    If they do any sort of rebalancing to D2 I'd like them to balance the Skelemancer. By the time you reach Nightmare you couldn't kill shit as a skeleton summoning necromancer.

  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    urahonky wrote: »
    If they do any sort of rebalancing to D2 I'd like them to balance the Skelemancer. By the time you reach Nightmare you couldn't kill shit as a skeleton summoning necromancer.

    I feel like that's true about a lot of classes. It is really easy to fuck yourself up build-wise in Diablo II, something that informed their design decisions in its sequel (to no shortage of controversy). There are a lot of builds that will just not work in nightmare difficulty.

  • urahonkyurahonky Registered User regular
    Synthesis wrote: »
    urahonky wrote: »
    If they do any sort of rebalancing to D2 I'd like them to balance the Skelemancer. By the time you reach Nightmare you couldn't kill shit as a skeleton summoning necromancer.

    I feel like that's true about a lot of classes. It is really easy to fuck yourself up build-wise in Diablo II, something that informed their design decisions in its sequel (to no shortage of controversy). There are a lot of builds that will just not work in nightmare difficulty.

    While true that means the entire summoning tree is basically useless.

    If they buffed the skeletons just a bit then it'd be a lot more fun to play. Hell I couldn't beat Diablo on Normal with my Skelemancer even though I had like 40 skeletons/mages. He'd do that lightning magic and they'd all die.

  • TheCanManTheCanMan GT: Gasman122009 JerseyRegistered User regular
    Yeah I'm not sure I understand the criticism that not having to grind another character back to max level in order to experiment with builds is a bad thing.

    For me, the grind up was pretty much the entire game. I never power leveled. I was never one for the endless boss runs. I'd start a new character, grind my way up until I hit a wall or got bored (usually around the time I hit Nightmare), then I'd start over with something new. Rinse & repeat ad infinitum. The reason I played D2 so much was because I liked the grind of starting a new character from scratch and seeing how the playstyle progressed as it leveled up.

    Yes, I know I'm weird. I know that's not how most people experienced the game. But for me, removing the new character grind basically removed the entire game.

  • Inquisitor77Inquisitor77 2 x Penny Arcade Fight Club Champion A fixed point in space and timeRegistered User regular
    TheCanMan wrote: »
    Yeah I'm not sure I understand the criticism that not having to grind another character back to max level in order to experiment with builds is a bad thing.

    For me, the grind up was pretty much the entire game. I never power leveled. I was never one for the endless boss runs. I'd start a new character, grind my way up until I hit a wall or got bored (usually around the time I hit Nightmare), then I'd start over with something new. Rinse & repeat ad infinitum. The reason I played D2 so much was because I liked the grind of starting a new character from scratch and seeing how the playstyle progressed as it leveled up.

    Yes, I know I'm weird. I know that's not how most people experienced the game. But for me, removing the new character grind basically removed the entire game.

    I totally appreciate that, but you can do that in D3 still. Nobody is stopping you from making new characters over and over again. The level grind is totally still there if you play solo or even with other people, it can just be bypassed by having someone carry you through higher-difficulty content.

  • urahonkyurahonky Registered User regular
    TheCanMan wrote: »
    Yeah I'm not sure I understand the criticism that not having to grind another character back to max level in order to experiment with builds is a bad thing.

    For me, the grind up was pretty much the entire game. I never power leveled. I was never one for the endless boss runs. I'd start a new character, grind my way up until I hit a wall or got bored (usually around the time I hit Nightmare), then I'd start over with something new. Rinse & repeat ad infinitum. The reason I played D2 so much was because I liked the grind of starting a new character from scratch and seeing how the playstyle progressed as it leveled up.

    Yes, I know I'm weird. I know that's not how most people experienced the game. But for me, removing the new character grind basically removed the entire game.

    I totally appreciate that, but you can do that in D3 still. Nobody is stopping you from making new characters over and over again. The level grind is totally still there if you play solo or even with other people, it can just be bypassed by having someone carry you through higher-difficulty content.

    It's a hollow leveling, though. Having two barbs in D3 is almost completely unnecessary since they can do the same thing at max level.

  • NEO|PhyteNEO|Phyte They follow the stars, bound together. Strands in a braid till the end.Registered User regular
    urahonky wrote: »
    If they do any sort of rebalancing to D2 I'd like them to balance the Skelemancer. By the time you reach Nightmare you couldn't kill shit as a skeleton summoning necromancer.

    I'm pretty sure there was a skelemancer build that was billed as being able to clear nightmare /naked/ if you cared to try. Was called the fishymancer. Skeletons (just the warriors, not mages) and corpse explosion.

    It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
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  • urahonkyurahonky Registered User regular
    NEO|Phyte wrote: »
    urahonky wrote: »
    If they do any sort of rebalancing to D2 I'd like them to balance the Skelemancer. By the time you reach Nightmare you couldn't kill shit as a skeleton summoning necromancer.

    I'm pretty sure there was a skelemancer build that was billed as being able to clear nightmare /naked/ if you cared to try. Was called the fishymancer. Skeletons (just the warriors, not mages) and corpse explosion.

    Ah good 'ole CE. Yeah I was primarily talking about being able to be a straight summoner and run around letting them do the work.

    Damn it I'm getting the itch to play again.

  • Ivan HungerIvan Hunger Registered User regular
    urahonky wrote: »
    NEO|Phyte wrote: »
    urahonky wrote: »
    If they do any sort of rebalancing to D2 I'd like them to balance the Skelemancer. By the time you reach Nightmare you couldn't kill shit as a skeleton summoning necromancer.

    I'm pretty sure there was a skelemancer build that was billed as being able to clear nightmare /naked/ if you cared to try. Was called the fishymancer. Skeletons (just the warriors, not mages) and corpse explosion.

    Ah good 'ole CE. Yeah I was primarily talking about being able to be a straight summoner and run around letting them do the work.

    Damn it I'm getting the itch to play again.

    My friends hated when I would play that build, because I would just run around and loot while they were busy fighting.

    I was so rich.

  • NaphtaliNaphtali Hazy + Flow SeaRegistered User regular
    urahonky wrote: »
    TheCanMan wrote: »
    Yeah I'm not sure I understand the criticism that not having to grind another character back to max level in order to experiment with builds is a bad thing.

    For me, the grind up was pretty much the entire game. I never power leveled. I was never one for the endless boss runs. I'd start a new character, grind my way up until I hit a wall or got bored (usually around the time I hit Nightmare), then I'd start over with something new. Rinse & repeat ad infinitum. The reason I played D2 so much was because I liked the grind of starting a new character from scratch and seeing how the playstyle progressed as it leveled up.

    Yes, I know I'm weird. I know that's not how most people experienced the game. But for me, removing the new character grind basically removed the entire game.

    I totally appreciate that, but you can do that in D3 still. Nobody is stopping you from making new characters over and over again. The level grind is totally still there if you play solo or even with other people, it can just be bypassed by having someone carry you through higher-difficulty content.

    It's a hollow leveling, though. Having two barbs in D3 is almost completely unnecessary since they can do the same thing at max level.

    Its a nice perk to have multiples of the same class so you don't have to play the gear swap/regem/skill swap game often if you have two builds you enjoy.

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  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    urahonky wrote: »
    Synthesis wrote: »
    urahonky wrote: »
    If they do any sort of rebalancing to D2 I'd like them to balance the Skelemancer. By the time you reach Nightmare you couldn't kill shit as a skeleton summoning necromancer.

    I feel like that's true about a lot of classes. It is really easy to fuck yourself up build-wise in Diablo II, something that informed their design decisions in its sequel (to no shortage of controversy). There are a lot of builds that will just not work in nightmare difficulty.

    While true that means the entire summoning tree is basically useless.

    If they buffed the skeletons just a bit then it'd be a lot more fun to play. Hell I couldn't beat Diablo on Normal with my Skelemancer even though I had like 40 skeletons/mages. He'd do that lightning magic and they'd all die.

    Whoa whoa whoa. Did you not play since 1.10? I thought you played with us back around 2008-2010, and the rebalance was in 2003.

    Skellimancer is still one of the easiest builds in the game. You can get through almost the whole game naked, might be the least dependent class on equipment. You don't have 40 skeletons/mages anymore, 1.10 made it so that instead of one skeleton per point you get three early on, and then only one every three points after. It works out to 9 skeletons and 9 mages when they're at level 20. But they were buffed a ton in the process.

    Bosses can be trouble, yeah. But Decrepify + Clay Golem slows them down so much they can't do anything at all, their attack animation is like 2 frames per second and they can't get them to go off before they go into a hit animation. So yeah, Diablo can still decimate your army easily, but Decrep + Golem + a decent merc can be all you need.

    The summoning tree is awesome, it's my favorite tree. Poison and bone, I'm not a big fan of, and curses you only need one point in each and they get boosted enough by +skills to be good enough.

    I'm almost level 60, about to tackle nightmare Diablo. I've soloed it all so far. The only time I've died was once at normal Diablo, second time I was more prepared and slowed him and summoned the golem right on him.

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  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
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  • urahonkyurahonky Registered User regular
    Man I swear I could have remembered having a lot of issues with the skeleton/mages but it could be prior to 1.10. And I did play 1.10 with everyone. It was awesome.

  • RT800RT800 Registered User regular
    I had a level 90 necromancer back in the day. Full Trang-oul's set.

    Sadly he was deleted for inactivity.

    But corpse explosion was the best fucking skill. Just sitting there watching monsters mill around fighting, waiting for just one to die and... BOOM! Full on chain reaction of death.

  • chrisnlchrisnl Registered User regular
    edited January 2016
    I had a pretty good necromancer, I think I only had clay golem in the summoning tree but I can't remember for the life of me what I used to do damage. It wasn't corpse explosion, I want to say like bone spear or something? It's been so very long.

    -edit- I also had a charged boltress, which was amusing, and one sorceress that did huge fireballs and frozen orbs. Then there was my silly character, a paladin that was basically invulnerable and debuffed the resistances of all enemies by a ridiculous amount and used the attack that did all the elemental damages. I never did get into the hammerdin builds.

    chrisnl on
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  • Warlock82Warlock82 Never pet a burning dog Registered User regular
    I haven't played Necromancer since back when Diablo 2 first came out. All those good times of Blood Golem soft locking the game by giving you life back at the same instant you died, producing some crazy bug (forget what exactly - I think you couldn't attack or move but were still alive, so you couldn't revive either)

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  • TheCanManTheCanMan GT: Gasman122009 JerseyRegistered User regular
    I always favored the wacky builds to the more efficient builds. So some of my favorites were a Frenzy Barb, and a Tiger Strike Assassin, and a Maul Bear Druid I built around a near-perfect Ribcracker I found.

  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    1.13 back in 2010 was a pretty generous patch, they buffed pretty much everybody in some way, except paladins where a long time bug/unintended thing with blessed hammer was finally fixed (it wasn't supposed to ignore resistances on undead and demons I guess).

    I couldn't believe they actually buffed corpse explosion. That was like the least needed thing. From 60-100% of corpse life in damage, to 70-120%. And they also got rid of the downside of blood golems, where you got hurt when they got hurt.

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  • GnomeTankGnomeTank What the what? Portland, OregonRegistered User regular
    Warlock82 wrote: »
    As much as I'd love sprites, it would just be way too much work when Blizzard already has so many talented 3D artists as well as existing 3D engines to fall back on. I have no doubt given some time they could recreate those games in the StarCraft 2 engine (hell, HotS was made with that engine)

    They'll almost certainly use the StarCraft 2 engine. It's incredibly flexible, and can output some really pretty visuals. Between HotS and SC2 expansions, it's been kept up to date. It's also built for building those types of games.

    Sagroth wrote: »
    Oh c'mon FyreWulff, no one's gonna pay to visit Uranus.
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  • RoeRoe Always to the East Registered User regular
    Bumping to talk about Diablo 2 remastered. Anyone want to take a guess at when it will go live? I'm almost certain it will be when and not if.

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  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    did they actually say D2 remastered is a thing? I've just heard speculation that they might be working on it.

    BahamutZERO.gif
  • ErlkönigErlkönig Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    did they actually say D2 remastered is a thing? I've just heard speculation that they might be working on it.

    From the sounds of things, Diablo is kind of a theme with this year's BlizzCon...and Blizzard put the kibosh on all the Diablo 4 conjecture. That kinda leaves mobile and remasters on the table.

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  • Warlock82Warlock82 Never pet a burning dog Registered User regular
    I would not be interested in a Diablo 2 remastered. That game was... bleh... Diablo 1 remastered could be cool though, as long as they added a few niceties to it (i.e. the Sierra expansion Hellfire added some stuff like auto-run in town and some more useful spells)

    Still would jump on a War2 remastered in a heartbeat.

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  • GustieGustie Registered User regular
    edited October 2018
    Erlkönig wrote: »
    That kinda leaves mobile and remasters on the table.

    You mean Diablo on mobile or other games? Let's see what they would do after Heartstone..? Classic remaster or new licence on mobile...

    Gustie on
  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    Erlkönig wrote: »
    did they actually say D2 remastered is a thing? I've just heard speculation that they might be working on it.

    From the sounds of things, Diablo is kind of a theme with this year's BlizzCon...and Blizzard put the kibosh on all the Diablo 4 conjecture. That kinda leaves mobile and remasters on the table.

    so speculation, got it

    BahamutZERO.gif
  • ErlkönigErlkönig Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    Erlkönig wrote: »
    did they actually say D2 remastered is a thing? I've just heard speculation that they might be working on it.

    From the sounds of things, Diablo is kind of a theme with this year's BlizzCon...and Blizzard put the kibosh on all the Diablo 4 conjecture. That kinda leaves mobile and remasters on the table.

    so speculation, got it

    It's Blizzard and BlizzCon...speculation is all you get until November 2nd.

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  • NaphtaliNaphtali Hazy + Flow SeaRegistered User regular
    Did they say no Diablo 4 for sure? Aw nertz.

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  • ErlkönigErlkönig Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    Naphtali wrote: »
    Did they say no Diablo 4 for sure? Aw nertz.

    Here's the article where they basically said that if you were expecting Diablo 4, prepare to be disappointed:

    https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-wont-be-at-blizzcon-according-to-new-blizzard-blog/

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  • XaquinXaquin Right behind you!Registered User regular
    edited October 2018
    I wouldn't mind WC4 personally

    Xaquin on
  • DonnictonDonnicton Registered User regular
    Erlkönig wrote: »
    Naphtali wrote: »
    Did they say no Diablo 4 for sure? Aw nertz.

    Here's the article where they basically said that if you were expecting Diablo 4, prepare to be disappointed:

    https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-wont-be-at-blizzcon-according-to-new-blizzard-blog/

    Diablo fans are used to the property being.. let's go with "under-leveraged", so nobody will actually be disappointed.

  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    Xaquin wrote: »
    WC4 would change my life

    Please, please, please Blizzard. Diablo III was great, but we're still fifteen years since the last expansion to Warcraft III.

    PLEASE!

  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    This is the actual news post from blizzard which all the speculation is based on: https://us.diablo3.com/en/blog/22549433

    Which, yeah, is all but saying D4 won't be announced at the show, maybe also hinting that they are working on D4 though.

    BahamutZERO.gif
  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    Synthesis wrote: »
    Xaquin wrote: »
    WC4 would change my life

    Please, please, please Blizzard. Diablo III was great, but we're still fifteen years since the last expansion to Warcraft III.

    PLEASE!

    I think it is extremely unlikely they'd announce Warcraft 4 at a Blizzcon where the main theme seems to be Diablo, but maybe???

    BahamutZERO.gif
  • see317see317 Registered User regular
    Personally, I'd like to see an updated Rock 'n Roll Racing.
    Donnicton wrote: »
    Erlkönig wrote: »
    Naphtali wrote: »
    Did they say no Diablo 4 for sure? Aw nertz.
    Here's the article where they basically said that if you were expecting Diablo 4, prepare to be disappointed:
    https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-wont-be-at-blizzcon-according-to-new-blizzard-blog/
    Diablo fans are used to the property being.. let's go with "under-leveraged", so nobody will actually be disappointed.

    I think it's odd that Blizzard announcing a new Diablo game would be faced with far more disappointment and anger from the fanbase (because it wasn't exactly how they imagined it) than not announcing anything.
    Odd, and a little funny.

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