What are the Classes FOR?

[Bolty]

I'm trying to strike a balance between providing useful information and respecting the wishes of the strategy originator, who has expressed a desire for the specific details of the strategy to remain secret.  Is there something wrong with the way I did it?[right][snapback]86373[/snapback][/right]

I don't so much have a beef with the way you did it; instead, it's more that the situation exists at all.

The Lurker Lounge exists as a site for discussion of strategy and tactics. I started it with the intention of it being a home for Diablo experts to have a one-stop-shop for in-depth analysis of the game, collated from many sources. My goal was to make it THE place to go on the Net for hardcore Diablo gaming information, not so much through assimilation of content as instead a portal. My concept was that if you wanted to find out the exact drop percentage of such-and-such an item on a monster, or if you wanted to know the formula for blocking chance on a Warrior etc etc blah blah, you could always start here and find out somewhere on the site, whether it be a link somewhere else (like to Jarulf's Guide, which was hosted elsewhere for a long time), a search on the forums, or a search through the strategy guides.

A side effect of this is that the site also became the home for tracking game bugs and exploits in the hope that we could help Blizzard stamp them out. At first, for many years, it was a matter of collecting bug lists and making Blizzard aware of them, along with pointing out as news bits links to any posts anywhere that revealed new exploits so that they'd get patched faster. As time went on, we were actually getting to the point where Blizzard employees were contacting me, not the other way around, to find out what the latest problems were. This site was so "hooked in" to the game that my goal was completely realized - it was THE place to go for hardcore discussion (this was in the D2-early D2LOD days). The culture here was great.

It couldn't last - I burned out massively - and haven't really found someone as insane as I was back then to give practically multi-day updates on new strategies, bug discoveries, exploits, etc. It takes a certain level of dedication to something that is, after all, given away for free that's a little crazy. So anyway, I still believe in this "cause," so to speak, even if I don't have the time/ability/inclination to continue it.

So seeing a post from someone saying how they know a cool strategy and won't share it just makes me shake my head. Kind of one of those "what is the world coming to" things old geezers like me say when they hear this. This site's original intention is SO anti-"hold onto this strat and don't let it go public" that you might as well tell me you love using maphack in D2.

Now, don't go ballistic on me - you said it's not your call here, and I understand that. Your original post didn't say that, though, and so my first reaction was "why the f*** do you even come here with that kind of attitude." Instead of going completely ape on you, I just posted "Wow." Since you are put between a rock (being a good Lurker, and realizing that trying to hide possible exploits or really good strategies for the advantage of a guild is wrong) and a hard place (being a good friend, and not giving something away that you have been told not to), I'll stop here.

I wish you could convince whomever it is of the fact that this is just a game, and OMGWTFBBQ keeping a good strategy to himself is kind of silly, but I understand if your obligation to him gets in the way.

Remember the phrase obligatory strat? Haven't used that in a long time - it's what you put into a <NS> (no strategy) post to make it strategy related. Yep, back in the day we had forums where if you had no strategy in it, you were expected to label it as such in the title - now, THAT'S a good way to encourage strategy discussion. Anyway, my obligatory strat for this post: yesterday on Stormrage we were having some loot lag issues, and I found that it's possible to abuse clamshells to bypass encounters. Could be old news, but the point was by shift-left-clicking clamshells while running, loot lag would be engaged, and anything I did movement-wise for the next few seconds wouldn't really "count." I wasn't snapping back, either - it's just that to the server I likely appeared to zip from point A to point B very very quickly while the looting of the contents of the clamshell were going off. In a situation with high loot lag, a player could potentially abuse this to bypass encounters. Take a big pack of clamshells, approach that big boss, and start looting - you'll run right past it without ever waking it up.

Not very abusable, I know, but what the heck. I found something, so I posted it. :)

-Bolty