Hellfire Patch v1.02.A5: Classic HF with less bugs and more polish!

[Belix]

Ah, the "unbearable Lemmingness of Lemming" (to quote a famous poster who uses the name of a legendary diplomat).

Hey, when life gives you Lemm... oh nevermind.

Oh my, working on updating a game that was released 1998. You are a hero of the gaming world.

I still play my old favorite games semi-regularly throughout the year, alongside new favorites. Diablo is one of those games, and its expansion Hellfire was left in a very sad state. After glimpsing the untapped potential in Hellfire by playing Hellfire: Fixed, learning about programming over the years, and finally being reminded about Hellfire by Marsh's Mod, it seemed time I should try to do something about it after Marsh became absent.

Knowing that others are enjoying classic Hellfire more because of work I did is all the thanks I need, but I am continually encouraged (and surprised) by the number of people downloading the project, and even commenting on it. Makes me eager to invest more free time in it when I can.

I just need to set aside some serious time in the future to make this patch-mod easier to customize. That's almost another entire project in itself, though, so I probably won't start on that until all the significant bugs are eliminated.

Quick question Belix, your upcoming update won't invalidate current characters right?

That's right. None of my updates themselves have ever invalidated characters or equipment - the only reason vanilla Hellfire characters can't bring their equipment here is because of the underlying foundation of Marsh's Mod (I do believe Hellfire: Fixed morphed the gear of vanilla characters too). At some point in the future I hope to implement a compatibility mode for vanilla Hellfire characters, so people new to Marsh's Mod (or this one based on it) don't have to give up their existing equipment or start new characters if they don't want to. But that would require a lot of surgical work to get most of Marsh's item changes out of the mod.

I have so far avoided making any changes that would morph existing items from the very first version of this mod, and will continue to avoid it as long as possible. If I ever break items, I will have a list of very significant changes to make that will hopefully justify it, but until that day comes, I won't touch it. There has to be some seriously good reason for me to ask you all to give up your hard-earned loot or start new characters!


Now, here's a little teaser of some more things you can look forward to in the next version. Can you spot 3 new things before scrolling down?

   

Explanation...

Colored Item Outlines: Suggested by Slyrk, items highlighted by mouse or the Search spell now have an outline color matching the respective item type: Normal (White), Magic (Blue), or Unique (Gold).
Note: This sadly does not affect the map. All items still show up as blue there. I have given up on changing the colors on the map for now, it is still way over my head. I did try though.

Player Info - AC: When holding your mouse over another player, you are now able to see their current Armor Class. It should always be the same total value they see in their own character screen.

Experience Meter:: One of the first fixes/features based on The Hell mod for Hellfire, this new interface element shows you how close you are to reaching your next character level, as seen in Diablo II.