The Player's Challenge

[Occhidiangela]

Lemming, I have an idea that you may or may not want to incorporate into the site.

The Player's Challenge. Your strategy link gives Ironman a nod, but it seems that some standard player challenges and some of the excellent D1 variants might be worth including into your Strategy section or in a different section called The Player's Challenge.

Sort of a "best of the best" challenges section. Your encyclopedic knowledge of Variants is of course being considered when I suggest the following for the Player's Challenge. Since BNM and Iron Man are already given ample voice, may I suggest you include:

1. The Immortal Hero. (One of the simplest and most direct, and toughest to 3 dot, challenges made for Diablo. KISS principle personified.)
2. Live Off the Land Guidelines (Another pretty clear cut challenge)
3. Utra Pure Guidelines (Not a variant per se, but a style that some folks will want to take on as a challenge before trying tougher challenges
4. Basic 3 @ 30 guidelines (Simple)
5. Amazon Variant
6. Barbarian
7. Goth
8. The Lemming or the Hamster

I think those folks who are still fairly new to the game will appreciate the addition of these styles, and it will allow some easy to link to references to folks new to those approaches to the Great Game.

I got this idea when I read, in another thread in a realm far far away, a very old Asylum thread where you and Sirian and KoP were discussing various challenges, variants, and approaches to the game that were beyond the ordinary.

What do you think?

[LemmingofGlory]

I think those folks who are still fairly new to the game will appreciate the addition of these styles, and it will allow some easy to link to references to folks new to those approaches to the Great Game.

Hmm. So, put up another road sign? "If you missed the Community section, Variants are this way."

I'm being unfair. I could take the idea and run with it. I'm just not feeling terribly motivated at the moment. Perhaps later.

reverse-smiley asterisk caps lemming /caps asterisk normal-smiley

[Occhidiangela]

The idea is to put a "best of the best" package here, and for those who want more, yes, the Community to RBD link would do. Sometimes it takes a taste of a simple or very well made Variant to make one want to go Beyond and into the Realm of Mo Bettah Variants. (Trust me on that one. ;) )

You may not feel it to be worth the effort, this is just an idea on an upgrade to the Strategy page. Since such an addition would be on your dime, so to speak, your judgement regarding it's likely value as an enhancement is the final arbiter in any case.

(^8 Occhi 8^)

[LemmingofGlory]

... your judgement regarding it's likely value as an enhancement is the final arbiter in any case.

I'm aware of that. As such, I think strategy articles would best enhance the section. Introducing specific variants would be auxiliary to that (if said article was variant related).

[o: *LEMMING* :o]

[Nystul]

Hi Occhi. After reading your post, I decided to follow the KoP link that I think you are referring to and take a walk down memory lane (funny how we get to this conversation from where that one started). It occurs to me that Sirian was (is?) not really a variant player; he was doing something a bit different. It also seems to me that the kind of thing he was doing never really caught on within the D1 variant community, and that's kind of a shame. The things of that sort that I have done with variant players were always a blast.

Variants are focused on character, a system of restrictions based on the life story of the character, that stay pretty much consistent through the life of the character. A quest or a challenge is something very different, usually a single game effort that can have restrictions based on something entirely apart from the nature of the character. The 3@30 fits in this category, and has the benefit of being reasonably difficult and simple to understand, but frankly it is an artificial and unimaginative quest. More interesting possibilities exist, but this avenue wasn't explored nearly in as much depth as the character-based things. Most variant players were too busy doing 3@30s with their variants!

I'm pretty sure Charis created the quest called Retribution. I'm not sure if you've ever been involved in that one, but it is a blast. The concept is fairly simple: A group of heroes decide to exact revenge and justice for the suffering and death caused by Diablo. Diablo must die, but first he must witness the death of his most elite guardians. So the first thing the team does upon reaching level 16 is to open Diablo's chamber and lure out the big guy, being very careful not to kill anything first. Now, the entire level must be cleared, and Diablo must be visible on-screen when each kill occurs. Once Sir Gorash is located, he should also be kept alive and on-screen for the rest of the level (I imagine someone who has a particular beef with Sir Gorash would want to locate him before anything is killed so he witnesses it all). At some point, the notorious black knight was also deemed to be worthy of this punishment, but keeping both him and Gorash alive is pretty tricky. After this demonic triumvirant has witnessed the fall of their most loyal subjects, it's finally their turn. This was always a blast for moderate to powerful characters (variant or non-variant), and was especially a good way to reverse a bad mood after getting your butt kicked by Diablo's minions in a previous game.

Things like this can be complimentary to variant concepts. Different variants playing together usually avoid their variant-specific quests and stick to the basic "let's clear this chunk of levels" game. They are thus not much different than normal characters cooping together (although some variant combos do require unique sets of tactics). Throwing the team into a new situation with different goals can be a nice change of pace, variants or not. And in the case of the variants you have the added benefit of potential roleplaying twists within the new scenario.

[Sr.Juez]

Now that you are talking about strategy articles, may I ask...?

I think that this Charis' article "An analisys of Harmony and Fast Block" at Realms Beyond is excelent. Why it isn't here, at the LL's strategy section?.

Also the same about that article from ICE about playing the Rogue, that one which started with Low AC Rogues vs High AC Rogues, and then Archer styled vs Melee styled, and so, and so...

Caverns of ICE; The versatile Rogue

[LemmingofGlory]

I think that this Charis' article "An analisys of Harmony and Fast Block" at Realms Beyond is excelent. Why it isn't here, at the LL's strategy section?

Because it's at Realms Beyond.

Also the same about that article from ICE about playing the Rogue, that one which started with Low AC Rogues vs High AC Rogues, and then Archer styled vs Melee styled, and so, and so...

And you could go on and ask the same about all the articles hosted at Claudio's Page and the rest of Ice's stuff. It just struck me as tacky to go around asking, "May I host each and every one of your strategy articles?" If someone was closing down a site, I certainly wouldn't mind putting up worthwhile articles. But as long as the site's still there, I'll happily link to it.

[o: *LEMMING* :o]

[Occhidiangela]

I tried Retribution once, long ago, with my level 38 Sorcerer.

I worked it by myself, and after about an hour, which included quite a few TP's, I stopped with only about 1/2 of the monsters dead and I don't know how many blue puts and red pots swilled down. RL intruded. It was tough for me to keep dodging the Apocalypse, but I might have been able to pull if .

Man, that was hard, and I think it would be better to do as a team.

I agree with you that, in essence, when it comes to variants, styles, and playing something other than Min Max Uber,

Fun is where you find it. :)

EST was a team variant, you must admit. :)

[Bolty]

And you could go on and ask the same about all the articles hosted at Claudio's Page and the rest of Ice's stuff. It just struck me as tacky to go around asking, "May I host each and every one of your strategy articles?" If someone was closing down a site, I certainly wouldn't mind putting up worthwhile articles. But as long as the site's still there, I'll happily link to it.

Right on. Sr. Juez, the Lounge is about the community. It does not try to be the end-all, be-all site for everything. We are not Borg, and we do not assimilate. The idea is to encourage readers to get out there by pointing out the good sites that the 'Net has to offer. I have found that kind of encouraging atmosphere to be far more rewarding than the attempt-to-swipe-everyone-else's-material, why-would-you-ever-want-to-visit-any-other-site atmosphere. And I'm glad Lemming feels the same way. After all, I had been recommending his own website for a long time, and still do. :)

If a new D1 player came along, I'd hope that the Lounge wouldn't be the only site they'd check out. There's too many other good ones.

Now, if one of those other sites was going down or being taken offline, and it was fine with the webmaster that we could host their content (Jarulf's Guide is an example of this), that would be different.

-Bolty

[Ice]

I'm quite surprised the fortunecity version of my site is still hanging in there and actually was the most 'stable' of all the various web hosts I've tried out.

Anyway, for the websites that has already gone down, it would be a pity to lose some of the information there since the wayback machine doesn't last forever and bits and pieces of the archived site sometimes goes missing too.

Might it be possible to contact the people behind those sites and perhaps host some of those articles at LL?

[Sr.Juez]

I didn't pretend the Lounge to "assimilate" every other Diablo site in the web, and I'm surprised that my previous post has been interpretated this way. I myself have links to many interesting Diablo sites in my browser's favourites folder (apart from the LL), so if by chance anyone thought so, no, I don't discourage surfing the web for other good Diablo sites.

Most of Charis' articles about strategy are hosted here at the Lounge, with the exception of this interesting one about Harmony and Fast Block. This, and the fact that Charis is one of the Admins of this site, took me to think that there should have been some kind of confusion (or like that) and because of it, this Charis article wasn't, so then, I asked about it. I hope I'm clearer now.

I also asked about this Ice's article for Rogues because there are a good number of articles in the Diablo strategy section for Warriors and Sorcerors, but I found that there weren't enough for the Rogue, and this one from Ice summarises quite well most of what a some experienced Rogue should consider about her equipment strategy.

I'm also worried about Diablo sites closing down, without a warning, and the posibility of good sources of information about this game being lost FOREVER. Example (may be not a good one, but...): if Dakota's site would close just NOW, how many of you have SoulToucher's table in your HD's now? and all the other articles/essays...?

BTW, this thread is going a little out of topic, ain't it?.

[LemmingofGlory]

I didn't pretend the Lounge to "assimilate" every other Diablo site in the web, and I'm surprised that my previous post has been interpretated this way.

It wasn't. You didn't provide criteria for what article on what site should be here, so I provided a global reason: Without criteria, I could very well ask every person hosting a site to let me host their articles here. Providing criteria allows me to give you a less broad answer.

This, and the fact that Charis is one of the Admins of this site...

That would lead to confusion then. Charis isn't an Admin here. Bolty's the head honcho. He and Griselda admin the D2 section. I admin the D1 section. The three of us, plus Elric and Mavfin, moderate the forums.

Charis is an admin at the Realms Beyond Diablo, along with Griselda and KingOfPain. (Hmm, I don't know if he capitalizes the O...) I get the impression he's semi-retired on that front, tough.

As to why one Charis article is here while other's aren't: I wasn't the D1 guy at the time he wrote it. However, I'm not looking for a "The Complete Charis Collection" so I'm not too worried about it.

I also asked about this Ice's article for Rogues because there are a good number of articles in the Diablo strategy section for Warriors and Sorcerors, but I found that there weren't enough for the Rogue, and this one from Ice summarises quite well most of what a some experienced Rogue should consider about her equipment strategy.

We don't have one for the Bard either. But Ice does. Hey, that's a worthwhile site to link to. ;)

I'm also worried about Diablo sites closing down, without a warning, and the posibility of good sources of information about this game being lost FOREVER. Example (may be not a good one, but...): if Dakota's site would close just NOW, how many of you have SoulToucher's table in your HD's now? and all the other articles/essays...?

That's what the Wayback Machine is for. But if, in a freak cosmic accident, both went down at the exact same time, we could always write new articles.

[o: *LEMMING* :o]

[Griselda]

I think it's pure luck that any Charis articles survived at all, considering most of them were hosted at his Diablo site, and *were* lost when he lost hosting. Where exactly they ended up is probably accidental as much as anything else.

As for RBD, I know at least two, and maybe three of us have the site on HD, so the webhost would have to fail along with both drives for everything to be lost.

-Griselda

[Bolty]

Most of Charis' articles about strategy are hosted here at the Lounge, with the exception of this interesting one about Harmony and Fast Block. This, and the fact that Charis is one of the Admins of this site, took me to think that there should have been some kind of confusion (or like that) and because of it, this Charis article wasn't, so then, I asked about it. I hope I'm clearer now.

Got it, no problem. And I hope you don't think we were jumping down your throat or something.

I think the main reason those articles are hosted here EXCEPT for one is that they were all DSF posts which I asked Charis if I could archive. It's possible that they were archived here before they were archived at the other site. So, in essence, Charis ripped ME off.* :)

-Bolty

* Yes, I'm kidding. The authors of any material hosted on this site own the material and can even request it to be removed at any time.

[Vandiablo]

I think it was Lemming who contacted me about hosting Varaya's archive (a while back). He asked if the Archive had had the authors' permissions. My answer: AFAIK, no. And that was the end of it, AFAIK. Has anyone else ever hosted since the Plain Guide??

[Sr.Juez]

I've have had a first (very superficial), look to the link you provided LemmingofGlory, and it looks like it can help. I didn't know such web would exist. Thanks for it.

I've searched for "Lurker" and "Lurker Lounge", but there seemed to be no references... curious. Is it possible that I am the first worried about this?.

Ok, now, one last thing: I was going to post/email to the LL to tell about it, but now that we are speaking about these Charis' articles, I thought I'll tell you now, instead of insisting in the same subject later.

An analysis of Osmosis and Pain, by Charis: "...Maximum dfe setups: -30 dfe: Caparace, Osmosis helm, Protector and 2 ROEs...", the maximum IS -31 dfe, if you add a health amulet.

Warriors "styles" and thoughts for low AC warriors from Charis: "...Blocking: ...Good sources for +dex: armor (+15), helm (+20), and jewels of Stars(11), Heavens(15), Precision(20), Zod(20), perfection(30)."
Maybe he intended to say?: shield (15), armor/helm (20), and armor/helm/jewels of Stars (11), and jewels of Heavens(15), Precision(20), Zod(20), perfection(30).

I know, I know, these are minor typos, but like all the info here at the LL is so precise, I thought this should be corrected (or a footpage note added, if you want to preserve the article as it was written, but with the info more accurate).

[LemmingofGlory]

I think it was Lemming who contacted me about hosting Varaya's archive (a while back). He asked if the Archive had had the authors' permissions. My answer: AFAIK, no. And that was the end of it, AFAIK.

Actually, I don't remember an answer. Maybe it was inadvertantly deleted with a batch of forum notifications. I just recall there being a loose end somewhere. Or maybe I got lazy. Hmm. . .

Anyway, I think Lounge policy is to host only with permission. Although I certainly wouldn't mind hosting these old articles otherwise. (What think, Bolty?)

[o: *LEMMING* :o]

[Bolty]

Anyway, I think Lounge policy is to host only with permission. Although I certainly wouldn't mind hosting these old articles otherwise. (What think, Bolty?)

I don't know, personally. Do we consider a "statute of limitations," especially when the original author can't be found anymore?

Also, hosting an old article is only useful if it is accurate for the latest version of Diablo 1. Otherwise, it's kind of a waste of time and can only confuse newcomers (of which there are STILL many).

-Bolty

[LemmingofGlory]

I don't know, personally. Do we consider a "statute of limitations," especially when the original author can't be found anymore?

Well, how about this: How many of the articles were forum posts? Pretty much all of them? If so, they were meant to be available publicly. We could assume, then, that the author wouldn't have too much objection to the preservation of the article so long as the author is credited and perhaps the source given: "Originally on Varaya's Strategy Archive" or "Originally posted on the DSF." Something like that. Of course, if the author magically shows up one day and wants their article removed, their wish is my command.

It doesn't get around the fact that they weren't asked, but it's as close as possible without letting the article vanish into the wind.

Also, hosting an old article is only useful if it is accurate for the latest version of Diablo 1. Otherwise, it's kind of a waste of time and can only confuse newcomers (of which there are STILL many).

Oh, I certainly wouldn't slap any old thing in HTML tags and put it up for all to see without error-checking it first. And some articles are hosted elsewhere, like Pete's Butcher Bashing at Freshman Diablo, or are available in a larger compilation (e.g. Jarulf's technical posts) so they don't need to be included.

In fact, it looks like I already started this process last... August. Should be easy to pick up where I left off.

[o: *LEMMING* :o]

[Vandiablo]

I don't think you should "clean up" the archive, just put a disclaimer on it. Most of its value is the state of knowledge of Diablo in late 1997... some of it is now known to be wrong, or some shows how primitive D research was at first.

For instance, in my post on the archive, I conclude that there does seem to be an auto-hit percentage, that to-hit numbers do go on a one-to-one slope of hit probability (generally), which are things we take for granted now; however, I also make some other conclusion that is wrong (I've forgotten it now). Of course, Da O'Toth and Jarulf later do research and do a better job... but the Archive can show how much we did NOT know in those early days. Fortunately for me, I am not the only one who had some misinformation in there, I think Bostic had a post where one of his statements advocated Hit Recovery items, and the DSF people later realized that these items did not work. (Also embarassing, I used Raymond's during testing so that my test character could stand there and take all the hits; no one challenged this at the time, but as the DSF got more sophisticated, it would not accept results using trainers as valid.)

So, IMO "cleaning it up" could ruin it.

A lot of the stuff that is still valid is the team-strategy posts, e.g. Aahz and Woody. Maybe the still-real-useful stuff could be extracted and made a separate link.

One note, tho, is that it is possible that the entire Archive did not make it to the Plain Guide-- a couple of the files were bigger than the geocities editor allowed (ah, those primitive days.) I dunno if Lemm has the copies of all the files, and whether all the files still exist somewhere. It's possible that the files exist on my old computer, which fortunately is still hooked up and works (last I checked, about 6 months ago). I dunno if Varaya kept the files after giving me permission to host them.

One thing that should be changed in the Archive, Varaya had a link for "contact me" which was an email link. When I took it over, I changed it to the van_damned at hotmail addy, which I rarely check anymore. You guys should change this email link. I also put in a note that the email was changed, so you should update or remove that too. But maybe I'm getting too far ahead here...

-Van