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Anybody still have a copy of this? I've been going through this game with a debugger and it is surprisingly complete considering how little the developers actually let you see (one level in "non-modified" form). If found all sorts of nifty things. Apparently Blizzard re-did the magic system as magic is handled differently in code than it is in full release Diablo.
If I only had the full MPQ file, barring unforeseen problems, it might be possible to play quite a bit more =P
Selby
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Selby,Aug 8 2003, 03:15 AM Wrote:Anybody still have a copy of this? I've been going through this game with a debugger and it is surprisingly complete considering how little the developers actually let you see (one level in "non-modified" form). If found all sorts of nifty things. Apparently Blizzard re-did the magic system as magic is handled differently in code than it is in full release Diablo.
If I only had the full MPQ file, barring unforeseen problems, it might be possible to play quite a bit more =P
Selby Is it the one that comes in a 50mb exe file? Playable in like 2 levels with Butcher on the first (or something strange like that)? If so I have it sitting on my hard disc :) Otherwsie not :(
Oh, it identifies itself as "Pre-release Demo" as the version.
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That's it. Only the warrior is playable and only one level with the butcher on it. Modifying the executable you can get the sorcerer (warrior with staff) and something like 4 levels of the church.
I don't know too many people who have it anymore and even fewer who have looked through the game memory.
They changed quite alot from the demo to the full release version...
Selby
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Selby,Aug 8 2003, 02:50 PM Wrote:That's it. Only the warrior is playable and only one level with the butcher on it. Modifying the executable you can get the sorcerer (warrior with staff) and something like 4 levels of the church.
I don't know too many people who have it anymore and even fewer who have looked through the game memory.
They changed quite alot from the demo to the full release version...
Selby Well, yeah, the data tables are somewhat different, and I droped the project of supporting it in old programs I worte for Diablo. So I have not looked much at the exact data in it since I have not extracted it much.
Anyway, I currently have problem finding a place were I can put 50+ mb. The only website I have available at the moment is 10mb at most and I don't have any own computer with fixed IP adress to run an ftp/web server at. I can upload it to another ftp server though if you want. I think it is a bit to large to mail.
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And scrolls of firebolt? I remember playing it a long time ago, should still have it on CD somewhere. Good times.
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Ah, the Pre-Release Demo. I actually have it on a 5-game demo CD. Amusingly different, I say.
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I recall back in the olden days that some DSF'ers had a lot of fun with it, releasing patches that opened up the entire church and letting you toy with it "longer." But I don't believe any artwork is in the demo for the catacombs and below. I know I played this a few times - isn't it true that there is no "belt" and you can only have 1 potion queued up?
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I don't even remember having a belt 0.o
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Aah the good old pre-release demo!
I've still got it here and play it sometimes when I get bored.
There are some really interesting things in it. I've got a few patches that enable the whole church, let you play as the sorceror (with warrior gfx...quite funny) and use all the spells in the game (Doom Serpents, Blood Boil, blah blah...really buggy, game keeps crashing).
The coolest thing is the book on level 4 which opens the stairs to level 5...."Beyond the hall of heroes lies the catacombs..." or something like that.
It's really fun messing around with this thing. There are loads of old item gfx, old speech files and other things in it.
Discovering the old pre/suffixes for items is quite interesting, too....most of them have the remark (NW)-"Not Working"...too bad. I'd love to see my Ring of Infravision work :)
Other items like books of identify are find and buyable, too.
I'm not really into modmaking, debugging and so on, but I'd love to hear what the exe file contains...well I can read some stuff in the hex-editor but there must be more.
Oh and there are two versions of the alpha.
The first one runs from a single exe file, while the second one is an archive with exe, mpq and dll files in it.
There's also the Diablo Beta which was sent to 1000 people ion 1996. It was battle-net only (no longer playable) and contained 5 levels (church + 1 catacomb).
You could play all three characters and almost everything was close to the final version except for some bugs and unfinished quests. NO, not the deleted quests everybody gets crazy about...just the normal ones we know from the retail version.
I think there's an interesting article about the beta over at dIInetwork.
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Selby:
I've found a working link to the Diablo pre-release Demo. I have no idea which version (one EXE or multiple files) it is, though.
ftp://angrenost.org/games/diablo/diablopr.zip
If you're interested in a modified exe file to explore the first 4 levels and to use 2 of 3 characters, let me know.
m-ftg@gmx.net
One more thing about the beta version:
Who has this thing? Since it's b-net only you can't do much with it, but maybe someone might be able to unlock the single player mode and the other three levels of the catacombs so that everyone can play this baby again.
Is there someone who maybe able to do this?
FYI:
I think you all know that the "missing" 5th page can be enabled in Diablo classic by clicking next to the 4th page button....pretty much useless. Hellfire enables the 5th page.
Do you remember the Diablo manual? Theres a b/w shot of a 6 page spellbook.....guess what? This is the actual look of the spellbook in the Diablo Beta version.
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08-10-2003, 08:44 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-10-2003, 08:49 PM by Zedd.)
For the record, I have the Alpha as well, and for those interested, have a few pages with screenshots of it:
http://www.bloodoffold.netfirms.com/tales.html
(screenshot links at bottom)
Also, about the Beta...I've been looking for that for quite some time...if anyone finds it, lemme know!
danielv@snet.net
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Oh, I don't need it. I've had it for years with my massive Diablo archives and just started playing with it again.
I've found all of the character data in memory, so if I really wanted to write a trainer I could =P Most of the spells worked, except for Doom Serpents, Sentinel (does the same thing as Guardian?), Blood Boil (I think... didn't do anything at least), Guardian, and Golem (crashed the game =P ). Etherealize has graphics and effects, but I haven't tested to see if it actually does anything yet. Blood Ritual is rather imbalancing (converts life to mana...).
Funny thing is Holy Bolt and Charged Bolt aren't in the game =P The spell list of effects in the release .exe is the same list as in the pre-release demo, except the removed spells aren't actually removed from the list (they don't do anything, however) with CB and HB occuring at the end.
King Leoric is just "an evil corrupt" king whose knights put him down because of his madness and he cursed them. Quite a few monsters that we all have heard about that never made it into the final release are in the .exe file as well (Hellian Fleshdoom, etc).
There are no graphics beyond church graphics in the MPQ file but there are quite a few items that never made it to the release version as well (armor and weapons mainly). No belt as Bolty pointed out. You can queue 4 items in a "belt" but only one can be used at a time. Use one and it pushes the next one down and adds a blank to the end.
Character screen and inventory screens are on the opposite sides of the screen (and no spell book either).
It's neat, and digging into it is more of a side project to occupy my time right now when I get bored.
Selby
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08-11-2003, 02:59 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-11-2003, 03:01 AM by LemmingofGlory.)
Quote:Quite a few monsters that we all have heard about that never made it into the final release are in the .exe file as well (Hellian Fleshdoom, etc).
If I'm correct in assuming it's similar in size to the Diablo.exe (< 1mb), would you mind e-mailing me the .exe?It sounds like a fun .exe to poke around in, and my dial-up's not up for downloading 58mb (else I'd just snag the thing Mystery linked to).
[o: *LEMMING* :o]
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Zedd:
Thank you for the screenshots. :)
Selby:
Doom Serpents worked in the pre-release Demo.
Sentinel is similar to Guardian except it can only fire in one direction...I guess they threw it out because Guardian was better.
Blood Boil is heavily bugged in the pre-release Demo. Use it on an enemy and it'll explode sometimes...but most of the time the game just crashes *g*
LemmingofGlory:
The exe files (patched and unpatched) are both 818KB. I can send them to you via eMail.
Might be interesting to get the pre-release exe working with the release-MPQ to get beyond level 4.
I might be able to provide you guys with the Beta EXE B)
I happen to have a copy of this thing. Unfortunately it has two flaws:
1st) It won't run with any MPQ I have.
2nd) It's battle-net only and even if it would run, you can't play at all.
Using a mixture of the beta exe and the final cd was a little bit successful as I got a buggy title screen and a beta-warning message (this is a five level beta blah blah blah). But then it crashes.
It would be awesome if someone could make some kind of patch to get this working with the final MPQ file and to make single-player available.
The Diablo beta exe's size is 976KB...really huge and so I think there might be a lot of information inside.
Well some of the information is quite useful...but funny. Some quest books (Arkaine) have a "THIS QUEST IS NOT WORKING YET" at the end...lol.
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Quote:The exe files (patched and unpatched) are both 818KB. I can send them to you via eMail.
Selby sent it already. Thanks. :)
[o: *LEMMING* :o]
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08-11-2003, 10:22 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-11-2003, 10:39 AM by Mystery.)
Ok guys...for everyone interested, I've uploaded a small archive on my webspace containing the following files:
-The unpatched Diablo.exe from the pre-release Demo
-The patched Diablo.exe (v1.0, lets you play 4 levels and two characters)
-a couple of savegames for the pre-release demo...I think there was at least one with all spells unlocked
-two readme files from the original Diablo beta version
-the legendary exe of the Diablo beta from 1996
I really hope that someone is able to make something out of the beta exe file!
The whole archive is only 804KB small, so even 33.6 users won't have a problem dl-ing it :)
I am highly interested in -anything- that is dealing with Diablo pre-release stuff. Alpha/Beta/whatever.
Screenshots, information from exe-files, scans of pre-release versions (there are several versions with an interesting interface I saw in magazines), information about quests and so on....everything!
I've been looking for stuff related to this topic since late 1997 and there must still be things on someones HardDisk I've never heard before ;)
Of course I'm willing to share my knowledge and material about pre-release Diablo versions.
Let me know if you have anything that might be interesting for me.
eMail: m-ftg@gmx.net
ICQ: 10608776
Whoops...I almost forgot to post the link to the pre-release/beta file *g*
Diablo.rar
If you find anything interesting within these files, let me know!
By the way: Does someone own the first US release of Warcraft2? I was told that there are some quite interesting screenshots of a -very- old version of Diablo. I have a few of them, but I was wondering if there's more than a few screenshots. The german version of War2 contains a nice Video and some Pictures...nothing special.
Edit: Seems like I forgot a few essential files for the beta (old storm.dll,...). I've made a new file and uploaded it. Size grew to 1.022MB.
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Well, I can't unpack rar files so can't check. Anyway, I was wondering what the file size is of the actual diablo.exe file. I seem to actually have deleted my 50mb file for it, so can't insatll from it and check either. I had a note in the code for my program that identifies diablo file versions that a "pre-release demo" had a file size of 837120 bytes. However, you mentioned a 976kb file size, but that was the beta, right? Would it be possible to have a non rar version of the files someway?
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08-11-2003, 11:10 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-11-2003, 01:56 PM by Mystery.)
Jarulf:
The Diablo beta EXE is 967KB..so the beta should have some -very- nice information in it!
The pre-release Demo which has everything in one exe file is 57.214MB big.
The other pre-release Demo has the following files:
-exe (818KB)
-mpq (56.334MB)
-dlls (smackw 65KB, storm 146KB)
I made a self-extracting version of the archive just for you ;)
Diablo.exe 1.071MB
Diablo.rar 1.022MB still on the server
If you try running the DiabBeta.exe with the retail Diablo CD you get a messed up Title screen, a beta warning and the main menu with a -really- strange version number (96.11.9.2)
Single player is deactivated, but I think that people more experienced in Diablo.exe-Tweaking might be able to unlock it.
Unfortunately the game keeps crashing if you do ANYTHING in the main menu. I can't even take a screenshot *g*
Edit: I just downloaded the pre-release Demo from the link I posted above.
It's the EXE version...so everything is in one file. If you use the MPQ Editor by Tom Amigo this exe is treated like a normal MPQ file, so you can extract all the files from it.
Note that the MPQ structure isn't the same as in the final version so normal viewers that totally depend on a textfile won't be able to read all files.
I don't know where to get the second version of the pre-release demo I've got here, sorry.
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Can anyone please tell me where to put the saves (used by the Diablo demo)?
Also, is there some way to use the hacked exe with the EXE-version, or perhaps the release Diablo MPQ?
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Umm...I don't really remember where to put the saves.
Maybe it was in the Windows/Temp dir, but I don't remember.
Why not starting a new character and saving the game. Then search for the recently added savefiles and overwrite them with the savefiles I provided.
I have no idea on how to modify the EXE version. I have voth versions but the page I got the non-exe version from is dead.
Unfortunately I don't have enough webspace to put it up.
I haven't tried it with the retail MPQ...I only got the first two screens of the beta version working with this.
But I don't think that it'll work with the retail MPQ, because the file structure of the final version and the pre-release demo are too different.
I don't remember correctly but I think that I got the non-exe version out of the exe version somehow. Well, this might just be the result of my brain starting to go nuts in this heat, so I might be totally wrong. I just remember that there could've been a method that made this possible...but I don't remember anything and the stuff I tried today didn't work. Hey I did this ages ago ;)
If anyone has an idea how to make the 57MB MPQ available, please lmk and I'll do the best I can.
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