Article: "How a Diablo expansion led to behind the scenes trouble"

[GhastMaster]

https://www.polygon.com/features/2018/6/...es-trouble?

"One of Hellfire’s most convenient trappings, another quality-of-life improvement, is the Cornerstone of the World, a small, square chamber on the first floor of the Crypt that functions like a bank vault. Players can drop items on the Cornerstone’s floor, then load another character and retrieve them. Synergistic designed the Cornerstone as a more elegant method of sharing items between characters on a player’s hard drive. Before it, the only way to share was to start a session on Battle.net with the character in possession of an item, throw the item on the ground, then quickly log in with another character and join the same session to scoop it up. That approach was risky: A game session could expire if the player failed to log back in fast enough, or other players could enter the session and steal the item."

I remember doing that in Diablo II. However, Diablo 1 is client not server connection. I do not remember doing this. I did not think this was possible. Is that a goof by the author?

Great read!

[Belix]

I remember doing that in Diablo II. However, Diablo 1 is client not server connection. I do not remember doing this. I did not think this was possible. Is that a goof by the author?

I think the author simply chose the wrong (ambiguous) terminology to describe the loss of items attempting to be transferred if all players had left the game session in question, and didn't mean to suggest that D1 sessions were maintained briefly by Battle.net w/o clients still in session (which of course would be false).

[Jarulf]

One thing I noted reading through it, regards the Barbarian. From the quotes it seems to imply that the Barbarian was there already from the initial release. That was not correct. It was part of early design but for the release, the only extra character one could unlock was the Bard.

However, with the patch, the Barbarian was added. I believe the patch was actually additional wood on the fire (can one say so in English?). There were things in the initial release like the multiplayer that, as described in the text did not go so well with Blizzard, and then came the patch that, although removing multiplayer from the command.txt, kept everything in the executable making it trivial activating it with a simple code change (a modified hellfrui.dll was the common method I believe) so it was not really as removed as had been demanded. And on top of that the patch in addition added the Barbarian through command.txt, which as described was a big no-no as it was to be a class in the upcoming Diablo 2.

I remember this as in a later discussion, it was touched on the "tradition" to add a new hidden test character in each patch and had there ever been a second patch, there would have been one for the sorcerer. I remember discussing ideas of a "Blood Wizard" with some interesting new properties and abilities. Alas, it never became anything real....

Oh well, old memories. Seems to happen a lot of Diablo related things lately.

[Sir Krist]

Oh well, old memories. Seems to happen a lot of Diablo related things lately.

Hey it's Jaruf, you're the one that wrote the math and guide for Diablo if I recall correctly. I remember it being used for modding all over .

[GhastMaster]

One thing I noted reading through it, regards the Barbarian. From the quotes it seems to imply that the Barbarian was there already from the initial release. That was not correct. It was part of early design but for the release, the only extra character one could unlock was the Bard.

However, with the patch, the Barbarian was added. I believe the patch was actually additional wood on the fire (can one say so in English?). There were things in the initial release like the multiplayer that, as described in the text did not go so well with Blizzard, and then came the patch that, although removing multiplayer from the command.txt, kept everything in the executable making it trivial activating it with a simple code change (a modified hellfrui.dll was the common method I believe) so it was not really as removed as had been demanded. And on top of that the patch in addition added the Barbarian through command.txt, which as described was a big no-no as it was to be a class in the upcoming Diablo 2.

I remember this as in a later discussion, it was touched on the "tradition" to add a new hidden test character in each patch and had there ever been a second patch, there would have been one for the sorcerer. I remember discussing ideas of a "Blood Wizard" with some interesting new properties and abilities. Alas, it never became anything real....

Oh well, old memories. Seems to happen a lot of Diablo related things lately.

"Wood on the fire" = "Fuel to the flames" in American english usually. Blood wizard sounds interesting

[Sir Krist]

I don't like the new classes, except for the Monk. I felt he was somehow out of place though. There isn't any lore about him or anything to fit in to the world.

The bard and barbarian was dumb I think . Same characters but just skill swapped.

[Jarulf]

I don't like the new classes, except for the Monk. I felt he was somehow out of place though. There isn't any lore about him or anything to fit in to the world.

The bard and barbarian was dumb I think . Same characters but just skill swapped.

Well, the idea with the bard and barbarian was not to be full characters. They were sort of toying with various characters during the short development and settled with the Monk for which they created new art. Since they did have allready code and design for some other characters, they added them as easter eggs, unlockable as "test" characters thorugh the command.txt file and utilizing the old graphics of existing characters.

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"Wood on the fire" = "Fuel to the flames" in American english usually. Blood wizard sounds interesting

Well, I only recall some ideas about it (wonder if I still got some mails in some old place on a hard drive somewhere). I remember that no potions was allowed in dungeon (at least no helth potions). In addition, spells was supposed to cost both mana and health. The "blood spells" (Blood star, Bone Spirit) were supposed to have buffed damage (don't recall if life stealing) and melee would have automatic life and/or mana stealing. It was along those lines I think. I think it could have been fun



EDIT: Ohh, it is merging my posts. I was wondering were it ended up. Have deleted multiple identlical replies now....