Median_2 v1.0 released!

[Brother Laz]

Median_2, the mod you've all been waiting for, finally reached its official release after 9 beta patches, which is more than Blizzard releases in the first three years of their games' existence, by the way.

Download link can be found in the forum topic on this Phrozen Keep forum with the [download link here!] title. [More patches are planned, and I don't want to change the links on all of the forums I posted this message on]

If you come from Mars and don't know what Median_2 does yet, here is a short list:

· General skill tree with 54 all-new skills plus 3 class-specific skills per class. Features old classics such as Apocalypse and Flash and new sparklies such as Shield Wall, Mind Flay and Retaliate. Now you can make that caster-archer-barb or melee-summon-sorc you've always wanted.

· Monster AI and attacks majorly changed. The monsters weren't just moved around or given one-hit kills like all those other 'ubermods', but are much more aggressive with new and diverse attacks and spells. Defense is now useful, imagine that.

· New item pool, new affix pool. Forget about uber uniques or cruel colossus sword. No exceptional or elite items, but the normal items improve when dropped from higher level monsters. Baal might still drop a cap, but it will be a cap with 250 defense and +50% fire resist, and a strength req of 80.

· Generally increased difficulty. Everything after Act 1 ranges from tricky to very hard.

Screenshots can be found here!

Feedback can go here or in the Phrozen Forums.

[whyBish]

There has obviously been a lot of good work put into this mod, all the new skills have very flashy graphics. Although I haven't progressed far enough to make a comment on balance, I would like to make a couple of (extremely?) minor notes on polish... (Anyone else reading this should be getting the MOD instead...)
- Even though it is easy enough to do MPQ switching it would be nice if a batch file was provided. I'm sure you'll get enough questions asking how to do it.
- Some site / text / html file or something explaining the skills. For some reason I am at lvl 5 armageddon and can't put in any more points. Are skills capped at level 5? Or just minor skills? What will my skills be like when I 'max' them out... at the moment I'm putting them into random skills just to see the *insanely* cool new animations (Like I said, if you aren't Brother Laz, then you should be playing the mod, not reading this!! :P ). Also some info on the Char specific skills, particularly: Do they change with char level?
- Maybe some info on items... but probably not as important as the other two...

Anyway, comment so far is great work on the sparklies and sound effects!

[Brother Laz]

- Even though it is easy enough to do MPQ switching it would be nice if a batch file was provided. I'm sure you'll get enough questions asking how to do it.

Meh, I don't trust batch files [or vbs install scripts, etc]. Too easy to mess up by accident.

- Some site / text / html file or something explaining the skills. For some reason I am at lvl 5 armageddon and can't put in any more points. Are skills capped at level 5? Or just minor skills?

Skills are capped at level 5, except the ultimates which only have one level.

at the moment I'm putting them into random skills just to see the *insanely* cool new animations (Like I said, if you aren't Brother Laz, then you should be playing the mod, not reading this!!).

:blush:

Also some info on the Char specific skills, particularly: Do they change with char level?

Off the top of my head:

Amz:
Vanquish - no effect
Ghost Arrow - no effect
Blindside - no effect

Asn:
Vampiric Icon - scales with hp
Rune of Ice - no effect
Raven Strike - drains more hp

Bar:
Rolling Thunder - no effect
Bloodlust - no effect
Barbaric Heal - scales with hp

Dru:
Mark of the Wild - no effect
Feral Strike - no effect
Claw Tornado - +1 tornado at level 40

Nec:
Summon Slaves - stats improve with character level
Death Coil - scales with hp
Dark Power - no effect

Pal:
Retribute - no effect
Holy Armor - duration increases with character level
Blood Flash - scales with hp

Sor:
Magic Missiles - damage increases with character level
Hex - no effect
Empower - +2 skills at level 40 [IIRC]

[Encore]

Wow...I mean, wow. This is really neat, so many new awesome spells. Brilliant. B)

[Brother Laz]

Version v1.1 is out! See links above.