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

[Belix]

Hello there, Malic. I'm nearly finished with the next update and should be posting it for download within the next week or two.

[Malic]

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

[hybridmoments]

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

[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.

[Malic]

I have never really played Hellfire, Only Diablo and Diablo 2. So I don't know if I wanna start with the mod or not just to see how unfinished it was. Any thoughts on that way of thinking?

[Belix]

I have never really played Hellfire, Only Diablo and Diablo 2. So I don't know if I wanna start with the mod or not just to see how unfinished it was. Any thoughts on that way of thinking?

Personally, I always play a game in its original form (patched to the latest official version, of course) at least once. That way I have a basis for comparison with mods, and can appreciate the changes made - or object to them. I'd encourage you to do that here, too, but if you don't have a lot of free time to spend playing it or don't want to have to re-equip or restart a character after you finish to switch to this version, you may want to start here, and check out the original some day.

Three major things I'd like to mention for your consideration of playing the final official version (v1.01) first:


-If you have sensitive ears, you might find the new areas (Hive and Crypt) rather harsh sounding. Some of the monsters you can encounter make very... unpleasant noises, especially if you are using magic where you can harm or slay a multitude of them at once. 2 out of 3 Hellfire mods I've spent much time playing (3 of 4 counting my own) altered these sounds.


-Warriors and Monks rely heavily on blocking attacks (e.g. with a shield), but Blocking is crippled in vanilla Hellfire compared to the original game:
In Diablo, characters first avoid attacks with their Armor Class rating, blocking only if armor would fail to deflect the hit, and only block certain projectiles if they have 0% resistance to that type of attack.
In vanilla Hellfire, characters attempt to block first before checking if their Armor Class would deflect the attack, and will try to block all blockable projectiles regardless of their resistances.

That means without this patch-mod, melee characters that block have a really tough time because they are essentially trying to block almost everything all the time, and become so busy blocking attacks that they can't move or strike back, leading to their death.

I would recommend avoiding these two classes in the vanilla expansion.

Not sure how familiar you are with Diablo 1, so I'll throw out a few other thoughts for class choices. Rogues are great for beginners - put most points into Dexterity, get the best bow you can equip, and stay out of reach while peppering foes with arrows and dodging incoming fire. If you want something a bit more tactical, get a Sorcerer or Barbarian. Sorcerers must frequently change their choice of magic due to enemy resistances and immunities. Barbarians clobber everything up close with an axe, but must maneuver carefully when dealing with ranged attackers that run away when you get close - try to separate these foes into smaller groups, then attempt to herd them into corners where they can be pinned and eliminated easier.


-Hellfire v1.01 (final official version) may not run on some newer computers without a few newer versions of core files (no gameplay changes included). If you have trouble getting it to run, try copying just the following over:

hellfrui.dll
Storm.dll
smackw32.dll

Lastly, some useful related links:

StrangeByte's DirectDraw Wrapper:
http://khanduras.net/2014/04/repo-strang...sta-patch/
If you still have problems getting Diablo or Hellfire to run on your newer computer, this can be a lifesaver. It runs the game in Windowed mode by default instead of Fullscreen. However, Windowed mode can be problematic, especially in the game's main menu. Use ALT+Enter to temporarily change to full screen. After you have started a new game and are in town, you can use the tilde key (~) to open the wrapper menu; settings changed here are permanent, so if you tell it to be fullscreen here it should open that way by default next time you start Diablo or Hellfire.

Manual Hellfire v1.00 -> v1.01 Patch:
http://khanduras.net/repo/hellfire-1-00-to-1-01-zip/
The official Hellfire v1.01 patch program is, for some odd reason, a 16-bit application. 16-bit software emulation is not included in modern 64-bit versions of Windows, so there is no way to run the patcher. However, if you copy the contents of the Manual patch zip into your Hellfire v1.00 folder, it will achieve identical results to running the actual patch program - problem solved.



Good luck with whatever you decide, and most importantly, have fun!

[Malic]

Thanks for the, page of information you wrote, I will probably ask a few friends, if they wanna play Diablo with me, and then after that Hellfire. After I'm done playing, I'd be happy to help and test things with the mod, and that is because you are working so passionately with the game.

So I'll look forward untill the time we test things together, if I am able to.

[hybridmoments]

Belix. You are a genius. Your work is well appreciated by myself and many others. The experience bar alone is such a welcome addition!

I hope you always find yourself enjoying the modding process of this amazing game, and I hope your mod brings new Diablo players into the fold.

How do you typically play Diablo? I mean, do you play multi with other people usually?

Or do you play multiplayer by yourself because of increased difficulty?

Or do you just play single?

Just curious what a vet does!

Oh, and one last question: Does the change to the droprate for uniques mean that all uniques can drop no matter what? I know there were uniques that were previously unobtainable in multiplayer for both Diablo and Hellfire. They can all drop now?

[Slyrk]

Hi Belix!

Thanks for your constant work on this and sorry that I've been absent for a while. The teaser looks great! I'll be looking forward to A5. I'll try to recreate the bug on spell queuing sometime next week when I get to it and pay more attention to when exactly it occurs.

I thought that the reason for item morphing in single player could be something similar to what you've mentioned. I'm not quite sure how I can upload a save game, since it's larger than the attachment limit. I attached the HIF files of my single player Armor of Gloom and Demon Plate Armor. Maybe you'll be able to confirm your theory with it. Armor of Gloom has been in Gillian's Stash in the meantime though, so I'm not sure whether that affected anything.

[Belix]

Releasing this update is taking a little longer than I hoped, but I'm trying to test everything thoroughly before releasing it, and squeezing in a few more fixes and features at the end. I'm still aiming to release before the end of the month, maybe a few days into the next at most.

In particular I've been trying to eliminate the bug that causes other players to appear inside of solid walls if they come down a town portal that was opened just above a wall, but so far I've only managed to crash the descending player's game. If I can't resolve it within a week or two I will release anyway.

I did also spend all of my free time across 3 days trying to make the item outlines consistent to the item type on the map, in town, inventory etc., but it despite my best efforts it eludes me in most places, so for now that change will only work on the dungeon floors (where it matters most). It would be nice to see the types of items on the map too when Search is active, but for now at least it remains out of my reach.

Belix. You are a genius. Your work is well appreciated by myself and many others. The experience bar alone is such a welcome addition!

Actually, an IQ test I took once informed me I am several points short of genius. Thank you for your kind words, though.

How do you typically play Diablo? I mean, do you play multi with other people usually?

In case you lost track of it, I already answered this question where you first asked it over here:
http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/threa...#pid211139

I know there were uniques that were previously unobtainable in multiplayer for both Diablo and Hellfire. They can all drop now?

As far as I know, yes. Marsh made extensive changes to the qlvls of items and so far I've found many Unique items in Multiplayer that Jarulf's Guide stats cannot be dropped (on any difficulty, or the one I found it on). It does seem he did a very thorough job with it.

That doesn't say much, however, about how bad some of the unique items are in terms of usefulness. I'll probably be looking into that more in the next update. HF: Fixed made an effort to help Uniques out, but Marsh left them all at their default stats. I feel confident I can figure out ways to make some of the unique items better without making them unfairly powerful.

I attached the HIF files of my single player Armor of Gloom and Demon Plate Armor. Maybe you'll be able to confirm your theory with it.

Hi there. Thanks for the file, I will examine it soon and let you know what I learn from it.

[Slyrk]

Hi!

Unfortunately I wasn't able to recreate the spellqueuing bug. I'm sure it was there, since this was my first impression of the patch, but it doesn't happen with my current character. My guess is that most likely it had to do with a piece of equipment that I was using (or had in the inventory) which was changed in one of the mods. I tried to put my sorcerer back into the state it was in when I first loaded the patch, but unfortunately my memory is not that good. Long story short, if it should ever happen to me again I'll take meticulous notes of my character and what I did in that game before. Until then, it's probably not worth actively looking for it.

I'm sorry if you spent lots of time looking for it. I wish I had known back then that it was so hard to recreate this bug.

[Belix]

I isolated a bug in Hellfire that can lock up a hero and make them totally unresponsive if they switch equipment during a fight. I was hoping to push the new version out 2 weeks ago, but that's a serious issue that needs to be fixed as soon as possible. I'm still wrestling with two other Hellfire bugs I'd like to fix for this release (such as the aforementioned Town Portal bug), but they're not as serious, so I won't let them delay the next release much longer. Thanks for your patience, everyone.

I'm sorry if you spent lots of time looking for it. I wish I had known back then that it was so hard to recreate this bug.

No worries. It's probably a good thing that it isn't easy to reproduce. That means it shouldn't bug (hah, pun) people much until I can find and fix it. The only thing I can think of around that general area of hell is Lazarus and the Warlord, so it might be related to one of those quests, which have both seen some minor alterations for the sake of multiplayer. But almost any single change Marsh or I made could be responsible for that, from fountains to shrines/cauldrons.

By the way, I made a note to myself to look at your Armor of Gloom after I release the next update. I should spend my Diablo time finishing that asap first. But I hope your save file contains information I can use to shed some light on the morphing mystery. I'll let you know when I've take a look.

EDIT: I am in the process of updating the documentation for the next version before I can package and upload it. It will be available soon. Thank you.

EDIT #2: Sorry this is taking so long. I've been really busy lately. I will finish as soon as I can and make a new post when it is uploaded.

[eruptor]

i just happened across this site and info ,,, all i can say is wow and thanks
will take 102a4 for a test run

was hellfire in 800 x 600 ?

[Belix]

You're welcome. I hope you don't find it too difficult to set up. I am definitely going to make easier installation/set up a specific focus in a future version.

Like Diablo, Hellfire only runs at 640x480. I don't think any Blizzard game could run at 800x600 until the release of Diablo II back in 2000.

Check back soon for 1.02.A5, I'm hoping to finish updating the readme file sometime tomorrow so I can upload it. Have fun!

EDIT: I still need a bit more time to finish updating the documentation. In order to expediate the release of v1.02.A5, I will be releasing it as soon as everything that goes into the zip file has been properly updated, and then update the information in the main post to reflect the new changes afterwards. I normally prepare an updated version of the original post and its change log first, but the fix for the crash on the 4th Crypt floor is too important to keep waiting.

EDIT #2: Playing one last test game before uploading the final package now. Almost there!

[Belix]

v1.02.A5 is released and ready for download! Thanks all of you who have voiced your support and offered suggestions and bug reports, and thanks to all of you who are enjoying it privately and giving me silent encouragement. I know you're lurking out there, and I love you too.

This update brings Hellfire much closer to being as bug free as Diablo v1.09. I still have a sizable to do list of problems to address, but we're getting there!

Important note: This version includes a new feature that is disabled by default - reduced processor usage (in game only, the main menu is not affected yet). I have played with it extensively and the game appears to play with zero differences despite a potentially massive reduction in how much it hammers your processor. This could be invaluable for people playing Hellfire on a laptop, where the unnecessary CPU usage is a massive drain on battery life and could generate a lot of heat. Laptop users should give it a try. The worst it should do is make Hellfire run choppy. It could help your laptop live a lot longer though. I may make it active by default in a future version once I am much more confident it doesn't cause problems for anyone. And I may find a way to implement it better in the meantime.

Before I get into the list of changes, I wish to take a moment to note that this is the first update that introduces some minor fixes and improvements that were originally brought to Hellfire the team behind The Hell mod. I recently started playing it with a friend several months ago and, as someone who generally does not like mods that significantly alter the game play, I must say I was quite impressed with it. I think they've created something that resembles what Diablo II could of been if it had remained true to the flavor of the original game. That is no small achievement and deserves an honorable mention, moreso now that I'm borrowing some of their fine work to help improve classic Hellfire. A big thanks to them!

However, this project remains dedicated to improving the core experience of Hellfire without radically altering it, so any changes derived from The Hell will be limited to bug fixes or features that improve the game experience.

Without any further talking, here is an exhaustive list of changes and improvements brought to you specifically in this version over the last one:

_____________________________

• Crypt Level 4 Crash Fixed: This was caused by the new monster boss Fleshdoom, who was added all the way back in Hellfire: Fixed MP (over a decade ago!) using the Skeleton King's AI which could cause crashes in single player if he attempted to raise skeletons, and he was included later in Marsh's Mod (which this project is based on), where Marsh modified the Skeleton King's AI to allow him to raise skeletons in multiplayer, further exposing the crash issue there. Fleshdoom's AI behavior has been changed to eliminate this crash entirely.

• Monster Double Deaths Fixed (MP): Monsters have been able to die more than once in MP games. This occured when more than one player was damaging the same monster at the same time, and resulted in the monster appearing to die briefly, then resume fighting. This 'bug' resulted in the monster being dead for some players and still alive for others (which itself could cause problems, including but not limited to frozen monsters 'standing' in place dead or alive, and even rare crashes), a second duplicate item dropped by the monster, and extra experience awarded for killing the monster more than once. I believe I have finally fixed this awful bug now, and I'm VERY happy to see it gone.

• Player Gear Switch Deadlock Fixed: It was possible for your character and the inventory to become totally unresponsive sometimes if you switched equipment during battle; the character would remain helpless until they blocked, got stunned, or died as a result of an attack.

• Town Portal Bug Fixed (MP): When entering the dungeon through another player's portal positioned directly above a wall, it should no longer possible to appear directly inside a solid wall (thanks to The Hell).

• Permanent Stone Curse Fixed: If you cast Stone Curse on a monster that was already under the effect of Stone Curse, then quickly left the floor before the original curse wore off, the monster would remain Stone Cursed forever.

• Unique Monsters: Many bosses added or modified by the predecessors to this mod have been rebalanced. Some of the bosses in the Crypt had an inordinate amount of hit points or damage. Many Triple Immunities were removed (far too frustrating for Sorcerers to encounter this on Normal difficulty). Sir Gorash is no longer immune to anything (as he was in the original game), but he does Resist everything. Na-Krul retains his Fire Immunity, but his Lightning and Magic immunities have been lowered to mere resistances.
Brother Jerec has also been disabled for now. I may give him a new job in the next version. This strong, teleporting melee foe was a bit unfair for unfortunate MP Warriors attempting to recover their gear from large open rooms, where enemies tend to warp around unexpectedly. The Boogeyman (unique Illusion Weaver) that was added to the caves has also been disabled. I may replace him with something else later. Sorry if you liked him, but I found a double hit point pack of Illusion Weavers far too frustrating.

• Skeleton King: Marsh made him able to raise skeletons in multiplayer; this has now been disabled. The ability was not synchronized properly in multiplayer games, and caused weird things to happen.

• Blood Fountain/Purifying Spring: To fix a rare crash issue drinking from fountains that only seemed to occur on certain computers (or processors?), the code I wrote to restore Health/Mana faster from these fountains has been completely re-written from scratch with a new formula: This new code restores 12.5% of your current Vitality or Magic as life or mana, respectively. This intentionally refills you a bit slower than before; previously it restored you much too fast, which allowed you to be practically invincible if you drank from it while fighting.

• Loading Screens: Most computers should now load into town or dungeons up to 3x faster

• Service Menus: The item lists shown when getting services from Cain, Griswold and Adria no longer display Unique items in Blue text, but now show their proper Gold text color

• Item Outlines: On the dungeon floor, using Search or mousing over an item will now draw colored outlines that correspond to the item type: White for normal, Blue for magical, and Gold for unique. This change does not effect the map, town, or inventory. I did want to make it consistent in all of these places, but it is too advanced yet for me to accomplish.

• See Armor Class of other players: In addition to their resistances, you can now see the Armor Class of your friends when you hold the mouse over them. This value will normally be identical to the one they see in their own character screen, but some Shrines and Oils could potentially cause their actual current AC to be higher than what is displayed here.

• Defiler Speeches: The Defiler's disembodied speeches as you navigate the Hive have been disabled. Playing Diablo III made me realize how annoying and juvenile this was to me. You will now only hear the Defiler speak when you actually encounter it - just to tell you what a tasty morsel you are and how hungry it is, as it should be.

• Blocked Door: No longer highlighted for interaction by the mouse - there is nothing you can do with a blocked door, after all (thanks to The Hell)

• Level Up Meter: Diablo II style bar at the bottom of the screen shows your progress towards your next level up (thanks to The Hell)

• Footstep Sounds: Disabled ever since Hellfire's original release, the subtle sounds of your feet crossing the floor can now be heard again (thanks to The Hell)

• Adria Restores Mana: By popular demand, when you speak to Adria she will now recharge your magical energy if you were not full (thanks to The Hell)

• Warlord of Blood: Now appears only 33% of the time in multiplayer, instead of 50%. 50% felt too frequent for multiplayer where the game is typically restarted much more often than single player. Formerly Triple Immune, he is now only Resistant to Lightning, like his subordinates.

• Skullwing: This Hellfire foe looked visually identical to its stronger variant, the Bone Demon. All other monsters in the game look at least slightly different from their other variations. To make Skullwings consistent, they have been granted their own distinct color.

• Devil Kin Brute: They were missing an animation for walking straight right; best I could do to fix it was to flip its animation for walking left. It looks a lot better now than the awkward sliding they were doing.

• Monster Regeneration: Increased by Marsh, monster regeneration has now been returned to its default rate. This change made killing foes that had a regeneration ability (such as scavengers, gargoyles or grave diggers) unreasonably difficult.

• Negative Chance to Hit overflow: I missed an overflow case when fixing these problems in an earlier version; items with negative To Hit values could still become extremely high (~65535%) in Multiplayer games. This has now been fixed and should be the last of these negative value bugs on item enchantments.

• Character Selection Screen: The Bard's character portrait (formerly identical to the Rogue) no longer shows her holding a bow. This is the beginning of changes I hope to make to give the Bard and Barbarian their own unique portraits so that they're easier to tell apart on the main screen, but unfortunately giving the Barbarian his own different portrait requires editing one of the game's .dll library files, which I'm not ready to do yet.

• Oils: Many Oil effects are strengthened to make them more useful (generally doubled or tripled) - this is still a work in progress, some oils remain unchanged yet, but hopefully most Oils are not such awful junk now. Most of their text descriptions have also been improved, giving more precise information about their effects and if the effect is temporary or not (as most oil effects wear off when you start a new game).

• Fire Arrow Traps: Potential damage from fire arrow traps has been significantly reduced. They're still strong enough to kill players that are low on health, but should no longer one-shot high level characters at full health. These traps are bugged due to an issue with elemental arrow hit effects attempting to hit multiple times (this remains a bug even in Diablo v1.09). I could attempt to fix the bug, but the big damage range of elemental bows is considered by many Rogue players to be a feature rather than a problem. Adjusting the Fire Arrow Trap damage allows Rogues to retain their nice elemental bows. These traps were even further bugged in Hellfire, where they do even more damage in the Hive and Crypt than they could do in Hell. Their new damage formula is as follows:
............Normal: 2-4 Physical, 0-36 Fire Damage
............Nightmare: 5-8 Physical, 0-72 Fire Damage
............Hell: 8-12 Physical, 0-108 Fire Damage

• Some issues with an unused animation fixed: I would elaborate more, but it might spoil a little surprise I'm planning for the next version.

_____________________________

Notable issues yet to be resolved (with this project or Hellfire itself):

-Diablo may be extra hard to kill on Hell difficulty (his bugged Chance To Hit got fixed).

-A player reported a bug that prevented them from casting spells rapidly; not yet reproduced.

-(MP) Hive levels often partially out of sync; same layout but wrong monster/container positions. Best you can do for now is make sure your partner sees Pods/Chests in the same places you do when you first enter the Hive, and if they don't, start a new game and try again. If you get messed up levels several times in a row, try starting a new game and have everyone enter one of the original Diablo dungeons first, like Hell, Catacombs etc. before ever stepping foot in the Hive. It -might- help synchronize the random seeds used to populate levels with objects.

-There still seem to be rare random crashes when entering any floor of the Crypt; unfortunately I haven't yet found a way to reproduce this crash consistently, so I can't do much about it. The crash appears to originate from code that the game calls only when changing dungeon floors - code I have never modified, and I don't think Marsh ever changed - so it may be a bug native to Hellfire. If anyone finds a way to reproduce the crash consistently - especially if you have a Saved Game with a character that crashes every time you try to enter the next floor of the Crypt - please let me know, as it may be invaluable to diagnosing this problem.

[keksnase]

Thank you very much for your dedication and wonderful work

Would you mind mirroring future updates at an external file hoster?
I don't know why but my accounts get deleted regularily. This is my 10+th account I created here (same name/email) just to get notifications for this thread and being able to download your mod

[Belix]

Thank you, keksnase.

I'm afraid that the forum administrator here deals with a lot of spam bot accounts, so he may be manually or automatically deleting accounts that don't have more than a certain number of posts in a certain amount of time. I need to send him a message asking him a question anyway, so I'll mention your account is a real one and see if he can do anything to ensure it doesn't get erased again.

I am considering establishing a method by which anyone interested in updates to this patch-mod can get e-mail notices without having to subscribe to this thread. Thus they could get notified only of new versions if they wish, and wouldn't have to suffer e-mails every time there is a new post discussing it.

As for alternative download locations, I usually ask anyone else willing to host it to put it up after it has been out a little while. That way if there are any major bugs with a release that need fixing, I can update it here without needing to bother any affiliate hosts to update their copy again so quickly.

To those of you first responders trying out the new version, I did spend many hours playing with it through its development, and several sessions after this version was finalized. It SHOULD be free of defects, but if you run into any problems I don't know about it, I'm counting on you to report back quickly so I can fix it before lots of other people download it. Thanks!

[AltheaLBL]

Yeah my account gets deleted once a year or so!?

[Phoenix7786]

Hey there. My brother and me recently got this patch downloaded and functioning on our respective Windows 7 64-bit computers. However, we are having a bitch-and-a-half trying to get this game to run on multi. We keep finding OOOOOOLD guides on how to connect through IPX from like 2007. Or we find Hamachi guides that assume we have Hellfire 1.01 and not 1.02 or your tweak of 1.02. We can see the UDP lan feature in Hellfire's multi tab, but we wrestled for most of the day to no avail. I see you make references to multiplayer, so I assume it works. We were not able to get IPXWrapper to work correctly either. One guide said to just extract its contents into Hellfire the other said to make Hamachi the primary interface we were so mixed up we couldn't find our ass from our face.

Any chance you could be the shining beacon of light we're looking for?

[Belix]

I see you make references to multiplayer, so I assume it works.

Yes, most of the time I spend developing and testing this occurs in multiplayer games over Hamachi.

I'd like to help, and I could suggest a number of things you might try (actually, I should probably create a guide for setting up MP games with both Diablo and Hellfire these days), but unfortunately I don't have time to type up anything helpful right now; I'm in the process of packing for a trip to visit some family. I need to go to sleep early and drive out of state first thing tomorrow.

I will try to get back to you Wednesday at the latest if you haven't sorted it out already; sorry to have to ask you to wait. Some of my friends have gotten MP games working as easily as just installing the game, patch & IPXWrapper and start playing right away with no problems on Win 7 64-bit, so it could just be one simple thing you've overlooked like a firewall exception (or turning the firewall off, if it isn't Windows Firewall - some of them seem ruthless in blocking old games like Diablo, even if you added proper exceptions).