02-28-2003, 07:01 AM
I got D1 the first day it was available from retail outlets in the US, and it was definitely January '97 (as far as I recall somewhere between Jan 5-7), having played a demo from some computer gaming magazine in Nov or Dec of '96, so those reports that it was available Dec '96 are just wrong. (I wish I'd kept that demo disk -- at one time Gyrefalcon on the old DSF put up a link to download the original D1 demo, and I didn't get that either. It only included the warrior and the first two lvls of the church, and my main memory of it is that items lost durability at a horrendeous rate.) Bliz missed the Christmas '96 deadline, which I personally think says something positive about their standards, rather than their attempt to get two shots at the game of the year (and, in the normal course of events, I'm not someone who can be accused of a lack of cynicism).