05-04-2004, 09:44 AM
In my opinion, neither Classic Diablo II (as of version 1.06) nor the "Lord of Destruction" expansion (as of version 1.09/1.10) were perfect. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Like you've said already, there's lots more of the eye-candy "uber stuff" in the expansion which watered down the original game. But on the other hand, the expansion brought so much new, exciting features, that I would say that it's clearly the better package. Just the finish and balancing of "LoD" wasn't that great, but I assume that this is due to the fact that WarCraft III and "World of WarCraft" suddenly became priority. Last but not least, Diablo II and its expansion are still the most entertaining PC games (along with the old Lucas Arts classics) which I have ever played, and I think that no other game of the past years and no other game of today, incl. WOW, can offer that fun. Here's waiting for a future game that can compete with ol' Diablo II :)
"Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays." -- Friedrich von Schiller