The friggin early days.....

[Albion Child]

Hey, this question is for all those people who played Diablo 2 in its earliest days.

I got D2C about 2 months or so before LoD came out, and played alot of single player then. Ive read Boltys articles about Beta testing and stuff, but what Im curious about is the early days of battle.net.

When did the soj economy develope? What were the "godly" items back before everybody started using the duped rares? Who made the first level 99? Lvl 99 HC? Who nows anything else that relates to these kind of questions?

:D :)

[Mithrandir]

When did the soj economy develope?

Pretty much right when Jarulf discovered that there was an order to Uniques dropping. Literally a week after it was first announced, I remembered reading about pairs (and sometimes even entire teams) getting together: one would just spend all of his time gambling, the others would farm cash for him... on a bad day they would be bringing in 20 SoJs.

What were the "godly" items back before everybody started using the duped rares?

The "godly" items? Silks of the Victor was huge for the first couple months, I suppose due to it having +1 Skills... a mod which was, in general, over rated until people started becoming more attuned to the game mechanics.

Rare Executioner Swords, Gothic Bows, and Ornate Armor stick out in my mind as objects commonly sought after it trade channels - mainly because Amazons and Barbs (MS and WW, respectively) were the two main "uber" classes.

Frostburns, Goldwrap (for the MF), Treads of Cthon, Tarnhelm, Goldwrap, and Wormskull were all big very very early but, since they all had relatively common base items, quickly became much to common to be worth much.

I still remember people going gaga in a trading channel over a 3PD Shield the very first week D2 was out... +54% to all resists?!? Holy Jeebus! *laugh* :)

Who made the first level 99? Lvl 99 HC?

Gosh, it's bee a while. Although the names escape me at the moment, basically a group of people would have 7 Sors clear out the entire Arcane Sanctuary, get Diablo down to a sliver, put up a TP, and then have the Barb they were trying to get to 99 get the final hit (thus getting all the xp). Seems pretty inefficient, no? Well, they had enough people doing this that the Barb could litterally kill, jump to next game, kill, jump, kill, jump, kill, etc.

One group of people came up with the original idea, but then another group copied and quickly caught up. Both groups were racing to see who could get the first 50 - by the end, the Barbs were being played 24/7 (not by the same individuals, of course... they had to sleep some time :) ) and they dinged 99 less than an hour from each other.

As to HC...? My memory is foggy on this one, but I don't believe a HC 99 was reached until LoD and the "technique" of farming Bloody Foothills had been mastered.


Edit: Missed a tag.

[FenrisWulf]

GER_Barb and RUSS_Barb, if I remember correctly. With a Sorceress on Asia (I think) following closely behind. I'm pretty sure GER_Barb won it out in the end.

[Brista]

The ladder race was very interesting. A Russian team soared to the top of the Ladder. A German team decided to give them a run for their money

Remember that in those days there was only one monster in the game that gave exp to very high level characters - 99 was considered impossible

The story is here
http://www.diabloii.net/features/ladder-gerbarb.shtml

[Walkiry]

 

>Pretty much right when Jarulf discovered that there was an order to
>Uniques dropping. Literally a week after it was first announced, I
>remembered reading about pairs (and sometimes even entire teams) getting
>together: one would just spend all of his time gambling, the others would
>farm cash for him... on a bad day they would be bringing in 20 SoJs.

Ah yes. Back then SoJs went for 20$ easy in Ebay (that's right, and people payed for that!), but the item was too rare to base an economy on that. After all, few people ever carried Manald and Nagelring at the same time, and if they found a SoJ they would not find a second one.

The day Jarulf published his findings, the price of the SoJ sank to 1$ and downwards.

Before that perfect skulls were a common trading item. With the P.skulls + rare = new rare recipe around.

Uberitems were rares. A rare weapon with both King's and Merciless would add up to 198% enhanced damage, and would be a very valuable item. Dual leech rings were also considered godly if they had good other mods (leech being of fairly low level). Mana leech rings in general were valuable.

99% defense ornate plates were a ticket to fame. Meanwhile people around here already started showing how much better Twitchtroe could be. I felt like a pioneer in the ESP-1 channel wearing it while all amazons were in full armour galore.

Uniques, a few were good. Spectral shard was a must for many sorceresses, Culwen's point as well for others. Silks yes, they could go for a lot (for 2 SoJs before Jarulf's discovery). Frosties as well, but were fairly common.

Due to typos in the mpq files, lances could not drop in the first release and patch of the game. When that was fixed (1.02 or 1.03? Foggy memory here) you could trade a plain lance for imbueing (during the first few days) for a first born son of a king if you wanted.

>Gosh, it's bee a while. Although the names escape me at the moment,
>basically a group of people would have 7 Sors clear out the entire Arcane
>Sanctuary, get Diablo down to a sliver, put up a TP, and then have the
>Barb they were trying to get to 99 get the final hit (thus getting all the
>xp). Seems pretty inefficient, no? Well, they had enough people doing this
>that the Barb could litterally kill, jump to next game, kill, jump, kill,
>jump, kill, etc.

Ah, yes, good ol' Ger_Bar vs Russ_Bar. The sorcie team in Asia couldn't catch up with them. You got a lot of people whinning about how these guys didn't have a life, they were ruining the ladder, yip yip yip. I though it was pretty cool how they managed to round up such a big team to do so 24/7, clear the Chaos Sanctuary (;) ) and almost kill Diablo, look for Exp shrine, keep the game ready. Bam! Exp boost, next!

[the Langolier]

>When did the soj economy develope? What were the "godly" items back before everybody started using the duped rares?

Can we stop talking about this rediculous economy that doesn't even exist anymore. Personally, I don't consider anyone who used it legit to begin with.

[ManaCraft]

Frostburns, Goldwrap (for the MF), Treads of Cthon, Tarnhelm, Goldwrap, and Wormskull were all big very very early but, since they all had relatively common base items, quickly became much to common to be worth much.

Hehe, I still remember the day I found my first unique item of value - a wormskull dropped by Duriel. About four other people were there, but I managed to grab it with telekinesis. :P

Another item worth mentioning would be Iceblink, though its true usefulness was not discovered until relatively late during the classic era. I still remember giving away an iceblink during those early days of D2 when no one had yet grasped its true potential. Silly me. :D


ManaCraft

[TaMeOlta]

Yup ! :D I remember that ....... "When I was your age , we used to fight w/ crude axes wearing nothing but a cracked sash , and foul leather armor .... "

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

I still recall the very day that the patch changed the Iceblink. It was my paladin's ticket to immortality, and then they punched it...

I was upset.

Rune Swords, Ornate Plates, War Belts, dual leech rings, a single point of cold damage being all you needed, ias gloves... all RARE. Ahhh...those were the good old days.

[Mikedok]

Some other items that people wanted in the early days were: good rare belts with cold damage, rare rings and ammys with the MF suffix and prefix, +2 skills ammys (only hell diablo could drop them), rare ammys with 60-70 in one resist and 30 in all others.

I think all the wanted uniques are listed except the eye ammy.

[Sickywicky]

Silks of the victor and a 3 socketed pavise with 3 perfect diamonds used to be worth quite something very very early on. Iceblink used to be a leet item. ;)

[TaiDaishar]

Bringing up old memories eh?

I remember the days... I almost ecxluscivley(sp?) played paladins in HC, not ever EVER a hammerdin, I always hated the cookie cutters, in short, I remember before they changed IceBlink I was so pissed off at those god damn barbs with WW and lances freezing everything down and being pretty much invincible... made my guso chargadin look like a damn wimp (although I could raise the dead by running and smiting them with my BIG maul :D, charge bug, I hated it so much).

In HC the SoJ economy never really sank in, even though you'll probably see people asking for SoJ's in HC channels sometimes the usual requests are a lot more general (i.e unid'ed wf for barb gear) so I don't really remember when it started.

I miss those good old days...

[Occhidiangela]

Rare Gothic Bows

(And all of those rushed to Act I Hell Level 36 Imbue mules! :) )

Eye of Elitch, to go with Frozen Arrow, with long freeze durations.

Twitch Throe and Goblin Toe for Javazons. Or, Rattlecage and Goblin Toe, back when CB was for 50% of damage..

Frost Burns for any mana hungry build

Rare Lances for Whirly Barbs

SoJ was a big deal until the formula became important

Three PD Tower Shields

Rare Ornate Amor

Spectral Shard for Hammerdins and Tweaker Sorceresses

Wall of the Eyeless for the Mana

Nightsmoke

Culwen's Point for the +skills for sorceresses who wanted that three PD shield as well

Rares amulets that had mana and life leach, rare rings with mana and life leach.

Rare Plus Skills GOthic Bows . . .

[the Langolier]

Do you remember those unique monsters that would steal potoins off of your belt? That was interesting

[TaiDaishar]

Do you remember those unique monsters that would steal potoins off of your belt?  That was interesting

It was only de seis, the Chaos Sanctuary seal boss (mage) which did that, it was called "thief" or something like that and it was removed because it was buggy, too bad :(

[Walkiry]

Yes, good ol' Lord de Seis and his pot thieving abilities. If you used a skill that would make your belt turn red (charge, leap attack, concentration and so on) and he hit you with one of his bolts, the game would immediately crash. It did make interesting fights with amazons, and sorcies though ^_^

[Chaerophon]

Well, back in those days, the sorc was actually pretty fun, especially the fire skills :) IMO, she was the most balanced character. Generally, the "strongest" sorcs very early used blizzard and static, but soon people came to realize the value of orb and started using it instead. Then, they figured out the trick to stacking fast cast and the "tweaker" was born. Very little Vit, and absolutely pumped Nrg to support orb with maxed warmth. Eyeless, shard (at 20%), and either one or two fast cast ring(s) (?), (hehe, I can't even remember anymore) to reach max cast speed. Orb, static, static, static, static, static, static, orb to finish. Next. The majority of the B.Net population thought that it was the only way to play a sorc, but they didn't know the fun that they were missing :) Meteor was SOOOO fun back then without the timer (if laggy). Lightning skills, on the other hand, were very nearly useless, except for the godliest skill in the game (excepting WW, I suppose): static.

I remember my first sorc fondly: maxed fireball, 10 blaze, 5 warmth, and 5 mastery :)

First time I saw Heavenly Garb, my jaw hit the floor :) Then I saw Goldskin! :o (But it didn't look nearly as pretty :) )

[Jedi Knight]

The Good Ol' Days :) When good rares were often a lot better than most uniques. Sigon's Guard was one
of the best shields with it's +1 to all skills and 74% block (for pally). When sets and uniques were easily
gambled. Back then, the game played a little more like D1 - the goal was to find THE uber blue (or yellow)
item for your chatacter. At least there was originality, now people all have the same high-end uniques.

I remember the tiny stash and the rarity of gems, no repair-all button, uber WW and CE, minion's life
scaling with people in the game, and almost useless mercs, that you couldn't equip, give potions or change acts. It changed so much ! :P

[the Langolier]

I don't think the sorceress has ever been balanced in terms of raw power. Anything not immune to cold doesn't stand a chance with the orb. Other than that, meteor or hydra cover quite nicely, especially when neither had casting delays. No normal monster can be immune to both the fire/cold trees (I am pretty sure normal monsters in classic D2 in hell mode didn't have immunities at all), and very few unique monsters will spawn immune to both of them. And of course, when those immune to physical enemies bother some melee builds, the sorceress has her pick (I would personally CB them to death to spite).

[Jedi Knight]

No normal monster can be immune to both the fire/cold trees (I am pretty sure normal monsters in classic D2 in hell mode didn't have immunities at all), and very few unique monsters will spawn immune to both of them.

Immunities didn't exist at all before 1.08, which gave the sorceress a little more choice for her spells. In LoD you have to spend points everywhere just because of some immune monsters - it removes all originality from different builds, they're all almost the same now. And I HATE physical immunes! Back then there
were only stone skin, and the 50% global resist didn't exist either.