OH GNOZ - Expansion bashing

[Bob the Beholder]

Well, I don't much like the expansion to Diablo II. I think it's alright, but not that great. What it was trying to do, in my opinion, was take a really great game, and instead of expanding on the great game, it instead tried to make a whole new great game out of a few basics of the original. Please note that in my opinion it failed; like I said, it's alright, but not great.

Of course, with all of this, I've been playing this "alright" game since the day after it came out. It's "alright" in comparison to the rest of the series, which was "great", so it's still really good.

Anyway, a while back I was reading Sirian's Webpage, (of which I've been a huge fan for a very long time) and I started reading through all the old reports, just remembering the good old stuff. I came across Hotfoot II, in the expansion, where Sirian went over his problems with the expansion pack, and I agreed.

So I uninstalled the expansion pack. I found a copy of patch 1.06, and I loaded it up. Awesome. It took a few minutes to get past the sudden decrease in the resolution, and the necessity of repairing things manually, but overall it's just as awesome as I remember it. Funtimes all around.

Any of the rest of you ever feel like doing this? Just up and quit this whole "lots of uniques with elites and uber-annoying sudden changes from the extremes of easy and hard and a whole lot of not being able to find good items without lots of pointless mfing" thing? We should all start a revolution. Really, it'll be fun. We'll go overboard with the decapitation, and then find a new, crazier emperor, like the French did that one time.

As to the rest of this: What rest of this? I didn't specify anything else!

So, I need to be up early tomorrow. Sleepy times.

[nobbie]

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 :)

[Minionman]

Later in the game the item issues may be a problem, but the expansion still lets people do more with the characters than regular D2. The extra act helps people get their level 30 skills easier, the two new classes are good to try out, and mercenaries help some characters, like timered spell sorceresses, work better. I think the character building is more important, so I like expansion better. Regular diablo has a different playing style that other people may like better.

[mageofthesands]

I couldn't go on with such a small cache.

[Wyrm]

I probably would have kicked the expansion in the bucket a long time ago, but I've invested too much time into my realm characters to stop playing. Granted, a lot of them sit around just waiting for me to do maintenance on them, but it's still reasurring knowing that I can go onto an account and still see some of the first characters I ever made on the realms back when the game came out, even if they are just mules at this point.

I actually remember planning to not get the expansion at all after I read Sirian's report on it, and remember being just as annoyed as he is/was about the whole hostility system.

[Bob the Beholder]

Allow me to elaborate a bit: I play only single player. I don't twink. I dislike power levelling, except in extreme circumstances. I like difficult monsters, not a stilted balance between ridiculously weak and so strong it's impossible to win (without excessing power-levelling or mfing, at least). Oh, yes, something I forgot to mention is that I dislike the higher level requirements and restrictions, because I don't play for high levels anyway. I like to start finding equipment I might be able to use for a while before the end of my characters' careers.

All that taken into account, vanilla DII, back in the 1.06 days, as well as Diablo 1, are awesome. Lord of Destruction: Not so awesome.

I imagine on the realms, where you can trade and party up, it's not so much of a problem, and some people like it better. I tried that once. Realms = laggy fortress of morons (and the occasional really cool person, of course; can't make blanket statements like that) with an excess of spammers, cheaters, grief-gamers, and your general unscrupulous evil-doer. (That's not all people, of course; just way too many of them)

So, I play in single player where I have more control over my game. And I highly suggest the way I detailed in the start of this thread as a way to control your environment even more.

In other news, I've now fully cleared the first half of Act I, with the character I've always wanted to try, but never realistically could due to the expansion: A Hot Babe (fire skills only sorceress).

[Wyrm]

In other news, I've now fully cleared the first half of Act I, with the character I've always wanted to try, but never realistically could due to the expansion:  A Hot Babe (fire skills only sorceress).

Gonna try a Firebolt only sorc? I've always meant to try one of those, but never did.

I'm with you on the general opinion of realms, I think other than the people I actually knew while playing (either from real life or message boards, etc) I met a grand total of 5 people on the realms since the game came out that weren't a bnet stereotype compared to the hundreds who were. But oh well.

[Bob the Beholder]

Gonna try a Firebolt only sorc?  I've always meant to try one of those, but never did.

I'm with you on the general opinion of realms, I think other than the people I actually knew while playing (either from real life or message boards, etc) I met a grand total of 5 people on the realms since the game came out that weren't a bnet stereotype compared to the hundreds who were.  But oh well.

Firebolt? Nooooo... That's a bit too insane at this point; I've yet to actually get a sorceress past normal difficulty, as pathetic as it sounds, so I'm not very well practiced. Yeah, I've played the game for years, but I don't often stick with one character long enough for that.

As of now, I'm going for Meteor and Blaze. Maybe a bit of firewall, or hydra added in.

Firebolt is an easily versatile skill, though; easy to target and use, with decent strategic possibilites. I've learned that from having to blast my way through act one with a level one firebolt. Maybe I'll try it sometime, though maybe not hardcore.

[NiteFox]

A lot of stuff about being a single player.

Then try nobbie's CS mod. With a few printed pages off the Arreat Summit and a Cube, you can make gear for your character.

[Bob the Beholder]

I tried it for a while. While Nobbie's mod is very good, and solves many problems (and even adds some good stuff), it doesn't fix all of the things I have problems with in the expansion. It makes them much easier to deal with, though, so that's the only version of the expansion I've been playing for a while.

[Fragbait]

Heya there,

Sorry for hijacking your thread, but I didn't feel like starting a new one on a topic that's kinda similar.
I want to have a blast throwing out frozen orbs again, and doing it just really fast... That means: without skill delay!
What was the last patch were this was possible (1.06?), and where can I get it from?
The Blizzard old patches page seems to be quite a dead link. Can anyone provide useful information?
Thanks a lot.

Greetings, Fragbait

[lfd]

Blizzard's patches are here:

ftp://ftp.blizzard.com/pub/diablo2/patches/PC/

(or 'Mac' for the Mac patches, and 'diablo2exp' for expansion-only patches).

The spell timer came in with the expansion, so any of the patches up to and including 1.06b will be spell-timer-free. I played a bit in 1.05 instead of 1.06, although I can't remember what exactly was changed in 1.06 that made me pick 1.05 over it.

[Fragbait]

naughty turrets