Diablo ii

Diablo ii
Studio	Blizzard North
Publisher	Blizzard Entertainment
Erstveröffent- lichung	June 29, 2000
platform	Windows , Mac OS
genre	Action RPG , hack and slay
Subject	Fantasy , horror , middle ages
Game mode	Single player , multiplayer
control	Keyboard , mouse
system advantages preconditions	Win : 233 MHz, 32 MB RAM, 650 MB hard disk space, DirectX-compatible graphics card, Windows 95 up to max. Windows 10; Mac : G3 processor, 64 MB physical RAM, 650 MB hard disk space, graphics card with 256 colors, Mac OS 8.1 up to max. 10.6
medium	3 CDs
language	German English
Current version	1.14d (June 2016)
Age rating	USK PEGI

Diablo II is an action role-playing game from the US game developer Blizzard Entertainment and the sequel to Diablo . The computer game was released in 2000 and the expansion Lord of Destruction was released a year later . In 2012, the successor Diablo III was released.

action

Diablo II builds on the story of its predecessor. Since Diablo was not finally destroyed in the first part, you go again in Diablo II (with a new hero) to put an end to him and his allies. With Baal and Mephisto , two other powerful demons also play an important role, who are Diablos brothers in the game. The entire action takes place in a world called sanctuary .

The game is divided into four acts, in each of which six, or in the fourth act three, tasks ( quests ) have to be solved, through which the player can earn various rewards on the one hand, but also advance the plot on the other. At the end of each act, you have to defeat a particularly powerful boss . In addition, the overall storyline is to permanently defeat the three brothers. Each of the three brothers is also represented by a soul stone that has to be destroyed in the course of the plot.

The story is told on the one hand by the NSCs , in particular Deckard Cain and the Archangel Tyrael, on the other hand also in the videos that are played between the files. The release date of Diablo II , these 3D animations were among the artistic quality and elaborate, until then a computer game were published as an ingredient. The five videos are together over 21 minutes long and are continued in Act V of Lord of Destruction by two more videos and extended by six minutes.

The first act takes place in and around the camp of the hunters in a swampy forest and meadow landscape. Here the tasks are comparatively simple and there is no direct contact with the brothers. At the end of the act it is important to destroy the demon queen Andariel, who terrorized the hunters.

The second act takes place in the vicinity of the desert town of Lut Gholein . Nearby, the magician Tal Rasha had himself locked up with Baal's soul stone. Over time, Baal has taken control of Tal Rasha here and left before the player can find the right grave. Instead, Duriel , another of the lesser evils, is here to be defeated. Once this is done, the player makes the acquaintance of the archangel Tyrael, who asks him to prevent Diablo from freeing his brothers, since all three together are plunging the world into disaster. The soul stone of Baal is no longer there thanks to a naive named Marius; he has this with him.

The third act takes you to the port of the old trading town of Kurast in the middle of a jungle. Nearby is the Temple of Travincal, in whose catacombs Mephistus' soul stone is kept. But the player is late and has to fight Mephisto. Here, however, he gets to his soul stone, which must be destroyed in the further course.

The fourth act takes place in the fortress of madness , the last bastion before Hell. Here you get the task of destroying Mephisto's soul stone and then fighting Diablo yourself. In between, the player has to free the fallen angel Izual, who then tells tellingly that he told the brothers the secret of the soul stones .

In the last of the videos, Marius reports to a visitor in a monk's robe, whom he takes to be the good Archangel Tyrael, that all soul stones have been destroyed, including Diablo's - except for the one stone that he still carries with him. When he hands it over to the supposed Tyrael, it turns out that it is really Baal. This is where the story of the expansion Lord of Destruction picks up .

Gameplay

The game principle differs in various details from the first part, in particular the operation has become much more comfortable. The character can now run throughout the game, which makes the overall flow of the game much faster and there is a box in which you can store items. Findable spells have been dropped, instead they are treated like the skills in the first part. The graphic is still 2D with a resolution of 640 × 480 pixels (800 × 600 pixels with the extension LoD). The game world is, however, many times larger and there are also many more variables to consider in the game. The second part is also available in localized language versions.

A character receives experience points by killing monsters . With a certain number of points, the player rises one level, with more and more experience points being required for a level. For the jump from level 1 to 2 only 500 points are required, for the highest character level in the game, level 99, a total of 3,520,485,254 points must be collected. The value of experience points received by a monster depends on both the level of the character and that of the monster. Only if both are largely the same does the character get the optimal number of points, but if there is a deviation of more than 10 levels, significantly fewer points are awarded, often only 5% of the maximum experience. This also applies if the monster has a higher level than the game character, in order to prevent a character from simply running along with much stronger characters and rising very quickly through the points of the monsters killed by them. The whole thing is roughly designed so that the player stays 15 levels in the first act and then about 5 levels in each act. From level 70, the ascent is also slowed down significantly.

Every time the character goes up a level, the player gets five status points, which he can distribute on strength, dexterity, vitality and energy ( mana ). He also receives a skill point, which he can distribute among various character-specific skills. These increase the effect of attacks or are themselves combat spells. However, many of the skills will only be unlocked later or depend on others. Theoretically, every learnable skill can only be trained at level 30. In some quests there are also status and skill points to be won.

On the one hand, strength depends on which weapons and armor the character can wear, and on the other hand, it increases the damage of many types of weapons. Dexterity influences the attack value, after which it is determined with which probability the character hits an opponent and (with the extension) the blocking probability of a shield. The former is capped at 95%, the latter at 75%. The probability with which an opponent hits the character also depends very little on the skill. The vitality increases the character's health and stamina points, the energy increases the mana points.

With the various properties and skills, the player must always weigh up which he wants to improve, and often even accept deterioration of less important properties for the objects. This means that each character is individual. Characters built by beginners are often able to survive major damage; a well-developed character, however, does not suffer any damage in the first place, as there is a far greater probability that he can evade the enemy or block his damage with the shield. The properties also have to match the character class, so it is of no use to a barbarian who has a low mana requirement for his attacks (usually 2 points per strike) if he has a huge mana reserve at the expense of other abilities. A simple spell that regenerates a small number of mana points per hit is much more effective here.

In Diablo II, the actual game is no longer saved, only the status of the completed quests and the waypoints already found and of course the character including their equipment. This allows the game to be played as often as you like. There are also three levels of difficulty (normal, nightmare and hell), each of which is only available after the lower one has been played through.

Character classes

While in the first part you can only choose between three character classes, in Diablo II there are five character classes: Amazon, barbarian, sorceress, paladin and necromancer. In the expansion, two more are added with the Assassin and the Druid.

• The Amazon is similar to the huntress from Diablo 1. In contrast to this one, she can not only handle a bow and arrow, but also spears, javelins or a crossbow. There are also some skills that increase the effect of the weapons, especially the ice skills for the bow, which freeze enemies hit, and the lightning skills for the javelin, which can cause enormous damage to enemy masses. That being said, the Amazon has skills that deal fire damage or poison damage and various physical attacks. In addition, the Amazon can use passive skills to evade attacks, cause critical damage and shoot arrows through enemies to injure multiple enemies in a row.

• The barbarian is primarily a close combat fighter. He hardly knows combat spells, but he has some magical abilities to significantly increase the effectiveness of his attacks and thereby strengthen his own defense. He can also carry two weapons at the same time. In addition, there are battle cries that temporarily increase the life and defense values ​​as well as the skill level. Enemies that are immune to physical damage are much harder for a barbarian to overcome; there is only one attack skill for this, which causes immense non-physical damage, but at the same time it also lowers defense.

• The sorceress is the counterpart to the barbarian. With her very powerful elemental spells she can attack not only individual enemies, but also entire areas. She uses the three elements ice, fire and lightning for this. With the Teleport skill, the sorceress is able to cover great distances faster than any other character. Another special feature is the Enchant skill, with which the sorceress can significantly increase the attacks of allied characters. She can also cast an enchantment on herself, making it possible to play a sorceress in close combat.

• The paladin is a close fighter with magical abilities and auras, which can improve his abilities and those of his helpers and fellow players many times over. He is therefore the perfect character for teamwork. For example, the fanaticism aura increases physical damage, attack speed and hit chance at the same time, so that, for example, Amazons and barbarians benefit greatly from it. Other auras cause damage to all enemies in the vicinity of the paladin or heal him and his fellow players.

• The necromancer can resurrect defeated opponents as skeletal warriors or in their original form. Here he can gather a huge crowd of helpers, which often makes playing with a necromancer confusing. A necromancer relies on corpses to summon creatures, which sometimes makes it difficult to interact with other characters. For example, enemies killed by cold damage often do not leave a corpse, and other characters have skills that utilize corpses, such as the take-back aura or the druid's carrion tendril. A necromancer, however, does not have to rely on his servants, he can also attack himself using poison and bone spells. In addition, he has the option to curse the opponents so that they, for example, suffer more damage or no longer attack the player.

For each of the five character classes there are three different skill trees with ten skills each, so a total of 30 different skills. Since certain high-level skills are more efficient than others, dividing skill points wisely is one of the most important success factors in Diablo II.

Objects

Another crucial feature is the myriad of items that the character can be equipped with. In the course of the game the character finds more and more powerful objects, some of which have been additionally improved by magical abilities. Possible such improvements are increased property values, in addition to the four basic properties, above all resistance to physical damage as well as poison, fire, lightning and cold damage, increased values ​​for stamina, life energy or mana and an increased attack value in various forms. In addition, there are increases in one, some or all skills, mostly class-specific. In addition, there are tricky improvements such as damage is reduced to mana , the attacker suffers damage , mana / life regenerates on a direct hit or attack spells that occur randomly during attacks or defenses.

The items are a weapon, a shield (optionally two weapons for the barbarian), armor, a helmet, gloves and shoes. There is also a belt to which the four quick-access potions are tied, two rings and an amulet. In addition, the character has a relatively small inventory in which he can carry found objects, but their magical abilities have no effect. There is a whole series of different objects of each type of object, each of which only represents the approximate base values ​​and exists in two degrees of thickness, normal and exceptional . Even a bad exceptional object is better than a good normal one. This means that even better objects can be found even at higher levels of difficulty, but these are comparatively less common compared to more and more "trash".

Normal magic items (marked in blue in the game) have one or two magical improvements which, like their characteristics, are derived from the name of the item. However, there are exceptions to this, especially items for characters who cast magic can increase their skills or have other useful properties. However, when the character finds an item, they can initially only recognize the type. Which improvements it has must first be identified , which is possible either via findable or obtainable magic scrolls or alternatively via the non-player character Deckard Cain.

So-called rare items (rare items, marked yellow) are much rarer and can have up to six improvements. Nothing can be derived from the name here; two completely different objects can even have the same name. The crafted items (marked orange) are very similar , which can be created in the expansion using the Horadrim cube as well as a perfect gem, a jewel and a rune.

Unique items (one-off items, marked in gold), which can only be created once in each game, have a special name and are often very powerful and numerous improvements. These also include the items required for solving the quests, although these cannot be sold at the dealers in contrast to other uniques.

The set items marked in green are also very rare. These are often of only moderate use in themselves, but have very powerful capabilities when the complete set is worn. Since patch 1.10, some of the additional abilities result from just two items. An example of this is the Heavenly Shells set , which consists of a ring, which itself only has 20 life points and accelerates the regeneration of life energy, and rather weak armor. However, if the character wears both items together, the armor has a defense value that can otherwise only be found in the middle of the game on the difficulty level "nightmare". In this case, the ring increases the attack value by 12 points per character level. In addition, the dexterity now increases by 10 points. If you add the amulet belonging to the set, which itself redirects 20% of the damage to mana, the character gains 50 mana points (from the amulet), all skill points increase by one (also), the fire resistance increases by 50% (armor) and the chance to find a magical object increases by 50% (ring). The set also includes a rather weak saber with a damage of 3–8 points and an attack value increased by 75 points. In the complete set, the damage increases by 75% and the attack speed of the already fast weapon increases by 30%, so that a large part of the minor damage is compensated for.

Some items have sockets that can be used to add these gems and, in the expansion, runes and jewels as well. These items are marked in gray in the game as they are otherwise normal items. There are a total of six different gemstones and of these five quality levels, in addition there are skulls, also in five quality levels. The type of gemstone determines the type of enhancement that is possible with it; the quality over their strength.

In the second act, the character receives the Horadrim Cube, a Rubik's Cube in which various items can be converted. Most of the time - also for the main quests of the second and third act - you have to put a whole group of items into it to get a more powerful item. For example, this cube can be used to generate powerful regeneration potions that immediately completely regenerate the values ​​for life energy and mana. To do this, either three normal regeneration potions or three healing and mana potions as well as a normal gem are placed in the cube and the conversion is triggered. At high levels, this is the only way to regenerate them with just one potion. In addition, regeneration potions work immediately, whereas normal healing and mana potions only regenerate gradually - possibly too slowly when fighting against very powerful monsters. Another example is the possibility of creating an amulet from one of the six perfect gemstones and any amulet, which increases all resistance values ​​by 16 to 20 points. Probably the most important purpose is the possibility of producing one of a higher quality from every three identical gemstones. This gives the masses of gemstones found in the game a benefit - 81 damaged stones can be turned into a perfect one; a quite achievable task, even before you get to Diablo at the end of the fourth act. Last but not least, the cube, which is the only quest item that you do not have to collect again in the higher levels of difficulty, is a small addition to the inventory.

mercenary

During the course of the game, the character can hire a mercenary as support. This is an AI -controlled character who follows the main character through the game. Mercenaries can follow you for free as a reward for completing a task, but they can also be purchased for gold. With the expansion, the mercenaries can be equipped with equipment, which only consists of a weapon, shield, armor and helmet. They also follow the character when he changes acts. In addition, they can be resuscitated after their death.

• As soon as the second quest is solved, the player gets a hunter to the side. The character resembles an Amazon and, like this one, possesses the skills "inner vision" and optionally "fire arrow" and "ice arrow". The latter type of mercenary is significantly more expensive, but also more effective. In contrast to an Amazon, the hunter can only fight with a bow, class-specific objects are also not possible.

• In the second act you can hire a son of the desert , a pole fighter who, like a paladin, has offensive or defensive auras. Which aura the mercenary uses depends on which of the three existing types of mercenary you acquire and in what degree of difficulty you do this: One differentiates between "combat", "offensive" and "defensive". As an attack, he uses a modified version of the Strike ability. The weaknesses of the AI ​​are particularly evident with this character, as the comparatively weak character interferes in every fight instead of helping at a safe distance through his auras. As the only mercenary, he has acquired different skills on Nightmare difficulty than on Normal and Hell.

• In the third act there are the iron wolves , magicians who use either three ice, two fire or two lightning spells; as the game progresses, the stronger one becomes more and more common. They use one-handed swords as weapons and can also be equipped with shields.

• In the expansion you can hire a barbarian who can also carry class-specific items. As a weapon he can use either a one-handed sword or a two-handed sword. However, his combat spells are limited to rather weak ones, so the damage is limited.

Mercenaries do not use stamina or mana. The durability of your equipment does not decrease either, which is why you do not have to fear that the durability of essential objects will drop to zero and the object will become unusable. Another special feature of the mercenary is that his life energy is slowly replenished. It should be noted, however, that unlike the player, mercenaries can also die of poison. The player always has one life point left over from poisoning.

The AI ​​of the mercenaries is flawed: the mercenaries get stuck on various obstacles and simply fight against the monster closest to them, even if this monster can be summoned again and again by another monster or is immune to the attack of the mercenary. A particularly annoying "feature" is the ability to open doors randomly. Spells that reflect the damage are completely ignored, so that mercenaries often throw themselves into ruin here (although the opponents no longer cast such spells from version 1.13).

Even a mercenary rises to higher levels over time, following a completely different formula than the main character. His status values ​​are automatically improved with each rise and his resistance to elemental attacks also improves. The mercenary can never be of a higher level than the player unless he has just been hired. Only one mercenary can be carried at a time.

Multiplayer mode

The game has a total of three multiplayer modes. A local TCP / IP game as well as the open and closed Battle.net . What all versions have in common is that up to eight players play the game with each other (or theoretically against each other). The abilities and life points of the monsters adapt to the number of players; likewise the experience points obtained when killing a monster. The players can form a group called a party , whereby they share the experience points and also cast some spells (such as the auras of the paladins or the battle cries of the barbarians) on all characters.

Battle.net open or closed

The two game variants of Battle.net run on central servers on the Internet. With the open Battle.net they are only responsible for mediating the game; Everything else remains on the participants' computers, as in the local network game.

In the closed Battle.net, the games are completely created on the central servers, where the characters are also saved. This makes cheating through manipulated game versions or character data more difficult, which is particularly necessary for the ranking lists. Various very powerful items are only available here. In the closed Battle.net there are also two combinable additional functions available, through which a ranking list of the characters is created on the one hand ( ladder mode), and on the other hand characters can be created that, once they die, cannot be revived ( hardcore -Mode). Participation in these additional functions is optional, but must be specified when creating the character. Interacting with characters created in other modes is not possible, but the ranking list is restarted at irregular intervals (since 2012 about every six months) and existing characters are dropped out of it.

Cheats and scams

A big problem with Diablo II are all kinds of scams. The cheaters exploit, among other things, that large parts of the game are on the local PC, which in multiplayer games should actually be saved on the server . The modifications made possible by this will, however, be penalized with account deletions and, in the event of multiple violations, even permanent blocking of the CD key. After such a ban, you can either be satisfied with the single player mode or, alternatively, buy the game again, which is still available in normal stores after 19 years.

Objects are often illegally duplicated through artificially induced server crashes. However, the unique item ID introduced since patch 1.10 in combination with a double scanner often prevents these items from being long-lasting. In this way, in the period from 2001 to 2002 (patches 1.08–1.09), objects were sometimes only "invented" that were never supposed to appear in the game. A prominent example of this is the Bug Belt , a belt with impossible properties that still exists and is duplicated in Battle.net.

The biggest ban to date affected at least 350,000 Diablo 2 and StarCraft accounts on November 11, 2008 , causing a lot of excitement in the scene as some believed that Blizzard had also banned many innocent people. During this biggest wave of bans of the year, Blizzard showed no mercy even for tools from official fan sites that had been tolerated for many years.

Special level

In addition to the actual plot, there are two special levels in the game that are not part of the actual plot. This is on the one hand the so-called Kuhlevel, an Easter egg . If you have played through the game in one level of difficulty, collected a special item and used it in a special way, you can get to an area teeming with halberd-swinging cows.

With the patch 1.11 the so-called Über-Tristram or Hellfire -Quest was added to the expansion . In this the player can win a very strong spell, which among other things improves all skills of a random character class by three points. To get there, you have to get three special keys from three quest opponents, through which you can open portals to one of three monsters, which are particularly powerful versions of the monsters Izual, Andariel (here Lilith ) and Duriel. From each of these three you get a body part from one of the three brothers. If you have all three together, another portal can be opened. This leads to a variant of the world of Tristram, where the three brothers have holed up as reinforced versions. Defeating these is difficult even for the strongest characters, but can also be done alone with all seven character classes.

While the cow level can be reached online and offline, the Hellfire Quest can only be played in the closed Battle.net.

Lord of Destruction (add-on)

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction
Studio	Blizzard North
Publisher	Blizzard Entertainment
Erstveröffent- lichung	June 29, 2001
platform	Windows , Mac OS
genre	Action RPG , hack and slay
Game mode	Single player , multiplayer
control	Mouse keyboard
system advantages preconditions	Pentium III 500 MHz, 800 MB free hard disk space
medium	1 CD-ROM
language	German English French
Current version	1.14d
Age rating	USK PEGI

Lord of Destruction (abbreviated LoD ; dt .: Lord of Destruction) is the official expansion for Diablo II from Blizzard Entertainment , released in 2001 .

With the expansion, the game world is expanded by a section (act) that complements the story of the game and offers new tasks. In addition, two new player characters and a variety of new items and item classes will be introduced. The player now has more space for this, as his personal treasure chest is enlarged. He can now also carry a reserve weapon with him, which he swaps for the one he is fighting with if necessary. LoD offers the option of choosing a higher image resolution (800 × 600 instead of 640 × 480 pixels ).

Character classes

In addition to the five traditional character classes from Diablo II Classic, there are two completely new ones to choose from with the Lord of Destruction expansion .

• The assassin can train in three directions. If she takes the path of the "martial arts", she learns her own hand-to-hand combat techniques, which find their spectacular expression in a skilful sequence of charge and discharge. The weapon type “claw”, reserved for the assassin, is often used, of which she can wield two at the same time ( e.g. catars and other fist daggers ). An assassin who is well versed in "shadow disciplines" has psychokinetic powers with which she can expand her own physical abilities or deceive and manipulate her enemies. Third, she can learn the art of trapping. These not magical, but mechanical aids, which she uses partly underhanded, partly openly, can be of great use to her in combat.

• The druid has the gift of shapeshifting. As a werewolf or advertising bear, the special skills of these animals are available to him. However, he gives up his human form for the duration of a transformation. He knows how to summon animals or animal spirits, which render him valuable service in the fight against evil, and to bundle the forces of nature into powerful elemental spells that attack his opponents through fire, ice and wind.

Fifth act

The plot of the game is expanded to include a fifth act. In this the player is in the barbarian city of Harrogath, which is besieged by Baal's servants. From there it is necessary to fight your way to Baal, the third of the brothers. This is hidden in the so-called World Stone Tower, where you have to fight again against an elite version of the most typical monsters of each act, then against Baal's personal guard and finally against himself. The world stone, which made Baal so powerful in the first place, is a powerful stone, the fragments of which are the soul stones. This is destroyed by Tyrael at the end of the game.

New items

With the expansion, the pool of items in the game is further increased. First of all, a third level of thickness of the objects, called elite, is new . These are even more powerful than exceptional objects. In addition to the well-known gemstones, there is now the option of improving socketed items using gems and runes.

The jewels have random magical abilities, which are transferred to an object when you decorate it with a jewel. There are also magical and rare versions of these; since patch 1.10 a total of eight unique.

The 33 runes are the most complicated part of the new possibilities. These sometimes extremely rare items can improve a socketed item similar to jewels and gemstones. These are very powerful on their own, so there are specimens that make an object indestructible, ignore the opponent's defense or freeze them. In addition, it is possible to create a so-called rune word from several runes, which means an extremely powerful improvement. However, it is precisely these rune words that are very susceptible to fraud. Although the required runes are often extremely rare, the corresponding improvements are carried out by a large number of characters.

One example of this is Enigma ( enigma ), which is composed of the runes Jah, Ith and Ber. This improves defense, increases skills and some other important traits, and allows the character to teleport instead of walking; an ability otherwise only possessed by sorceresses. The same applies to infinity (dt. Infinity ) consisting of Ber, time and actual Ber. This creates an aura that otherwise only paladins have and that massively weakens the enemy. The runes required for this are extremely rare, but many characters carry a corresponding weapon. This is due, among other things, to the fact that it is possible through scams to "produce" the runes as often as desired (see the section on Cheats and Scams).

Also new are the spells that each character can carry around in their inventory. Every spell works as soon as it is worn and does not have to be socketed or similarly pretreated. For example, there are spells that increase life energy, increase skill levels or give the character more strength.

There are three sizes of spells: small spells (occupy one space in the inventory), large spells (two spaces), and giant spells (three spaces). With three exceptions, spells are always magical (blue). These exceptions are the special giant spell Gheeds Glück , which, like every other unique, can be found in ordinary monsters, the large spell "Hellfire Torch", which can be found as a reward for the Hellfire quest, and the small spell Vernichtikus , which conquers the "Hellfire Torch ". Über-Diablo ”in the World Event beckons as a reward.

mercenary

As in the Classic version (Diablo II without expansion), the player can be accompanied by a maximum of one mercenary. One innovation of the expansion is that a fourth mercenary type ( barbarian ) is available in Act V. Mercenaries are curable in LoD, can be equipped with weapons, armor, helmets and sometimes a shield and are now retained when changing acts.

You can also revive them in the event of their death for a gold payment, the amount of which depends on the mercenary level. The upper limit is 50,000 gold pieces - since you can get up to 35,000 gold when selling a useless item, this amount is well affordable.

In earlier patches you had to buy a mercenary from the difficulty level normal at a level between 10 and 20 and play it up so that he could later reach his full strength. A few years ago, however, this was changed so that you are always offered mercenaries who are a maximum of 2-3 levels lower than the player character. The mercenary only gains experience from monsters killed by the player or himself. However, since he needs less experience than the player, he levels almost as quickly as the player.

By far the most popular mercenary comes from the second act. It is a paladin who can make life easier for the player with auras. The classification offensive , defensive and combat provides information about its aura depending on the level of difficulty. If you buy z. B. an offensive mercenary in act 2 nightmare, so he has the damage-amplifying aura power . Mercenaries from normal difficulty are slightly stronger than their colleagues from Hell . As the mercenary rises, so does his aura level.

Long term care

While the multiplayer servers for comparable games such as Sacred are often shut down after a few years, Diablo II was provided with patches at irregular intervals until 2016 .

After another patch was announced in March 2009, the release was postponed several times. Among other things, a 10 * 12 field treasure chest was planned during development, but this change was reversed. The current chest is less than half the size at 6 * 8. 1.13 was the first patch that could previously be played on a public test realm for three months. This gave Blizzard the opportunity to fix errors found by the players in the changes and to incorporate other, frequently requested changes. Patch 1.13 from March 23, 2010 fixed some bugs and brought numerous balance changes. Since then, it has also been possible to reassign status and skill points.

On October 27, 2011, over ten years after its initial release, Blizzard released patch 1.13d. The original CD version worked well under Windows 95 / 98 / Me / NT4SP5 , but the later available through Battle.net version requires at least Windows 2000 / XP . On March 11, 2016, another update came out with patch 1.14a with which Diablo 2 was made compatible with Windows 10, among other things . Patch 1.14b, released a few days later, fixed various problems caused by the previous patch, which mainly affected the frame rate and crashes on Mac clients . Patch 1.14c followed on May 17, 2016 and fixed other bugs. With the patch 1.14d that was subsequently released in June 2016, a system was implemented to better handle error and crash messages.

2015 was unofficial port for on the ARM architecture -based Pandora - handheld available, created by static recompilation and reverse engineering of the original x86 version.

Modifications

The game enjoys steady popularity and is played by many people around the world. Some adapt the game to their wishes and needs ( modify ). Since patch 1.10 was released, it is very easy to develop so-called mods . However, many of these mods are still for patch 1.10, as it is cumbersome to convert mostly finished modifications to the following patches. In the meantime, communities have formed that specialize specifically in modding . In addition, a program was created with D2SE that manages several mods.

Modifications by German developers are:

• Snej mod
• Reign of Shadow
• Sanctus Mod
• Chaos Empire
• Johnny's Mod (new animations and skills)
• ValhallaMod
• Nobbie's "1.10 LoD Classic Style MOD"

Modifications by international developers are:

• Eastern Sun
• Seven Lances
• Median 2008 / XL
• Zy-El: Trial by Fire
• Hell Unleashed

Web links

• Official manufacturer site for Diablo II
• The Arreat Summit - detailed documentation of all items and skills
• Diablo II at MobyGames (English)
• Link catalog on Diablo at curlie.org (formerly DMOZ )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Blizzard.com: Diablo II Patch Information ( Memento of the original from June 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ http://diablogamer.com/2009/01/29/diablo-2-dupe- sucht-seine-kreise /
3. ↑ http://diablo3.ingame.de/kommentare.php?newsid=84993
4. ↑ http://diablogamer.com/2008/11/11/wrath-of-the-blizzking-judgement-day-2008/
5. ↑ http://diablo3.ingame.de/spiel/kuhlevel/
6. ↑ hellfirequest
7. ↑ http://diablo3.ingame.de/kommentare.php?newsid=96405
8. ↑ Diablo 2: Blizzard releases new patch 1.13d for the ARPG oldie on PC Games (October 29, 2011)
9. ↑ Blizzard Entertainment - Diablo II . Web.archive.org. January 24, 2002. Archived from the original on September 8, 2013. Retrieved on September 15, 2013.
10. ↑ Diablo II Minimum System Requirements - Battle.net Support . Us.battle.net. September 4, 2013. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
11. ↑ Diablo II Running on Open Pandora! ( Memento of the original from December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on PandoraLive (November 22, 2015)  
12. ↑ notaz: Diablo II . openpandora.org. November 22, 2015. Retrieved December 4, 2015: “ This is statically recompiled Windows executable, that was recompiled to ARM and bundled with ARM version of wine. "