Welcome to Diablo 2 & You, my review and guide to better playing of Diablo 2 and it's Expansion (Lord of Destruction).
Now you may be wondering why in the world would I be interesting in a title that was released 8 years ago in this age of War-crafted worlds, computer destroying crysis', and more duty than one could call for? Well, I assume you wouldn't be here if you weren't curious, so why don't you stop asking questions and just bear with me, Ok? In fact, i'll let you grab a drink and your reading spectacles, I'll wait.
Good choice in beverage, my fave too.
Diablo 2 was released in 2000 during my beginning years of teenage youth. I remember it being brought up over a round of dodgeball during summer gym. I was curious what the buzz was about and investigated to find a game that would eventually suck away 4 year of my life.
The game centers around you playing a new, plucky hero of the 'verse. The previous hero, driven mad by the soul stone so rightfully jabbed into his skull (I guess he never heard of a pocket) is now beginning his fall into becoming Diablo, Lord of Terror:
Hugs?
You choose who to control; the daunting barbarian, the brooding necromancer, the buxom amazon, the zealous paladin, or the "my shirt is defying the laws of physics" sorceress.
Seriously, I don't get how they stay in there...
The expansion pack later added the "I'm not emo, but I'll slash you with my wrists" Assassin and the *pedo-bear pun here* Druid. All 7 classes have their distinct leveling trees. These trees consisted of 3 tabs of different options of skills, such as the paladins combat, offensive, and defensive, and each having a heirarchy to reach more and more powerful skills.
The objective of the game is simple. Walk outside, you see enemy, you click on enemy until it dies. Once dead, you receive experience and loot which may either be gold or goodies, or both. Pick said items up,... rinse and repeat as necessary. The game progresses through 4 acts (5 with the Expansion), each with it's own quests sets that tie into the one and only storyline and ones that don't usually resulting in some sort of reward such as more skill points or even bonuses to elemental resistances. Completely the game is as easy as killing all the final bosses in each level and bam... complete.
So with that simple set-up, why in the world is this game such a hit? The reason being in that it is all polished to a mirror finish. The loot system alone features rare, unique, set, and crafted items, each with their own modifiers. The game features rings, amulets, gems, jewels, runes, and charms all boosts to various stats, with rings, amulets, jewels, and charms all having rare and unique (sometime crafted) options, as well. If collecting large piles of amazing weapons and dazzling armor, then this is certainly a game to fill those needs.
You better Two Hand my Flaming Balrog Blade,...
The maximum level in the game 99. To reach that, you not only have to master the game once, but three times in progressively difficult game settings. While you get the idea of the game in normal, the nightmare and hell difficulties truly bring out the big guns. The enemies hit harder, more attention needs to be paid to skill and items, but the rewards are even greater. Hell difficulty is extremely challenging with your resistances dropping to -100 and the enemies getting some seriously agonizing abilities,... but that is then when you find the most amazing stuff. After completing the hardest difficulty, you can continue playing the game to get more and more stuff while still being fairly challenged.
To better aid in getting around, the game features two quick travel systems. The first is the "Town Portal", or TP for short. The town portal allows you to cast a 2 way portal (now you're thinking!) to quickly return to town to sell less than desirable spoils or pack-rat away that item you may use down the road in your stash. Once you have re-entered the town portal, however, is disappears and cannot be used again as it is a commodity form of travel. The other form of quick travel is the waypoint system. Described as some ancient travel magic or w/e boils down to a series of checkpoints that, once activated, allows you to return to a certain level or field quickly without the use a town portal. These are immensely useful in saving time since town portals only work in the field.
So, now you are seasoned, have kicked some Diablo tail, have some magical loots, but find yourself a litte...
This is a required LOLCat photo per mandate 34.583B of Internet Code of Conduct
Yah, but thanks to a modern marvel called a modem, players can go online and ... do it all over again with friends!... What? No seriously, it's fun, don't doubt me. With online capabilities, you can begin using others' time to your advantage. You can begin in trading items, for one. Found that amazing long bow of awesome on your necromancer and wishing it was a wand of unleashed doom? Find an amazon in your same situation. But say that Amazon decides to jerk you around, want more for the trade, or is just lying to you and really be useless? Kill her!
Player vs. player adds quite a bit of depth after one is finished leveling their character. Tired of getting new loot or slogging through monster? Slog through your friends, instead! Melee duels, sorceress destruction, or Necromancer lag fests bring out the best in everyone. Player vs player kept Diablo 2 lively for me for many more years than I should admit to playing.
The final point in how this kept mine and many others' attention for so long is the fact, like cheese or wine, Blizzard games get better with age. With subsequent patches leading up to the release of v1.10, Blizzard continued in supporting a game that didn't have a subscription fee. v1.10 was vastly considered an expansion pack at no additional cost. The introduction of new items, new runewords, new sets and abilities brought the loot whores back in full force. Every character received a revamp to their skill trees bringing the strategists back in droves. Finally, the addition of synergies made many character skill sets, before under powered, back into the lime light. With v1.10, one could come up with their own creative cocktail blend of classes that were more viable than the straight cookie cutter builds of yesterday. Now flaming sword wielding sorceress', singing barbarians, and poison wielding necromancers were not uncommon. The days of having the best gear making the best player could be turned around with clever use of skills ( I remember making many Paladin's and Barbarian decked out in Gear that could take years to acquire be defeating by a Barbarian I devised that use gear at a fraction of the investment and had clever tricks... oh, and 10,000Hp didn't hurt, either!)
If you started Diablo 2 today, there livelihood of the servers have shrunk to meager proportions. World of Warcraft and the lure of other new hack n slash titles such as Titan Quest have pulled the players away. Others just found new interests in other games. With the announcement of Diablo 3, though, expect many to dust off their discs and dig back in. I would suggest anyone to travel to the Blizzard site and pick up a copy off their new digital store.
There are some things that Diablo 2 could be docked for... the loot grinding, a questionable level design during some acts (three comes to mind...) and the time spend waiting for v1.10 was horrendous, but looking back, I can safely say I had days where I spent hours just trading and turning off the computer happy... days of building new characters or typing OWNED at the top of my ... erm, keyboard? Recently, my friends delved back in and the multiplayer is still just as fun.
Should a game deserve a 10/10? That's best left to another thread, but even looking back so many years, I can firmly say this game was brilliance in a box.
Diablo 2: 10/10
Guide add-on: How to really play Diablo 2!
Recommended accessories:
Mice (2 or more)
-Clicking takes a great tole on your small, directionally orienting friend. Diablo 2 has been known to kill many mice and having a spare on hand is a good idea.
-Mice can also be broken when slammed or thrown due to the miss-click that lead you to get the arrows instead of the rare Ohm Rune.
Mario Teaches Typing
-You're going to have be able to type "Owned" and other such catch phrases at record speed to prevent death during PVP.
Alcohol
-... Do you need to ask why? Nothing like 4 friends all running boss runs completely plastered for loot. May cause need for more Mice (see previous reasoning).
A CRT from 1998
-The games resolutions are quite... old. But hey, nothing like nostalgia, right? Find them at your local garage sale today!
Time Machine
-I guarantee you are going to want one after you beat Diablo 2 and watch some content from Diablo 3.
Ways to play:
Don't be afraid to choose a cookie cutter, "over powered" class as your first character. These characters are going to be your bread in butter in leveling into Hell Difficulty to start finding loot that is amazing. Such classes are:
-Hammerdin
aladin that uses blessed hammers and the aura Concentration with synergies to both
-Meteor Sorc: Sorceress focusing in Meteor and synergies. Teleport is a must
-Summoner: Necromancer focus in... cmon, seriously.
-Javazon: Lightning fury based amazon.
Sadly, Barbarians, Druids, and Assassins do not make the best starting characters.
and finally... do get a friend to play with your or make some online. The social aspect makes it much better and since Blizzard failed to ever implement a system to swap items from one of your characters to another online (I hope this is Diablo 3), you will need a friend to transfer items from one character to another.
I hope you all enjoy Diablo 2 as much as I did. Happy Clicking, all!
Shameless Plug:
The Commandomancer [http://forums.diii.net/showthread.php?t=348494]
The Commandomancer, my build of choice. Nothing like a Werebear Shapeshifting necromancer with 3 or more Paladin auras and barbarian battle cries that is able to teleport all while having a massive army of death! The guide was revised by a forumite after I stopped playing, my name is the notes.
Now you may be wondering why in the world would I be interesting in a title that was released 8 years ago in this age of War-crafted worlds, computer destroying crysis', and more duty than one could call for? Well, I assume you wouldn't be here if you weren't curious, so why don't you stop asking questions and just bear with me, Ok? In fact, i'll let you grab a drink and your reading spectacles, I'll wait.
Good choice in beverage, my fave too.
Diablo 2 was released in 2000 during my beginning years of teenage youth. I remember it being brought up over a round of dodgeball during summer gym. I was curious what the buzz was about and investigated to find a game that would eventually suck away 4 year of my life.
The game centers around you playing a new, plucky hero of the 'verse. The previous hero, driven mad by the soul stone so rightfully jabbed into his skull (I guess he never heard of a pocket) is now beginning his fall into becoming Diablo, Lord of Terror:
Hugs?
You choose who to control; the daunting barbarian, the brooding necromancer, the buxom amazon, the zealous paladin, or the "my shirt is defying the laws of physics" sorceress.
Seriously, I don't get how they stay in there...
The expansion pack later added the "I'm not emo, but I'll slash you with my wrists" Assassin and the *pedo-bear pun here* Druid. All 7 classes have their distinct leveling trees. These trees consisted of 3 tabs of different options of skills, such as the paladins combat, offensive, and defensive, and each having a heirarchy to reach more and more powerful skills.
The objective of the game is simple. Walk outside, you see enemy, you click on enemy until it dies. Once dead, you receive experience and loot which may either be gold or goodies, or both. Pick said items up,... rinse and repeat as necessary. The game progresses through 4 acts (5 with the Expansion), each with it's own quests sets that tie into the one and only storyline and ones that don't usually resulting in some sort of reward such as more skill points or even bonuses to elemental resistances. Completely the game is as easy as killing all the final bosses in each level and bam... complete.
So with that simple set-up, why in the world is this game such a hit? The reason being in that it is all polished to a mirror finish. The loot system alone features rare, unique, set, and crafted items, each with their own modifiers. The game features rings, amulets, gems, jewels, runes, and charms all boosts to various stats, with rings, amulets, jewels, and charms all having rare and unique (sometime crafted) options, as well. If collecting large piles of amazing weapons and dazzling armor, then this is certainly a game to fill those needs.
You better Two Hand my Flaming Balrog Blade,...
The maximum level in the game 99. To reach that, you not only have to master the game once, but three times in progressively difficult game settings. While you get the idea of the game in normal, the nightmare and hell difficulties truly bring out the big guns. The enemies hit harder, more attention needs to be paid to skill and items, but the rewards are even greater. Hell difficulty is extremely challenging with your resistances dropping to -100 and the enemies getting some seriously agonizing abilities,... but that is then when you find the most amazing stuff. After completing the hardest difficulty, you can continue playing the game to get more and more stuff while still being fairly challenged.
To better aid in getting around, the game features two quick travel systems. The first is the "Town Portal", or TP for short. The town portal allows you to cast a 2 way portal (now you're thinking!) to quickly return to town to sell less than desirable spoils or pack-rat away that item you may use down the road in your stash. Once you have re-entered the town portal, however, is disappears and cannot be used again as it is a commodity form of travel. The other form of quick travel is the waypoint system. Described as some ancient travel magic or w/e boils down to a series of checkpoints that, once activated, allows you to return to a certain level or field quickly without the use a town portal. These are immensely useful in saving time since town portals only work in the field.
So, now you are seasoned, have kicked some Diablo tail, have some magical loots, but find yourself a litte...
This is a required LOLCat photo per mandate 34.583B of Internet Code of Conduct
Yah, but thanks to a modern marvel called a modem, players can go online and ... do it all over again with friends!... What? No seriously, it's fun, don't doubt me. With online capabilities, you can begin using others' time to your advantage. You can begin in trading items, for one. Found that amazing long bow of awesome on your necromancer and wishing it was a wand of unleashed doom? Find an amazon in your same situation. But say that Amazon decides to jerk you around, want more for the trade, or is just lying to you and really be useless? Kill her!
Player vs. player adds quite a bit of depth after one is finished leveling their character. Tired of getting new loot or slogging through monster? Slog through your friends, instead! Melee duels, sorceress destruction, or Necromancer lag fests bring out the best in everyone. Player vs player kept Diablo 2 lively for me for many more years than I should admit to playing.
The final point in how this kept mine and many others' attention for so long is the fact, like cheese or wine, Blizzard games get better with age. With subsequent patches leading up to the release of v1.10, Blizzard continued in supporting a game that didn't have a subscription fee. v1.10 was vastly considered an expansion pack at no additional cost. The introduction of new items, new runewords, new sets and abilities brought the loot whores back in full force. Every character received a revamp to their skill trees bringing the strategists back in droves. Finally, the addition of synergies made many character skill sets, before under powered, back into the lime light. With v1.10, one could come up with their own creative cocktail blend of classes that were more viable than the straight cookie cutter builds of yesterday. Now flaming sword wielding sorceress', singing barbarians, and poison wielding necromancers were not uncommon. The days of having the best gear making the best player could be turned around with clever use of skills ( I remember making many Paladin's and Barbarian decked out in Gear that could take years to acquire be defeating by a Barbarian I devised that use gear at a fraction of the investment and had clever tricks... oh, and 10,000Hp didn't hurt, either!)
If you started Diablo 2 today, there livelihood of the servers have shrunk to meager proportions. World of Warcraft and the lure of other new hack n slash titles such as Titan Quest have pulled the players away. Others just found new interests in other games. With the announcement of Diablo 3, though, expect many to dust off their discs and dig back in. I would suggest anyone to travel to the Blizzard site and pick up a copy off their new digital store.
There are some things that Diablo 2 could be docked for... the loot grinding, a questionable level design during some acts (three comes to mind...) and the time spend waiting for v1.10 was horrendous, but looking back, I can safely say I had days where I spent hours just trading and turning off the computer happy... days of building new characters or typing OWNED at the top of my ... erm, keyboard? Recently, my friends delved back in and the multiplayer is still just as fun.
Should a game deserve a 10/10? That's best left to another thread, but even looking back so many years, I can firmly say this game was brilliance in a box.
Diablo 2: 10/10
Guide add-on: How to really play Diablo 2!
Recommended accessories:
Mice (2 or more)
-Clicking takes a great tole on your small, directionally orienting friend. Diablo 2 has been known to kill many mice and having a spare on hand is a good idea.
-Mice can also be broken when slammed or thrown due to the miss-click that lead you to get the arrows instead of the rare Ohm Rune.
Mario Teaches Typing
-You're going to have be able to type "Owned" and other such catch phrases at record speed to prevent death during PVP.
Alcohol
-... Do you need to ask why? Nothing like 4 friends all running boss runs completely plastered for loot. May cause need for more Mice (see previous reasoning).
A CRT from 1998
-The games resolutions are quite... old. But hey, nothing like nostalgia, right? Find them at your local garage sale today!
Time Machine
-I guarantee you are going to want one after you beat Diablo 2 and watch some content from Diablo 3.
Ways to play:
Don't be afraid to choose a cookie cutter, "over powered" class as your first character. These characters are going to be your bread in butter in leveling into Hell Difficulty to start finding loot that is amazing. Such classes are:
-Hammerdin
aladin that uses blessed hammers and the aura Concentration with synergies to both-Meteor Sorc: Sorceress focusing in Meteor and synergies. Teleport is a must
-Summoner: Necromancer focus in... cmon, seriously.
-Javazon: Lightning fury based amazon.
Sadly, Barbarians, Druids, and Assassins do not make the best starting characters.
and finally... do get a friend to play with your or make some online. The social aspect makes it much better and since Blizzard failed to ever implement a system to swap items from one of your characters to another online (I hope this is Diablo 3), you will need a friend to transfer items from one character to another.
I hope you all enjoy Diablo 2 as much as I did. Happy Clicking, all!
Shameless Plug:
The Commandomancer [http://forums.diii.net/showthread.php?t=348494]
The Commandomancer, my build of choice. Nothing like a Werebear Shapeshifting necromancer with 3 or more Paladin auras and barbarian battle cries that is able to teleport all while having a massive army of death! The guide was revised by a forumite after I stopped playing, my name is the notes.
