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Two weeks ago, Chris Wilson interviewed the founders of Darkhaven, Erich Schaefer, Peter Hu, and Phil Shenk, veterans of the industry, and some of our beloved developers from our favorite company, Blizzard North. They spoke about a bunch of interesting things so I highly recommend everyone watch the interview here. However, there was an entire section where they focused on Patch 1.10, and Lod 1.07+. There were a few interesting comments Peter Hu made that I thought were interesting, and validate some of my existing document in Singling:
1. Peter Hu did indeed stay behind to finish Patch 1.10 after the Blizzard North exodus, and as soon as Patch 1.10 hit (October 28, 2003), he pretty much left immediately and went to Flagship Studios. This continues to reinforce my decision for removing the Ladder 2 1.10 Runewords that got released. This is why Singling doesn't support 1.10 Ladder Runewords like Spirit, Insight, Infinity, Grief, Etc, and why I don't consider these runewords as Canon, Blizzard North Diablo II, this is also why 1.10 is the last patch Singling supports, and what this entire forum from the very beginning has been targeting, Blizzard North 1.00 - 1.10 Diablo II. This has been the current Singling notice on this:
2. We pretty much know that Peter Hu was the main developer working on Patch 1.10 and this patch was overall his vision of the game from my understanding, however what was new revelation is that Peter Hu was actually pretty much the main developer working on every patch after Patch 1.07 was released. So once everyone worked together to release LOD 1.07, everyone was burnt out and Peter Hu was the one that continued to develop Diablo II for 1.08, 1.09, and 1.10. In my book this continues to elevate Peter Hu was a way more critical person in the project then I previously though, even though we already know that his work on patch 1.10 was the most critical out of all the patches and it's pretty much the "Diablo II" that people have known about since 2003. Not as many people remember 2000 - September 2003 Diablo II anymore (Use Cactus to play them
), which is unfortunate since I think the best of Diablo II is within that era.
3. Peter Hu feels that 1.10 was a mixed bag and in a way considers some of the powerful Runewords and Synergies as a probably mistake and/or needed to be balanced more.
4. Diablo II wasn't designed to be modded but Peter (and most likely others) understood the power of Modding and what it meant for the longevity of the game and also for providing a platform to be the seed bed and catalyst for future games and even game genres to be spawned from. Thus, Peter spent a lot of energy (during Patch 1.10 specifically) to try to hack in many new ways to modders to be able to change the game. We of course also know this is true because very close to the top of the Patch 1.10 patch notes, it says the following:
Given the fact that the view on modding and seeing what good comes out of that also was influenced by Peter seeing what happened in Starcraft 1 and Warcraft III with their Map Editors and Modding Tools, it is unfortunate that Blizzard over the years restricted and eliminated modding in many of their subsequent games, and not only that, essentially made all their games either online only or behind DRM through the Battle.net launcher and other mechanisms.
5. Lastly, I'll add this as bullet number 5, but I've never seen Peter's face my entire life, I started playing Diablo II during Ladder 1 Patch 1.10 back in 2003 when I was around 11-12 years old. I'm going to be 35 later this year, and in the past 23 years of my Diablo II career, I've never seen Peter's face or heard his voice. I'm happy to have finally been able to have had the opportunity to see and hear him through video. He has definitely been an enigma. The same applies to Phil Shenk and other people in the Blizzard North team. I would be really happy if more of them came out and gave interviews. It's such a wonderful and magical time in history that we should continue to talk about it and learn from that wisdom and experience.
I highly encourage everyone to watch the full interview and to post your thoughts.
Take care and stay safe all,
Jonathan
1. Peter Hu did indeed stay behind to finish Patch 1.10 after the Blizzard North exodus, and as soon as Patch 1.10 hit (October 28, 2003), he pretty much left immediately and went to Flagship Studios. This continues to reinforce my decision for removing the Ladder 2 1.10 Runewords that got released. This is why Singling doesn't support 1.10 Ladder Runewords like Spirit, Insight, Infinity, Grief, Etc, and why I don't consider these runewords as Canon, Blizzard North Diablo II, this is also why 1.10 is the last patch Singling supports, and what this entire forum from the very beginning has been targeting, Blizzard North 1.00 - 1.10 Diablo II. This has been the current Singling notice on this:
2. We pretty much know that Peter Hu was the main developer working on Patch 1.10 and this patch was overall his vision of the game from my understanding, however what was new revelation is that Peter Hu was actually pretty much the main developer working on every patch after Patch 1.07 was released. So once everyone worked together to release LOD 1.07, everyone was burnt out and Peter Hu was the one that continued to develop Diablo II for 1.08, 1.09, and 1.10. In my book this continues to elevate Peter Hu was a way more critical person in the project then I previously though, even though we already know that his work on patch 1.10 was the most critical out of all the patches and it's pretty much the "Diablo II" that people have known about since 2003. Not as many people remember 2000 - September 2003 Diablo II anymore (Use Cactus to play them
), which is unfortunate since I think the best of Diablo II is within that era.3. Peter Hu feels that 1.10 was a mixed bag and in a way considers some of the powerful Runewords and Synergies as a probably mistake and/or needed to be balanced more.
4. Diablo II wasn't designed to be modded but Peter (and most likely others) understood the power of Modding and what it meant for the longevity of the game and also for providing a platform to be the seed bed and catalyst for future games and even game genres to be spawned from. Thus, Peter spent a lot of energy (during Patch 1.10 specifically) to try to hack in many new ways to modders to be able to change the game. We of course also know this is true because very close to the top of the Patch 1.10 patch notes, it says the following:
Given the fact that the view on modding and seeing what good comes out of that also was influenced by Peter seeing what happened in Starcraft 1 and Warcraft III with their Map Editors and Modding Tools, it is unfortunate that Blizzard over the years restricted and eliminated modding in many of their subsequent games, and not only that, essentially made all their games either online only or behind DRM through the Battle.net launcher and other mechanisms.
5. Lastly, I'll add this as bullet number 5, but I've never seen Peter's face my entire life, I started playing Diablo II during Ladder 1 Patch 1.10 back in 2003 when I was around 11-12 years old. I'm going to be 35 later this year, and in the past 23 years of my Diablo II career, I've never seen Peter's face or heard his voice. I'm happy to have finally been able to have had the opportunity to see and hear him through video. He has definitely been an enigma. The same applies to Phil Shenk and other people in the Blizzard North team. I would be really happy if more of them came out and gave interviews. It's such a wonderful and magical time in history that we should continue to talk about it and learn from that wisdom and experience.
I highly encourage everyone to watch the full interview and to post your thoughts.
Take care and stay safe all,
Jonathan
