Hello and Thank you

[Strynar]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to say a huge thank you to fearedbliss for your amazing Cactus program enabling me to begin my time travelling journeys and to Manny for administrating this forum. You both have contributed so much to my knowledge of Diablo II so thanks for that. Thanks to all the other forum members as well, I've been lurking here for a while soaking in all the info.

I first got into Diablo II back when I was in junior high school. I have very fond memories of my older brother getting the D2 Battle Chest box set and we would play for hours on end. One of us playing while the other watched and read through the strategy guide. Good times. Once I got to high school I thought I was too cool to play video games so I lost interest in the hobby for many years. Then I came down with a pretty serious illness about five years ago and have been unable to work so I have had a lot of time on my hands. This is when I got back into video games and in particular old school style arpgs like Titan Quest, Grim Dawn and of course Diablo II.

A few years ago I stumbled across Cactus and had a great time messing around with a heavily modded version of 1.13c as well as dabbling in 1.05b and the Succulent mod. Recently I reinstalled Cactus and have been having a blast playing pure 1.05b. At first I was turned off by the lack of QOL but I got used to it quite quickly. I'm a time travelling newb and am really loving the refreshing 1.05b experience, can't wait to also put some serious time into the Succulent mod. Personally I am really sick of rune words, even some of the low level ones are way too overpowered in my opinion. Amazing concept but in practice I'm not a fan.

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this. I have some questions about 1.05b so I'll I prob make another post in the proper location when I'm done with this one. One last thing fearedbliss if you read this have you ever considered doing a 1.05b youtube play through with commentary aimed at D2 classic beginners? I know it's a lot of work so I get it if you're not interested but I know there's a lot of knowledge stored in that mind of yours.

 

[fearedbliss]

Welcome to the forum @Strynar.

I am also a huge lover of 1.05b classic and have come to enjoy it more than LOD as well. I also agree with the Runewords sentinent. I Even removed Runewords completely in my Succulent mod and only kept the Runes themselves. This keeps the focus more on gear modification (with the runes being additional socketables for them). The modifications would usually be done on Rares, but you can use them for sets and uniques as well given the socket recipe I added.

I also got used to playing 1.05b classic without LOD QOL. The original classic experience is too good to not experience and thus I don't need the QOL at all honestly.

As for YouTube channel, I do have a channel dedicated to time traveling and the original Blizzard North patches (1.00 - 1.10). It's not exclusively dedicated to 1.05b but there tends to be a lot of content for that version cause that's the one I'm usually playing. But I don't make any audio based commentary. I comment through the in game single player chat box lol. Good enough for me and it acts as some sort of documentation I guess. You can find my channel here. It's also linked in the main Cactus page on Codeberg.

Also I hope you are doing better now and the illness is not affecting you too much. Stay safe in the real world and in Sanctuary.

- Jonathan

 

[Strynar]

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for the warm welcome, nice to connect with a fellow Diablo fanatic.

Yeah I have actually been watching a lot of your Youtube content lately, really enjoying it. I think I've gone through all the audio stuff and now have started watching the play throughs. Currently watching the ContriClu play through. Learning a lot from watching you play, which is what made me ask about the audio. Anyway it's awesome you've uploaded so many play throughs. Should keep me busy for a while!

Didn't realize before my original post that both Manny and you are admins here , my bad.

-Steve

 

[fearedbliss]

Haha yea we are both admins but I have TMC to Manny early last year. You can read about this here and here. So he is the owner of TMC now. I'm still chilling here though and working on my projects on the side so nothing changes from that perspective.

I'm glad you are finding my videos entertaining. Given I'm not really speaking in them directly (other than the chat), they are definitely designed to either be something you have on the side while you are also playing D2, or you could watch them directly if you are enjoying it that way. As long as you are having fun that's the important part.

 

[Manny]

Hi there, @Strynar, and welcome aboard! I'm glad you're here, and I'll be looking forward to reading those 1.05b & Succulent posts!

 

[Strynar]

Thanks @Manny, feels good to finally post here!

 

[Strynar]

Haha yea we are both admins but I have TMC to Manny early last year. You can read about this here and here. So he is the owner of TMC now. I'm still chilling here though and working on my projects on the side so nothing changes from that perspective.

Ahh I see thanks for the links, I'll check them out later today.

Yeah I actually do enjoy just sitting down and watching the videos. When I play D2 I usually either like to listen to a podcast or just immerse myself in the in game music and world.