TWolfMech
Member
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2025
- Messages
- 47
- Points
- 18
It began in 1996...
I remember being a 4 year old, watching my brother running through the Diablo I demo of the beta version. The one where the butcher was included and spawned on level 1, the only level in this demo. I remember how no matter what he tried to do, the butcher would always kill my brothers character. A foreshadowing of what the actual game was going to feel like. Yet, I never played the game myself. i was way too young afterall. I only got to watch my brother play the amazing games that were Diablo I, Warcraft II and so on...
Fast forward to 2001!
Diablo II got released. And my brothers and I were playing it non stop. While I never managed to beat the game, my brother actually got through half of nightmare, playing it completely blind. Just offline mode since we didn't have any internet. The game was brutal and amazing at the same time. I won't waste any of your time explaining why I think so. I'm sure you all already know about that.
For whatever reason, we never got the expansion of the game. Might have been, because my older brother was too tired from grinding the heck out of the original.
It is the year 2005!
I just got my hands on a bestseller collection consisting of: Starcraft + Brood War, Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition and, of course, Diablo I. And I felt right at home.
You see: Pre expansion Diablo II was much more like it's predecessor than many people believe. And I loved every minute of it. By now we finally had an internet connection at home, so I got to meet the good, the bad and the ugly people playing on battle.net. I had a blast playing this in multi player, I can tell you that xD
The year 2008...
I remember my parents buying me Diablo II: LoD as gift when I was sick. Don't think they would have gotten me it, if i was healthy at the time, considering how terrifying the cover of the box looked.
So, I start the game and am greeted to a lot of new features. "Nice!" I thought, not realizing yet, how much the game has changed...
Of course, since I had access to the internet, playing on battle.net was one of the first things I did, but what I experienced was not what I expected. At first, I was in awe about all the cool runewords, charms, the added synergies and the mercenaries actually being helpful. It seemed to me that it was the only way to play the game through hell. Why did we never get the expansion in the past? Playing without runewords like infinity must have been horrible. How do you even deal with immunities?
Yea! That's me, not remembering that immunities didn't exist in the first place. xD
I started to get tired of the games repetitive nature. Farming runes, farming the standard unique and set items that everyone else used, creating the same rune words that everyone used, skilling your character the same way that everyone else did... it felt weird. Nevermind the painful experience of playing a character build that relies on physical damage. There is a lot of things that didn't feel okay about how people treated the game. And then there was the monstrosity called d2jsp... I won't even comment on that one...
I remember there being a thing called Diablo III, as well. It was weird and gross, like a fever dream...
Let's not talk about that one! xD
Coming back for more in 2021...
Despite all that, I always came back to the game, playing with friends that I met back when playing online. That's why I got Diablo II Resurrected. And I was on and off every once in a while, never really getting the same enjoyment I had when I played Diablo I back around 2005-2007. I always thought that it was the superior game and that the Diablo II developers made a few mistakes, with how they handled the sequel.
A change of wind in 2024!
I remember hearing about how great the whirlwind barbarian was in classic D2R, so I thought about giving it a shot...
And I was shocked! Why did this ever get removed? I understand that it feels pretty op, but still! Let me try out a zealer and bowazon next... Oh, nevermind! They suck, somehow? I guess they were always bad, right?
I just started to realize, that what I was playing, wasn't the game that I remembered from my childhood. But it wasn't after I beat classic mode with each character on HC mode and started to tell a new friend I made in D2R about it, that I got the wakeup call...
"That ain't classic D2!"
That's what he said! I knew that he was right, but how different could it have been. "You didn't just casually go to hell difficulty in HC, back then. It was way too brutal!" he added. "Really?" I asked.
See, my buddy, unlike me, was in his 20s when he played the original Diablo II. He played online from the very start and has a better memory of it since he wasnt that young at the time. He experienced everything, including the exodus of many players when LoD dropped.
Curiosity got the better of me and I started searching. This is how I stumbled on a series of videos on Youtube, in which MrLlamaSC played through v1.00 of Diablo II. Not even 5 minutes into the video, I start searching for a way to get this to run my pc. I eventually found the download provided by fearedbliss and installed the 1.00 files manually, since I couldn't get it to run proberly via cactus. xD
And I started playing... And getting my a** handed to me! The game was insanely hard. I still remember my first time my barbarian died at the hands of abyss knights at the River of Flame. For some reason, enemy casters are so much more brutal in these old patches. After unlocking HC mode, I created another barbarian with the mission to beat the game on hell difficulty...
What a nightmare!
I remember entering the Duriel fight and using battle cry as he charged me. And he just critical hit me for over 900 damage! If it weren't for battle orders I would have been toast. I persevered somehow and beat the game.
I remember questioning my friends memory, when he claimed that amazon players would buy a pike as soon as possible and then start fighting their way through the Chaos Sanctuary using 'Jab'. That couldn't be right! But here I was with my amazon, in hell difficulty, seeing a King's Pike of Frost at the vendor... And I bought it! And I shredded De Seis! And I shredded Infector! And I shredded Vizier! With a pike I bought from a vendor!
I will never question my buddy again! xD
And nothing was the same anymore...
I mentioned before, that I prefered Diablo I over Diablo II. Well, I still prefer it over Diablo II: Resurrected. But over the original, pre expansion version of Diablo II?
No way! There is so much I can say about the game, but it would make this post even longer. After watching some interviews of David Brevik again, I finally get what he meant to say, when he compared Diablo II to other arpgs and mentioned the issues, that most modern diablo-like games have. He was never comparing them to the modern version of Diablo II, but to the original Diablo II, that left it's mark in gaming history.
I made it my mission to beat this game with each class on each difficulty on HC mode, as well as playing some of the other patches with different classes, in order to get a grasp of what the game has once been. I am recording all the gameplay and uploading it as well. This might take me a long time, since I don't have much free time, but I will eventually get there. And once that is done, I can hopefully make an analysis on why these older patches were so great and why there will never be another Diablo game like Diablo I and Diablo II.
I just recently found this forum, as I wanted to reach out to the person who made this possible.
So HUGE thanks, fearedbliss!
If it weren't for you, I would probably be playing D2R and teleporting to Lower Kurast chests for runes with my sorc, or farming Andariel a hundred times over just to drop me a bunch of unique items that no one ever needs or even remembers.
Thank you, for making it possible to relieve the golden days of Diablo II!
I remember being a 4 year old, watching my brother running through the Diablo I demo of the beta version. The one where the butcher was included and spawned on level 1, the only level in this demo. I remember how no matter what he tried to do, the butcher would always kill my brothers character. A foreshadowing of what the actual game was going to feel like. Yet, I never played the game myself. i was way too young afterall. I only got to watch my brother play the amazing games that were Diablo I, Warcraft II and so on...
Fast forward to 2001!
Diablo II got released. And my brothers and I were playing it non stop. While I never managed to beat the game, my brother actually got through half of nightmare, playing it completely blind. Just offline mode since we didn't have any internet. The game was brutal and amazing at the same time. I won't waste any of your time explaining why I think so. I'm sure you all already know about that.
For whatever reason, we never got the expansion of the game. Might have been, because my older brother was too tired from grinding the heck out of the original.
It is the year 2005!
I just got my hands on a bestseller collection consisting of: Starcraft + Brood War, Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition and, of course, Diablo I. And I felt right at home.
You see: Pre expansion Diablo II was much more like it's predecessor than many people believe. And I loved every minute of it. By now we finally had an internet connection at home, so I got to meet the good, the bad and the ugly people playing on battle.net. I had a blast playing this in multi player, I can tell you that xD
The year 2008...
I remember my parents buying me Diablo II: LoD as gift when I was sick. Don't think they would have gotten me it, if i was healthy at the time, considering how terrifying the cover of the box looked.
So, I start the game and am greeted to a lot of new features. "Nice!" I thought, not realizing yet, how much the game has changed...
Of course, since I had access to the internet, playing on battle.net was one of the first things I did, but what I experienced was not what I expected. At first, I was in awe about all the cool runewords, charms, the added synergies and the mercenaries actually being helpful. It seemed to me that it was the only way to play the game through hell. Why did we never get the expansion in the past? Playing without runewords like infinity must have been horrible. How do you even deal with immunities?
Yea! That's me, not remembering that immunities didn't exist in the first place. xD
I started to get tired of the games repetitive nature. Farming runes, farming the standard unique and set items that everyone else used, creating the same rune words that everyone used, skilling your character the same way that everyone else did... it felt weird. Nevermind the painful experience of playing a character build that relies on physical damage. There is a lot of things that didn't feel okay about how people treated the game. And then there was the monstrosity called d2jsp... I won't even comment on that one...
I remember there being a thing called Diablo III, as well. It was weird and gross, like a fever dream...
Let's not talk about that one! xD
Coming back for more in 2021...
Despite all that, I always came back to the game, playing with friends that I met back when playing online. That's why I got Diablo II Resurrected. And I was on and off every once in a while, never really getting the same enjoyment I had when I played Diablo I back around 2005-2007. I always thought that it was the superior game and that the Diablo II developers made a few mistakes, with how they handled the sequel.
A change of wind in 2024!
I remember hearing about how great the whirlwind barbarian was in classic D2R, so I thought about giving it a shot...
And I was shocked! Why did this ever get removed? I understand that it feels pretty op, but still! Let me try out a zealer and bowazon next... Oh, nevermind! They suck, somehow? I guess they were always bad, right?
I just started to realize, that what I was playing, wasn't the game that I remembered from my childhood. But it wasn't after I beat classic mode with each character on HC mode and started to tell a new friend I made in D2R about it, that I got the wakeup call...
"That ain't classic D2!"
That's what he said! I knew that he was right, but how different could it have been. "You didn't just casually go to hell difficulty in HC, back then. It was way too brutal!" he added. "Really?" I asked.
See, my buddy, unlike me, was in his 20s when he played the original Diablo II. He played online from the very start and has a better memory of it since he wasnt that young at the time. He experienced everything, including the exodus of many players when LoD dropped.
Curiosity got the better of me and I started searching. This is how I stumbled on a series of videos on Youtube, in which MrLlamaSC played through v1.00 of Diablo II. Not even 5 minutes into the video, I start searching for a way to get this to run my pc. I eventually found the download provided by fearedbliss and installed the 1.00 files manually, since I couldn't get it to run proberly via cactus. xD
And I started playing... And getting my a** handed to me! The game was insanely hard. I still remember my first time my barbarian died at the hands of abyss knights at the River of Flame. For some reason, enemy casters are so much more brutal in these old patches. After unlocking HC mode, I created another barbarian with the mission to beat the game on hell difficulty...
What a nightmare!
I remember entering the Duriel fight and using battle cry as he charged me. And he just critical hit me for over 900 damage! If it weren't for battle orders I would have been toast. I persevered somehow and beat the game.
I remember questioning my friends memory, when he claimed that amazon players would buy a pike as soon as possible and then start fighting their way through the Chaos Sanctuary using 'Jab'. That couldn't be right! But here I was with my amazon, in hell difficulty, seeing a King's Pike of Frost at the vendor... And I bought it! And I shredded De Seis! And I shredded Infector! And I shredded Vizier! With a pike I bought from a vendor!
I will never question my buddy again! xD
And nothing was the same anymore...
I mentioned before, that I prefered Diablo I over Diablo II. Well, I still prefer it over Diablo II: Resurrected. But over the original, pre expansion version of Diablo II?
No way! There is so much I can say about the game, but it would make this post even longer. After watching some interviews of David Brevik again, I finally get what he meant to say, when he compared Diablo II to other arpgs and mentioned the issues, that most modern diablo-like games have. He was never comparing them to the modern version of Diablo II, but to the original Diablo II, that left it's mark in gaming history.
I made it my mission to beat this game with each class on each difficulty on HC mode, as well as playing some of the other patches with different classes, in order to get a grasp of what the game has once been. I am recording all the gameplay and uploading it as well. This might take me a long time, since I don't have much free time, but I will eventually get there. And once that is done, I can hopefully make an analysis on why these older patches were so great and why there will never be another Diablo game like Diablo I and Diablo II.
I just recently found this forum, as I wanted to reach out to the person who made this possible.
So HUGE thanks, fearedbliss!
If it weren't for you, I would probably be playing D2R and teleporting to Lower Kurast chests for runes with my sorc, or farming Andariel a hundred times over just to drop me a bunch of unique items that no one ever needs or even remembers.
Thank you, for making it possible to relieve the golden days of Diablo II!
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