- Joined
- Dec 19, 2021
- Messages
- 1,300
- Points
- 83
Hello everyone,
Ever since I first made this forum, the focus has always been about playing and preserving the original versions of the game as developed by Blizzard North, which specifically covers versions 1.00 - 1.10. Singling support has also been supporting up to 1.10 as well. People also may know that I haven't really been a fan of respecs and the changes that slowly trickled into the game after the official release of Blizzard North's last patch which was 1.10 on October 28, 2003. This also means that the 1.10 Ladder 2 Runewords (Spirit, Infinity) are not canon and I removed them from Singling's 1.10 support many years ago. Given that this has been the focus of my preservation efforts, and I have no love nor intention of continuing to promote nor facilitate non-canon versions of the game, I've officially decided to take action and completely drop all support for non-canon versions of the game from Cactus. The Cactus project will no longer include Worldstones for versions 1.11+, and will no longer mirror any of the original standalone patch installers for these versions. Additionally, Diablo 1: Hellfire and any files I've been mirroring for it have also been removed since even though it was the only authorized expansion of Diablo 1, it is publicly clear that David Brevik was not happy with it and didn't want it to be released from my understanding, which also makes Hellfire non-canon.
In my opinion, I consider anything non-canon such as Diablo I: Hellfire, Diablo II 1.10 Ladder 2 Runewords, Diablo II 1.11+, and Diablo II: Resurrected as not Diablo I / Diablo II, but rather as mods or derivative works of their respective games. I've stated some of this years ago in my video titled: Why I don't play Diablo II: Resurrected.
I'm sure that this is an unpopular opinion and a lot of people will disagree with me, but the good thing is I don't really care. As the person doing the work to preserve the original spirit of Blizzard North's work for 13 years now, and as a lover and player of the game since Diablo II 1.10 (Ladder 1) - yes, I played 1.10 Ladder 1 live on the realms, so 23 years of playing the game - ultimately my opinion is the one that matters, and ultimately all of these tools and preservation efforts come out of my love to continue to play, preserve, and enjoy the game for myself, and I'm sharing that work and love with others. Given that the majority of my work is open source, if someone feels strongly about it, I recommend for you to fork my project and start doing the work necessary to maintain everything outside of what I've been maintaining. There is absolutely no point in arguing with me about it and I also won't entertain that conversation either.
I've also cleaned up the Cactus main page documentation and have renamed the project description from:
A Modern Diablo II Worldstone Manager (Original, Not Resurrected)
to
A Modern Diablo II Worldstone Manager Designed Exclusively For Blizzard North's Diablo II (1.00 - 1.10)
Take care and stay safe,
Jonathan
Ever since I first made this forum, the focus has always been about playing and preserving the original versions of the game as developed by Blizzard North, which specifically covers versions 1.00 - 1.10. Singling support has also been supporting up to 1.10 as well. People also may know that I haven't really been a fan of respecs and the changes that slowly trickled into the game after the official release of Blizzard North's last patch which was 1.10 on October 28, 2003. This also means that the 1.10 Ladder 2 Runewords (Spirit, Infinity) are not canon and I removed them from Singling's 1.10 support many years ago. Given that this has been the focus of my preservation efforts, and I have no love nor intention of continuing to promote nor facilitate non-canon versions of the game, I've officially decided to take action and completely drop all support for non-canon versions of the game from Cactus. The Cactus project will no longer include Worldstones for versions 1.11+, and will no longer mirror any of the original standalone patch installers for these versions. Additionally, Diablo 1: Hellfire and any files I've been mirroring for it have also been removed since even though it was the only authorized expansion of Diablo 1, it is publicly clear that David Brevik was not happy with it and didn't want it to be released from my understanding, which also makes Hellfire non-canon.
In my opinion, I consider anything non-canon such as Diablo I: Hellfire, Diablo II 1.10 Ladder 2 Runewords, Diablo II 1.11+, and Diablo II: Resurrected as not Diablo I / Diablo II, but rather as mods or derivative works of their respective games. I've stated some of this years ago in my video titled: Why I don't play Diablo II: Resurrected.
I'm sure that this is an unpopular opinion and a lot of people will disagree with me, but the good thing is I don't really care. As the person doing the work to preserve the original spirit of Blizzard North's work for 13 years now, and as a lover and player of the game since Diablo II 1.10 (Ladder 1) - yes, I played 1.10 Ladder 1 live on the realms, so 23 years of playing the game - ultimately my opinion is the one that matters, and ultimately all of these tools and preservation efforts come out of my love to continue to play, preserve, and enjoy the game for myself, and I'm sharing that work and love with others. Given that the majority of my work is open source, if someone feels strongly about it, I recommend for you to fork my project and start doing the work necessary to maintain everything outside of what I've been maintaining. There is absolutely no point in arguing with me about it and I also won't entertain that conversation either.
I've also cleaned up the Cactus main page documentation and have renamed the project description from:
A Modern Diablo II Worldstone Manager (Original, Not Resurrected)
to
A Modern Diablo II Worldstone Manager Designed Exclusively For Blizzard North's Diablo II (1.00 - 1.10)
Take care and stay safe,
Jonathan
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