[Singling] 2026-08-08-1300 is now available! We have now moved from 1.05b to 1.06b. The anti-dupe fix has been deactivated!

[fearedbliss]

Hello all,

I'm pleased to announce Singling 2026-08-08-1300! For many years we've been on 1.05b simply due to the fact that 1.06 introduced an anti-dupe fix that was deleting legitimately found items in the game due to the fact that the game can legitimate generate items with the same fingerprint. I've analyzed the 1.06b code and have carefully deactivated the anti-dupe fix, reverting the behavior to what 1.05b had. This means everyone can now safely upgrade their characters to 1.06b, and officially enjoy "the last real classic version of the game before the expansion came out". I've also re-implemented all of the Singling fixes from scratch on 1.06b, and I've also done testing on both Linux and Windows and so far I haven't experienced any issues or crashes. Please let me know what your experience is like using 1.06b w/ Singling. Also make sure to continue to backup your characters. If you are using Cactus, automatic backups are enabled by default so you should be able to easily restore from backup if it comes to that. I hope everyone has fun playing 1.06b. I'll be upgrading my recent 1.05b HC sorceress to 1.06b and will continue my adventure. The new version of Singling is included in the latest Cactus Bundle which can be downloaded from the usual locations. With that said, 1.05b has been dropped from Singling.

This release also aligns with RetroD2 folks soon launching their public realm on 8/14, and thus I wanted to celebrate their achievements by also finally rebasing and upgrading all of the Single Player communities 1.05b versions to 1.06b as well. We will all enjoy 1.06b, ALL OF US! . So whether you are playing online or offline, we will be enjoying ourselves to the fullest extent.

Take care and have fun,

Jonathan

 

[galaxyhaxz]

I don't necessarily disagree, but just as an FYI, 1.06 was actually released *after* 1.07 was. 1.05 was released 02-01-2001 and ran for almost four months. 1.07 was built around 05-08-2001 whereas 1.06 was 05-15-2001. 1.06 was basically just a patchwork where they went back after already producing the LoD CDs and made a quick fix to remove dupes before LoD went live, so it was only active for a few weeks. 1.04 released 12-23-2000, so was only active for about a month. Aka if you read into it, the only two patches that lasted for any noteworthy length during the pre LoD era were 1.03 (released 08-04-2000, and 1.01 was a day one patch, 1.01/1.02 were a few weeks) and 1.05, which both lasted about 4-5 months each. So 1.05 was the de-facto "lance barb" era.

 

[Manny]

Great info @galaxyhaxz

 

[Manny]

And let us not forget the Golden Age...

View attachment 2316

 

[galaxyhaxz]

Haha indeed. We may as well consider 1.11+ maintenance mode so despite the fact each patch after ran for so long, it's not really relevant. Setting aside the micro-eras (e.g. 1.08) you had 1.03 -> 1.05 -> 1.09 -> 1.10 and 1.09 was by far the longest and most active but also most hacked

 

[Manny]

Haha indeed. We may as well consider 1.11+ maintenance mode so despite the fact each patch after ran for so long, it's not really relevant. Setting aside the micro-eras (e.g. 1.08) you had 1.03 -> 1.05 -> 1.09 -> 1.10 and 1.09 was by far the longest and most active but also most hacked

Haha, good point. And I never really experienced those 1.11+ patches which I think is a good thing. Well, aside from when I came back to D2 after so many years, and fresh installed 1.14d from the Battle.net launchers. I was immediately disgusted though lol which is what led me down the rabbit hole of playing older patches and finding this place.

And yeah, those ITH items in 1.09 were insane!

 

[fearedbliss]

Singling will never support any version above 1.10 since as I mentioned before (and is documented in my Singling documentation), all of the Blizzard North leadership left around July/August 2003 and Peter Hu was the main guy that stayed behind to wrap up his work on 1.10. After Oct 28, 2003 (1.10 release), he left soon after that. So in my opinion, with the entire core leadership gone, Blizzard (South)’s changes to Diablo II are not canon, and are not necessarily what Blizzard North would have done. Yea the corporate entity of Blizzard North still existed until 2005 which is when it was closed down and also when 1.11 was released, but I don’t believe the remaining members have the authority to make these sort of changes. Of course Blizzard owns the IP, but there is a difference between owning the IP, and the fans knowing the actual history and accepting those changes as canon. This also means all the 1.10 “ladder runewords” are not cannon as well since those were introduced mid-2004. Only the initial set of 1.10 runewords that are in the 1.10 patch files released on the day of are. This decision/viewpoint is also core to the forum philosophy in that The Moving Caravan is officially observing the Blizzard North versions of the game (1.00 - 1.10). People are free to play whatever versions they want, but this is my analysis of the history, and all of my tools, posts, and development will be guided as such.