Hey - you that one that kill all!

[Snotspill]

Hello all!

Long time Diablo/Diablo II player here (scared half to death by the Butcher as a kid in late '97, jumped straight on Diablo II at launch, and have certainly played through one or both every year since, mostly single player since perhaps '04). Thrilled to find this little corner of the internet all these years later, it's great to see the enthusiasm that still exists for early Diablo II!

Huge thanks to fearedbliss for creating Cactus - I've been playing around with it and am so far finding it super slick! Believe it or not I've mostly played Diablo II on old hardware, re-installing from scratch if I ever wanted to mess around with a 1.00 Barb or something. (Mostly stick to 1.04 or 1.05 these days)

[fearedbliss]

Welcome to the forum @Snotspill, glad to have you here!

I think after all these years of playing, I have to admit that 1.05b is my favorite version. Everything just feels right with the original game design, even though I do know Blizzard ran out of time to finish implementing everything they wanted. It feels like a Diablo 1.5, but in a way, that's exactly what I wanted haha. The minimalism, simplicity of the game, overall pacing, environment, and lack of items (heavily scarce resources both in terms of not too many items dropping, mixed with lack of mana pots, and mana + other attributes actually being something you need to carefully manage) make the entire experience feel worthwhile. I've compared that type of feeling to a survivor horror like Resident Evil 1-3. I still love 1.09b though and it's my favorite one if we are bringing LOD into the equation.

[Snotspill]

Yeah, totally agree. There were plenty of fun changes in the LoD patches but overall it took the game in a very different direction, which in my opinion favoured the kinda "endgame"-oriented, rushing and boss-running playstyle at the expense of the 'start from scratch with a new character and attack the game head on' experience, and the 'Diablo 1.5' elements as you say. I don't blame them for doing it mind you, it's what the majority of players seemed to be doing on battle.net at the time, and it seems to have been the pattern for ARPGs ever since. (I also have fond memories of 1.09, but I remember the game listings being 99% rush games, then cows, cows and more cows..!)

At least we can still play the old patches for games of this age, nowadays it's usually impossible (looking at you, Diablo 3).

[fearedbliss]

@Snotspill Definitely. Fortunately 1.09b still has a good balance where it still feels good overall. But definitely in pre-LOD, the entire adventure feels great, and you may not even find anything good during your initial norm playthrough, but when you do, omg lol. Even a simple rare will bring a lot of happiness haha. I've come to appreciate things like boss monsters not being farmable in prelod, or MF and CB only working on white mobs. It's definitely a slower system (more like D1), but it basically forces players to explore and farm everywhere in the world rather than just doing boss runs.

[Manny]

Welcome, @Snotspill! Glad you found this place

[Snotspill]

Thanks Manny!

@fearedbliss Yep, spot on. There's a lot to be said for enjoying a slower pace, and that doesn't only apply to Diablo...

[fearedbliss]

@Snotspill Given we are living in a world where everything is accelerating and trying to catch our attention, we can apply the slower pace philosophy to life itself.

[Manny]

(I also have fond memories of 1.09, but I remember the game listings being 99% rush games, then cows, cows and more cows..!)

@Snotspill Hey, don't forget blood runs...

If you'd like, feel free to share some of your 1.05b characters/progress

[Snotspill]

@Manny Ah yes, how could I forget those! Who doesn't enjoy endlessly charging up a hill, hitting stuff with a stick on the way?

I'm afraid my first attempt this time round (Amazon) ended at Hell Duriel. I got cocky. Have since played a 1.00 (non-HC) Barb through Normal, will probably keep plugging away at him slowly but will doubtless start a new HC the next time I've got a spare few hours. Hell maybe I'll go 1.09b, why not!

I thought this was pretty cool for a Normal find:

[dariustriplet]

I'm afraid my first attempt this time round (Amazon) ended at Hell Duriel. I got cocky.

That's one of the single toughest fights in the game, especially for an Amazon. I don't think it's really possible without Jab + loads of life leech.