2023 and Beyond!

[fearedbliss]

Hey everyone,

I hope you all have had a great year and hope that you and your loved ones have been safe and sound. It's been a crazy year all around the world with a lot of chaos, toxicity, and negativity. We need to also remember that there are a lot of good things happening in the world as well. In our particular case, the formation of this little wonderful community.

I started The Moving Caravan at the end of December 2021, and in one year, we've not only organized and established the foundation for running the community, but also continued to evolve our ideology and identity. Without me advertising it much, we've also gone from 0 to 21 members (including myself ;D). This is a very niche community, so I'm just happy that we even have people around the world that still care about Original - Blizzard North - Diablo II, and Time Traveling between 1.00 - 1.10.

For next year, continue reflecting on what brings you happiness in life, but also continue reflecting on your Diablo II journey. How are you enjoying the current version you are playing? Are there are any other versions you wanna play? Is it time to do a 2023 "ladder reset"? New year, new stash lol. Will you allow item sharing between your characters for this run (twink), or are you going fully untwinked? Do you wanna go untwinked only but still allow an extended isolated stash per character (using Cactus to isolate the character itself from the rest, while still using the same platform)? There are many choices and possibilities you can make to enhance your play experience.

Here is to a great 2023. I'll see you all on the other side!

- fearedbliss

[Manny]

Hey @fearedbliss, it's great seeing an update from you, buddy. Thanks again for creating the forum (and Cactus)! And absolutely, it's kind of amazing to have this little Blizzard North/D2 family growing on here, considering the game released more than two decades ago!

I liked these questions you posed, so let's see...

How are you enjoying the current version you are playing?

Playing 1.09b (and a bit of @galaxyhaxz's "final edition" mod) has been an absolute BLAST this year. I have accomplished virtually everything I set out to when I began last December, which was coincidentally around the same time I found this place. I am on my Mac right now, but I'd like to post some current screenshots here (or perhaps in a new thread) this weekend/next week, when I get some time to play. I'll share my current "roster" of characters (aka character select screen) and some other gameplay images. My pride and joy is my level 97 Amazon (Bowazon) who wields the mighty Windforce. I will probably do the final push to 99 over Christmas break. She is and will always be my "dream" character. The only big thing left that I still wish to get her is a Jeweler's Dusk Shroud of the Whale. Yeah, I know, wish me luck on that one...

Are there are any other versions you wanna play?

Yes, I do feel it's time to take a break, and step away from 1.09b, and have been considering the matter for the last several days. I have set my sights on 1.07, but whether or not I will do Classic or LoD is yet to be determined (any opinions?). I would like to eventually try some Racking, which means a Sorceress will most likely be my main/first hero.

Will you allow item sharing between your characters for this run (twink), or are you going fully untwinked?

I will be going fully untwinked for 1.07, although twinking isn't really an option for me anyhow, since I can't bring gear backwards from 1.09b, lol. And now I am thinking the name "Eve" for my Sorceress would be fitting, since I'm going back in time, to the beginning... (at least to the origin of LoD, anyhow )

I hope everyone is doing well, and best wishes on a very happy new year! Until next time, beware foul demons and beasts

[fearedbliss]

Yo @Manny, I'm happy to hear from you .

1. Lol, yea, good luck on the Jeweler's Dusk Shroud. Those things are sexy. I still remember those 4os armors + the 6os how's I believe with a bunch of ED/IAS, and I think +AR as well, mix all of that with a 40x 290s Anthrax SC and it's GG in 1.09 cows.

2. Re: 1.07 Classic vs LOD, I only got to level 30 when I played it but the beauty of it is not just the whole low level MPK rings and Rejuv, but the LOD end game item racking specifically, since the restriction on racking items by area level wasn't implemented yet (aka Hell LK racks can drop lvl 99 stuff from IIRC vs 1.08 you'll need to go all the way to Halls of Vault to get the same thing). I still want to eventually do a 1.07 but yeah, I did pick 1.08 over 1.07 though when I did do it and I was able to Mat my Sorc on there . This was primarily because I wanted to have a more complete and balanced version of the game that still had all of the original LOD item stats but with the addition of rune words and 1:800 chance for racking. Also 1.08 is the last version where you could find the original WF with pre 1.09 stats (I believe it's just a difference of having +35 dex rather than the +10 str and life or something like that). In 1.07 bows can't be racked and they can't drop from monsters so it's just not possible to get a WF in 1.07.

I also wanted to play 1.07 Classic primarily because it's a dead zone and I don't know anyone that actually played it and wrote about it. However, it will be way more difficult than possibly original classic in some ways (without the beauty of original D2 classic design I would say) and it's more difficult than 1.09 classic. Some of the reasons are that you do have the global physical resistance penalty I believe in NM and in Hell, also Blizzard North were experimenting with the block system and so 1.07 and 1.08 both have LOD style block calculation. It's not just shield block = your block. This change was reverted for classic in 1.09. But regardless, if you have the time and motivation, it's one of the weird ones you could try. Although playing classic post 1.05 (1.09, 1.10, 1.13/1.14), and also playing Diablo 1, I still hold that Diablo 2 (prelod) is the best version of classic in that it still feels like D1 and everything makes sense and the item scarcity is real, thus ever has a real meaning and when you get something it's much more incremental and sometimes exponential. Let alone the design is tuned around lower numbers and the possibilities at the time. LOD fundamentally changed classic and though they allowed people to "play Classic", it's not the same, that's for sure. Some people seem to believe that unchecking the expansion box means they are gonna get an identical version of classic as the original, but that's not correct. There are a lot of fundamental shared code throughout the game and a lot of the behavior changed, which means it affects how you experience the game, the difficulty, pacing, and possibilities. If you play Diablo 1 and then play Diablo 2 (prelod), you'll feel right at home. If you are coming from modern Diablo 2 to Diablo 2 (prelod), you'll feel the difference immediately.

3. Regarding untwinked, to clarify, untwinked meaning that all your characters on that version will be untwinked and ran independently from each other. Not that the first character will be untwinked, and the rest can use items.

The second variation I mentioned is to basically go untwinked for everyone (like above) but with the addition of having each character have their own "infinite stash" using Cactus, given that you can make one entry in Cactus for one character, and make another completely separate entry for another character, while both share the same platform. That means you can just make isolated mules for each and use LAN to transfer.

[galaxyhaxz]

Happy new years to you guys from Chicago!

I haven't played D2 in 2-3 years, taking periodic breaks to keep things fresh. I plan to go back eventually. The remaster disappointed me, next time I revisit D2 I'll go beta 1.07.41. The 1.07 series are by far the most addicting patch with the godly crafting Maybe a splash of closed battle.net too. @fearedbliss and I wanted to do a 1.07.41 playthrough on the old diabloii.net forums but they wouldn't allow it. Now their forums are gone lol. I'd love to get around to it, as it's basically the same as 1.07.44 but with the Constricting Ring enabled and a few others.

Hope you guys are well and having fun. Happy to see the community growing, especially that the remaster is bringing new people into the D1/D2 world.

[fearedbliss]

@galaxyhaxz Happy new year , I'm happy to see you are ok and are now in Chicago.

They moved their forum to the "pure" version of the site. And lol at them not allowing the 1.07.41. But whatever lol. At this point I'm still only playing 1.05b, 1.09b, and 1.10. Since there are so many things to do already, so little time, and I tend to like to play the game at their most stable points but between the "three eras". I did Mat a 1.08 Sorc which was interesting, but I quickly learned that I hated rack running lol, boring.

[galaxyhaxz]

Yeah you will quickly find how boring rack running is, but I guess once it happens it's actually a "legit" item that only a handful of people who played 1.08 on the real battle.net were lucky enough to get. At this point I want to try new things in d2, new builds, more content etc. and 1.07.41 contains a few new items to grind for--rares similar to 1.05 and the constricting ring. I'd also like to grind for 1.10 beta runewords. The remaster isn't what I wanted. I just want a proper update to the original game with more content and bug fixes (:

[fearedbliss]

Definitely. After I bought the Diablo III: Collector's Edition (which was actually pretty nice. I threw everything out over the years and deleted my battle.net account a little over a year ago, so I lost my Tyrael Wings, but I still kept the Diablo skull and Soul Stone USB as a house decoration), and after the whole always online DRM thing, it made me take a pretty hard position that on principle I'm no longer buying games that have always online DRM. Diablo III was that game. Now I only buy games that are made and designed for offline single player with no DRM. Most of the games don't follow this type of distribution model so that eliminates most of the games I can buy, but I'm ok with that given I've built a pretty good size collection of classic games (PC, GB, GBC, GBA) that I prefer to play anyways and none have an online requirement.. let alone i already don't have enough time to play all of these anyways. Why buy modern games with less rights? I'm not going to give people my hard earned money to rent a game, which can be taken away from me at any moment. I'm in favor of GoG for buying digital. If I can I get the physical disc/cartridge and then back it up.

The above alone means that D2R was an automatic non starter. I knew they were gonna start eventually diverging from the original, but the DRM factor eliminated it as a candidate immediately. I'm not going to be forced to ping their servers, and I also don't like that they force automatic upgrades. There goes the chance for someone else to try and make a Cactus for D2R haha. I'm happy with my original version.

[galaxyhaxz]

Same with me! I have an entire backlog of retro games and great games to play, and being an adult means it will take a lifetime. The always online thing bothers me too and I refuse to buy games with it. If everyone stopped buying them companies would get rid of it. Regarding D2R they didn't just stop at DRM, but now they are rebalancing things, adding new overpowered items into the game, etc. rather than being faithful to the original and fixing what was already there. Soon there will be Diablo 4 memes. Oh well, happy new years!