[Resolved] Sad to see 1.00, 1.07, and 1.08 go from Singling. :(

[DarkMaster]

I don't see why these versions should be completely gutted from Singling, like I understand if you cease working on Singling for these versions but do they need to be completely removed? I don't see how including them in the package would increase maintenance at all besides just having to store them for downloading. I'm not a tech guy though so I dunno.

Would it be alright if somebody shared the version of Singling prior to this one? I was planning on playing on 1.00 and 1.07 but without Singling support, ehhh.

[fearedbliss]

Hey @DarkMaster,

Another user privately messaged me today also asking for clarifications on this. I will post my response in its entirety. Hopefully this adds further clarification:

Yo,

Singling only implements features that aren't already in the game but that I think are important (and non-gameplay changing), so it acts as a superset on top of the existing game (overlay). 1.09 was the first version of D2 that implemented the 'players' command natively by Blizzard North, so I don't need to do that work again, thus 1.09+ (1.09b and 1.10) have no changes for 'players'. The new changes are only for my 'players' command implementation that are on 1.05b. So now my implementation in 1.05b and the native Blizzard North 1.09/b implementations have the same behavior interface behavior. So saying 'players', 'PLAYERS', and 'pLaYeRs' in 1.05b will work just the same way as the one BN made in 1.09. You'll only need to update your 1.05b one in order to get the new changes. There was only one file updated which was the 1.05b 'D2Client.dll' which is essentially the "frontend" of the game lol, in this case, the chat system frontend. But if in doubt, just drop and replace all of the new Singling 1.05b files into your 1.05b platform and then re-run your platform (Uncheck the last ran box if 1.05b was already running so that Cactus can refresh the files in your d2 root folder).

And yea same here, I always use 'players' in lower case so that's why when the hacker in me was like "does PLAYERS work in 1.09b?" and then it did.. I was like damn, I'm gonna have to possibly fix that one day.. that one day was yesterday lol.

As for the removal of other versions. The goal for me personally for Singling is to do this work and these enhancements only for _specific_ versions of the game that I think are important in the history of the game but also that are feature complete and stable. Meaning that someone can pick up that patch, play it, and experience everything in the game without having to worry about that something is broken. There are only three patches really in the history of the game that were in a fully complete and working state (working as in all major game systems are working), and that are patches (periods of time) that have a distinct difference in the way people played the game. For many years I've thought about which versions these would be or what the focus of Singling is exactly when it comes to versions. Back when I first started with Singling, I even had support for versions 1.10s and 1.10b as well, but eventually I tripped down the versions as the years went by and I refined the vision of the project. 1.13d and 1.14d support were removed when I focused it only on Blizzard North versions, after that I was pretty much had something like what we had before yesterday:

1.00 - First version of the Original Classic Era (Regardless of Stability or Game Completeness)
1.05b - Most stable version of the Original Classic Era
1.07 - First version of the Original Expansion Era (Regardless of Stability or Game Completeness)
1.08 - Second version of the Original expansion Era (Regardless of Stability or Game Completeness)
1.09b - Most stable version of the Original Expansion Era
1.10 - First, Most Stable, and Final patch of the New Expansion Era

Notice it's essentially a least stable, most stable pattern with 1.08 being a weird and interesting little transitionary period in the history of the game, with enough similarities and differences between 1.07/1.08/1.09 that it was worth keeping. As time went on I still continued thinking about the goal, direction, and focus of Singling and if having all of these versions was actually the best experience I wanted to provide for myself and my users. Ultimately I decided that providing incomplete, unstable versions of the game are actually detrimental psychologically to my players (and to myself) and don't really help express a clear representation of the experience I want players to have. hedgesparrow's recent experience with 1.00 really got to me in that I didn't want him to leave prelod with a bad impression simply because he decided to start playing on 1.00. I felt like I wasted his time a bit not necessarily because I encouraged him to play 1.00 (I never really do encourage anyone to play 1.00 unless you want something only available there and in that case, you don't really need my encouragement or permission then haha), but because Singling listed it as a supported version and I'm sure that support might have had an influence on them picking up that version, vs if it wasn't supported, maybe 1.05b would have been the selected version given that you will get a stable, complete, and refined prelod experience (or as refined as it was before LOD came out) in addition to the non-gameplay changes provided in Singling to further pamper/pillow it up. This was my reply and recommendation when I heard his experience.

So, 1.05b, 1.09b, and 1.10 are these three periods. Treasure Class systems, Runewords Systems, MF Systems, items available, etc are all working. Sure there are always other minor bugs in the game like 1.05bs attack rating bug, or 1.09b having ranged poison dmg / critical mastery / claw mastery / etc bugs, or even 1.10 having the NHAM bug (Next Hit Always Miss), but these are minor compared to 1.00 having gamebreaking bugs where your characters get corrupted (along with a lot of other just general game stability issues), 1.07 literally being a beta build that was shipped on the CDs before the game was actually published (As I documented here), thus runewords are basically completely not implemented (Some other random ish runewords are there like Blood but it's essentially a useless and incomplete system), MF is broken about TC64 I believe, and thus that's why rack running is the main way, MF is pretty much broken or useless. These same issues apply to 1.08 as well. 1.09 was when Blizzard actually fixed the majority of the expansions issues and wrapped up the development of the game.. until 2 years later they dropped that last bombshell patch: 1.10, and then all the core leadership and a bunch of other people at the company pretty much left and went to Flagship Studios to make Hellgate: London. So in that case, 1.09 represents the last and stable version of the Original Expansion release. 1.05b represents the last and stable version of the Original Classic release, and 1.10 represents the last (and stable) version of the "New Expansion" release. I believe there are theories that the stuff in 1.10 were actually -possibly- suppose to be released as part of the second D2 expansion, but since that didn't happen and time was running out (I guess in that there were corporate issues and everyone eventually left the company), they pretty much bundled what they could and got it out the door as a last big patch. That's at least my theory of what happened based on all the information I know about.

So that's why those are the 3 patches I'm supporting for Singling and those are the ones I want to extend support for. All other versions are essentially fun explorations that we can do, but I don't think that I should spend additional time and resources maintaining the other patch versions. For the other versions, Cactus will handle regular version switching to their vanilla state (with the no cd fix of course), while at the same time I won't feel like I'm lowkey recommending specific versions that might be detrimental to their psychological game experience. Of course, we can all (and should if we want) explore whatever version we want, but if someone might not know what are all the pros and cons of a particular patch, and then they go into it expecting things to work or not, spend 20-40 hours+ on it, and then realize "wth? This critical thing is completely broken", well that's a shitty experience to have.

- Jonathan

As for distribution of files already out there, I can't really prevent people from sharing these files since they are already published. But I also won't be hosting them myself or making them available. Support will also only happen for the current stuff I'm maintaining.

[Manny]

I don't see why these versions should be completely gutted from Singling, like I understand if you cease working on Singling for these versions but do they need to be completely removed? I don't see how including them in the package would increase maintenance at all besides just having to store them for downloading. I'm not a tech guy though so I dunno.

Would it be alright if somebody shared the version of Singling prior to this one? I was planning on playing on 1.00 and 1.07 but without Singling support, ehhh.

Howdy DarkMaster. And welcome -- it's nice to see a new member on the forum. I was fortunate enough to pick up the final distribution of Singling prior to the removal of those old versions. Since the admin aka fearedbliss said he's cool with us sharing the files, feel free to drop me a private message. I don't see any reason we shouldn't be able to enjoy the fruits of the labor that was already put forth in making those older versions more enjoyable/playable.

[DarkMaster]

Thanks for sharing your expanded explanation @fearedbliss , appreciate it.

Hey @Manny, thanks. I've been lurking here for a while haha, I recently deleted all of my Cactus saves recently as I started them a long time ago and I had no clue where I was anymore. I also cheated with those saves as I used hero editors to respec my characters.

At first I felt it was justified as I didn't want to have to create a whole new character each time, but I've spent some time thinking about it and I'm less certain now. If I had the technical knowledge to do it I'd probably try to actually backport respecs, but alas I don't. I think I'll play legitimately this time around though and take more care and planning with my characters as originally intended. I think I'll try recording stuff this time around too.

I will gladly take you up on your offer though and send you a PM. Thanks!

EDIT: Hmm, seems I don't have enough permissions to send PMs. You'll have to send me the message first or something.

[fearedbliss]

That sounds good @DarkMaster (re: your Diablo II adventures).

As for the PM stuff, it's a spam prevention countermeasure I have in place. New users need to reach (at the moment) 5 posts before they can use the PM system.

[Manny]

I also cheated with those saves as I used hero editors to respec my characters.

Hero editors?! What are these blasphemous words you speak? Well, you came to the right place with that confession, now go, and sin no more...

My humble POV is why even bother playing if you're going to hack respecs. I was never on board with respecs from the beginning when Blizzard brought in those pots (I can't recall what patch it was). All I know is the original vision for the game did not involve respeccing at all, and that persisted into LoD for a good while until the crazy OP runewords and other nonsense came in.

And yes, of course you will spend more time planning your builds, and mistakes can happen, but isn't that the point? It will be more rewarding when you land on a build that you really can be proud of, knowing that you did it legit.

And I'll try sending you a PM now to see if that works.

[Manny]

That sounds good @DarkMaster (re: your Diablo II adventures).

As for the PM stuff, it's a spam prevention countermeasure I have in place. New users need to reach (at the moment) 5 posts before they can use the PM system.

Ah, yes, and definitely a good system

@DarkMaster See what lurking gets you?

[DarkMaster]

That sounds good @DarkMaster (re: your Diablo II adventures).

As for the PM stuff, it's a spam prevention countermeasure I have in place. New users need to reach (at the moment) 5 posts before they can use the PM system.

Ah, that makes sense. Good to know.

I also cheated with those saves as I used hero editors to respec my characters.

Hero editors?! What are these blasphemous words you speak? Well, you came to the right place with that confession, now go, and sin no more...

My humble POV is why even bother playing if you're going to hack respecs. I was never on board with respecs from the beginning when Blizzard brought in those pots (I can't recall what patch it was). All I know is the original vision for the game did not involve respeccing at all, and that persisted into LoD for a good while until the crazy OP runewords and other nonsense came in.

And yes, of course you will spend more time planning your builds, and mistakes can happen, but isn't that the point? It will be more rewarding when you land on a build that you really can be proud of, knowing that you did it legit.

And I'll try sending you a PM now to see if that works.

Truth be told I mostly came to the old patches for the OP items to forward (though I actually never really did forward anything lol), though I also did it for the experience. Did I cheat myself of the complete experience, lack of respecs and all? Yes. Do I regret it? Mmm, nah not really. Although I did avoid using Singling's players command and manually simulated players by joining with TCP/IP, so I did make it a bit tougher on myself , not that it somehow excuses using respecs though.

This time around I'll completely adhere to the original experience, though I will put the players command to use this time. Can't be bothered to alt-tab between all those screens again haha.

That sounds good @DarkMaster (re: your Diablo II adventures).

As for the PM stuff, it's a spam prevention countermeasure I have in place. New users need to reach (at the moment) 5 posts before they can use the PM system.

Ah, yes, and definitely a good system

@DarkMaster See what lurking gets you?

Bah, I only lurked cause I haven't been playing any old stuff for a while, too busy with D2R. I'll start posting and hanging out here once I get stuff fired up though.

@Manny I got your PMs btw, you wouldn't happen to have 1.08 as well would you? I'd like to try and craft some Deadly crafts and 25% FCR amulets there sometime. And yeah 1.00 is indeed a rough patch, not my first time around the block hehe. 1.07 racking, urghhhhh. It's a lot of "fun", hope you're ready for a grind.

[DarkMaster]

@Manny thanks! I got the PM and I downloaded the files with no issue. Much appreciated.

[Manny]

@Manny thanks! I got the PM and I downloaded the files with no issue. Much appreciated.

Awesome! Glad to help. Have fun.