Some days after the game went out, I went to a "bazar" and bought myself a cut single-player only copy of the game and went home to install it to my "gaming rig" of 256MB RAM and Petnium 4. Huge beast back then. The jouney started. Me and my friend started playing one character and taking turns so we do this 24/7. Our pick? - A Necromancer with a Polaxe, killing Diablo on Normal after 100 deaths and 1h10m of fighting. Glorious days.
So how did Blizzard respond to the 20th Anniversary?
We received an email with the following content:
Animation created by CarbotAnimations and sponsored by Blizzard called "Diablo 2 Baal Runz 101"
New Baal-like Diablo 3 Wings for anyone who logs in.
New physical statue for sale on the blizz gear store
With a single blow, the exectations that we are going to hear about a D2 Remaster on 29th of June (on the 20th Anniversary) are gone. A community manager made the uncommon move to post in Reddit and disperse the rumors.
Hey all - We don't usually comment on rumors, but before this hype train goes off the rails we wanted to clarify that there are no upcoming Diablo announcements in June. The minions of hell are hard at work getting ready for the start of the next Diablo III Season, bringing you the next Diablo IV quarterly update (very) soon™, and we have some fun activities planned around the upcoming 20th anniversary of Diablo II.The response confirming there will be no D2 remaster announecement
With news around the "Summer of Gaming" Blizzard events disappearing from the schedule, new hope comes along. Blizzard had posted a job offer which clearly states that Diablo is one of the classics being brought to life
Whether it’s battling the Zerg in the Koprulu sector, staking your claim in Azeroth, or saving the High Heavens from the wrath of Diablo, these titans are being modernized to new heights and need a versatile champion to embark on this journey with us to create new adventures. You should be spec’d into engineering talents, passion, and armed with a fierce hunger to modernize technology.
18.05.2020 - First ever sub 1-hour D2:LOD speedrun
Slimo is a streamer who just broke the 1 hour barrier for speedruns in Diablo 2: LOD Normal playthrough. Very interesting tactics. Farming Jail Act 1 for most of the run, then just starts teleporting and obliterating bosses. Manages just under 1 hour - 59:29. Spectacular performance and a legendary moment for the Diablo 2 community
17.05.2020 - Possible Diablo II Remaster Announcement
There is a good chance that Diablo II Remaster might be announced as early as June this year (on the 20th Anniversary of Diablo II) on the "Summer of Gaming" event in June. Blizzard will be presenting in the event as posted by IGN in this article.
Here is the link to the official site of the event. Sign up to be notified and have a look at the schedule regularly.
13.05.2020 - Diablo 3 Blizzard North screenshots
This is super exciting stuff. Recently, old Diablo 3 screenshots from early development of Diablo 3 surfaced on Purediablo, showing what the D2 team's vision for Diablo 3 was in early development before things changed and the development stopped. I am not going to post the images here, better go to the source and look for yourselves.
10.05.2020 - New Leaks of potential Diablo II remaster
A leak came out of the Actugaming website of a potential Diablo II Remaster leak. They state that it is in the works for some time now and that its name will be Diablo 2: Resurrected. There is some coverage by famous gaming news delivery channels such as Rhykker and article in Forbes. Links below:
A fanmade Kurast Temple in Unreal Engine has surfaced few days ago. Toni Dorotić recreating the legendary Act III town in the Unreal game engine. It looks stunning.
18.02.2020 - Diablo II Remaster hope comes back
In a recent TweakTown article, the hopes of Diablo II Remastered are renewed as Activision Blizzard CEO - Bobby Kotick announcened the following during the last Q420 earning's call:
"In addition, our business units will continue to tap into our portfolio of beloved IP to bring several remastered and re-imagined experiences to our players in 2020, which we will announce closer to launch,".
There is fear however of Diablo II Remastered being a let down just like Warcraft III: Reforged after the recent debacle. We, the true fans, remain optmistic and will continue to support the game and develope tools for it.
Another fear of Diablo II Remastered are the huge technical difficulties of how the game is designed. For example, monsters attack you based on line of sight, so the question is how will they attack you when the screen is now 8 times bigger in resolution. This is explained in good detail by the one and only David Brevick(legendary Diablo I and II game creator & designer). Read more about it here.
26.01.2020 - Diablo II Upscale project
Finally some good news for the Diablo II community
A user in Reddit called zomprd is working on a upscale Diablo II project that uses AI to increase the resolution of the Diablo assets. He is asking for feedback.
30.12.2019 - Diablo II Europe Ladder Season 25 Level 99
Less than a month and we have a level 99 in both Softcore and Hardcore ladders
Softcore
Hardcore
20.12.2019 - Diablo II Europe Ladder Reset ranking update
Here is the ranking almost 2 weeks after the Ladder reset
The top hardcore player has higher experiience points than the top softcore player so it's likely to see a hardcore win for race to Level 99 on overall Europe. Also we see that we have a dead hardcore player at rank 3 -:(
Softcore
Hardcore
07.12.2019 - Diablo II Europe Ladder Reset ranking in the first 24 hours
Here is the ranking 24 hours after the Ladder reset
Softcore
Hardcore
06.12.2019 - Diablo II Ladder Reset - Season 25 Begins
We are now in Season 25. However there are stability issues with many reporting "Failed to join game" errors. This is has been addressed with a server fix.
Next ladder reset in Diablo II will be on 6th December 2019
Greetings adventurers,
Darkness gathers and it is once more time to fight the evils that lurk below Sanctuary. The next Diablo II ladder reset is scheduled for Friday, December 6 at 5:00 PM PT!
We’ll see you in a couple weeks for the latest ladder reset!
Hello there friends!!! I have decided to redesign the whole page and bring it back to life under a new domain "diablo-2.net" and also to start modernizing it as I think that Diablo 2 Remastered will be coming soon
Page is now redesigned from pure html and css to php
I will be keeping the old design of things
Old News
06.06.2016 - Website Updates
Updated the Battle.net site with a new video. Also made it open on the main page
Corrected a couple of spelling mistakes
Mercenaries page is now adapted to open on the main page as well
Shrines page also now opens on the main page
Added an arrow that will transport you to the top of the page
Still to be done:
Horadric page code optimization
Screenshots page
Acts page
Monsters redesign. Perhaps a clone to the main page and let different monster categories to open in the main iframe and edit the navigation menu
Create my own Classes page
Redesign "Story" page or leave it as a monument to what the Story for Diablo was back in 2009
Videos page
Improve "Other Articles" menu. Perhaps an Info page that is clone to the main page, just like Monsters should be
08.12.2015 - New Video
Now that I am 99 with both HC and SC chars I can do what I've also wanted to do. Get my merc to fight Mephisto and Diablo 1v1!!!
Here is the video:
24.11.2015 - Lost the race
Unfortunately I lost the 99 race. Today they have just reset the ladder and my hardcore was at 98 lvl and 96%. I can't really believe that this was so close. My pala is now non-ladder char but I will
still make him 99 :) Build is the same as my softcore 99 but with Shako with Ber instead of the CoA. Everything else is the same.
02.11.2015 - Updated pages
I have updated the pages - Shrines and Mercenaries.
Instead of them loading in a separate page, I have now amended code so they can open within the mainpage and fit properly.
Also updated the css. Next one is Horadric Cube page. Should be mostly code optimization so there shoulnd't be much of a visual difference unsless I decide to change the spans.
29.10.2015 - Level 99 Softcore Ladder
Finally I hit 99 on my softcore char.
In these modern times I recorded the event. The stats and build can be seen in the video.
The gear: Weapon:Heart of the Oak Flail 40 all resist Shield: Perfect (148 base def) Stormshield with no socket Helm:Crown of Ages 24all/13dr with 2 Ber runes Gloves: Perfect (30% Ed) Magefist upgraded to Battle Gauntlets Ring 1: 10% faster cast rate rare ring with some resists Ring 2: Perfect Raven Frost Belt: Perfect (200 % Ed) Thundergod's Vigor Boots: Perfect (20& Ed) Hotspur upgraded to Wyrmhide Boots Amulet: Perfect (30 All Resist) Mara's Kaleidoscope Armor: Enigma Archon Plate Charms: As seen on the video,
Torch 16/20,
Anni 18/19/9
and the rest 20 Life SCs
Alternative Weapons: Weapon: Call to Arms Crystal Sword - 3/6/3 Shield: Perfect (148 base def) Stormshield with no socket Merc:
Act 2 Defensive Desert Merc from Nightmare with Holy Freeze Aura. The gear: Stats: Overviewunbuffed and buffed Helm: Ethereal Andariel's Visage with no socket (yet) Weapon:Ethereal Insight Cryptic Axe - Unfortunately with 12 LvL Meditation Aura Armor:Fortitude Sacred Armor 4003 Defense - 26 All Resist
In general I have chosen hardcore style of gear so I don't die a lot especially after 97 lvl, although I died once at 98 which was very weird. Dying at 98 hurts a lot.
Here is how long it took:
96 lvl on 28.08.2015
98 lvl on 21.09.2015
I can now gear this wonderful 99 hammerdin in some damage gear. The plan is to replace the CoA with Shako, Stormshield with Spirit Targe, Thundergod with Arachnid, the Raven with SOJ and also to put some Combat Skillers. I will post a video and stats once I do this.
With this out of the way I can now focus on my Hardcore char who sits and waits on 98 lvl - 10%. :)
29.10.2015 - Updated Section
Updated the Downloads Section. It has some cool and core tools for every D2 fanatic. I will try to add more.
23.10.2015 - Playing D2 again
I have been playing since this year's ladder reset on 26th of May. I didn't start immediately but when I started I was again all in, just like in 2009 when I last played. I started playing Softcore ( duh...) with some colleagues and I am almost at the finish line today - 23.10.2015
I also play hardcore (so far alone) with great progress
Djongov-HC (Hardcore Hammerdin) - 98 lvl, 10.1%
Vihrushko-BG (Wind Druid) - 95 lvl, deceased
BoBarb-BG (BO Barb) - 85 lvl
23.10.2015 - Website Updates
Well... it's been a while since I've done any work on the site. It was created 2009 and now 6 years later it's time to put some new technologies and improve code. I've spent good several days of coding the site but the improvements are insanely good. The changes are:
Clearing code pollution. The website was created using Web Builder which is a "what you see is what you get" type of html builder so it really pollutes the page with unnecessary code. Also I wanted to modernize the code by structuring it properly and extensively
use CSS so i can control the site easier. What has been done so far:
Unique Items Page
Changed the structure. Created a separate page for each class of uniques
Every type of Unique will now load independently
Changed the color to the true unique one and also changed the (varies) color to white
Redesigned the whole code so I can control it through CSS and be able to change every part of the page with just one click
The results are - better navigation, better looking, more accurate, scalable for any future changes. So many years later i have never seen a Uniques page structured in the same way
Set Items Page
Structure remains the same but I have redisgned the whole code to include CSS so I can control the page better
Code is now structured and beautiful
Changed sets.html to index.html. Sets2.html stays the same
Runewords 1.10 page
Designed a Navigation for the Runewords. Like Uniques - Never seen before runewords structured by Weapon/Armor type. Go check it
Restructured the code to use CSS for control of the page
Designed the Runewords to be in tables just like Sets and Uniques
Corrected some mistakes of mistaken runes not being in the same order as they should be
Supplied new screenshots for some of the Runewords
Did a slight change to the Runewords 1.11 page just to structure the code but won't do any css work on it. Just not worth for a few Runewords
What's next on the menu
To remove code pollution on main page and apply CSS
Do the same for battle.net page and Horadric Cube page
Redoing the Monsters page is a really really huge effort so I want to do it but I might not find the time
