diablo 2

Diablo II, sequel to the popular Diablo, is an action role-playing game in a hack and slash or "Dungeon Roaming" style. It was released for both Microsoft Windows and Mac OS in 2000 by Blizzard Entertainment. Diablo II was developed by Blizzard North.

By April 2001, Diablo II had become one of the most popular online games ever. Major factors that contributed to Diablo II's success include what fans found to be addictive hack and slash gameplay and free access to Battle.net. Diablo II may be played as a single player game, multi-player via a LAN, or multi-player via Battle.net, with the latter being the most popular. It has also become the 2nd best selling computer game and number one best selling RPG for the PC, selling over 14.5 million copies.[1]

The game was conceptualized and designed by Stieg Hedlund, with Blizzard North founders David Brevik, Max and Eric Shaefer acting as Project Leads for the other disciplines (Engineering, Character Art and Environment Art, respectively). The main Production roles were handled by Matthew Householder and Bill Roper.

An expansion to Diablo II, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, was released in 2001, and is now at version 1.11b.

Gameplay

The player assumes the role of a hero, fighting monsters while traversing overland and dungeons. The storyline of Diablo II is played through four acts, five with Lord of Destruction. Each act follows a predetermined path with preselected quests, although some quests are optional. Each act culminates with the destruction of a boss monster, upon which the player proceeds to the next act. Battle is conducted in real-time, using an isometric oblique top-down viewpoint (basically, this just means that the game has a set, hovering camera angle). Players fight monsters to level up their character and gain better items.

Diablo II emphasises combat, and randomly generates many monster properties, level layouts and item drops. Most of the maps themselves are randomly generated. In single player mode, the map is randomly generated but locks the setting thereafter; in multiplayer mode, it resets each time you restart.

Diablo II allows the player to choose between five different character classes: Necromancer, Amazon, Barbarian, Sorceress and Paladin. Each character has different strengths and weaknesses and sets of skills to choose from. The Diablo II expansion pack, Lord of Destruction, adds two new classes: the Druid and the Assassin.

In addition to the four/five acts there are also three difficulty levels: Normal, Nightmare and Hell. A character must complete these difficulty levels in order; only once a character completes normal difficulty, that character may play at nightmare difficulty, and similarly for hell difficulty. A character retains all abilities, equipment, etc, between difficulties, and may return to earlier difficulties at any time. Upon completion of the game in normal difficulty, a player may create a hardcore character. While for normal players the game doesn't end when they die (as they can simply resurrect in the nearest base of operations), the game ends when a hardcore character is killed.

Diablo II also has a number of other features that enhance gameplay. The player has the option of hiring one of several computer-controlled mercenaries, that follow the player and attack nearby enemies. On occasion, the player might find a rare, valuable item, or one that is part of a set that becomes more powerful when the entire set is collected. Items can be customized using sockets and gems, or transmuted into different items using the Horadric Cube.

Multiplayer is achieved through Blizzard's Battle.net free online service, or via a LAN. Battle.net is divided into "Open" and "Closed" realms. Players may play their single-player characters on open realms; characters in closed realms are stored on Blizzard's servers, as a measure against cheating. Online play is otherwise nearly identical to single-player play.

As an added dimension, Diablo II allows players to engage in competitive player vs. player (PvP) combat, rewarding victors with piles of gold and the severed ear of their enemy. PvP play outside the framework of duels (i.e. random assaults of other players) led to a community of certain PvPers finding ways to interfere with other high-level parties, or repetitively wipe out low-level players ^{citation needed]}. These players are commonly called Pkers (Player Killers) by the Battle.net community.

As the game can be played cooperatively (Players vs. Monsters, PvM), groups of players with specific sets of complementary skills can finish some of the game's climactic battles in a matter of seconds, providing strong incentives for party-oriented character builds. Diablo II is also noted as one of the most hacked role-playing games of all time.

Reception

Diablo II was a runaway success for Blizzard. It was awarded a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records "2000 edition" for being the fastest-selling computer game ever sold, with more than 1 million units sold in the first two weeks of availability [2].

Collector's Edition

Blizzard released two versions of the game upon its launch; the regular edition and a limited Collector's Edition. The collector's edition box contained the following items:

• The game on three CDs
• Exclusive Diablo II DVD movie
• Collector's Edition manual
• Original Diablo II soundtrack
• Dungeons & Dragons tabletop RPG

Story

The story of Diablo II takes place soon after the end of the original Diablo. At the end of Diablo, Diablo, the Lord of Terror, was defeated. The hero then takes Diablo's soulstone (a device that is used to bind the soul of any demon or angel) and drives it into his own skull, hoping to contain his soul for all eternity. However, the hero is rapidly corrupted by Diablo and quickly begins to lose control. In the opening scene of Diablo II, Marius, the narrator of the story, witnesses the hero (known as the Dark Wanderer) totally lose control, unleashing the demons of hell upon a tavern. Marius is the only survivor, and he feels compelled to follow the Wanderer for reasons he himself does not understand. The player plays a character in the wake of the destruction, following the Dark Wanderer, hoping to halt him, ultimately spying the Wanderer outside the city of Kurast but unable to stop him. The rest of the story is revealed through the four acts, as the player faces not just the demon lord Diablo, but two new major villains, Mephisto and Baal, Diablo's malevolent brothers. Diablo is determined to free them from their incarceration, which was forced upon all 3 a very long time ago, and from which Diablo managed to break free in the first Diablo game. The hero travels through different lands to thwart the forces of hell from taking over the world.

Character classes

Amazon

The Amazon is an "active skill"-oriented fighter. Her skills are oriented around personal (generally passive) protective abilities, the use of a bow and arrow (whose abilities are linked with the elements of fire and ice), as well as the spear and javelin (whose abilities are linked with the elements of lightning and poison).

The Amazon is most similar to the Rogue of Diablo: both are primarily associated with bows (and crossbows, in the case of the Amazon), and both are middle points between pure strength and pure magic. The Amazon is different in that she can also use javelins and spears adeptly.

Barbarian

The Barbarian is a powerful melee-orientated character in Diablo 2, and the only character capable of dual-wielding in the original. His skills are divided into various weapon masteries, warcries, and combat skills. The masteries are purely passive and allow the Barbarian to specialize in different types of melee weapons and to gain natural speed and resistances. His warcries can either enhance his and his party's abilities in combat, reduce the enemy's abilities, frighten the enemy into fleeing and even cause considerable damage to them. The barbarian's combat skills are attacks that maximize brute force, his greatest asset.

The barbarian is based upon the Warrior class from the original Diablo, whose role was meant to encompass a variety of melee characters, including that of the Barbarians of the northern highlands. A hidden class in the patch for Hellfire included a Barbarian class, using the Warrior's appearance with altered statistics.

Paladin

The Paladin is a warrior fighting for all that is good. To reflect this, the Paladin's combat skills range from fanatical attacks to heavenly thunderbolts. His skills are split into combat skills, defensive and offensive auras. These passive auras, which can enhance personal abilities, lower the amount of damage dealt by enemies or recover health and adds considerable complexity to the class because a paladin can only have one aura can be active at a time, forcing a paladin to choose between increased damage and increased safety.

Paladins are also highly proficient in the use of a shield, able to drastically increase their chance of blocking, and use their shield as a weapon. The Paladin also has access to great strength and health and, because the auras do not generally require mana to activate, is not heavily restricted by mana consumption.

Sorceress

The Sorceress focuses on ranged elemental spells in three areas: cold, lightning, and fire. Her cold-based spells have the benefit of chilling or even completely freezing affected enemies, but do less damage, the lightning spells do more damage but have a very wide range of damage, whilst the fire spells deal more consistent damage.

The spell Teleport essentially defined the sorceress in the original, allowing much faster mobility than any other character and the ability to rush other players through the game quickly. The other strong point of the Sorceress is powerful damaging spells. The disadvantage is her relatively low hit points and defense, demanding that the player pay close attention to keep her out of the fray.

Necromancer

The Necromancer is also a spell-caster, but in a very different way. Whereas the sorceress relies on elemental damage, the necromancer relies on summoning spirits of the dead to aid him in his work. His skills are split into Summoning, Poison & Bone spells, and Curses. The Summoning skills allow him to revive various skeletons and golems, the Poison & Bone skills allow him to deal direct damage whilst the Curse skills inflict various penalties upon his enemies. The Necromancer's weakness is his low defense and health, similar to the Sorceress

The necromancer is usually welcomed in multiplayer games due to their ability to summon minions to act as shields that stall or divert the monsters from the actual players. The downside to this is that players on slower connections may experience increased lag due to the large amount of monsters that the Necromancer can summon.

Assassin

One of the two new expansions classes, the Assassin is an interesting character to play as, quite possibly being the most difficult to play well. She entails three separate skill trees, a trap tree, a shadow disciplines tree, and a martial arts tree. The trap tree has, well, traps in it! They range from area of effect fire traps to throwing blades to corpse explosion traps. In the shadow disciplines tree lies a wide variety of talents from mind blasts to summoning your own shadow companion. In the martial trees lies perhaps the best of assassin abilities. This tree utilizes charge up skills that can be released in a single blow called a "finishing move" that deals devestating amounts of damage. Assassins are known to use specifically claw class weapons in which they are one of only two characters that can dual wield weapons.

Assassins are overall a very powerful character class, but perhaps one of the most difficult to play well and exceed in PVP, especially against the more powerful opponents like Amazons and Barbarians. They are weak in the HP department, but can deal perhaps the highest single hit damage in the game.

Druid

Online play

In contrast with the Diablo I, Diablo II was made specifically with online gaming in mind (through Battle.net). Several spells (such as auras or battle cries) multiply their effectiveness if they are cast within a party, and dungeons, although they still exist, were largely replaced by open spaces.

Up to eight players can be in one game, they can either unite as a single party or multiple opposing parties, players are also allowed to duel each other, although all damage is reduced to 1/6th in player vs player (PvP) (with minor exceptions for effects such as thorns, which operates at the 1/10 penalty), the bounty for a successful kill in PvP is a portion of the gold and the "ear" of the defeated player (with the previous owner name and current level at the time of the kill). Experience, monsters hitpoints, and item drops are increased with each player in a game. There is also the posibility of playing with a "hardcore" character, which is basically the same but with one change: when a character dies, it cannot be resurrected. From patch 1.10 onwards, the option of playing with a ladder character was included.

Up to 22 patches have been released for Diablo II, through the patch history several exploits and issues have been addressed (such as illegal item duplication), as well as major revamps to the game's balance (from the infamous 1.08 patch to the much awaited 1.10 patch). The game is currently in version 1.11b.

Easter eggs

Many of the people, items and places in Diablo II are named after Blizzard employees and their loved ones. (note: some of these examples are taken from the Lord of Destruction expansion pack)

Examples of item names that are anagrams of developer names:

• Nokozan Relic = Karin Colenzo
• (The) Mahim-Oak Curio = Michio Okamura
• Bverrit Keep = Peter Brevik
• Rusthandle = (Mark) Sutherland
• Rixot’s Keen = Erik Sexton
• Skewer (of) Krintiz = Kris Renkewitz

Examples of monster names taken from the development team:

• Colenzo the Annihilator = Karin Colenzo
• Lord de Seis = Rick Seis
• Shenk the Overseer = Phil Shenk

Examples of item names taken from the developer team:

• Civerb's set = surnames of David and Peter Brevik, spelled backwards (and replacing the 'k' with a 'c')
• Schaefer's Hammer = Erich/Max Schaefer

Examples of locations taken from development team:

• The Halls of Vaught = Fredrick Vaught

Additionally, other items are references to movies or books. A good example here is a small dagger, or Dirk, called The Diggler, which is based on the main character of the movie Boogie Nights called Dirk Diggler. The Tarnhelm is a reference to the opera Das Rheingold of Der Ring des Nibelungen (aka The Ring Cycle).

There are also historical references: Tancred's Battlegear refers probably to Tancred, Prince of Galilee, while Pelta Lunata refers to the crescent shaped shield of the mythic Amazons. Hotspur probably refers to Henry Percy.

The Unique Bow "Buriza-Do Kyanon" is Japanese spelling for "Blizzard Cannon".

Secret Cow Level

The "Secret Cow Level" is the result of a running joke from the original Diablo that spawned from an Internet rumor about a cow which appears in the game, seemingly without purpose. Supposedly, if the cow was clicked on a certain number of times, a portal to a secret level would open. The rumor was a hoax, but the legend was born, and player after player asked Blizzard about how to access the level.

In Diablo: Hellfire, the only expansion to the original Diablo, it was possible to change a parameter in a specific text file (Command.txt), so that the farmer who gives out the "rune bomb" quest was dressed in a cow suit, with appropriate new dialogue ("Moo." "I said Moo!"). This added fuel to the fire. To quell the rumor, Blizzard included a cheat (that automatically won the game) in StarCraft that read "There is no cow level", this being Blizzard's way of officially confirming that there was, in fact, no Cow Level. [3] Among online game enthusiasts, this phrase has become an Internet joke similar to the phrase There Is No Cabal.

On April 1st, 1999, a Diablo II Screenshot of the Week featured cows fighting. People wondered if the screenshot was an April Fool's joke or if there really was a Secret Cow Level planned for Diablo II. It turned out that there was a cow level. To access the level, one must kill Diablo (or, in Lord of Destruction, kill Baal), return to Rogue Encampment in Act I within the same difficulty level, and then transmute Wirt's Leg with a Tome of Town Portal in the Horadric Cube. This will open a portal to the secret level. (Defeating Baal in the difficulty that you want to enter the cow level in is no longer required, as of patch 1.11b. One need only be able to access a certain difficulty to enter it's cow level.)

Some references to the cow level exist in World of Warcraft:

• One of the loading screen tips contains the phrase "There is no cow level".
• The robot "Techbot" outside of Gnomeregan says "There is no cow level... well maybe".
• The game contains a leather chestpiece armor item called "Cow King's Hide" [4]
• The game contains a weapon called "Wirt's Third Leg" (The first leg is the one in Diablo II and the second, "Wirt's Other Leg", can be found in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne).

Impossible figures

Diablo II introduced using of Impossible figures in the level "Arcanes Sanctuary". The player can walk on a flat floor and ends below his starting point. It's exactly like an painting from Escher. But the programmers didn't exert themselves reaching for an algorithm for impossible geometry: in fact, the algorithm see the level as a plan, and steps or collumns are only drawings.

References

• BlueNews news article[5]
• Inside Mac games news article[6]
• GameZone news article[7]
• Internet Movie Database[8]
• CVG interview with Bill Roper, [9]

See also

• Diablo II: Lord of Destruction - expansion pack.
• Diablo (computer game) the predecessor.
• Blizzard Entertainment the developer.
• List of Computer Role-Playing Games

External links

• BnetGaming.Com, Diablo 2 forums, trading, and discussion
• d2evil - Online Players Community
• Official Site
• The Arreat Summit, official Strategy Guide
• DiabloII.net - Very thorough Diablo, Hellfire, Diablo II Fansite
• Diablo2.com - Forum discussion
• Planet Diablo - Diablo fan site
• Battleforums - Large forum dedicated to Diablo and Blizzard games
• Diablo II at GameFAQs
• The Phrozen Keep - Mods and modding help for Diablo II
• Diablo II at MobyGames