Hellfire: Diablo (1997)

[Korgoth of Barbaria]

Why is this Diablo expansion so disliked?

 

[agris]

I think because it was made by a Sierra contractor and not Blizzard. I own it and have played all of D1 with it about 7 years ago, it's fine. I'm not sure it adds anything, even with the new classes, it just feels like "more of the same" which isn't bad in D1's case.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Disliked by whom? Pretty much every 'serious' D1 player plays with some form of HF and the best mods also use that version as a standard.

 

[Hitoshura]

It's been a long time since I last played Diablo 1 but I do remember that I was not very impressed with Hellfire. It made the game easier, which is exactly the opposite I'm looking for in an expansion.

 

[Siobhan]

The added dungeons, enemies and spells are all subpar compared to the main game. For instance, the Nova version of Fireball (Immolation?) is so useless it boggles the mind. But the added character classes are all interesting and some of the oils are pretty useful. Personally, I love the bard and that alone is enough reason to always play D1 with Hellfire.

 

[Coma White]

I don't know about now, but at the time Hellfire was just considered to be of a quality which was significantly reduced from the original game. It was developed by Sierra internally and not Blizzard North, and the new content was just noticeably shittier than that of the base game. I believe Blizzard North came out later and said they regretted letting someone else handle Hellfire, and that they never would have done so just a few years later, when the overall success and impact of Diablo as a franchise had become more apparent.

 

[Sykar]

Crypt is one of my favorite areas in D1 including the monsters there. Monk is a nice class and some new items are nice but the Hive is pretty meh as are the enemies in it. Lester was jarring though and did not fit the apocalyptic theme and atmosphere at all.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

The Hell is probably the best mod out there but it's ridiculously difficult

 

[DraQ]

I think it's because some stuff in it didn't mesh that well with base game atmosphere-wise (hive).

Still, it's got extra class(es), extra half the vanilla's worth in dungeon levels with their own tilesets and enemies, and quite a few new spells and items to play with, so all in all it's a net gain.

I found it interesting that liches/archliches were completely dependent on your light radius to see and attack, so it payed off to stack as many items with cursed -%light radius modifier on yourself when fighting them and you could also unleash a golem on them for extra cheese.

Spoiler

Also, move to general gaming.

 

[otsego]

1:09:40 of David Breviks post-mortem of Diablo at GDC, he talks about Hellfire:

 

[Average Manatee]

- Does generally make the game easier. Especially if you play as Sorcerer IIRC you start with a very powerful Staff of Mana that effectively trivializes the only semi-difficult part for the sorcerer, mana conservation.
- Never got as many patches as Diablo 1 and therefore has some unfixed D1 bugs + new bugs.
- Thematically the new dungeons feel really off.
- Just generally not very well known by most players at the time I think (not that this is inherently bad, but its why people talk about Diablo 1 more).

New classes are OK but are all kind of just OP versions of the Warrior/Bard with downsides that are more annoying than really mattering.

 

[shihonage]

Hellfire was a single-player expansion to a multiplayer game. Thus, it was DOA.

 

[Ladonna]

I never knew it was considered shit. I enjoyed the first game, enjoyed the extra content of hellfire, and didn't really think much about it. Compared to some of the rubbish expansion packs that came out for games afterwards, it wasn't bad at all.

 

[Coma White]

I never knew it was considered shit. I enjoyed the first game, enjoyed the extra content of hellfire, and didn't really think much about it. Compared to some of the rubbish expansion packs that came out for games afterwards, it wasn't bad at all.

Granted, 1997 is a LONG time ago now.

 

[Sykar]

I never knew it was considered shit. I enjoyed the first game, enjoyed the extra content of hellfire, and didn't really think much about it. Compared to some of the rubbish expansion packs that came out for games afterwards, it wasn't bad at all.

It was not shit by any means people just exaggerage as usual. It fixed some problems like single player actually being able to select higher difficulties without playing MP solo. Monk and Crypt were welcome additions imho and some of the new spells were useful. The big weakness was the Hive wich did not fit well into the D1 atmosphere and Lester who fit even less.

 

[Snorkack]

NO MULTIPLAYER FFS

 

[pippin]

I don't remember playing Diablo 1 with Hellfire, but more of the same couldn't have been bad when it comes to this game in particular. After all, expansions often were "more of the same, but harder".

 

[e-mailio estevez]

I never knew it was considered shit. I enjoyed the first game, enjoyed the extra content of hellfire, and didn't really think much about it. Compared to some of the rubbish expansion packs that came out for games afterwards, it wasn't bad at all.

It was not shit by any means people just exaggerage as usual. It fixed some problems like single player actually being able to select higher difficulties without playing MP solo. Monk and Crypt were welcome additions imho and some of the new spells were useful. The big weakness was the Hive wich did not fit well into the D1 atmosphere and Lester who fit even less.

I only ever played D1 solo. I never knew MP had different difficulties.

 

[Lhynn]

I only ever played D1 solo. I never knew MP had different difficulties.

You can play diablo 1 in lan single player, allows you to set difficulty.
Starting at level 1 in the highest difficulty was like finding a new, better game, it was great.

 

[Excidium II]

It feels like a bootleg expansion and for a long time I thought it was because I got it on a pirate CD stand.

 

[Average Manatee]

Hellfire has MP, just not Battlenet. Which I never complained about, LAN was way bigger than internet at the time and you could still connect to anyone if you exchanged IPs.

 

[Beastro]

It had some item the sorcerer could get that was super OP, practically gave you free mana.

 

[Daemongar]

Hellfire got a shit rap, but it offered something Blizzard wasn't offering. Picture it as the Napster of video games: they offered an expansion and new classes to a game everyone was playing, which was ahead of Blizzard. So Blizzard sued them, but didn't win. It was hit or miss, but the game set a precedent. I played Hellfire. I liked Hellfire.

 

[Average Manatee]

It had some item the sorcerer could get that was super OP, practically gave you free mana.

You started with it.

 

[octavius]

Hellfire got a shit rap, but it offered something Blizzard wasn't offering. Picture it as the Napster of video games: they offered an expansion and new classes to a game everyone was playing, which was ahead of Blizzard. So Blizzard sued them, but didn't win. It was hit or miss, but the game set a precedent. I played Hellfire. I liked Hellfire.

Sorry, I didn't understand half of that. Who did Blizzard sue, and why?