Diablo 1 is pretty swell

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Since the Diablo 3 open beta is over, I decided to go through Diablo 1 and 2 again as I wait for May 15th -- hey, I like Diablo 3: fucking sue me if it bothers you that much. At any rate, playing through Diablo 1 again has reminded me why this game is truly a PC gaming classic.

I'm playing as a sorcerer, the one class that I had never beaten the game with, and I'm impressed at how much more varied and challenging the gameplay is as a result. If I could just find a tome of mana shield the difficulty would be trivial, but I haven't, so the game remains quite a challenge. Although I can one shot whole groups of enemies at a time, they can nearly one shot me as well. I'm in the caves at this point, but I'm still stuck in leather armor, and when you couple that with no mana shield, my character is very very fragile.

For all the discussion of character builds, or lack thereof, in the Diablo 3 thread, it's interesting that Diablo 1 essentially has no builds. You can assign 5 attribute points per level, but their primary purpose is to let you wear gear. As such, gear is what defines your character. Even when it comes to spell casting, you're dependent on loot drops for spell tomes. So in my case, I'm desperate for some better armor and a book of mana shield, but I haven't found either so I have to make do and adjust my play style accordingly.

Even if you don't care for the gameplay, one thing Diablo 1 indisputably gets right is the atmosphere. The art design and music combine to create a genuinely spooky game, something both Diablo 2 and 3 are missing.

At any rate, here's a guide for getting the game working on a modern machine. If anyone wants to play some multi with me, let me know.

Nothing wrong with liking a mindless game, Codexian retards will disagree, but everyone else would agree that you don't have to pretend to stimulate your brain 24/7, I think.

Personally, I prefer D2:LOD. I purchased and played D1 and D2 upon release. I played D1 single player. I never played D2 single player. MP is where it was at. Currently have a sorceress on USWest with tons of high end runes/items. If you are interested ;P

SMA + d3 = 200 page thread.

I may take you up on that once I'm done with Diablo 1.

By all means. It's US-west Ladder. I load it up just to refresh the characters. Eventually my sorc will be booted to non-ladder and I'll let her go. I never did recreate my druid. I did the leveling, but never geared him. Maybe I can work on that while you work on a character. Just a thought.

You could also try giving "The Hell" mod a go (D1), or MedianXL if you decide to replay D2. They add a LOT of new content, balance + challenge.

Back to Hellfire mod for D2 is best Diablo game or Diablo like that I had played, it has the same concept of learning from books that you find randomly but in BtH that is also the case with skills not only with spells. It makes the game much more interesting to play imo. It is also not as ridiculously easy as Diablo2.

http://bth.hugelaser.com/main.php

I logged in yesterday afternoon to see for myself, and there were only 4 people in chat so PUGs are a no-go. Battle.net still works and everything, though, so if you have friends you want to play with you can still use it.

Just finished the caves. Still no mana shield, although I was able to get an upgrade to my leather armor, and some rings that gave huge boosts to my lightening and fire resistance. The trouble is that there's a monster in hell, Fire Drakes, that none of my spells seem to affect. Guess I'll have to figure out a plan B for dealing with Fire Drakes.

There is nothing wrong in liking any game, Its the conviction-spread to others that it has merits, when it has none, that is the problem.

Years after its release Diablo still finds a place next to such classic pastimes as the card game Snap! or skipping rope.

Agreed on both being the best mods for the respective games.

One thing that's really exceptional about Diablo I is the music, maybe even best in category.

If by "swell" you mean "boring as shit, even back when it was released, having inferior wisdom that you have now", then....sure?

Can you show us on the where the nasty, horrible Diablo games touched you? Was it your private place?

Aren't there better alternatives to Diablo 1? Like Divinity 2?

It's probably a strong combination of hipster ranting and genuine dis-interest in the Diablo franchise.

Now we're talking!

Diablo 1 still doesn't have a nocd worth a damn (still needs registration on every computer too).

This annoys me (i own the original cd)

I remember being scared shitless as a kid when I got to those stairs for some reason. Much spookier than D2.

Yeah, it's odd that they never patched out the cd-check since they eventually did do that with Starcraft and all subsequent titles.

At any rate, I killed Diablo a couple minutes ago. Never did find a tome of mana shield, but fortunately Adria had a Plentiful Staff of Apocalypse which I saved special for the big man himself. A dozen or so right clicks later and Diablo was down.

Try the hell mod. It has further levels from the expansion

I installed the game w/ Hell mod a few days ago. By the way, the mod has a no-CD patch included and doesn't even require installation. You just unzip the folder where you want it and copy the diablo.mpq file into the directory. Done.

The mod itself seems pretty cool. It increases the size of the dungeon by about 50% and adds tons of new items, monsters etc.

D1 > D2

Better atmosphere. Tighter plot. Limited lighting. And the Butcher!

I also liked the idea of skills being tied into exploration.

MUCH better than unimaginative skill trees.

Which is why, after rune gimping, I won't be giving D3 a shot!