Diablo 2 Weekly Weekend GetTogether Thread

Post by **raztat** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 9:54 am

thought we started sunday? if its saturday i work 8 to 12. also are we playing ladder?

Post by **Ivo** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 10:02 am

raztat wrote:thought we started sunday? if its saturday i work 8 to 12. also are we playing ladder?

Gosh, more confusion. There are TWO separate things going on here.

The SUNDAY thing I've been organizing for a while is something we will do for 2 or 3 Sundays in a row, starting on the 13th. This is something with 7 players each taking a different class, playing just with each other, and going from level 1 to finishing the game on Normal. Ladder: I'm trusting people to follow the "rules", so it won't make a difference anyway, but we can make all the characters Ladder so let's do that.

The Saturday thing is closer to Mozgus original idea, is basically just whoever feels like will play together, no restrictions of classes or anything. I just thought it was nice to give it more advertising to actually get people playing on that one. But I'm not even able to play on the Saturday 12th, for example.

Post by **raztat** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 10:47 am

ok so two diff things on diff days gotcha. I can play a bit sat after work.

Post by **Mozgus** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 5:08 pm

Ivo wrote:Guys, I wrote this up. Suggest changes and then we will ask Racket to post it on the blog.

TITLE: Together Retro Special Edition: Diablo 2 on Battle.net and "ORDERS"

Motivated by Blizzard's announcement of Diablo 3 (and the rather enticing gameplay video), forum regular Mozgus suggested a revival of playing Diablo 2 on Battle.net (most likely, playing with the expansion, Lord of Destruction which noticeably improves the original). Also, Blizzard recently released patch 1.12, which conveniently lets you play without the CDs (you obviously still need to have legit CD-keys!)

The idea was basically to play with other members of our community rather than with unknown people. Anyone interested in this is welcome to join channel "racketboy" on Battle.net's US East. Other members will hopefully gather in that channel before / between games, or try directly joining games named "racketboy", (or, if there's need for it "racketboy1" etc), with password "retro".

Although anyone is obviously free to join whenever and create their "racketboy" games, without set times and dates it is relatively unlikely that many people will be online to play together - for this reason we decided to make this blog post to give the idea more notoriety, and also to suggest weekend "official" sessions, which I decided dub with a silly name to help people remember it: ORDERS ("Official" Racketboy Diablo 2 East Revival Sessions).

The 1st ORDERS will take place this next Saturday the 12th, centered on TIME OF CHOICE, EST (=time in BST and time in GMT)

Feel free to suggest the removal of the silliness

I like. I suggest also mentioning that people with legit keys can register them at http://blizzard.com/store/, after registering for an account. This lists the game as legally owned and gives you access to the new digital download version of Diablo 2 and Lord of Destruction. This discless installer is much more modern and slick, installs much faster thanks to it not asking you to swap multiple discs during the process, and it also installs prepatched to 1.12, which obviously will never ask you for a disc. When you register your CDkey, there will be a link that says Show Key, which actually shows a new 26 digit key, which replaces your old 16 digit CDkey.

I followed this process with Warcraft 3, Frozen Throne, StarCraft, and Brood War. All 6 games nicely fit on one DVD-R, if you remove the Direct X installers. You can always use the 300KB DX web update exe from Microsoft. Some installers will mention the DX portion is missing, but just proceed anyway.

Another tip. All my machines run Diablo 2 poorly in Direct3D mode, so run the Vid Test from the Start menu, then select DirectDraw instead. Runs much better, and looks the same aside from D3D's "perspective" mode being enabled, which just makes me go crosseyed anyway.

Post by **racketboy** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 6:09 pm

Can I also get a quick write-up as an introduction to the game for those like me that only have a little knowledge of it?
I can post all of this tomorrow if we can put something together.
I'm working on the graphics now...

Post by **Mozgus** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 7:07 pm

racketboy wrote:Can I also get a quick write-up as an introduction to the game for those like me that only have a little knowledge of it?
I can post all of this tomorrow if we can put something together.
I'm working on the graphics now...

I would but I'm no expert. I discovered it in 2004 or so and only casually played it.

Post by **SpaceBooger** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 8:51 pm

Ok... so I am thinking about joining in, but have never played diablo II (just the first one) I dont own it, but I am sure I can get a copy.
Will that work? If so what do I do, and how do I do it? If not I will have to try to find a cheap copy somewhere.

Post by **fastbilly1** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 9:05 pm

Most stores with pc games should have a copy of the battlechest. It is either $20 or $30.

Post by **Mozgus** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 9:22 pm

fastbilly1 wrote:Most stores with pc games should have a copy of the battlechest. It is either $20 or $30.

$40 everywhere I've seen it. Obviously, dont buy used copies. The keys will most likely be used as well.

Post by **racketboy** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 9:23 pm

Mozgus wrote:
fastbilly1 wrote:Most stores with pc games should have a copy of the battlechest. It is either $20 or $30.
$40 everywhere I've seen it. Obviously, dont buy used copies. The keys will most likely be used as well.

You could find it cheaper. I found the Starcraft Battle Chest for $10 on clearance at Target