Diablo II Resurrected: Offical Thread

Krenum

Krenum

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NOT EVEN DEATH CAN SAVE YOU FROM ME
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RELESE DATE SEPTEMBER 23RD

Its here & it looks absolutely incredible.

Official Site:
https://diablo2.blizzard.com/en-us/







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Blizzcon Deep Dive (developer commentary) <------Must watch!
 
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The big Diablo 2 Resurrected interview

Ahead of BlizzCon 2021, we spoke to executive producer and head of the Diablo franchise at Blizzard Entertainment Rod Fergusson, and Diablo 2 Resurrected principal designer Rob Gallerani to find out more about the project and how the game will play when it's released for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X / S and Nintendo Switch later in 2021...

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-02-19-the-big-diablo-2-resurrected-interview
 
polonyc2 said:
The big Diablo 2 Resurrected interview

Ahead of BlizzCon 2021, we spoke to executive producer and head of the Diablo franchise at Blizzard Entertainment Rod Fergusson, and Diablo 2 Resurrected principal designer Rob Gallerani to find out more about the project and how the game will play when it's released for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X / S and Nintendo Switch later in 2021...

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-02-19-the-big-diablo-2-resurrected-interview
Click to expand...



These guys are really really into making it, they grew up playing it. One of the guys is actually cataloging everything he finds, he references it to video game archeology. They seem really passionate about it. I think its in good hands.


I really can't believe how good it looks. It just looks amazing. They nailed it.
 
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It's been pretty funny listening to MrLlamaSC and how long he's been holding onto this info without saying a peep to his Twitch viewers.

But it's been amazing - knowing how, years ago Blizzard got him a Blizzcon ticket, he flew out, saw that Immortal debacle.
He had a stream from his hotel room (not unlike Rhykker) expressing his disappointment and promptly flew back home.

The 180 in 2021 is Blizzard having him host that round table discussion. Apparently there were questions that were left out of that video (including possible new end-game content). Obviously contingent on the commercial success of D2:R. Guess we'll wait on evaluating that after at least seeing the retail launch go smoothly. There are no guarantees after seeing Reforged lol.
 
Mav451 said:
It's been pretty funny listening to MrLlamaSC and how long he's been holding onto this info without saying a peep to his Twitch viewers.

But it's been amazing - knowing how, years ago Blizzard got him a Blizzcon ticket, he flew out, saw that Immortal debacle.
He had a stream from his hotel room (not unlike Rhykker) expressing his disappointment and promptly flew back home.

The 180 in 2021 is Blizzard having him host that round table discussion. Apparently there were questions that were left out of that video (including possible new end-game content). Obviously contingent on the commercial success of D2:R. Guess we'll wait on evaluating that after at least seeing the retail launch go smoothly. There are no guarantees after seeing Reforged lol.
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I actually think there isn't anything to worry about. After watching the deep dive video above, its clear that the developers really went the extra mile to make sure they don't alter any aspect of the game that would deter from the Diablo 2 experience. They all appear to be veterans of the original game. They went so far as to go back and find original artwork and story boards from Blizzard North to make sure they get it right.
 
My big question that wasn't addressed in any of the questions above (yes I watched both videos) is how loot is going to be handled.
There are two definite changes that would probably upset purists but would make the game more enjoyable for more people to play that likely should be made and probably need to be addressed. And a third that would just be for QOL but is of lesser importance.

1) The drop rate. Most people probably don't remember this well, other than the people that spent 1000's of hours like me to actually farm everything out. I had a 199% Ballista. I had a full Tal Rasha's set. And even in all my playing I never saw a legitimate Windforce (had some duped ones disappear though). The Tal's Chest piece was one of those rare .00001% drop rate items (likely the most rare thing I had - for those that know the game some-what, far more rare than a Zod). And things like Windforce couldn't even drop off anything that didn't meet a specific creature level - basically just Baal. And then on top of that the likelihood of it actually every dropping was so low, people like me that, again, played 1000's of hours, still never saw one. It would be nice to have a reasonable chance to actually see some of that gear. I don't know the right way to fix this really. It should still be rare enough so that it's at least a shocker if you get one, but not so impossible that you can, again spend 1000's of hours, and still not have a realistic chance of getting one.

2.) Shared loot pools. One of the biggest issues for n00bs or players in general was the shared loot pool. Basically it means that all the loot that drops is visible to everyone and anyone can pick it up. Meaning in cooperative play: he whom clicks fastest gets the loot. Which while it has it's own form or "fairness" and perhaps "fun" for those who are quick, it's not an enjoyable experience if you go on 15 Baal runs to gear up and get no gear because it's a public game. Despite D2 being a multiplayer game, I spent most of my loot runs playing solo for this reason. Basically D2 in a lot of ways was a lonely, grindy, game because it required doing things like Mephisto runs and Pindleskin runs by yourself. A way to combat that would be to have the D3 system of individual loot pools that aren't having to get fought over by players. It would help to emphasize more cooperative play and give people a reason to do Baal runs in pubs together.
Obviously this issue is partially fixed in-game by having an extensive friends list. But even in that case, you'd better believe if a .00001% item drops and the fastest guy gets it, all the members of that team sans that person are going to be pissed. Because there is no "fair" way to share that item and of course there is no way to force that player to give up that item.

3.) Smart loot. The original D2 could/would drop any piece of gear regardless of class. You're a Paladin? So what, here's an Amazon bow. A D3 fix that was good was smart loot to more often drop loot of your class than other classes. In D2 this was somewhat patched over by the community by the massive trading community. But I think most people would be happier if they got gear for their class rather than having to trade for everything.

-----

Outside of that, the game looks "fine" other than the fact that I wish/hope that D4 is going along much better and that the next game in the series is good more than just remaking an old game that is technically fine in its current state. (And also they aren't bothering with a macOS version which is disappointing and clearly an Activision decision and not a classic Blizzard one).
 
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I was actually expecting having to repeat that lonely grind lol - after all, I'm already used to that from playing it so much.

Also makes me wonder about the item economy with HRs. If the new BNet is supposed to be robust and eliminate botting, duping, what have you - how will trading be done?
Without the liquidity of fg/d2jsp, it's gonna be the odd pul/um/pgem economy. At least we saw some things about the stash - albeit it's still way too small. Really don't understand why it's not just a full page with tabs.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
My big question that wasn't addressed in any of the questions above (yes I watched both videos) is how loot is going to be handled.
There are two definite changes that would probably upset purists but would make the game more enjoyable for more people to play that likely should be made and probably need to be addressed. And a third that would just be for QOL but is of lesser importance.

1) The drop rate. Most people probably don't remember this well, other than the people that spent 1000's of hours like me to actually farm everything out. I had a 199% Ballista. I had a full Tal Rasha's set. And even in all my playing I never saw a legitimate Windforce (had some duped ones disappear though). The Tal's Chest piece was one of those rare .00001% drop rate items (likely the most rare thing I had - for those that know the game some-what, far more rare than a Zod). And things like Windforce couldn't even drop off anything that didn't meet a specific creature level - basically just Baal. And then on top of that the likelihood of it actually every dropping was so low, people like me that, again, played 1000's of hours, still never saw one. It would be nice to have a reasonable chance to actually see some of that gear. I don't know the right way to fix this really. It should still be rare enough so that it's at least a shocker if you get one, but not so impossible that you can, again spend 1000's of hours, and still not have a realistic chance of getting one.

2.) Shared loot pools. One of the biggest issues for n00bs or players in general was the shared loot pool. Basically it means that all the loot that drops is visible to everyone and anyone can pick it up. Meaning in cooperative play: he whom clicks fastest gets the loot. Which while it has it's own form or "fairness" and perhaps "fun" for those who are quick, it's not an enjoyable experience if you go on 15 Baal runs to gear up and get no gear because it's a public game. Despite D2 being a multiplayer game, I spent most of my loot runs playing solo for this reason. Basically D2 in a lot of ways was a lonely, grindy, game because it required doing things like Mephisto runs and Pindleskin runs by yourself. A way to combat that would be to have the D3 system of individual loot pools that aren't having to get fought over by players. It would help to emphasize more cooperative play and give people a reason to do Baal runs in pubs together.
Obviously this issue is partially fixed in-game by having an extensive friends list. But even in that case, you'd better believe if a .00001% item drops and the fastest guy gets it, all the members of that team sans that person are going to be pissed. Because there is no "fair" way to share that item and of course there is no way to force that player to give up that item.

3.) Smart loot. The original D2 could/would drop any piece of gear regardless of class. You're a Paladin? So what, here's an Amazon bow. A D3 fix that was good was smart loot to more often drop loot of your class than other classes. In D2 this was somewhat patched over by the community by the massive trading community. But I think most people would be happier if they got gear for their class rather than having to trade for everything.

-----

Outside of that, the game looks "fine" other than the fact that I wish/hope that D4 is going along much better and that the next game in the series is good more than just remaking an old game that is technically fine in its current state. (And also they aren't bothering with a macOS version which is disappointing and clearly an Activision decision and not a classic Blizzard one).
Click to expand...
Under the hood, the game uses the same tile engine as the original, its Diablo 2 at its core, just with a shiny overcoat, with 3D animations and lighting programmed in of course. So, I would assume that all the loot tables and drop rates remain the same as the original.
 
Mav451 said:
I was actually expecting having to repeat that lonely grind
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I'm looking forward to it. The only time I ever played with other people in Diablo was on LAN or with a few close friends.
 
Krenum said:
Under the hood, the game uses the same tile engine as the original, its Diablo 2 at its core, just with a shiny overcoat, with 3D animations and lighting programmed in of course. So, I would assume that all the loot tables and drop rates remain the same as the original.
Click to expand...
I watched the video, I'm aware of how the game is built - or at least Blizzard's presentation on how it's built. If they don't alter any of the things I mentioned - I expect that a lot of people are going to have a lot less fun with it than people are expecting them to. As was noted in the video, they're trying to draw in an audience that may not have even been alive 20 years ago to play D2 in its 'first iteration'. If that's the case, they're going to have a sour experience or again, a very lonely one if the loot system isn't addressed to some degree. It probably takes 100 hours to fully gear your first character in D2 (it goes faster as you have a better geared char with high magic find and that can easily survive runs, but that first one is a doozy). Although there are certain items with insane drop rate like I mentioned, just trying to farm more common uniques like a "Twitch" and a "Titan's Revenge" as an example could be a feat that takes a very long time. Trading makes things go faster, but obviously if you have nothing of similar value to trade.... well let's just say no matter what you're going to be forced into a world of old school style grinding.

It's not as if the drop tables couldn't easily be edited. Still, in the presentation it's a VERY glaring omission. Such a big omission that I think there are still alterations that are happening with it, otherwise they'd simply say: "all looting is the same from the original D2 and there are shared loot pools".
 
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Never got into D2, thought the art style looked shit compared to D1....remastered version looks great so will definitely give it a go.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
I watched the video, I'm aware of how the game is built - or at least Blizzard's presentation on how it's built. If they don't alter any of the things I mentioned - I expect that a lot of people are going to have a lot less fun with it than people are expecting them to. As was noted in the video, they're trying to draw in an audience that may not have even been alive 20 years ago to play D2 in its 'first iteration'. If that's the case, they're going to have a sour experience or again, a very lonely one if the loot system isn't addressed to some degree. It probably takes 100 hours to fully gear your first character in D2 (it goes faster as you have a better geared char with high magic find and that can easily survive runs, but that first one is a doozy). Although there are certain items with insane drop rate like I mentioned, just trying to farm more common uniques like a "Twitch" and a "Titan's Revenge" as an example could be a feat that takes a very long time. Trading makes things go faster, but obviously if you have nothing of similar value to trade.... well let's just say no matter what you're going to be forced into a world of old school style grinding.

It's not as if the drop tables couldn't easily be edited. Still, in the presentation it's a VERY glaring omission. Such a big omission that I think there are still alterations that are happening with it, otherwise they'd simply say: "all looting is the same from the original D2 and there are shared loot pools".
Click to expand...

I wonder if that's something they're still debating about internally. Given that Blizzard just gave a vague "2021" date for it, there's still plenty of time for them to do things like tweaking the drop table. If they're still not sure what the plan is there it makes complete sense for them not to bring it up. Of course, if they plan to make major changes to it not bringing it up now also makes sense.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
well let's just say no matter what you're going to be forced into a world of old school style grinding.
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That'll be fine with me. Diablo was always a slow burn type game. Only until Diablo 3 came out that it became a arcade experience. Hopefully they learned their lesson from it.
 
I haven't seen anyone mention it here. Is this remaster going to be running on the Diablo 3 engine or the D4 engine?
 
aeonrevolution said:
I haven't seen anyone mention it here. Is this remaster going to be running on the Diablo 3 engine or the D4 engine?
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Rumors are its the Unreal Engine

"According to its Career site, Vicarious Visions is hiring 8 positions. And 4 of them (Lighting Artist, Environment Artist, Senior Environment Artist, Visual Effects Artist) list "Experience with Unreal Engine" as an extra requirement in the descriptions".

Vicarious Visions is the development team working on it.
https://careers.vvisions.com/
 
The way they have the old engine driving the new one under the hood, it sounds like the gameplay will be mostly the same as the original game.

D2 was a masterpiece and one of the most influential games of all time, but nowadays there would be some clunky issues that would stand out (like the Duriel boss fight) if not at least tweaked a bit. I read one of the devs said there were some quality improvements, so we'll see how it turns out.
 
Maybe when they are done with D2 they can go back and redo warcraft 3 and make it what it should have been, instead of the mess we got.
 
Minimum Requirements

  • Processor: Intel Core i3-3250/AMD FX-4350
  • GPU: Nvidia GTX 660/AMD Radeon HD 7850
  • RAM: 8 GB
  • HDD Space Requiried: 30 GB
  • Resolution: 1280 x 720
  • Operating System: Windows® 10
Recommended Specifications

  • Processor: Intel® Core i5-9600k/AMD Ryzen 5 2600
  • GPU: Nvidia GTX 1060/AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Storage: 30 GB
  • Resolution: 1920 x 1080
  • Operating System: Windows® 10



Recommending a 9600k for a remaster eh?

Not bad. Sounds like they've really pushed the limits on the rehaul.




Remember to opt in for the alpha release.
https://us.shop.battle.net/en-us/product/diablo_ii_resurrected
 
Why are they not remaking the first game first? Or did that happen alraedy?
 
I'll go against the grain here.

meh

I grew up on D2. Spent thousands of hours on it. Then I moved on. I don't know. I'll try it I guess. But its just like World of Warcraft Classic. It was fine then, but I have no desire to go back.
 
polydiol said:
I’m fully expecting low effort blizzard to screw this up
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Vicarious Visions is working on it. Not Blizzard. They've got a pretty good track record and the team working on it seems really passionate about it. Watch the Deep Dive video posted at the top of the thread if you're interested.
 
This brings back so many memories. I lost several summers to this+Expac. Looking forward to this!
 
Krenum said:
Vicarious Visions is working on it. Not Blizzard. They've got a pretty good track record and the team working on it seems really passionate about it. Watch the Deep Dive video posted at the top of the thread if you're interested.
Click to expand...
Their Tony Hawk remaster was beyond good. So glad they're doing Diablo 2.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
My big question that wasn't addressed in any of the questions above (yes I watched both videos) is how loot is going to be handled.
There are two definite changes that would probably upset purists but would make the game more enjoyable for more people to play that likely should be made and probably need to be addressed. And a third that would just be for QOL but is of lesser importance.

1) The drop rate. Most people probably don't remember this well, other than the people that spent 1000's of hours like me to actually farm everything out. I had a 199% Ballista. I had a full Tal Rasha's set. And even in all my playing I never saw a legitimate Windforce (had some duped ones disappear though). The Tal's Chest piece was one of those rare .00001% drop rate items (likely the most rare thing I had - for those that know the game some-what, far more rare than a Zod). And things like Windforce couldn't even drop off anything that didn't meet a specific creature level - basically just Baal. And then on top of that the likelihood of it actually every dropping was so low, people like me that, again, played 1000's of hours, still never saw one. It would be nice to have a reasonable chance to actually see some of that gear. I don't know the right way to fix this really. It should still be rare enough so that it's at least a shocker if you get one, but not so impossible that you can, again spend 1000's of hours, and still not have a realistic chance of getting one.

2.) Shared loot pools. One of the biggest issues for n00bs or players in general was the shared loot pool. Basically it means that all the loot that drops is visible to everyone and anyone can pick it up. Meaning in cooperative play: he whom clicks fastest gets the loot. Which while it has it's own form or "fairness" and perhaps "fun" for those who are quick, it's not an enjoyable experience if you go on 15 Baal runs to gear up and get no gear because it's a public game. Despite D2 being a multiplayer game, I spent most of my loot runs playing solo for this reason. Basically D2 in a lot of ways was a lonely, grindy, game because it required doing things like Mephisto runs and Pindleskin runs by yourself. A way to combat that would be to have the D3 system of individual loot pools that aren't having to get fought over by players. It would help to emphasize more cooperative play and give people a reason to do Baal runs in pubs together.
Obviously this issue is partially fixed in-game by having an extensive friends list. But even in that case, you'd better believe if a .00001% item drops and the fastest guy gets it, all the members of that team sans that person are going to be pissed. Because there is no "fair" way to share that item and of course there is no way to force that player to give up that item.

3.) Smart loot. The original D2 could/would drop any piece of gear regardless of class. You're a Paladin? So what, here's an Amazon bow. A D3 fix that was good was smart loot to more often drop loot of your class than other classes. In D2 this was somewhat patched over by the community by the massive trading community. But I think most people would be happier if they got gear for their class rather than having to trade for everything.

-----

Outside of that, the game looks "fine" other than the fact that I wish/hope that D4 is going along much better and that the next game in the series is good more than just remaking an old game that is technically fine in its current state. (And also they aren't bothering with a macOS version which is disappointing and clearly an Activision decision and not a classic Blizzard one).
Click to expand...
1. I definitely remember this. I got really lucky and had some insane craft that sold for hundreds of SoJs that then fueled the rest of my chars for a long time. (Remember when you could craft insane +2 class skill circlets/amulets/rings? Yeah.) I think in all my hours of farming I only saw one Jah rune ever from A3, and I never saw a Zod rune drop at all.
2. Also a huge problem. The rise of stuff like GrabIt made it mandatory if you cared about loot at all in public Baal runs.
3. This I don't mind as much. Helps inspire multiple builds. Most ARPGs don't have a concept of smart loot where I feel like D3 probably was the first one that really tailored drops to your character most of the time.
 
If it's anything like early Diablo 3 access, I'll have terrible luck on invites lol.

Since this one is Act1/2 only SP, I don't think it's the biggest loss. I only caught a brief part of MrLlama's stream earlier.
 
Some streamers have early access and are streaming it right now if you want to check it out. It seems you can instantly toggle between the original visuals and remastered visuals anytime you want without any loading, since this game is just a visual layer running on the old game simultaneously.

I'm not seeing any PoE streamers atm streaming it, I wonder if Blizz intentionally left them out. Would be a mistake to do so imo, as large numbers of arpg fans have flocked to PoE streams for years now since D3 turned out to have no longevity.
 
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