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The story picks up at a point not too long after the defeat of Diablo in the first game. The hero emerged from the labyrinth under the town of Tristram having defeated Diablo and carrying his soulstone in his head, in order to contain Diablo's dark spirit. We are told by Deckard Cain that while the town celebrated the defeat of Diablo and the return of peace to the town, the hero struggled with the evil spirit within until finally it overcame him and he, having become the human embodiment of Diablo, set out to find his brothers, the Prime Evils Mephisto and Baal, in order to free them and attempt to retake Sanctuary.
The plot is relayed via a sequence of cutscenes that take place between each of the four major acts of the game. The game opens with a figure in a robe walking into what appears to be a prison or sanitarium in order to speak to a crazed and emaciated man by the name of Marius. Marius recognizes the man as Tyrael and recounts his ordeals at the hands of the fallen hero carrying the soul of Diablo, whom he refers to as the Wanderer. He starts by explaining that he met the Wanderer in a tavern where the evil within had caused the Wanderer to let loose hellspawn and lay waste to the place, burning it to the ground. After seeing this (and ostensibly being one of the few still left alive), he for reasons unknown to himself follows the Wanderer on his journey. The first Act then follows this as we begin following the Wanderer east, finding Deckard Cain and eventually defeating Andariel, one of the lesser evils, before following the Wanderer to the desert city of Lut Gholein.
Marius recounts what has happened: the Wanderer, who now is almost completely consumed by Diablo, is here to release the spirit of Baal, who has been trapped in the body of a Horadrim priest named Tal Rasha. As the player we arrive shortly after, only to realize that the Wanderer has already left for the deep desert. After a series of quests the player arrives at the tomb of Tal Rasha, only to discover the Archangel Tyrael trapped, Baal and the Wanderer gone and Duriel, another lesser Evil lying in wait. Marius explains that Tyrael attempted to thwart the Wanderer's designs, only to be overcome by both of them. Tyrael manages to pass Marius Baal's soulstone and tells him to go to through a portal to Hell located in Kurast, in order to destroy the soulstone and destroy Baal once and for all. At this point, the player is informed that he must travel east to Kurast, in order to defeat the Wanderer who is now trying to release Diablo's brother Mephisto.
Upon arrival in Kurast, the entire city has been overcome by the jungle, which is explained by the evil that prevails in the city. A series of quests that entail fighting through the city leads us to Mephisto, who is dispatched and whose soulstone is in the player's possession. Marius then explains that he was unable to go through the portal and ran away, ending up in the sanitarium we now find him in. Tyrael then explains that the player must travel to hell to dispatch Diablo and destroy Mephisto's soulstone.
After the defeat of Diablo, a final cutscene reveals that the person Marius has been talking to is indeed not Tyrael but Baal, who has been speaking to him in order to ascertain the location of his own soulstone. Marius turns over the soulstone and Baal reveals himself, leaving Marius to cry out in terror, establishing the premise for the expansion pack Lord of Destruction.
Andariel is a female demon that can be found in the fourth level of the Catacombs. Andariel must be defeated in order to complete the final quest in Act 1. Her most effective move is a poison attack that slowly decreases the players HP.
Duriel is bug-like creature that can be found in Tal-Rasha's tomb. Duriel has two devastating melee attacks that can stun and freeze players. Defeating Duriel enables player to proceed to the next act.
Mephisto, brother of Diablo and Baal, resides in the third level of "The Durance of hatred". The fact that the Durance of Hatred is a small map and can easily be navigated means that Mephisto is one of the most fought Bosses in Diablo; however, the most recent patch updates in Diablo II involved expanding the maps, making it harder to find Mephisto within the map. Mephisto's offense includes a lightning attack and is known to cause heavy damage to players.
Arguably the toughest boss in the game, the eponymous boss uses firestorm as his main attack. His defensive rating is one of the highest amongst the bosses, second only to Duriel. In addition, his high resistance to fire make him a tough opponent. Most players prefer to face Diablo in groups of three or more rather than fighting him on their own. Diablo appears in the game after the 5 seals in the Chaos sanctuary are opened. Diablo is the youngest of the three Prime Evil brothers; his older brother Mephisto calls upon him to metamorphose from his human form to his demonic form with the phrase: "Arise Diablo, Lord of Terror"
Baal is the final boss in Diablo II and must be defeated in order to complete the game and unlock higher levels of difficulty. Baal's mocking laughter can be heard throughout Act V as you battle monsters to get to him. Baal is generally regarded as a weaker boss, thriving mainly on melee attacks. Once defeated, the player instantly gains a higher status in the game and has the ability to unlock the secret cow level.
Upon finishing the game on normal difficulty, players may opt to replay the game in Nightmare mode, retaining all character statistics and equipment as well as the option to switch back to a lower difficulty at any point. Having beaten the game on Nightmare, they may then enter Hell difficulty. Higher difficulty settings result in much stronger enemies and harsher penalties for dying as well as other handicaps, but in return nets the player more experience gained for each defeated enemy, and increases the chance to find more powerful items.
Completion of the game on the standard difficulty settings will also unlock the option for a hardcore mode. Unlike regular characters who are resurrected in their home base upon defeat, the death of a hardcore character will result in an immediate game over. To incorporate this mechanic, the save system was changed to only allow for a 'save and quit' option. For game types other than closed Battle.net play, it is however possible to back up saved characters.
A powerful female warrior from the Twin Seas, the Amazon's highly developed reflexes and dexterity give her extraordinary proficiency with javelins and spears. Many of her skills revolve around enchanting her attacks with elemental effects (most commonly lightning), although she may also opt to improve her agility to easily dodge enemy attacks. Thanks to these defensive capabilities, she is also very viable using a bow and arrow or a crossbow to attack enemies from a distance.
A member of the Priests of Rathma, this master of the dark arts is capable of summoning the dead to fight alongside him, using the remains of fallen foes. Once gathered a group of loyal minions, the Necromancer can then sit back and watch them fight, occasionally supporting his allies with curse spells that weaken enemies for a short time. When he is on his own, he has access to powerful poison and bone spells, which often damage multiple targets.
The Barbarian tribes from mount Arreat are the toughest warriors in all of Sanctuary and their weathered skin is rumored to be strong as a suit of armor. His strength allows the Barbarian to wield any weapon with ease and skill, resulting in unique attack patterns like the almighty whirlwind or powerful leap-attacks. With his warcries, on the other hand, he is able to fill his enemies with fear and doubt, greatly weakening their attacks while his allies profit.
A mysterious beauty from the mages clan of Zann Esu, the most powerful magic-users in Sanctuary. While fragile in direct encounters, the Sorceress can wield powerful elemental attacks, allowing her to call forth lightning, incinerating her opponents with fire or instantly freezing them in icy prisons. To defend herself, she may channel any harm to her magical essence and she's capable of both telekinesis to pick up objects from afar and an amazing teleportation spell.
The righteous Knights of Westmarch and warriors of light, eager to vanquish the evils of the world. His weapon strikes with justice while his holy shield protects him and his faith engulfs the Paladin in a heavenly aura, protecting not only himself, but also any allies near him. However, he is most famous for his ability to cast incredibly powerful blessed hammers that start spinning around him, knocking out any evil soul in their path.
Much of the success of the original Diablo has been attributed to its engaging multiplayer component and the second game expands on that success. Players can team up in games of up to eight players over either LAN or Blizzard's free online platform Battle.net. LAN and Open Battle.net allow players to use their singleplayer characters for multiplayer sessions, keeping all stats and items earned during these sessions. Closed Battle.net on the other hand saves all user characters on Blizzard's server (as a measure against cheating) and characters not used over a period of 90 days expire (although in the most recent patch, 1.11b, you can now restore these characters as long as the name has not been retaken.
Cooperative play is encouraged through additional experience awarded for playing in a party and many character skills such as the Paladin's auras are designed to benefit party members to allow for more efficient play. The game also allows for player versus player interaction, although characters have to be in a home base to toggle hostile modes to give weaker players who don't want to be harassed a chance to evacuate the area or leave the game.
The Secret Cow Level is an easter egg originating from a rumor about the first Diablo. The game's town area featured a group of cow which, when clicked on, would utter 'moo' sounds. Supposedly, clicking the cows in a specific order would open a portal to a secret level. Although the rumor was a complete hoax (with Blizzard even incorporating the phrase “There is no cow level” into a cheat for their real-time strategy game Starcraft), they decided to add this easter egg into the game.
In order to open the Secret Cow Level, the character needs to have defeated Diablo (or Baal in the expansion) on the current difficulty setting. By combining the items Wirt's Leg (found in the ruined city of Tristram) and a Tome of Town Portal in the Horadric Cube, he or she can then create a portal to a hidden area called the Moo Moo Farm which is populated only by masses of hell bovine armed with giant polearms. The Cow King, a unique boss monster in the area, can usually be found near the remains of a large barn. Killing the Cow King will prevent the character from opening another portal on that difficulty. It is still possible to enter the level in multiplayer, if someone else has opened the portal.
The new 1.13 patch was to hit the Public Testing Realm in mid 2009 according to a post made by Bashiok, a community manager for Blizzard. The patch was to have included an increase in stash size and other changes as suggested by players on the official Diablo 2 forums.
The patch has not been delivered as of late October, 2009, though, seemingly due to the repurposing of the legacy team to deal with other legacy issues in Warcraft III. The patch has not been cancelled, however, so it will likely be issued some time in the future when the team is able to devote time to it. However, no official word on the patch has come in after the delay was announced.
In the latest posts by Bashiok, he states:
Diablo II, sequel to the game Diablo, is a dark fantasy-themed action role-playing game in a hack and slash and "dungeon roaming" style. It was released for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS in 2000 by Blizzard Entertainment, and was developed by Blizzard North.
Overview
Diablo II is the sequel to Blizzard Entertainment's widely popular action-RPG set in the realm of Sanctuary. The game was released on July 29, 2000 to great success and was awarded with an entry into the Guinness Book of World Records of the same year as the fastest selling computer game ever. Even to this day, the game is well-populated on Battle.net and the announcement of a third title in the franchise in June of 2008 has again lead to significant increase in salesPlot
The Archangel Tyrael
The plot is relayed via a sequence of cutscenes that take place between each of the four major acts of the game. The game opens with a figure in a robe walking into what appears to be a prison or sanitarium in order to speak to a crazed and emaciated man by the name of Marius. Marius recognizes the man as Tyrael and recounts his ordeals at the hands of the fallen hero carrying the soul of Diablo, whom he refers to as the Wanderer. He starts by explaining that he met the Wanderer in a tavern where the evil within had caused the Wanderer to let loose hellspawn and lay waste to the place, burning it to the ground. After seeing this (and ostensibly being one of the few still left alive), he for reasons unknown to himself follows the Wanderer on his journey. The first Act then follows this as we begin following the Wanderer east, finding Deckard Cain and eventually defeating Andariel, one of the lesser evils, before following the Wanderer to the desert city of Lut Gholein.
Marius recounts what has happened: the Wanderer, who now is almost completely consumed by Diablo, is here to release the spirit of Baal, who has been trapped in the body of a Horadrim priest named Tal Rasha. As the player we arrive shortly after, only to realize that the Wanderer has already left for the deep desert. After a series of quests the player arrives at the tomb of Tal Rasha, only to discover the Archangel Tyrael trapped, Baal and the Wanderer gone and Duriel, another lesser Evil lying in wait. Marius explains that Tyrael attempted to thwart the Wanderer's designs, only to be overcome by both of them. Tyrael manages to pass Marius Baal's soulstone and tells him to go to through a portal to Hell located in Kurast, in order to destroy the soulstone and destroy Baal once and for all. At this point, the player is informed that he must travel east to Kurast, in order to defeat the Wanderer who is now trying to release Diablo's brother Mephisto.
Upon arrival in Kurast, the entire city has been overcome by the jungle, which is explained by the evil that prevails in the city. A series of quests that entail fighting through the city leads us to Mephisto, who is dispatched and whose soulstone is in the player's possession. Marius then explains that he was unable to go through the portal and ran away, ending up in the sanitarium we now find him in. Tyrael then explains that the player must travel to hell to dispatch Diablo and destroy Mephisto's soulstone.
After the defeat of Diablo, a final cutscene reveals that the person Marius has been talking to is indeed not Tyrael but Baal, who has been speaking to him in order to ascertain the location of his own soulstone. Marius turns over the soulstone and Baal reveals himself, leaving Marius to cry out in terror, establishing the premise for the expansion pack Lord of Destruction.
Bosses
Act I: Andariel
Andariel is a female demon that can be found in the fourth level of the Catacombs. Andariel must be defeated in order to complete the final quest in Act 1. Her most effective move is a poison attack that slowly decreases the players HP.
Act II: Duriel
Duriel is bug-like creature that can be found in Tal-Rasha's tomb. Duriel has two devastating melee attacks that can stun and freeze players. Defeating Duriel enables player to proceed to the next act.
Act III: Mephisto
Mephisto, brother of Diablo and Baal, resides in the third level of "The Durance of hatred". The fact that the Durance of Hatred is a small map and can easily be navigated means that Mephisto is one of the most fought Bosses in Diablo; however, the most recent patch updates in Diablo II involved expanding the maps, making it harder to find Mephisto within the map. Mephisto's offense includes a lightning attack and is known to cause heavy damage to players.
Act IV: Diablo
Arguably the toughest boss in the game, the eponymous boss uses firestorm as his main attack. His defensive rating is one of the highest amongst the bosses, second only to Duriel. In addition, his high resistance to fire make him a tough opponent. Most players prefer to face Diablo in groups of three or more rather than fighting him on their own. Diablo appears in the game after the 5 seals in the Chaos sanctuary are opened. Diablo is the youngest of the three Prime Evil brothers; his older brother Mephisto calls upon him to metamorphose from his human form to his demonic form with the phrase: "Arise Diablo, Lord of Terror"
Act V: Baal
Baal is the final boss in Diablo II and must be defeated in order to complete the game and unlock higher levels of difficulty. Baal's mocking laughter can be heard throughout Act V as you battle monsters to get to him. Baal is generally regarded as a weaker boss, thriving mainly on melee attacks. Once defeated, the player instantly gains a higher status in the game and has the ability to unlock the secret cow level.
Gameplay
Similar to its predecessor, the player controls his or her protagonist from an isometric view, mainly using the mouse, although several functions can be bound to the keyboard for faster access. Focusing on fast, action-heavy combat, the game's main attraction and source of its replay value are the randomly generated environments and monsters, as well as an enormous amount of collectible gear to improve the player character.Upon finishing the game on normal difficulty, players may opt to replay the game in Nightmare mode, retaining all character statistics and equipment as well as the option to switch back to a lower difficulty at any point. Having beaten the game on Nightmare, they may then enter Hell difficulty. Higher difficulty settings result in much stronger enemies and harsher penalties for dying as well as other handicaps, but in return nets the player more experience gained for each defeated enemy, and increases the chance to find more powerful items.
Completion of the game on the standard difficulty settings will also unlock the option for a hardcore mode. Unlike regular characters who are resurrected in their home base upon defeat, the death of a hardcore character will result in an immediate game over. To incorporate this mechanic, the save system was changed to only allow for a 'save and quit' option. For game types other than closed Battle.net play, it is however possible to back up saved characters.
Character classes
Diablo II features five playable character classes, each of which offers three unique skill trees and a total of 30 skills to allow for a high degree of character customization.From left to right: The Amazon, the Necromancer, the Barbarian, the Sorceress and the Paladin
Amazon
The Amazon
Necromancer
The Necromancer
Barbarian
The Barbarian
Sorceress
The Sorceress
Paladin
The Paladin
Multiplayer
Much of the success of the original Diablo has been attributed to its engaging multiplayer component and the second game expands on that success. Players can team up in games of up to eight players over either LAN or Blizzard's free online platform Battle.net. LAN and Open Battle.net allow players to use their singleplayer characters for multiplayer sessions, keeping all stats and items earned during these sessions. Closed Battle.net on the other hand saves all user characters on Blizzard's server (as a measure against cheating) and characters not used over a period of 90 days expire (although in the most recent patch, 1.11b, you can now restore these characters as long as the name has not been retaken. Cooperative play is encouraged through additional experience awarded for playing in a party and many character skills such as the Paladin's auras are designed to benefit party members to allow for more efficient play. The game also allows for player versus player interaction, although characters have to be in a home base to toggle hostile modes to give weaker players who don't want to be harassed a chance to evacuate the area or leave the game.
Ladder seasons
The release of patch 1.10 introduced (among other significant changes) a new ladder system which would be seasonal from that point forth. At the creation of a new character, the player can choose to make a ladder character who would only be able to play with other ladder characters and may be displayed in the chat room's ladder window (listing the top 1000 players of the realm or the top 200 of each class.) At the end of each ladder season, ladder characters would be migrated to non-ladder status and a new season begins with all participants starting from scratch.Secret Cow Level
"Holy Cow!"
In order to open the Secret Cow Level, the character needs to have defeated Diablo (or Baal in the expansion) on the current difficulty setting. By combining the items Wirt's Leg (found in the ruined city of Tristram) and a Tome of Town Portal in the Horadric Cube, he or she can then create a portal to a hidden area called the Moo Moo Farm which is populated only by masses of hell bovine armed with giant polearms. The Cow King, a unique boss monster in the area, can usually be found near the remains of a large barn. Killing the Cow King will prevent the character from opening another portal on that difficulty. It is still possible to enter the level in multiplayer, if someone else has opened the portal.
Levels
Although you begin your adventure in the surrounding area of the Rouge encampment, which resemble grassy plains with surrounding mountains, your hero will eventually be able to travel between completely different locations. These include a desert landscape, a marsh-like area, jungle, as well as Hell itself. In Diablo, the levels were almost exclusively located in the same underground passage, with new levels going one step deeper into the dungeon. In Diablo II this kind of descent into dungeons is still prevalent, but there is a lot more exploring on the ground levels of the regions of Sanctuary that you encounter.System Requirements
Windows 95
- 233 MHz Pentium
- 32MB RAM
- 650MB on HDD
- 4X CD-ROM
- Direct X compatible video card
Mac OS 8.1
- G3 processor
- 64 MB RAM plus virtual memory
- 650MB on HDD
- 4X CD-ROM
- 256 color display at 640x480
Today
Currently, Diablo is slated for a major content patch, patch 1.13. The patch was delayed due to an exploit experienced in Blizzard's sister title, WarCraft 3 in which custom maps can be loaded with malware and distributed via a custom map. The Diablo "legacy" team had to swap out from working on 1.13 and help fix this major exploit. This has caused an uproar in the Diablo 2 community because a ladder reset was announced for before the 1.13 patch was to be released. Blizzard made the announcement because the patch was "imminent" but they were blind-sided by the WarCraft 3 issue.The new 1.13 patch was to hit the Public Testing Realm in mid 2009 according to a post made by Bashiok, a community manager for Blizzard. The patch was to have included an increase in stash size and other changes as suggested by players on the official Diablo 2 forums.
The patch has not been delivered as of late October, 2009, though, seemingly due to the repurposing of the legacy team to deal with other legacy issues in Warcraft III. The patch has not been cancelled, however, so it will likely be issued some time in the future when the team is able to devote time to it. However, no official word on the patch has come in after the delay was announced.
In the latest posts by Bashiok, he states:
It seems that one of the most sought-after features is causing no end of problems, and may have to be rescinded. No further updates as of late October 2009 have been listed.Update - 9/30
The Diablo II 1.13 patch is on temporary hold while we investigate potential impact on the Battle.net service. As we moved closer to launching the patch concerns grew that an increase in the player stash size (a feature in the patch) could compromise the Diablo II Battle.net service. The hardware and configuration could potentially not handle the increased stash size gracefully under heavy load. [...]
Update - 10/14
The decision on whether or not to include the enlarged stash size has been slightly delayed. As mentioned previously it would require some additional weeks of development and would remove one of the most requested features were we unable to include it. If it were to be included the concern is that it could render Diablo II unplayable, and repairing the issue after the fact would draw heavily on development resources. Which is also something we obviously want to avoid.
We hope to be able to reach a conclusion and decision soon on the future of the 1.13 patch, and we’ll keep you updated as it develops.
| Game Name | Diablo II |
| Platform(s) | |
| Publisher(s) | |
| Developer(s) | |
| Genres |
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| Themes | |
| Original US Release |
June 29, 2000
need a fuzzy date? |
| Original US Release |
know the real date? |
| Aliases | D2 |
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