Hello fellow duders.

Just as a bit of back story, i currently find myself without a solid gaming PC for a least a few months. I am slightly annoyed by this, as i can no longer play LoL, but, anyway, i do, however, have a fairly decent laptop. With all this talk of Diablo 3, thanks to the beta, i have considered picking up a copy of 2 on the cheap. My question is, is it too late to play this game? It seems to me a large component of the game was the multiplayer, and I have no idea if the game is any good as a single player, or if ppl even still PLAY the multiplayer.

Thanks for the help guys!

I always preferred playing in singleplayer. There's nothing wrong with doing that way (except for grinding, ugh). As far as I'm concerned, Diablo 2 is as important for people to play as Super Mario Brothers when trying to take in gaming and learning its history.

If you can have a connection to the internet play it multiplayer but just make your game private. That way if you want to play multiplayer (if people are still playing, which they probably are) you can without having to roll a new character. I think it's going to feel a little stale if you've played WoW at all, since a lot of the ideas have been heavily iterated on, but it's still a super fun game.

Nope, I wouldn't say it's too late. The singleplayer is still solid. I just recently played through acts 1-4 as a Paladin, actually. And the multiplayer is still pretty active from my understanding. Though, unless you get just a casual group together of people you know are friendly, I wouldn't play with randoms. It was unfortunately pretty easy to grief other people in D2 from what I remember. And multiplayer and single player are really the same game, just one gives you the added benefit of not playing the game along by yourself, otherwise, same content.

If you do get into the game though, I warn you to either play with someone that can help advise you on ability specc'ing or look some up yourself, because it makes a world of difference if you actually are able to focus your abilities properly vs just putting points randomly in things that look cool.

Edit: Heck, if you really wanted to play multiplayer, I bet you could even find people in the GB community that would be up for playing.

@FateOfNever: Cool. Anywhere in particular you`d suggest for finding specs?

Anyone that says the game is only playable multiplayer is an idiot, SP is still awesome and more challenging since you are by yourself, also yeah you should totally get it because even today it still holds up incredibly well, one of the best games of all time.
 
edit: though if you want I would totally play through some of the campaign with you, I love that game man.
 
edit2: don't forget to get the LoD expansion as well.

its NEVER too late to play Diablo II, also do not forget do pick up the expansion pack as wel because it adds SOOOO much stuff to an already awesome game.

@onarum: @Stete: Good point. Thanks guys! I just had a thought. Does it even run on Windows 7? :p

@onarum: @Stete: Good point. Thanks guys! I just had a thought. Does it even run on Windows 7? :p

@Wolfrum_920: I think (but don't hold me to it if I'm wrong), this place has a lot of builds and what not. I think it's where I looked up several when I was deciding what to play through as next.

@Wolfrum_920: I think (but don't hold me to it if I'm wrong), this place has a lot of builds and what not. I think it's where I looked up several when I was deciding what to play through as next.

To play D2 you'll need the expansion too, because it raises the resolution of the old game to the more tolerable 800x600.

That said D2 is active still, there is to this day trading going on on all the realms. (d2jsp.org) although the core game is played mostly by bots, or temporarily by relapsing addicts. Most of online activity is focused on PvP for those who remain.

The downside is that diablo really doesn't enough information on how all those stats work, learning it will take too much time - to be worth it this day and age.

In short: Don't do it.

To play D2 you'll need the expansion too, because it raises the resolution of the old game to the more tolerable 800x600.

That said D2 is active still, there is to this day trading going on on all the realms. (d2jsp.org) although the core game is played mostly played by bots, or temporarily by relapsing addicts the game is focused on PvP for those who remain.

The downside is that diablo really provides not enough information on how all those stats work, learning it will take too much time, to be worth it this day and age.

In Short. Don't do it.

I just bought D2 and the expansion again because I wanted to revisit it before D3. Closing in on the end of Act 1 and so far I'm really enjoying it (playing it online, by creating passworded games for myself).

The custscenes will have lost their impact though - they were amazing back in the day, but seeing them now for the first time probably won't be very mindblowing. :)

its NEVER too late to play Diablo II, also do not forget do pick up the expansion pack as wel because it adds SOOOO much stuff to an already awesome game.

i have never played multiplayer and i love that game. it's so good regardless of online. it's never too late.

Just play it, it's really fun solo if you can't find anyone playing multiplayer.

It's fun solo. I didn't get into the multiplayer until much much later.

It's one of the best games ever made and tons of people still play.  I can't imagine playing singleplayer and getting very deep, I wouldn't recommend it.  Don't stick your toe in, just dive, play on battlenet.

Play it, beat it, and have fun.

Play it again, hack the fuck out of your character and murder everything on the map with a single click. More fun.

I played about 30 minutes of MP with my buddy when it came out. The lag was so terrible that we gave up and I never looked back at MP again.

Last time I played multiplayer there was quite a bit of sell spam. If I was running through for the first time I wouldn't want to see that personally.

The game still holds up amazingly well, and is really a joy to play over and over again. The higher difficulty levels are seriously challenging, and the classes all play in incredibly different ways.

The graphics may not have aged well, but the game play is as good as ever. It is easily one of the best games ever and a must play.

Be warned. The game can get quite addicting though. Gotta get all that loot!

@onarum: You may be right, and it isn't nearly as bad as it was back when the game launched, back when if you made a bad character the only way to fix it was to start from scratch again, but at least one reason I suggest it is that people are used to games, I think, where you pick an ability and then you have easy access to it. So if a game gave you, say, 10 abilities, you would have some relatively easy way to get to all of them and use them all somewhat equally. That's not the case in D2. Switching between abilities is often a pain in the ass, and while the experimenting thing is kind of fun (my first two characters I beat the game on I just put points into what looked good and useful) by the end I still looked at my ability sheet and sighed looking at the tons of wasted points.

If you'd rather not straight up follow a guide, there is something of a guideline - pick just a couple of abilities that you think look cool and try to focus on those and whatever might give them synergy bonuses. This still means you have to spend points to get down as far as those abilities are, but it doesn't tell you specifically "these are the best abilities in the game."

You can certainly beat the game not following any kind of build or anything, especially now with the one respec per difficulty, but it does make it considerably harder. For example, when Rorie said on the D3 Beta Quick Look that Duriel was one of the worst bosses in the game, I laughed a little bit as my Zeal focused Paladin wrecked Duriel like he was nothing; stood toe-to-toe with him and I don't even think I used more than 4 potions while fighting him. While I've certainly had other characters fight Duriel and it's a fucking mess of trying to do as much damage to him before I die or can make it back through a town portal back to safety before rinsing and repeating. Not that that wasn't fun in its own way though.

So, I certainly suppose there is some merit to just diving into the game and not bothering with trying to focus your character at all, but, I do think it at least warrants noting that doing so will certainly make the game considerably harder.

I tried playing Diablo II roughly 2 years ago. I couldn't. There are certain QA failures that put me off of the game severely. It has a way of shitting all over your confidence regularly. Preferred Titan Quest, TBH.

i usually play multiplayer with randoms not that hard to get into a game but singleplayer is just as fun if not rewarding cause you do it by yourself

This game is bet in LAN, not on ladder, while getting wasted with friends. If you have no friends... s2bu

@chazaid: I don't think I ever actually played D2 online. Mostly just soloed but when I like the connectivity that comes with D3.