Let's go back in 2000, the year Diablo 2 was released. The version 1.0 was only playable in 800x600, only five characters to use. Gambling gave you greens and uniques, if you had some luck. Some classes were all mighty.
Was Diablo 2 a great game at the time? i remember finding it ugly as hell, all i could see was pixels and pixels. For the time, 2D-Games were already not very welcome, if not mocked. But we did not really care, most of us didn't had such great piece of hardware, and most likely hadn't any better than a Intel pentium III, probably with some Nvidia video card for the luckiest of us. Internet bandwith was around 5.6k/o per second, if you could afford it. We certainly did not stop there.
As the game became popular, an expansion appeared soon after, but the game changed quite alot. New items, new classes, a new Act...
To some, Diablo 2 reached its peak with the never-ending Bhaal Runs, a to a few, with the Ubber Lords of Terror and Destruction.
To me, the game i loved seemed to lose it edge, the items that once were greatly rewarding were becoming null and boring, with the never-ending list of enchants coming with them. At this point,
I quited playing Diablo 2.
A few years later, In 2006, i stumbled across a copy of Diablo 2, "Best Seller" was written on it.
In 2009, i realized i needed some money and i made the mistake to sell my old games, Diablo 2 included. But the vendor did not want it. He said it was not sellable, and i thrashed it.
Diablo 2 would have become a lost memory in my heart if i didn't bought a new computer. Let me explain : With my brand new computer, i wanted to test it, to see it strength. I went at the store to Buy some Games. Being a Mac User, i could only find adapted classics. Once i grew bored, i decided to look on the internet if i could find there some free games. To my surprise, i found back Diablo2 on pirate bay...
This time, all i wanted was to play Diablo 2 Classic only. I'm not sure if i was aware at the time, but now i know exactly what i like so much about it:
1) The great amount of different builds of every class...
In Classic, there is no synergies, no class-made weapons, so you can pretty much do anything you want. Paladins can be Hammerdins, Avengers, Auradins, without being even close to each other. Barbs can be Berzerkers, WW or both. Sorcs can be tri-element, cold or fire only. Necros can be Summoners, Bone, or a mix of those. Only amazons will have so hard time being another thing than bowazons or Javazons.
2) Best Items are completely random...
Sure you can equip uniques and greens, but there stats and enchants are made for the normal mode only. if you wish to wear high levels items, you better find some rares in Hell, that are completely random in the enchants they give. So its pretty hard to find them.
3) There is no Act V...
When you kill Diablo, the game ends and you start over directly in the next difficulty mode, at Act I. I'm Not saying its easier that way. It isn't. It's just i hated to have an entire Act just to be able to go to the Cow Level. Now kill diablo and Enjoy!
4) No mercenaries to pimp...
Mercenaries were really useless, back in Classic, or at least they provided a decay for a few seconds.
5) Iron maiden in Diablo's Sanctuary.
This one was removed in the latter versions. Used to teach noobs a lesson.
6) NO Enigma
Rofl... Barbs teleports and WW next to you. Rofl Pala teleports and Kill Boss. Only Sorcs should be able to teleport, don't you think? made the Barb's Jump silly. Made teamworking useless.
And the list could go on forever... next post i will talk about a few builds that are fun and easy to play in Classic.
