Please help!

The original game never had the direct option of selecting the difficulty for single player. However there is a workaround...
Start a multiplayer (LAN) game using the difficulty you want. Then back out and start a new single player game. The difficulty selection will be reused, but only for that play session - if you quit the game and reload, it will revert back to normal difficulty.

Short answer: You can't. The Hellfire expansion introduced that option.

However, apparently you can try the following:

- Select Multi Player
- Select Direct Cable Connection
- Create/Select your hero
- Create Game
- Choose the difficulty you want
- When the game is created, press Escape and choose New Game
- Load your single player character

You'll need to do this each time you load the game.

Disclaimer: I can't vouch for this working; I haven't tried it. Maybe someone else can provide better help.

Edit: Ninja'd - serves me right for taking so long to write this.

Follow the sticky thread about applying the Hellfire expansion, over the Diablo 1 GOG version.

Just get Hellfire from an abandonware site; Blizzard are deecks, they will never allow it to "live", because they hate it (even though they copied lots of things from it, over to Diablo 2 and drew inspiration from parts).

Stop promoting piracy. Just because Blizzard doesn't support someone else's product, doesn't mean the game is abandoned.

Abandonware is piracy even if you negate it. Abandonware website distributes games without author's permission, so it is piracy.

Not the abandonware website's responsibility, if those "authors" leave gems to pointlessly rot forever. If those authors have a problem with that, then they can start selling and partnering! With services like GOG, who value and respect old games. You can't pull the plug on a product, with a passionate community at that, pi$$ on fans' faces asking for a legitimate way to own that product and then nag, if they find a way to get what you denied them...

Said authors are akin to murderers, concerning good old games. And in Blizzard's case right here with Hellfire, murderers with desire/intention to kill!

I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or genuine.

i don't love blizzzard as much as i used to, but i disagree. Hellfire is non-canon and not even made by Blizzard, and was basically a cash grab. they have no good reason to sell it for someone else.

In the first place, Hellfire was a Sierra add-on for D1, IIRC. Not a Blizzard property at all. But if no one claims the IP or objects to its being distributed as abandonware then it becomes impossible to know who--if anyone--actually owns the IP, since no one claims it. I also think that if such persons do not step forward when such IP is distributed on abandonware sites then it is in indicator that no one objects to its free distribution. IE, the IP has been "abandoned." Literally.

But that can change--for instance one abandonware site I looked at used to distribute Diablo 1 free as abandoned (one of many games I've seen this happen to)--but now links to GOG since the IP is being marketed again by Blizzard and distributed by GOG. This happened almost immediately--trust me when I say GOG knows these sites and when it obtains marketing rights for distribution of a formerly abandoned IP it is very quick to alert these abandonment sites and to their credit they are very quick to change the IP's status and put in the links to GOG.

I'm thinking the IP situation is very much like company trademarks--if you do not assert your trademarks and defend them when someone usurps them then you lose them--legally. I'm not sure that "abandoned" is the right word--maybe "lost IP" is a better description. In the Hellfire case, for instance, there is no telling how many people have owned that IP at one time or another after Sierra sold it--which is almost certainly the case, I should think. Lost IPs like this could be sold a number of times to a chain of different people--and then put in a drawer somewhere and forgotten for a decade or more--literally--along with the paperwork! That actually happened with some of the Baldur's Gate IP--the original owners actually *lost the source code*--to which title I cannot remember--but it had been in a basement that suffered a flood, or some such. Evidence of the ownership and the source code were simply lost/destroyed, etc.

So, no, "abandonware" does not automatically equal "piracy" if no one knows who owns the IP and no one steps forward to claim ownership of that IP. The Abandonware sites are not "hidden" or otherwise hard to find, and no one is being cheated out of anything--for obvious reasons...;)

Well spoken. I share your opinion.
I can understand why people call it piracy, but it's simply not that black and white.

Is there a statute of limitations on copyright protections? If a company still owns software they can sue and issue cease and desist letters, even if they aren't using the product. IMO if you are using a product, without compensation, that you don't have a right to use or distribute, it's piracy.

Either use Hellfire or use the MP to SP glitch mentioned in the thread. I resorted to making a new character and playing multiplayer by myself (LAN over IPX). My solution is pretty shitty since so many of quests aren't available in MP (RIP black mushroom and duping spectral elixir).

Yes, absolutely.

https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html

The bottom line... copyright protection lasts for a minimum of SEVENTY YEARS.

Copyrights granted in the USA prior to 1978 can be renewed, periodically, for periods of 28 years a piece. Copyrights granted AFTER that point cannot be renewed.

Diablo (1) was released in 1997. This means that the United States Law position on this is that the program remains the sole property of the intellectual property owners until 2067.

If, after 2067, you want to spread this around to your pals... feel free. Until that point... nope.

By the way, EU intellectual property law is even more stringent than US intellectual property law, in almost every instance.

As for other nations... well, check your local laws. However, virtually every nation has some legal obligation to nations it does business with to honor the originating nation's laws... so if in doubt, refer to US law on the subject.