Ah, I forgot that they made a 2.0. Thanks for pointing that out.

Damnit, you're getting 'ol knee hyped up here!

If someone here has a copy of D2 that s/he would be willing to part with, let me know :)

Diablo 1 is pretty good. I'd argue that it has been surpassed by the likes of Titan Quest. But nothing has quite captured the same dark medieval ambience and few other games have even attempted the random environments. It still has some relevance today because of that.

Diablo 2 improves the mechanics, but the aside from that, the game isn't as good as the first. It's addictive though. I'll say that. There's a good chance it would be.

I would suggest you do some research concerning the DRM that D3 will have. Changes every day but you probably would want to know more about the DRM details before spending your money . . . = )

This is fixed if you use the downloadable version when you register your key on B.net, the same works with Starcraft. No workarounds needed this way.

I have an unused tradeable copy of the Diablo Battle Chest (Diablo 2 + Lord of Destruction). It can be activated and downloaded from battle.net. It's a North American version though, not sure if that matters (in Diablo 2 you can freely choose on which server to play, I think).

I'm not sure what I want for it though, as the Christmas sale pretty much cleared out my GOG wishlist.

Classic games are region-free, so it doesn't matter which version you have... you'd get the 'universal' one when you activate on Battle.net.

Only Battle.net 2.0 games are region locked (WoW, SC2, D3).

Diablo 1 has great atmosphere and ambiance as well as a more theme involving Christian symbolism throughout most of the game, but the mechanics of the game is rather dated nowadays, especially with the no running feature.

Diablo 2 improved the gameplay, though tbh, most people who play D2 still are doing to grind better gears instead of actually playing cause they enjoy killing Mephisto for the 50000X times, and the atmosphere seemed less coherent and creepy.

I've spent 15 years with Diablo games and I still love to install them every year and play them a little (the first one a litte more :)

that being said, you should really buy both (Diablo 1 + Hellfire, Diablo 2 + Lord of Destruction), just to be part of the history that is so huge...

Well, I paid $30 for the game, but I wouldn't want that much for it. It's still rather expensive for such an old game, but Blizzard is greedy and rarely lowers the prices on their games. In the European Blizzard store it's even more expensive -- 40 Euros for the game + expansion, which is ridiculous.

Anyhow, we would have to wait a few days since I'm in Europe right now and the key is in the US. I'm flying back on Friday, so maybe you can think about it for a little while and let me know if you're interested.

There are three styles of multiplayer in Diablo II: Battle.Net Realms, where characters are stored server-side to prevent cheating, Open Battle.Net, where you can use singleplayer characters online, and TCP/IP, which uses singleplayer characters too.

Be warned, however, that with Diablo 3, Blizzard is only including Realm play. No true singleplayer, no TCP/IP. Also, you can't mod it.

Hellfire doesn't matter anymore. Since it was not done by Blizzard, the events that took place in it are like they didn't happen.

hehe, I am amazed every time you say this, here, at least with everyone I knew, Hellfire was the preferred version until D2 arrived.

BTW, anyone having Hellfire that would like to play on LAN here is a how to.

As for reasons to give Hellfire a go . . .

Wikipedia had the following -

"The expansion pack adds several enhancements to Diablo, including an additional monk class, two new dungeon settings, additional quests to undertake, several extra game items, including oils which affect item statistics, runes that can be placed as traps, a new page of spells, new affixes for weapons and armor, new shrines, new mini-boss enemy names, a noticeable boost to Diablo's strength and power, and a number of interface improvements."

Diablo 1 is a pretty good game (what I've played of it anyway), BUT... It likes to fuck you over through no fault of your own. It's like "For this mission, we need you to stand up against this wall with a blindfold on and your legs apart. Remember, if you do not do this, we're all doomed!" Then BAM! Out of nowhere, a troll with hobnailed boots kicks you in the balls, and you die in horrible agony. (This isn't actually what happens, this is just a creative analogy).

Basically, at a certain point not very far into the game, you have to ignore the information you are given, or your game will be ruined and you'll need to start over (or go back to a previous save, but I don't remember if D1 has multiple saves). I find this to be beyond poor game design, that's deliberately trying to ruin the game for the player. I never played the game beyond that point, as I didn't want to run into another of those situations later on, now that I knew the developers would happily do something like that. Another option would be to play the game using a walkthrough the whole way, but that would ruin the game experience too.