Hi guys,
after having installed Diablo 1 again after a long time I'm wondering how the hell do you manage to play online nowadays?
I've picked up various information about this topic on the internet, ending up confused. Is it possible to connect to some GOG battle.net server? Or do I have to buy the GOG Diablo game first? Or use Hamachi?

If you want to play on GOG battlenet you can, but for playing with friends I would strongly recommend using devilutionX for security, simplicity and compatability with a modern system.

There are very few players on the battlenet server afaik, but if you want to give it a try you simply need to edit the registry database in windows to add the GoG server.

Ol thanks, I will try that as soon as I'm at home at the end of the week.

This battle.net solution sounds easy, but what exactly do you have to add in the registry?
As for devilutionX, I'll have the opportunity to test it in the next days. Is there a dullard compatible instruction on how to do this? Just typing in the other person's IP shouldn't be everything?

For DevilutionX the host needs to expose port 6112 to incoming TCP traffic (probably via port-forwarding in your router).
The client simply needs to enter the host IP.

We are striving hard to make it as simple as possible.

Ok, with the help of a VPN software it works now. Started an ironman, cleared the church, will be continued soon. :-)
We were wondering how can you customise the hotkeys? There is no diablo.ini and changing them in the exe doesn't work.
And apparently the game is preset to some strange sort of keyboard layout, we couldn't find the question mark for example.
Finally, where are the save games actually stored? They are not where the readme says they should be.

You cannot change the keys in the retail/GOG version of Diablo. I think you can compile devilutionX now and change the keys during compilation. Otherwise, I recommend using a keyboard that has "macro" function for all keys.

Check the Readme for where your os stores the ini and savegame

Utterly correct. :-)
I actually did read the readme at first and couldn't find them nonetheless, but have found them now.
Even works without VPN software now, just as you said.
Great Ironman, level 10 next time. BTW GhastMaster, your Grotto is awesome.

Hi,

is it secured that the monsters' movement AI in devilutionx is the exact same as in Diablo?
I'm just asking because we think that sometimes it is both irrationally weird and unpredictable (it's not only their teleporting around, but also their general pathfinding AI). Especially witches and cabalists were quite irritating to the point where our normal ironman patterns didn't work anymore. Also, Diablo's apocalypse attack apparently didn't do any damage.

So, does it have something to do with devilutionx or is it lag? The games are pretty laggy most of the time, so that'd be an option too. ;-)

The code has been verified to generate the same instruction when using the original compiler, the only fix we have done to the AI is have them correctly see the end of firewalls (original was of by one tile)

Alright thanks, guess that's part of the challenge now. :D

i bought Diablo+Hellfire a few days ago, to play it again after many years. i just can't...
if i try the classic version, it requires the cd (???). the other version fails even at loading the game itself. (tried 4 times without success). am i missing something or just simple dumb?

thanks for any useful helps or tips

hellfire support in devilutionx is almost finished, after it's done it will be the best way to play hellfire and diablo in general, it has the cd check removed

The game installer had a bug where a registry key wasn't getting set properly. It was supposedly fixed, but some people still seem to be encountering it.

Edit your registry and look for the key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Blizzard Entertainment\Archives\DiabloCD

(Note: if you're using a 32-bit version of Windows, then the key is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Blizzard Entertainment\Archives\DiabloCD)

The value of the key should point to the game installation folder (i.e. C:\GOG Games\Diablo -- or wherever you have the game installed).

Or... just run DevilutionX. :-) It's superior to the original version in every respect and much more compatible with modern systems.
https://github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX