Diablo II

Diablo II, sequel to the popular Diablo, is an action role-playing game in a hack and slash or "Dungeon Roaming" style. It was released for both Microsoft Windows and Mac OS in 2000 by Blizzard Entertainment. Diablo II was developed by Blizzard North.

By April 2001, Diablo II had become one of the most popular online games ever. Major factors that contributed to Diablo II's success include what fans found to be addictive hack and slash gameplay and free access to Battle.net. Diablo II may be played as a single player game, multi-player via a LAN, or multi-player via Battle.net, with the latter being the most popular. It has also become the 9th best selling computer game and number one best selling RPG for the PC, selling over seven million copies.

The game was conceptualized and designed by Stieg Hedlund, with Blizzard North founders David Brevik, Eric and Max Shaefer acting as Project Leads for the other disciplines (Engineering, Character Art and Environment Art, respectively). The main Production roles were handled by Matthew Householder and Bill Roper.

An expansion to Diablo II, Lord of Destruction, was released in 2001, and is now at version 1.11b.

Gameplay

The player assumes the role of a hero, fighting monsters while traversing overland and dungeons. The storyline of Diablo II is played through four acts, five with Lord of Destruction. Each act follows a predetermined path with preselected quests, although many quests are optional. Each act culminates with the destruction of a boss type monster, upon which the player proceeds to the next act. Battle is conducted in real-time, using an isometric oblique top-down viewpoint (basically, this just means that the game has a set, hovering camera angle). Players fight monsters to level up their character and gain better items.

Diablo II emphasises combat, and randomly generates many monster properties, level layouts and item drops. Most of the maps themselves are randomly generated. In single player mode, the map is randomly generated but locks the setting thereafter; in multiplayer mode, it resets each time you restart.

Diablo II allows the player to choose between five different character classes: Necromancer, Amazon, Barbarian, Sorceress and Paladin. Each character has different strengths and weaknesses and sets of skills to choose from. The Diablo II expansion pack, Lord of Destruction, adds two new classes: the Druid and the Assassin.

In addition to the four/five acts there are also three difficulty levels: Normal, Nightmare and Hell. A character must complete these difficulty levels in order; only once a character completes Normal difficulty, that character may play at Nightmare difficulty, and similarly for Hell difficulty. A character retains all abilities, equipment, etc, between difficulties, and may return to earlier difficulties at any time. Upon completion of the game in Normal difficulty, a player may create a Hardcore character. The game ends when a Hardcore character is killed.

Diablo II also has a number of other features that enhance gameplay. The player has the option of hiring one of several computer-controlled mercenaries, that follow the player and attack nearby enemies. On occasion, the player might find a rare, valuable item, or one that is part of a set that becomes more powerful when the entire set is collected. Items can be customized using sockets and gems, or transmuted into different items using the Horadric Cube.

Multiplayer is achieved through Blizzard's Battle.net free online service, or via a LAN. Battle.net is divided into "Open" and "Closed" realms. Players may play their single-player characters on open realms; characters in closed realms are stored on Blizzard's servers, as a measure against cheating. Online play is otherwise nearly identical to single-player play.

As an added dimension, Diablo II allows players to engage in competitive player vs. player (PvP) combat, rewarding victors with piles of gold and the severed ear of their enemy. PvP play outside the framework of duels (i.e. random assaults of other players) led to a community of certain PvPers finding ways to interfere with other high-level parties, or repetitively wipe out low-level players . These players are commonly called Pkers (Player Killers) by the Battle.net community.

As the game can be played cooperatively (Players vs. Monsters, PvM), groups of players with specific sets of complementary skills can finish some of the game's climactic battles in a matter of seconds, providing strong incentives for party-oriented character builds.

Reception

Diablo II was a runaway success for Blizzard. It was awarded a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records "2000 edition" for being the fastest-selling computer game ever sold, with more than 1 million units sold in the first two weeks of availability ^*.

Story

The story of Diablo II takes place soon after the end of the original Diablo. At the end of Diablo, Diablo, the Lord of Terror, was defeated. The hero then takes Diablo's soulstone (a device that is used to bind the soul of any demon or angel) and puts it into his own body, hoping to contain his soul for all eternity. However, the hero is rapidly corrupted by Diablo and quickly begins to lose control. In the opening scene of Diablo II, Marius, the narrator of the story, witnesses the hero (known as the Dark Wanderer) totally lose control, unleashing the demons of hell upon a tavern. He is compelled to follow the Wanderer for reasons he himself does not understand. The player plays a character in the wake of the destruction, following the Dark Wanderer, hoping to halt him, ultimately spying the Wanderer outside the city of Kurast but unable to stop him. The rest of the story is revealed through the four acts, as the player faces not just the demon lord Diablo, but two new major villains, Mephisto and Baal, Diablo's malevolent brothers. Diablo is determined to free them from their incarceration. The hero travels through different lands to thwart the forces of hell from taking over the world.

Character classes

Amazon

The Amazon is an "active skill"-oriented fighter. Her skills are oriented around personal (generally passive) protective abilities, the use of a bow and arrow (whose abilities are linked with the elements of fire and ice), as well as the spear and javelin (whose abilities are linked with the elements of lightning and poison).

The Amazon is most similar to the Rogue of Diablo: both are primarily associated with bows (and crossbows, in the case of the Amazon), and both are middle points between pure strength and pure magic. The Amazon is different in that she can also use javelins and spears adeptly.

Barbarian

The Barbarian is by far the most powerful melee fighting character and the only one in the original Diablo II, and one of two characters in Lord Of Destruction able to dual-wield weapons. His skills are divided into various weapon masteries, warcries, and combat skills. The masteries are purely passive and allow the Barbarian to specialize in different types of melee weapons and to gain natural speed and resistances. His warcries can enhance his and his party's ability in combat, or reduce the ability of the enemy. The barbarian's combat skills are attacks that maximize brute force, his greatest asset.

The barbarian is based upon the Warrior class from the original Diablo, whose role was meant to encompass a variety of melee characters, including that of the Barbarians of the northern highlands. A hidden class in the patch for Hellfire included a Barbarian class, using the Warrior's appearance with altered statistics.

Paladin

The Paladin is a warrior fighting for all that is good. To reflect this, the Paladin has combat skills ranging from fanatical attacks to anti-undead spells. Paladins can be categorized in groups based on their main combat skill, such as FoHers (Paladins using Fist of the Heavens), Hammerdins (Paladins using Blessed Hammer), or Zealots (Paladins using Zeal). They are also proficient in the use of a shield, with two key skills; Holy Shield, which increases a Paladin's defense drastically, if using a shield, and Smite, which allows the Paladin to use a shield as a weapon, stunning the opponent with a successful hit. The Paladin is the only character able to use his shield as a weapon.

The Paladin's specialty, however, lies in auras that buff himself and his party. These passive auras, which can enhance personal abilities, lower the amount of damage dealt by enemies or recover health and can add considerable complexity to the class because only one aura, except when an item grants another aura, can be active at a time. The Paladin also has access to great strength and health and, because the auras do not generally require mana to activate, is not heavily restricted by mana consumption. They are generally the most popular character, due to their high defense, magical auras, and their ability to do excessive amounts of damage.

Sorceress

The Sorceress focuses on ranged elemental spells in three areas: cold, lightning, and fire. Her cold-based spells have the benefit of chilling affected enemies (slowing them down) or freezing them (stopping them completely). Moreover, any chilled or frozen enemies may shatter instead of leaving a corpse.

The strong points of the Sorceress are powerful damaging spells, ability to freeze enemies with cold spells, and mobility (teleporting), which are valuable in multiplayer games and single player games. The weak points are her relatively low hit points and defense, demanding that the player pay close attention to keep her out of the fray.

Necromancer

The necromancer is a spell-caster like the sorceress, but in a different way. Whereas the sorceress relies on elemental damage, the necromancer relies on raising an army of the dead to do his dirty work for him. He does possess direct damage in the form of poison and bone-based spells, but his most specialized abilities are curses and summons. His summoning abilities allow the necromancer to raise skeletons, a variety of golems, and even former enemies. If his minions are able to kill a monster, the necromancer will get the experience for it. This can be very useful, in using an undead squad of allies to destroy enemies.

Online play

Easter eggs

Many of the people, items and places in Diablo II are named after Blizzard employees and their loved ones. (note: some of these examples are taken from the Lord of Destruction expansion pack)

Examples of item names that are anagrams of developer names:

Nokozan Relic = Karin Colenzo
(The) Mahim-Oak Curio = Michio Okamura
Bverrit Keep = Peter Brevik
Rusthandle = (Mark) Sutherland
Rixot’s Keen = Erik Sexton
Skewer (of) Krintiz = Kris Renkewitz

Examples of monster names taken from the development team:

Colenzo the Annihilator = Karin Colenzo
Lord de Seis = Rick Seis
Shenk the Overseer = Phil Shenk
Sexton (Act III monster) = Erik Sexton (though a Sexton is also a term for a kind of church official.)

Examples of item names taken from the developer team:

Civerb's set = surnames of David and Peter Brevik, spelled backwards (and replacing the 'k' with a 'c')
Schaefer's Hammer = Erich/Max Schaefer

Examples of locations taken from development team:

The Halls of Vaught = Fredrick Vaught

Additionally, other items are references to movies or books. A good example here is a small dagger, or Dirk, called The Diggler, which is based on the main character of the movie Boogie Nights called Dirk Diggler. The Tarnhelm is a reference to the opera Das Rheingold of Der Ring des Nibelungen (aka The Ring Cycle). The set Sigon's Complete Steel is a clear reference to Hamlet in which the ghost of the murdered king of Denmark appears "in complete steel".

There are also historical references: Tancred's Battlegear refers probably to Tancred, Prince of Galilee, while Pelta Lunata refers to the crescent shaped shield of the mythic Amazons. Hotspur probably refers to Henry Percy.

Secret Cow Level

The "Secret Cow Level" is the result of a running joke from the original Diablo that spawned from an Internet rumor about a cow which appears in the game, seemingly without purpose. Supposedly, if you clicked on it a certain number of times or offered it money, the cow was reported to open a portal to a secret level. The rumor was a hoax, but the legend was born, and player after player asked Blizzard about how to access the level.

In Hellfire, the only expansion to the original Diablo, it was possible to change a parameter in a specific text file (Command.txt), so that the farmer who gives out the "rune bomb" quest was dressed in a cow suit, with appropriate new dialogue ("Moo." "I said Moo!"). This added fuel to the fire. To quell the rumor, Blizzard included a cheat (that automatically won the game) in StarCraft that read "There is no cow level" (implying no secret cow levels in Diablo). Among online game enthusiasts, this phrase has become an Internet joke similar to the phrase There Is No Cabal.

However, there really is a cow level in the sequel, Diablo II. To access the level, one must kill Diablo (or, in Lord of Destruction, kill Baal), return to Rogue Encampment in Act I within the same difficulty level, and then transmute Wirt's Leg with a Tome of Town Portal in the Horadric Cube. This will open a portal to the secret level.

Some references to the cow level exist in World of Warcraft:

One of the loading screen tips contains the phrase "There is no cow level".
The robot "Techbot" outside of Gnomeregan says "There is no cow level... well maybe".
The game contains a leather chestpiece armor item called "Cow King's Hide" ^*
The game contains a weapon called "Wirt's Third Leg" (The first leg is the one in Diablo II and the second, "Wirt's Other Leg", can be found in The Frozen Throne).

Trivia

A unique item known as The Diggler in the form of a dirk is a cler reference to Dirk Diggler of Boogie Nights.

References

BlueNews news article^*
Inside Mac games news article^*
GameZone news article^*
Internet Movie Database^*
CVG interview with Bill Roper, ^*

External links

Official Site
The Arreat Summit, official Strategy Guide
DiabloII.net - Very thorough Diablo, Hellfire, Diablo II Fansite
Diablo2.com - Forum discussion
Video of the Secret Cow Level - from Gamespot
Strategies on GameFaqs - Helpful guides

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