Random question for you: Is Diablo 2 B.net still up? At first it was telling me I had the wrong version, now it's telling me I can't connect because of no internet connection. Which is OBVIOUSLY wrong. It wouldn't be because I have a USB wifi antenna, would it? Like, that D2 doesn't know how to recognize that kind of connection...
I tried connecting to US East and got the "Unable to connect to Battle Net" error, advising me to check my modem. I tried Europe and connected just fine. Perhaps they're doing some maintenance to some of the US servers right now. It is definitely all still going.
The last few times I've played D2 I've been single player, the Atma muling utility is my friend and saves me from having to start from scratch. And, you know, its cool using items I found in 2004! Unless you plan to go trading crazy, or have friends you're going to play with, I'd seriously consider trying single player, it offers a number of advantages over b.net play.
... When I tried to install Atma before it didn't work. Maybe I'll give it another shot... or maybe... my hands hurt too much after making about 30 inches of chainmaille, I think it might be time to go watch a movie.
I had totally forgotten we'd had this conversation before! There is another popular muling utility, GoMule, I think its called. I'd use it, except it doesn't obey high contrast mode.
FWIW, I installed atma just today on a 64 bit Win 7 machine and it seems to be working just fine.
I dimly recall that the only way you can earn enough xp to hit 99 in a reasonable amount of time is by killing ... holy cow I can't remember their names. The monsters that appear before Baal. IIRC Baal doesn't give you enough XP for the time it takes to kill him.
Downside of the barb doing this is, of course, thorns aura on Baal's prefatory death knights. I don't remember too many melee 99s on the ladders compared to ranged 99s, sorcs/hammerdins with Enigma being almost too numerous to count due to speed of teleport to Baal.
It is a while since you've played! The Oblivion Knights Iron Maiden curse was removed, and that greatly helps melee play wherever the heck they like, at least, it means Chaos and WSK3/4 aren't rather off limits anymore.
The impression i'm under about gaining XP up to level 98 is that while Baal is best, any level 85 area boss pack will give a tiny sliver. From 98 to 99 there are realistically just 3 targets: Baal, Diablo, Nihlathak. (and the ancients quests).
On the speed of teleport, in single player I can hunt down a good Baaling map so I wouldn't need many teleports, AND, bars hae the same cast rates as Sorcs, it is quite easy to get a barb teleporting faster than a hammerdin.
Of cousre, these are all parts of the puzzle, not the answers to quite how to go about the job at hand!
Have Blizzard already said they'll never update D2 again? I forget, even if they haven't said it, it isn't too likely we'll see anything of interest, and that's a bit of a shame. Elimination of 2-3 more bugs and retuning half a dozen things would be a nice tip of the hat to the long-time players that still like to dive into the game once in a while.
I can't say the small changes in the patches that you've missed would be enough for me to say "OMG YOU HAVE TO PLAY!", but if you ever get a D2 itch, it may be worth checking out. The changes offer quite a bit to me: I love running Chaos Sanc, now I can do so with a WW barb, or a caster and not have to babysit my merc. Because (high)runes drop more often, I can play single-player and still obtain high-end runewords and with Atma I'm always building my D2 wealth, even if I go 6 months between games, I don't have to start from scratch.
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I tried connecting to US East and got the "Unable to connect to Battle Net" error, advising me to check my modem. I tried Europe and connected just fine. Perhaps they're doing some maintenance to some of the US servers right now. It is definitely all still going.
The last few times I've played D2 I've been single player, the Atma muling utility is my friend and saves me from having to start from scratch. And, you know, its cool using items I found in 2004! Unless you plan to go trading crazy, or have friends you're going to play with, I'd seriously consider trying single player, it offers a number of advantages over b.net play.
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FWIW, I installed atma just today on a 64 bit Win 7 machine and it seems to be working just fine.
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Downside of the barb doing this is, of course, thorns aura on Baal's prefatory death knights. I don't remember too many melee 99s on the ladders compared to ranged 99s, sorcs/hammerdins with Enigma being almost too numerous to count due to speed of teleport to Baal.
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The impression i'm under about gaining XP up to level 98 is that while Baal is best, any level 85 area boss pack will give a tiny sliver. From 98 to 99 there are realistically just 3 targets: Baal, Diablo, Nihlathak. (and the ancients quests).
On the speed of teleport, in single player I can hunt down a good Baaling map so I wouldn't need many teleports, AND, bars hae the same cast rates as Sorcs, it is quite easy to get a barb teleporting faster than a hammerdin.
Of cousre, these are all parts of the puzzle, not the answers to quite how to go about the job at hand!
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It's like Diablo 2.5 came out and I didn't even KNOW.
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Have Blizzard already said they'll never update D2 again? I forget, even if they haven't said it, it isn't too likely we'll see anything of interest, and that's a bit of a shame. Elimination of 2-3 more bugs and retuning half a dozen things would be a nice tip of the hat to the long-time players that still like to dive into the game once in a while.
I can't say the small changes in the patches that you've missed would be enough for me to say "OMG YOU HAVE TO PLAY!", but if you ever get a D2 itch, it may be worth checking out. The changes offer quite a bit to me: I love running Chaos Sanc, now I can do so with a WW barb, or a caster and not have to babysit my merc. Because (high)runes drop more often, I can play single-player and still obtain high-end runewords and with Atma I'm always building my D2 wealth, even if I go 6 months between games, I don't have to start from scratch.
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