History repeats itself (D2)

[Amigoltu]

I sometimes wonder if it's like humanity's destiny, or whatever else you'd like to call it - to endlessly repeat the same mistakes. The wars, the tyranny and the failed REmasters.

I remember the 2018 when my beloved game was getting updates, like wide-screen support that finally fixed stuttering of Warcraft III on a new computer system, the new Native Jass functions, etc. And then, Warcraft III: Reforged was announced. I remember how even I got into the hype, and later, some people have rightfully called me a hypocrite when I started criticizing Reforged during the Beta, having fervently defended it during the announcement and months to come. What can I say, Blizzard opened my eyes...

Sadly, however, looking at Diablo 2: Resurrected announcement now - I see the same exact thing. Even after the shitstorm that was Refunded, people are hyped up about D2R and gushing on forums and comment sections how they are going to pre-order it. And the storm surrounding WC3R haven't even died down yet...

I look at this and frankly, become a little depressed. If people won't be learning from their mistakes like this, nothing will ever change. Blizzard utterly destroyed one community, and they are cheered when they set out to do the same to another... Our society goes through an age of tyranny and tragedy, and yet, now the "hatespeech" laws are celebrated...

It's an endless cycle of suffering because people seemingly cannot learn from their mistakes.

 

[Venombite]

You can't compare those two, for several reasons:

1. They didn't promise much: W3R was supposed to be much more than a graphical update, yet D2R is not. They said that D2R is just a graphical update (that brings in 3D graphics), and some minor QoL improvements (which only feel natural in this day and age).
2. It's done by a completely different team, and not a single thing is outsourced. VV is now part of Blizzard.
3. They know that they MUST NOT screw this up. If they do, they can say goodbye to the sweet D4 money in the future.

 

[MasterBlaster]

And the storm surrounding WC3R haven't even died down yet...

Wrong. Outside of dedicated Warcraft 3 sites like this one, the "storm" died down months ago.

Blizzard utterly destroyed one community, and they are cheered when they set out to do the same to another...

Diablo 2: Resurrected isn't made by the same team that screwed up with Reforged, but by Vicarious Visions, which has a good track record with remasters. And even if it was the old team - Starcraft: Remastered was really good. My point? They can make both good and bad stuff. We'll just have to see which one Resurrected is.

I started criticizing Reforged during the Beta, having fervently defended it during the announcement and months to come.

And now you're doing the exact opposite. I absolutely agree that after Reforged, people should be more careful with pre-ordering Resurrected, especially before the beta is out and we get to see how it plays, but automatically assuming that it has to be bad and that Blizzard is "setting out to destroy another community" isn't fair either.

not a single thing is outsourced

This isn't true. During the Q&A panel, I think, they mentioned that some art assets were outsourced, but that really doesn't have to be a bad thing. Starcraft: Remastered was partially outsourced too and it looks great, so it's not like outsourcing is inherently evil. It can be good, you just need better supervision.

 

[Amigoltu]

I guess I have to agree that I have painted a bit too dark of an image with my post. But as you pointed out, @MasterBlaster , I'd wish people weren't so quick to pre-order. I'd wish people didn't pre-order at all, because pre-ordering enables a lot of this bs. Wait till the game is fully released, wait till you can watch actual gameplay videos (not promotional material), and only then make an educated decision on whether to buy the game, or not.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Honestly the goals of Diablo II Resurrected are much more down to earth. I doubt it is possible for them to go wrong with it. Fundamentally when you play it you will be playing the same Diablo II you know and love, and it is unlikely to crash or perform worse in multiplayer as it is not trying to completely change everything while remaining compatible with what users made before.

I was sceptical about Warcraft III Reforged, and in the long term many of my fear/predictions did happen. For example there is still no model editor built into World Editor, a feature that was promised on announcement day that I predicted at the time to be outlandish. However nothing with the Diablo II Resurrected announcement rings alarm bells to me.

All they have to do is make sure the final product is reasonably stable and performs ok and it will be good. This is not even a high bar given that Diablo II was never perfectly stable (crashes with too many buffs) and also never did perform well (5 FPS when running with the higher visual settings on systems made 10+ years after the game released).

 

[Amigoltu]

Honestly the goals of Diablo II Resurrected are much more down to earth. I doubt it is possible for them to go wrong with it. Fundamentally when you play it you will be playing the same Diablo II you know and love, and it is unlikely to crash or perform worse in multiplayer as it is not trying to completely change everything while remaining compatible with what users made before.

I was sceptical about Warcraft III Reforged, and in the long term many of my fear/predictions did happen. For example there is still no model editor built into World Editor, a feature that was promised on announcement day that I predicted at the time to be outlandish. However nothing with the Diablo II Resurrected announcement rings alarm bells to me.

All they have to do is make sure the final product is reasonably stable and performs ok and it will be good. This is not even a high bar given that Diablo II was never perfectly stable (crashes with too many buffs) and also never did perform well (5 FPS when running with the higher visual settings on systems made 10+ years after the game released).

Regardless, if I were a Diablo fan, the best thing I could do now is back up any game versions I can get my hands on. It is something I did with Warcraft III, prior to release of reforged, which allows me to still play older versions. If I didn't, I'd have been screwed, basically. And, as I said before, pre-ordering is always a bad choice.

 

[deepstrasz]

I look at this and frankly, become a little depressed. If people won't be learning from their mistakes like this, nothing will ever change. Blizzard utterly destroyed one community, and they are cheered when they set out to do the same to another... Our society goes through an age of tyranny and tragedy, and yet, now the "hatespeech" laws are celebrated...

Thing is, DII fans are not necessarily WcIII fans.

It's an endless cycle of suffering because people seemingly cannot learn from their mistakes.

Samsara, my friend.

And, as I said before, pre-ordering is always a bad choice.

I agree with this but seeing their detailed BLIZCCONLINE video on the game, failing this remaster would mean that the video was manipulation through media.

 

[pyf]

System requirements:
- Diablo II: Resurrected System Requirements
- Diablo II (2000) System Requirements

Just like with WC3 v1.27a2, I suggest downloading asap any offline full standalone installer versions of DII+LoD v1.14b (for whatever languages and OSes the game supports) Blizzard is providing from their own servers. Be aware that this downloadable version requires 26-digit CD-Keys. Also, it should not work on W9x/Me/NT4 (support for these OSes was dropped after v1.13d afaik)

Contrary to Warcraft 3, Blizzard seems to have no plans to abandon Battle.net 1.0 support for the legacy version of this game as of this writing.


** Update **

The RAM requirements for the legacy (2000/2001) version are imho inaccurate/overblown, and its minimum supported resolution is plain wrong. I know, because back then I still had a fixed frequency 14 inches color monitor that could not go beyond 640x480, and therefore I could not play D2 because of that (D1 was fine, though, because D1 is a 640X480 game).


** Update 2 **

rotfl, and I forgot to mention that the CPU/OS requirements make no sense too. Because yeah, in 2000/2001 everybody was running 64-bit Windows OSes on 1 Ghz CPUs? and ofc Windows 7 already existed back then? Really?? I remember playing Diablo II on my PII-350...


** Update 3 **

[Diablo II] Mac Support Update - Classic Games Tech support

 

[Dr Super Good]

** Update **

The RAM requirements for the legacy (2000/2001) version are imho inaccurate/overblown, and its minimum supported resolution is plain wrong. I know, because back then I still had a fixed frequency 14 inches color monitor that could not go beyond 640x480, and therefore I could not play D2 because of that (D1 was fine, though, because D1 is a 640X480 game).


** Update 2 **

rotfl, and I forgot to mention that the CPU/OS requirements make no sense too. Because yeah, in 2000/2001 everybody was running 64-bit Windows OSes on 1 Ghz CPUs? and ofc Windows 7 already existed back then? Really?? I remember playing Diablo II on my PII-350...

When working on new development they cannot support operating systems that no longer are supported by Microsoft. As such the minimum requirements are basically the same as that of Windows 7 which was still supported at the time of the last major updates, possibly with some extra so things run smoothly. To be honest they should not even list Windows 7 support anymore, but I guess it says so in the documentation from QA so they do. This is why Resurrected only supports Windows 10 (no Windows 7 support anymore).

This is also why MacOS is no longer supported. Old builds will run on old versions of MacOS but Apple does not support old versions of MacOS and so Blizzard cannot officially support the build.

 

[Amigoltu]

When working on new development they cannot support operating systems that no longer are supported by Microsoft. As such the minimum requirements are basically the same as that of Windows 7 which was still supported at the time of the last major updates, possibly with some extra so things run smoothly. To be honest they should not even list Windows 7 support anymore, but I guess it says so in the documentation from QA so they do. This is why Resurrected only supports Windows 10 (no Windows 7 support anymore).

This is also why MacOS is no longer supported. Old builds will run on old versions of MacOS but Apple does not support old versions of MacOS and so Blizzard cannot officially support the build.

Officially no, but it's almost guaranteed that the game will run on W7 if it runs on W10.

 

[GhostWolf]

Pre-ordering ANY product with zero accountability promotes this behavior.
From the least popular to the most popular devs, it's all the same, as can be seen by the constant controversies of companies releasing half-baked games after promising the universe (and if you are very lucky the game might be patched over the years to its release version).

It seems like no matter how many times people are burned by these practices, they'll just shill some money out anyway, watcha gonna do.

One of the only examples to come to mind where the devs turned out to be decent and didn't release a quick cash grab is No Man's Sky, which by no means gives any further reason to pre-order anything, but at least shows there are still SOME decent devs out there.

 

[MasterBlaster]

It seems like no matter how many times people are burned by these practices, they'll just shill some money out anyway, watcha gonna do.

It's the "hype". A company releases a trailer that has been designed from the ground up to look cool rather than be representative of the game and people already can't contain themselves. And that's even before the usual PR tactics come in - throw in some fancy terms and promises, bring out Keanu and you're going to have folks opening their wallets in a heartbeat. It's stupid, but that's just how folks are these days.

 

[Dr Super Good]

One of the only examples to come to mind where the devs turned out to be decent and didn't release a quick cash grab is No Man's Sky, which by no means gives any further reason to pre-order anything, but at least shows there are still SOME decent devs out there.

Some smaller companies as well. Such as Wube and Factorio. Although that game went through "early access" rather than "pre-order".

 

[Death Adder]

Obviously pre-ordering is always a bad idea, but I don't see how they could possibly fuck up D2 Resurrected.

It's annoying and disheartening that so many are still quick to pre-order after all this time and countless examples of over promise and under delivery, but D2 Ressurected can't become D2 Refunded, it simply shouldn't be possible to fail...

 

[pyf]

When working on new development they cannot support operating systems that no longer are supported by Microsoft. As such the minimum requirements are basically the same as that of Windows 7 which was still supported at the time of the last major updates, possibly with some extra so things run smoothly. To be honest they should not even list Windows 7 support anymore, but I guess it says so in the documentation from QA so they do. This is why Resurrected only supports Windows 10 (no Windows 7 support anymore).

This is also why MacOS is no longer supported. Old builds will run on old versions of MacOS but Apple does not support old versions of MacOS and so Blizzard cannot officially support the build.

Windows 7 SP1 is still officially supported by Microsoft, as paid ESUs (we are at Year 2 currently)
Windows 8.1 is still officially supported by Microsoft
Mac support is not dropped. Quoting Blizzard, with emphasis added:

"[...] Mac support [for D2:R] has been removed from the system requirements for these products in the Battle.net Shop. Should we be able to restore this support in the future we will update accordingly."

The memory and CPU requirements for Diablo 2 Legacy are overblown, regardless of any official OS support for it.

Officially no, but it's almost guaranteed that the game will run on W7 if it runs on W10.

Nothing is guaranteed until it is fully tested on that OS.

 

[Amigoltu]

Nothing is guaranteed until it is fully tested on that OS.

Most of the software that runs on W10, also runs just fine on W7. The difference between them isn't like Linux and Windows (though even then, there are ways to make Windows apps run on Linux, with some fiddling).

 

[Ralle]

I am hopeful and excited for D2R. But as with any game. I will wait in line to read the reviews after launch.

 

[pyf]

Most of the software that runs on W10, also runs just fine on W7. The difference between them isn't like Linux and Windows (though even then, there are ways to make Windows apps run on Linux, with some fiddling).

If it is not targeting Windows 7 (or any previous OS version), then it will not run on that OS. And considering by how much the market share for W7 had dropped in only one year, plus the fact that not many computer users are using W8.1, then I think that D2:R will be a W10 exclusive.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Windows 8.1 is still officially supported by Microsoft

But honestly who uses Windows 8?

Most of the software that runs on W10, also runs just fine on W7. The difference between them isn't like Linux and Windows (though even then, there are ways to make Windows apps run on Linux, with some fiddling).

Windows 10 offers a lot of API functionality not available on Windows 7. This is not just limited to the obvious ones like D3D12.

 

[Drake53]

But honestly who uses Windows 8?

I do.

 

[Kakerate]

Oh whats that? Your computer is going to run a forced restart to update? I can't hear you over my Win7 master race

 

[MasterBlaster]

Your computer is going to run a forced restart to update?

If you're talking about Windows 10, I'm using it since day 1 and I never experienced a forced restart. Same was true for Windows 8.

 

[pyf]

But honestly who uses Windows 8?

Those who bought it.

That being said, I remember reading that last year, the GWX servers were still active.

All they have to do is make sure the final product is reasonably stable and performs ok and it will be good. This is not even a high bar given that Diablo II was never perfectly stable (crashes with too many buffs) and also never did perform well (5 FPS when running with the higher visual settings on systems made 10+ years after the game released).

There may be a performance drop in D3D mode on nVidia hardware, when using the overlay map. This performance drop does not happen with v1.04. For the record, I do not recommend playing with v1.00->1.03.

Even today, Glide 3 may provide a better gaming experience than any of the other rendering modes available.
I am not sure DDraw rendering is still available with the full 1.14b downloadable version that is available from Blizzard's servers.

I suggest using IndirectSound, as it restores some of the audio functionality that has been lost on modern OSes with v1.14b full (3D sounds will be available again, but not the audio environmental effects)

 

[pyf]

Diablo 2: Resurrected gets a single-player alpha first, then a multiplayer stress test - PCGamesN


Quoting D2:R lead producer Chris Lena:

"We’re going to start with a single-player technical alpha, and then we’ll have a second technical alpha after that, which is kind of multiplayer and stress testing [...] that’s all we have for specifics."

According to the article, he also says that the door is open for things like balance changes to help keep the game vibrant for a modern community – if, indeed, players indicate that they actually want that to happen.

 

[pyf]

I wish the version number for D2:R will be v1.00