I just found my way here after trying the game in the blizzard arcade and I just have to say DAMN... I mean really. Ahli you almost made me cry.

I thought this game was so amazing. It really takes me back. You sir(Ahli), are a miraclemaker. I loved, and still love, Diablo 1 to the core of my bones. There has been so many cheesy attempts at remakes, but this one really nails it. You've implemented so many features already that made the experince so whole and genuine. I love it.

The gameplay itself is so close to the old game and the feeling of the old game is there aswell. It's very nostalgic and it works. I really like how you got the quests from the old games working in there and so many of them. Best part is that you got multiplayer working. Unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity to play with someone yet, but I will definately do that sometime soon. All the items from the old game and the sounds, the voices. You did such a great job here too.
Really liked the interface and that it works. I know that sounds silly, but usually in mods and such there's always interface issues, didn't come across any here.
Also the crafting part really got me going. Rather early I found an item that could upgrade a White item into a yellow, so I thought COOL! That'll most definately come in handy. Already there I knew I'd use it on the first bastard sword I'd find. And I found one. And now that bastard sword got the 4th suffix and 5 oils into it! It kicks ass! I made it! Love that feeling.

The controls are very intuitive and works well with the game. It feels very responsive and functional, without being complicated. Easy going and Down to earth.

I also really liked the challenge level of the game. It was fairly easy at the start and slowly gets harder and harder. I started out with a warrior and just went STR FTW! All of a sudden i just start missing the enemy with my swings, more and more, to a point where I get beat up all the time So I have to go for Dex to get +hit and get some +hit on my items. The challenge level is appropriate if you adapt. Would really love to see some harder difficulties.

This game was so much fun or atleast the part of it that's avalilable.
This is the easiest 10/10 I've given in my life and it's well deserved.

One question though:
-Will you make helmets displayed on the warrior? I would so much love to see helmets on the model, especially on the heavier armors. I get the feeling that my face will get bashed in, when I'm farming caves level 4

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Oct 10 2013, 8:06 am by Cathius.

I'm glad you loved it.

Helmets aren't super easy. It could cause problems with the hair the hero models have, but I didn't look into WoW's helmet models neither. I'm not sure how well fitting models there are. So, most likely I won't add helmets.

Currently I try to finish the hell dungeon (whose current stage of development is randomly accessible via a special item found in the last cave level. 25% chance that the game spawns it there).

Also, I hope to add skill trees one day. But that's a ton of work and I lack cool ideas. But I assume I will finish the hell levels before that.

I'm sorry to hear that, but it changes nothing. It's still awesome.

Just a thought though, could you change the model to a bald one? That way the hair wouldn't interfere with helmets.

In the original game, the warrior had his helmet off in town and his helmet equipped in dungeons. Is that possible to make?
So he uses a model with hair and without his helmet in town. And a model without hair and a matching helmet when he's in dungeons?
I saw you found some nice sets from wow, without too dominating shoulders, I know there's a lot of helmets to choose from aswell.

I have no idea if it's possible or if it's worth the work it requires you to put into it.

A huge pat on the back Ahli. You're a sport for putting so much work into a free game.

Edit: Some problem with quotes.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Oct 10 2013, 5:15 pm by Cathius.

I'm experimenting with a self written unit AI...
The start is fairly promising...

The opening of the arcade with patch 2.1 will allow me to use HotS dependencies. I will see how I can improve the game using the HotS models.

The release of patch 2.1 will arrive later this year, so, then everyone will be able to play my map then given they download SC2.

I really hope that I will be able to use Hero of the Storm's Diablo model in my map. Since Heroes and SC2 are both using the same engine, this should be possible. I really hope that Blizzard adds a way for SC2 to use the data files of Heroes or provides mod files on battle.net that can be used for arcade games in SC2.

Heroes will receive an editor, too. It won't necessarily be included with the game when Heroes launches or its closed beta starts, but my knowledge would allow me to do stuff for heroes, too.

Regarding the new monster AI, I'm nearly done to reflect the old AI with smaller improvements. It's forming a base where I can expand on in future as I've control of the units' actions.

Maybe this has been addressed, but I'm not going to read that many pages for the answer (oops)
#1 I don't play it a lot, just every now and then, but I always loose my quest log (is that normal?)
#2 is it just me or the diablo loading screen look like his head is shifted?

1. Yes. Also, every game the appearing quests are randomized.
2. It's an edited screenshot from Blizzard's 15 years of Diablo movie or some other Diablo history movie they've published. But indeed, it looks a tiny bit shifted to the left.

Btw, I don't know if anyone has noticed, but a version of my map is published on the PTR for some time now.

Hmm, I was unable to find your map in the new PTR version. Is it in the HotS PTR version, or is there only one PTR version. I have never gotten involved in this before so if someone else knows, then I would really like to test out this new version of the map asap please!

P.S. Glad you are still working on this map, I thought you had gotten burnt out on this one after working on it for soooooo long.

Hmm, that's odd. Maybe that's the reason why the arcade looks very empty on it. In my properties it is set to be public. Maybe it needs to be played publicly before it appears. I don't know...

Map on PTR
If it doesn't work, tell me. Then I will try to re-upload it and if that doesn't work again, I will make my used mods public, too, so everything is public. Maybe Blizzard added a check for that setting of a mod file. Before, private mods were downloaded just fine. My settings clearly state that my map is public. Maybe it's a PTR bug? =/

I'm not super motivated to work on the map right now. It depends on how great my ideas are and if I have more or less acceptable models for the things I want to implement. Also, it depends if I've time to do stuff or not. Most of the time I've phases where I'm working on it lasting a few days/weeks before I switch to other work again.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 13 2014, 7:09 pm by Ahli.

Totalbiscuit made a cool video about the arcade including briefly showing my map and a few other great examples how many facets the arcade can have. So, you should totally tell your friends about the arcade being free for everyone that can run sc2 and has an internet connection.

Btw, I will update the map on battle.net soon with the version from PTR.

Also, TaylorMouse from sc2mapster made a 3dsMax plugin that allows the import of Diablo 3 models. I will try to learn how to use it and export and import D3 models to sc2, soon. So, I guess I will be able to put in some new cool models into the game soon-ish™).

Updated to version 0.425.

Patch is live on all servers.

If there are problems, notify me.

Since this is kind of a blog for me, I can talk about the past days. I've been invited to Blizzard in Versailles to an "influencer summit" last Friday where a bunch of streamers/youtubers/podcasters, a sc2 machinima-maker and me as a mapmaker/modder were meeting with Blizzard's staff talking about things. I've signed an NDA, so I can't tell you details as I am liable, but the people invited should give you enough clues what could have possibly happened over there.

There is one aspect I am allowed to talk about: the Q&A (or better "Ahli talks half of the time about his suggestions to improve arcade") session with developers from Blizzard. The other part of the Q&A was about Heroes, but since we don't know much about it and never played it, we had no exciting questions that weren't already part of the heroes Q&A that was streamed last Tuesday. In case you have missed it: Heroes will have an editor (like SC2) and support custom observer UIs. I assume that there will be a transcript made by TalesOfLumin in near future when he has time as he has some personal exciting matters this week to do.

So, I've met a lot of interesting and awesome people over there and saw their awesome office. I can say that it was definitely a great experience for me and I've the impression that working for Blizzard is pretty cool, if you are passionate about their games.

In case you want to know more details and opinions, you can try to find a few videos about the trip as pretty much every invitee was some sort of content creator with a bigger audience. But I can tell that meeting people and dropping off some feedback was awesome and the best thing on the trip, in my opinion. Up to this point, I think KingKongor, a D3 streamer made a video about it which you might want to watch.

edit:
I've the q&a sound recordings now. I think I will make a transscript when I've enough time. (Releasing the audio isn't allowed, sry. )

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 28 2014, 7:38 pm by Ahli.

Hi, im currently trying to find this item and enter hell. Where does it spawn? I have ran though 3-4 games clearing cave level 4 and never seen it.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 30 2014, 2:00 am by ForsakenFire.

The Staff of Lazarus spawns randomly in the 4th cave level. It has 25% chance to spawn in the game (as the Hell levels are basically beta levels and not complete).

edit:
Due to Blizzard's arcade contest, I will focus my skills and my time to participate in it. But I won't use this project to participate as I've started a new project a day before the contest was anounced which I will use as my entry.
That new project has a smaller scale and is targeted for a broader audience, so I think I might have chances to win it. Thanks to this Diablo project, I assume, I've the technical skills to make something great and I think I've a great idea for my map.

To maximize the impact of my next project, I won't release a lot of information about it until I'm going gold.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Feb 2 2014, 5:43 am by Ahli.

Congrats on getting in the contest. It's been a long while since I've last posted but I've seen your diablo mod improved quite a bit. I hope you can help answer some questions.

1. Current, all prefix and suffix can apply to any piece of equipment I assume, if so, does that mean the max stat that a particular piece can have is 50? (Example, perfect zodiac is 20, perfect str/dex/mag/vit is 30, unless u changed the max cap from D1)?

2. Will there be anymore character wipes? I really hope not....

3a. What is the maximum level you can have for your character?
3b. What is the maximum spell level/cap?
3c. What is the maximum stats or cap in this game for each of the 3 classes (as there was one for D1, 250 being max for their specific main stat)?

4. Are there permanent stat increases from shrines or potion (original D1 had perm stat potion)?

5. Seems there's hell levels now, is Diablo available to kill?

6. Is there any plans for end game?

7. Is there a cow level?

I hope you do win the arcade contest, hopefully you'll keep us posted on what place you are in and other related matters, good luck!

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 3 2014, 4:29 am by mrdorkus.

Very cool. Now try to get invited to the main HQ in California and give them the same suggestions! Hopefully they take them to heart, though I think this free Arcade thing is a first major step in the right direction.

I've written a lot of words and then my browser somehow crashed. I don't know why it did that, but now I have to write everything again... grrrrrr. Anyway...

1. Yes, +30 specific stat and +20 all stats are possible on rare items.

2. I don't know, but I hope not.

3A. Character level 76 is the current max value I've added. But I've changed the system to even allow me to add more. Adding more levels and changing the experienced required for the existing ones is fairly easy, so it might change one day. But atm, I've no plans to add more.
3B. I didn't add one, yet... what's the highest level you can achieve right now?
3C. I've removed the cap. All functions were modified, too, though. So, it can't be super overpowered.

4. No. It would be difficult to verify that the person didn't hack his save file. So, all stat changes are just temporary.

5. Diablo and the Hell Level 4 aren't available. The item required to open hell spawns in 25% of the games as the hell levels aren't ocmpleted, yet. I'm allowing the entrance to receive feedback and I didn't want to hold it back for a year or something.
In case someone can model and wants to create some models, I've made some sketches for the hell dungeon walls and for the Pedestal of Blood which is used in the Arkaine's Valor quest.

6. The normal playthrough isn't finished yet. There is no skill system added, yet. So, it's quite far away. It would start with difficulty levels which would continue the journey of the hero towards the max char level. It would have a few changes, I assume like different monster appearances in the dungeon. But no aspect of multiple difficulties have been implemented, yet.
An endgame beyond Diablo would require me to open a portal similar to the way the hell dungeon is made accessible. It would require me to remove the other dungeon levels from the map to make room for those.

Another aspect I would like to improve for that would be PvP, so people could properly fight each other. In case, someone has tried PvP, how unfair is it? The current implementation is pretty much like D3's brawling and my loose affix rules and the missing skill system might make it pretty unfair.

7. One day, I hope so. I've already added data for cow monsters a few years ago. But I've no cool models. =/ Maybe Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls will give me cow models.


The developers have my mail with my suggestions and my feedback regarding arcade and editor. In the q&a session I was only able to talk about the arcade due to limited time, but the developers have my e-mail address in case they want to discuss aspects with me or need clarifications, etc. At least they were quite happy about it. As expected, the youtubers/streamers didn't have a lot of questions as they don't really deal with the arcade as much as every arcade map author. But I really hope that I can get to California one day. I assume I might make a trip there in case I win something in the arcade contest.

Regarding the arcade and the editor, I can see multiple challenges. First of all, Blizzard needs to find a way to earn money out of the arcade. The galaxy platform is meant to stay a quite a few years and the editor is powerful enough to allow nearly every game to be created. So, game developers could use the arcade when they could make money from their creation. Battle.net is an awesome way to make your game accessible and grants a lot of assets, so the start might not as difficult as creating games from scratch on other platforms like unity. But Blizzard is already heading into that direction with the free arcade. After Heroes' release they will think about the marketplace again, so it might be realistic that battle.net allows people to sell games one day.

Connected to that challenge is a long term support for the editor. The editor has problems right now. For example, it is very difficult to get into (although it's now easier than ever before). The community uses the editor the most and might have a few ideas how to improve it, but the smartest move would be allowing the community to expand the functionality of the editor themselves. Blizzard could make the editor open source, so the community could modify it, but Blizzard has invested a lot of money into its development, so it's unrealistic for them to make it open source. A better solution would be to add plugin support for the editor. Then the community can create new windows and functions to improve the usability. For example, it would be possible to add functions that properly duplicate units completely. The spine crawler requires more than 10 steps to end up with a bugfree duplicate, so it's far from perfect or usable by new editor users. Also, it would be possible to hide a lot of aspects making the editor appear more like the wc3 editor which I've heard was easy to use. Unfortunately, I've never mapped for WC3, so I've no idea.

Then there is the arcade which lacks a few features and could receive a few improvements.
Imagine a new editor user that makes a new map. He wants to test it with human players, so he publishes it on battle.net and hosts it just like we all did in our early SCBW mapmaking days. He manages to have a few players joining and playing the map. But the map contains massive bugs as it's the first version of it and the players are disappointed. Now they want to make sure nobody plays such a broken map, so they give the map a bad rating as it was obviously unplayable. Our new editor user improves his map and publishes it again, but now nobody joins the lobby as the map has a terrible rating and every other map in the open lobbies list has at least 3 stars. So, players wouldn't really join a map they don't know that has a 1-star rating.
The problem here is that the map could be rated, so there would need to exist a way to stop maps from being rated or display the rating at all.

Also, people requested to be able to add text to lobbies. But I don't think that free text is the way to go as players might just write random crap into it which might be offensive. So, it would be possible to use tags that the host can select which were added into the map by the author. For example, it could then state "map test", "platin-diamond league", etc.

Then there are more improvement possibilities for battle.net and the arcade:
- a list of all publicly published maps of a person in his profile to allow people to check out other maps made by one author.
- File names on battle.net can't be cleared and projects can't be transferred to different persons. For example, I can't claim "Dia blo - Mortal Shroud" on NA server as Payne published the map witht hat name already.
- arcade icon in the open lobbies' tooltip. (You can memorize the name of the map and/or its icon. In the open lobbies screen, you can't see the icon. Custom games display the minimap inside the tooltip, so arcade maps should display the arcade icon, too)
- proper support for user-made campaigns. When we can make a campaign like the HotS campaign on battle.net, it's good enough.
- easier way to find singleplayer maps. For example, this can be done with a checkbox in the browse screen and maps could be flagged with singleplayer support in the map options in the editor or via a game mode.

And it sounds like such an easy fix.

So, no stat increases, is there a stat reset option then?

Also, in the beginning, it didn't seem like you're going to have difficulty option, but now you do. In this case, will you have tier weapons then like in D2? Like a Tier 1/2/3 version of dagger, etc...?

Since it seems all prefix/suffix can spawn on any item, does this mean weapons can have fast/er/est hit recovery and resist all and armor % modifier?

So, with 76, you'll have 375 stat points. With 50 max magic you can have in each gear, total of 350 magic + 375 stat points + base stat of each class, we're talking about 725+ magic to learn spell books....are you sure you don't want to cap spell level? I remember in the original D1, spell books magic requirement caps at 250 or 255, so as long as you can get your magic up that high (which is possible with +magic gear), you can learn level 20 of all spells in the game even with warrior, if i remember correctly. I still think you should cap things like the original game to avoid overpower of some things over others.

Also, here's a minor bug, it seems all health or mana potion turned to rejuvenation potion will still retain their original color when dropped instead of the should be yellow color.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Feb 4 2014, 4:09 am by mrdorkus.

No, but that's a good idea for a rare usable item.

Most likely. I guess I need to do that.

Not everything is allowed, but most things are. Hit Recovery can't spawn on weapons. +Armor% can't spawn on non-armor.

I've tried to balanced the stuff around level 15. So, I guess I will make that as the cap. But right now, there is no cap implemented.

Oh yeah. Good find. Thank you.