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Diablo Senex
Diablo II: LOD has gotten a bit boring for me again. And now that the new television season has started Teri is taping her shows most nights, so I haven't been able to play Zelda: The Legend of the Wind Waker. So a few nights ago I took out my old Diablo I CD-ROM and started playing again.
I'd forgotten. There's a reason why Diablo I was a smash hit. It's still a great game.
It feel slow after D2, of course, since in that game you can run. Characters in D1 just plod along. But the gameplay and atmosphere are outstanding, and once you've re-adjusted to the slower movement rate, the game is a LOT of fun.
One interesting problem is that there's a lot less information online about D1 than there used to be. A lot of sites have simply disappeared. And I needed to find out how to get a solo character into nightmare or hell difficulty games.
For those who don't know Diablo, once you've played the game in "normal" mode, you can play it again in nightmare mode, and then again in hell mode; in each of those modes the monsters are more powerful, give more experience points, and you get a lot more treasure and gold. For example, a normal first-level monster might drop 1-10 gold pieces in normal mode. That same monster would drop 100-500 or so in hell mode.
The problem is that nightmare and hell modes are available to characters on Battle.net, but not to solo characters. And there are definite advantages to playing a solo character. Response is quicker - Battle.net can be painfully slow and unreliable for Diablo 1 - and you can get quests that aren't available for Battle.net characters.
Once you've reached a certain level, there isn't much challenge to a regular game. There was a trick that could be used to make a nightmare or hell game for a solo character, but I'd forgotten it. I looked around online, but couldn't find it. So I plumbed my memory, and finally remembered the trick.
You need to have a multi-player character who can create nightmare or hell-level games; I don't remember the required level for nightmare, but for hell I think it's 30. This can be a Battle.net character.
Your solo character needs to have been created and saved in a game. I recommend that it be a brand new game, since any killing you do before putting the game into nightmare or hell mode will only game treasure and experience at the normal rate.
Start Diablo. Choose a multi-player game, and then choose Direct Cable Connection (NOT Battle.net). When you create the game, select Nightmare or Hell. Once the game has started, hit "Esc" to call up the main menu, and select "New Game". Back out of the menus by hitting "Esc" until you reach the point that you can select a single-player game. Select the character you want to play, load the game, and you'll find that all the monsters, treasure, and experience points are nightmare or hell level, whatever you picked.
I should probably mention that it's a good idea to start with the first level; if you jump straight in to fighting high-level monsters on nightmare or hell, you're likely to have trouble. And since even 1st-level monsters give hundreds of gold pieces per drop, I usually run the entire first three levels over and over to gain gold and levels.
Incidentally, one interesting thing about this trick is that while you do get marginally better magic items in these pseudo-nightmare and hell levels, the magic items you find at the low NM and hell levels usually aren't that good. Although 1st level NM monsters drop gold that's equivalent to the highest-level normal monsters, if not slightly better, the magic items that they drop tend to suck. High-level NM and hell monsters drop great items, of course.
An odd thing is that if you save the game and then start it later without doing the nightmare/hell game trick, the game will revert right back to normal mode. In other words, you can go through level one, kill monsters and get hundreds of gold pieces per drop, and then when you re-start the game, the monsters will go back to giving you 1-10 or so. You need to go through the whole nightmare/hell multiplayer character trick again to put the game back to NM/Hell equivalent.
On a related tack, there's a new trick I recently developed to pick up useful spells. It takes a lot of gold, which is another reason why I wanted to remember how to get to nightmare or hell levels. But it works quite well.
Adria the Witch sells spellbooks (among other things) at the east side of town, across the stream. Unlike Griswold the smith, her stock in trade changes every time you down down into the dungeon and come back. That makes it possible to find rare and useful spellbooks. But going down the nearest dungeon entrance (the catacombs) and coming back takes perhaps 20 seconds...an eon of playing time.
I found a much better way for solo characters. You need to have a lot of gold at hand; it doesn't have to all be in your inventory, though. You can scatter extra piles of gold all around you, in fact. Anyway, start by going to Adria (I recommend scattering your gold right there). Check out her stock, and if she has anything you want, buy it. If it's a spellbook, read it. Save the game. Then hit "Esc", and select "Load Game". You'll start right where you were, in front of Adria - but what I discovered was that when you load the game, her stock regenerates. That is, she'll have a completely new list of items for sale. Check out the list, buy and read any worthwhile spellbooks, then save the game and reload. If she doesn't have anything you want, skip saving and just reload the game until you find a spellbook that you do want. Eventually you'll use up all your gold this way, at which point it's time to go treasure-hunting in hell mode.
You can also find good staves that way, but of course staves are generally not worth using.
Good grief. I wonder if anyone who reads this will find any of this useful? And does it sound as pathetically geeky as I think? Jeeze.
I'd forgotten. There's a reason why Diablo I was a smash hit. It's still a great game.
It feel slow after D2, of course, since in that game you can run. Characters in D1 just plod along. But the gameplay and atmosphere are outstanding, and once you've re-adjusted to the slower movement rate, the game is a LOT of fun.
One interesting problem is that there's a lot less information online about D1 than there used to be. A lot of sites have simply disappeared. And I needed to find out how to get a solo character into nightmare or hell difficulty games.
For those who don't know Diablo, once you've played the game in "normal" mode, you can play it again in nightmare mode, and then again in hell mode; in each of those modes the monsters are more powerful, give more experience points, and you get a lot more treasure and gold. For example, a normal first-level monster might drop 1-10 gold pieces in normal mode. That same monster would drop 100-500 or so in hell mode.
The problem is that nightmare and hell modes are available to characters on Battle.net, but not to solo characters. And there are definite advantages to playing a solo character. Response is quicker - Battle.net can be painfully slow and unreliable for Diablo 1 - and you can get quests that aren't available for Battle.net characters.
Once you've reached a certain level, there isn't much challenge to a regular game. There was a trick that could be used to make a nightmare or hell game for a solo character, but I'd forgotten it. I looked around online, but couldn't find it. So I plumbed my memory, and finally remembered the trick.
You need to have a multi-player character who can create nightmare or hell-level games; I don't remember the required level for nightmare, but for hell I think it's 30. This can be a Battle.net character.
Your solo character needs to have been created and saved in a game. I recommend that it be a brand new game, since any killing you do before putting the game into nightmare or hell mode will only game treasure and experience at the normal rate.
Start Diablo. Choose a multi-player game, and then choose Direct Cable Connection (NOT Battle.net). When you create the game, select Nightmare or Hell. Once the game has started, hit "Esc" to call up the main menu, and select "New Game". Back out of the menus by hitting "Esc" until you reach the point that you can select a single-player game. Select the character you want to play, load the game, and you'll find that all the monsters, treasure, and experience points are nightmare or hell level, whatever you picked.
I should probably mention that it's a good idea to start with the first level; if you jump straight in to fighting high-level monsters on nightmare or hell, you're likely to have trouble. And since even 1st-level monsters give hundreds of gold pieces per drop, I usually run the entire first three levels over and over to gain gold and levels.
Incidentally, one interesting thing about this trick is that while you do get marginally better magic items in these pseudo-nightmare and hell levels, the magic items you find at the low NM and hell levels usually aren't that good. Although 1st level NM monsters drop gold that's equivalent to the highest-level normal monsters, if not slightly better, the magic items that they drop tend to suck. High-level NM and hell monsters drop great items, of course.
An odd thing is that if you save the game and then start it later without doing the nightmare/hell game trick, the game will revert right back to normal mode. In other words, you can go through level one, kill monsters and get hundreds of gold pieces per drop, and then when you re-start the game, the monsters will go back to giving you 1-10 or so. You need to go through the whole nightmare/hell multiplayer character trick again to put the game back to NM/Hell equivalent.
On a related tack, there's a new trick I recently developed to pick up useful spells. It takes a lot of gold, which is another reason why I wanted to remember how to get to nightmare or hell levels. But it works quite well.
Adria the Witch sells spellbooks (among other things) at the east side of town, across the stream. Unlike Griswold the smith, her stock in trade changes every time you down down into the dungeon and come back. That makes it possible to find rare and useful spellbooks. But going down the nearest dungeon entrance (the catacombs) and coming back takes perhaps 20 seconds...an eon of playing time.
I found a much better way for solo characters. You need to have a lot of gold at hand; it doesn't have to all be in your inventory, though. You can scatter extra piles of gold all around you, in fact. Anyway, start by going to Adria (I recommend scattering your gold right there). Check out her stock, and if she has anything you want, buy it. If it's a spellbook, read it. Save the game. Then hit "Esc", and select "Load Game". You'll start right where you were, in front of Adria - but what I discovered was that when you load the game, her stock regenerates. That is, she'll have a completely new list of items for sale. Check out the list, buy and read any worthwhile spellbooks, then save the game and reload. If she doesn't have anything you want, skip saving and just reload the game until you find a spellbook that you do want. Eventually you'll use up all your gold this way, at which point it's time to go treasure-hunting in hell mode.
You can also find good staves that way, but of course staves are generally not worth using.
Good grief. I wonder if anyone who reads this will find any of this useful? And does it sound as pathetically geeky as I think? Jeeze.
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Actually I get annoyed with video games that 'top off' in general in regards to characters, the same way I get annoyed with roleplaying games that specifically top off or prevent you from continuing to play a character beyond X point of development etc.
...Or the fact that most table top roleplaying games when you get to X point of character development.
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But, you are right, most staves aren't worth the look.
If you are going to play Diablo I you might as well pick up Hellfire too -- it will give you a fast walk/run in town that is well worth having.
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I should mention that as far as I know, I am the only D1 person who has never cheated. Unless the NM/H solo game counts as a cheat. I don't see why it would, though.
I remember playing on B'net back in the day, and dealing with idiots who had Dreamflange helmets, armor, etc. - plus the usual Godly Plate of the Whale, of course. I told them that I didn't cheat, and they'd always say "Neither do I!". I'd laugh and laugh.
Except that they didn't spell it right, of course. And they didn't use punctuation or capital letters. :D It would be more like "neethur do 1".
I do use staves for some of my D2 sorceresses, but of course using a decent skill-enhancing single-handed weapon is always a better option. As for D1, someday I hope to find a Dreamflange. :(
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In D1 the best armor was the armor of Valor until the very last patch.
The "of thieves" = 50% resistance that stacked on top of any rings, etc.
Of course I was playing either rogues or sorcs or hellfire bards (two sword using quasi-magic-user/fighters) and nothing else.
Neat to meet another player.
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"of thieves" adds 50% to all resistances across the board?!? Does that exceed the 75% maximum? I've never heard that! I'll have to check Jarulf's...
You know, one of these days I should write up my experience playing cross-gender D1 on B'net. Which sounds a lot kinkier than it actually was. I just allowed players to believe that I was female, and created a lot of open games. To my amusement, when I played "male" I got PKed incredibly often (not surprising), but when I played female I was PKed only once, and a lot of players gave me items (duped, of course). The odd thing is that only one of them made any sort of sexual comment.
Okay, that sounds weird. Just to be clear, I never said I was female, never said "girly" things...I just used a character name that was female and that implied that I was fifteen. And played a Rogue, on the theory that most young males are dumb enough that the combination of a female name and female appearance meant that I was a girl.
You know, when I consider the fact that Sebastian will be a teenager in only eight years, I feel a distinct sinking sensation inside. I hope he doesn't make too much of a fool of himself, although I suppose it's inevitable.
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With mages, I used to use Valor unless I could pick up the +1 skills mage armor, the name of which I forgot (and only got once, so it wasn't something I thought of often, while Valor was a given).
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Kiralee
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BTW, I'm looking forward to Chaosiums BRP -- I think I'll finish Mistworld after all (only 14 years late).
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As for BRP, the playtest has been great...but I've been trying to reconcile myself to the fact that it's not RuneQuest. I mean, it's highly RuneQuest compatible, much more so than Mongoose RuneQuest, but the fact is that Chaosium's loss of the trademark means that their new BRP is A) much less likely to succeed, and B) never going to be associated strongly with RQ. Since I now despise Greg Stafford and have come to dislike Glorantha as a result, that's a problem I'll have to deal with.
Occasionally it crosses my mind that I should consider giving my RQ site to someone who wouldn't have as many difficulties with it as I do. But it would be hard to give away ten years of work...not to mention my only claim to genre fame, however feeble and pathetic.
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I'm hoping BRP sparks a new interest in the rules -- regardless of what is played with them -- I only wish I had made it in the playtest.
Mistworld was a setting I was working on. Send me an e-mail address and I'll e-mail you a copy of the pdf I did awhile back (of the old draft).
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Long story, and it's too late in the evening for me to start telling it tonight. I've just emailed myself the notes, and I'll give you an answer tomorrow, assuming that my workload isn't too heavy. :D
Explanation, part 1
Fair warning: this will be long. In fact, I'm sure I'll have to break it into two parts. I'm also making reference to The History of RuneQuest (http://www.runequest.org/rqpast.htm) article from my site, to get the dates right. Some of the links I'll post are friends-only stuff on my journal, so I've added you to my flist.
Here goes.
I was a RuneQuest fan starting in the mid-1980s, so I suppose that's when I was first aware of Stafford. In the early 1990s I started writing for "The Wild Hunt" APA, which was a long-standing amateur press association mostly written by MIT alumni; it covered all RPGs, but RuneQuest was a popular topic. Several people who'd written for RQ contributed zines, and Chaosium had done some zines in earlier issues. I think they published some RQ rules ideas there as a sort of sounding board, but that was before my time.
Chaosium wasn't contributing often any more, but they did receive a regular subscription, and they sent the editor of TWH review copies of their publications.
Anyway, I became a regular in TWH, and occasionally received mail from Greg. Over the years we exchanged the occasional letter, always on friendly terms. At one point I mentioned that I'd taped a segment by Pat Robertson on the 700 Club about roleplaying; among other things, it included the public burning of a Call of Cthulhu supplement. Of course only "the Dungeons and Dragons" was mentioned by name in the piece.
Greg wrote to me and asked for a copy of the tape. It took me a while, but eventually I was able to make a copy and sent it to him.
Now, I should make it clear that while I admired the work that Greg had done on Glorantha, and enormously admired Chaosium's RPGs, I was never one of those people who worshipped Greg. In fact, I found that rather repellent. I never made an issue out of it, though.
I first met him in person at RuneQuest Con #1, in Baltimore, in early 1994. This was shortly before Oliver Jovanovic's RuneQuest: Adventures In Glorantha was killed by Greg. At this point his habit of "Gregging" had increased to the point that I and some others were getting pretty annoyed by it. In addition, the schism between the new breed of Glorantha scholars and old-time RQ roleplayers was definitely well under way at that point.
Incidentally, while I'd played and GMed using Glorantha quite a lot, and even introduced a number of friends to it, I also used the RQ system for many non-Gloranthan games. So I never saw RQ and Glorantha as being inexorably joined.
Back to RQ Con, where I am meeting Greg for the first time: I immediately saw that he had quite a magnetic personality, and was a master storyteller. Oddly enough, I got the feeling that he and I shared similar GMing styles; but at the same time, I have to admit that I preferred the GMing style of Sandy Petersen, who was also at the con.
During the RQ LARP at the con, Greg tricked me and ended up having my character tortured to death. I won't lie; I found that annoying. But I got to bring in another character and had enough fun that I asked Greg to autograph something at the end of the convention.
Incidentally, I was also representing TWH at the con; I gave out free copies and posted fliers. But within a year or so TWH stopped publishing. I wasn't willing to give up APAing, so I started my own replacement APA, Interregnum, and quite a few TWH regulars came along. I continued the policy of sending a free copy to Chaosium, and they sent me review material to pass out to zine writers.
Okay, I'll break this here and continue in a second comment.
Explanation, part 2
Let's fast-forward to 2005. Lots of turmoil and rumors in the RQ world. Over the years Greg had started Issaries and left Chaosium; he'd had an entirely new RPG created for Glorantha. I didn't care for it.
In the meantime, RQ was dead. Avalon Hill owned the RQ3 system, but they were owned by Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast, and things were a mess. By 2005 things had shaken out to this point: Greg/Issaries had managed to grab the trademark to RuneQuest, apparently beating out Chaosium in the process. However, they didn't have the copyrights to the words of the RQ system; Chaosium had those. From my external position, it appeared that there was bad blood between Stafford and Chaosium (under Charlie Krank). I'd heard rumors to the same effect from people who were closer to the situation than I was. I should stress that I never pretended to be a Chaosium insider myself, despite what Greg later implied.
Chaosium tried to trademark "Glorantha" shortly before that time, too, and failed - which definitely seemed odd. Frankly, it sounded like a failed move in a power struggle of some kind. Particularly when paired up with Greg's acquisition of the RQ trademark.
In an email to me a year or two earlier Stafford had said something about the possibility of using the RuneQuest name for something, and I was afraid that he was going to slap "RuneQuest" onto some Hero Wars (later "Hero Quest") products. The prospect annoyed me, since Hero Wars/Quest had nothing to do with RQ and was (IMHO) a pretty crappy system.
In the interim I'd stopped publishing Interregnum, and my RuneQuest site (http://www.runequest.org/rq.htm) - which I'd started in 1996 - had become the #1 result for "RuneQuest" on Google, and had been on the top for years.
Then the whole Mongoose RQ thing started. Greg said that he was licensing Mongoose Publishing to create a new version of RuneQuest. When someone asked about his right to use the system, Greg said that they would use "the same system using other words". This sounded to me (and some others) a lot like pirating Chaosium's system. Considering how fiercely Stafford had protected his ownership of Glorantha, it struck me as ironic that he was doing something that could be interpreted as permitting Mongoose to steal Chaosium's system for him.
I do realize that you can't copyright a game system under US law. Frankly, I don't think that's really fair. But then, I'm familiar enough with the law to know that "fairness" is not applicable.
(I spent eight years working in a venture capital law firm, though, so I suppose I've only seen the nastiest side of the legal profession. And if you're wondering, ethesis, I do know that you're a lawyer
At the same time Chaosium was (and still is) working on a new multi-genre version of the Basic RolePlaying system which sounded as if it would actually be more compatible with RQ3 than Mongoose's RQ.
I expressed some concern about all this over in the forums at RPG.net. And, I'll admit it, I got a bit excited. Too excited.
I was later told by some friends of his that Greg had been having a bad day, and when he saw my post he blew his top. You can see the thread here:
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=203416&page=57
In retrospect, while I admit I went a bit overboard on the paranoia, I regret that I responded so meekly to Stafford. He flat-out lied, and went way beyond any sort of reasonable response. Frankly, I'm surprised that he never had the decency to apologize.
Oh, crap. I'm over-length again. Part 3 (the last one) comes next.
Explanation, part 3
Since that time, I've found myself in an odd position: I despise Stafford, and won't do anything that will work to his benefit. He will never get another dime from me, nor will I support him or his system with my RQ site. But my site is still the number one Google result for "runequest", and I feel an obligation to the people who read it; even now, it gets a lot of traffic.
But I've come to dislike Glorantha rather intensely (it was great back in the 1980s, but to my mind Stafford has ruined it since), and whether I like it or not, RQ IS associated with Glorantha.
Every time I think about RQ, I think about Stafford, and that makes me angry. Which makes it very difficult to be creative and work on my own RQ scenarios and material for my site.
I've done the site for ten years, and it would be hard to give it up. It's pretty much a Catch-22 situation.
Here are the posts I made on this topic a while back. Some of them a friends-locked, so only those on my flist can read them:
YOW - Secret RuneQuest Stuff! (http://bobquasit.livejournal.com/2005/04/27/)
RQ Stew (http://bobquasit.livejournal.com/163793.html)
Shaky Morning (http://bobquasit.livejournal.com/164683.html)
There! I'm done. Sorry you asked? :D
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