Diablo 2: The Game I Still Play

I'm sure many of you a familiar with the Diablo series of games from Blizzard. The first Diablo game was released back in 1996 and was a huge success for Blizzard. I played that game then, and it was fun to play.

However, it was the second game, Diablo 2 that made it for me.

Diablo 2 was first released back in 2000, and I became addicted to the game quite quickly. Unlike the first Diablo, where you enter a crack in the ground of the town of Tristram and continue going down and down until you got to Diablo to fight him, Diablo 2 offered several "Acts" in which your character travels around the world, fighting evil.

Later, in 2001, Blizzard released their expansion of Diablo 2, known as Diablo II: Lord Of Destruction, which added an Act V to the game, increased the character classes you could play (in Diablo 2, you could create a Paladin, a Barbarian, a Sorceress, a Amazon and a Necromancer.
The Lord Of Destruction expansion added two more character classes: Assassin and Druid.

Each class plays differently. For example, a Paladin or Barbarian, it's hack and slash (or bang and crush), and the combat is up close and personal. Amazons or a Sorceress use distance attacks. Characters like the Necromancer and Druid, you stay behind the lines of battle, depending upon your army of dead you raised, or using animals and nature to fight your battles for you.

Also different from the very first game, Diablo 2, you end up with a companion (which can vary depending upon what act you are in), that you can equip and arm to help you battle the evil in the land.

There's an actual story line too in Diablo 2, with cinema cut scenes that were very well done.

Here are some screen shots of the game from my Let's Play video:







The entire game (the expansion included) is still available from Blizzard.

Over time, as our screens for our computers went from a 4:3 aspect ration to wide screen, which is 16:9 or 16:10, a lot of people playing Diablo 2 noticed a problem:

You either ended up with a screen that had very large black bars on either side of the game screen, or the game screen was stretched, making the game look horrible.

Over time, this has been fixed and you can fix this yourself with very little fuss:

First: make sure you game has the very latest patch. patch 1.12a got rid of the need to have the CD to play the game (yay! That was annoying!). However, the latest patch is version 1.13d

Once you have patched the game with the latest one, you can do one of 2 things to fix your screen:

The first way is very easy, but is still lacking. You can open up the properties of your short cut to Diablo 2 and use the following switches where it says "Target".
Got to the end of the quotes, put in a space and type the following without the quotes:

"-w -nofixaspect"

This will run the game in window mode with it maximized to your screen. But you will still see the blue window bar up at the top.

The other way, that will allow you to play Diablo 2 full screen with no stretching is this:

You need to download a dynamic library list file (.dll file) called "glide3x.dll". You can download this file for free from Here. The latest version is 1.4e.

Extract the files to your Diablo 2 install folder. You'll see a executable file called "glide-init" in the download. Double click on it and you should see your screen go blank, then pop up with some color parts, and a blue box, that when you move your mouse over it, you see water ripples. In that box, should be a frame rate count. You want it to say 25 FPS or HIGHER. As long as it shows that, exit this by clicking on the exit button (if your frame rate was a lot lower than 25, you need to upgrade your video card).

Now look in your Diablo 2 folder and look for a file called "D2VidTst", this is Diablo 2's video test program. After a little bit, you'll see a box appear that gives you 3 options (if your screen resolution at this point went down, don't worry, once you pick an option, it will return your screen resolution to what you had it set at).

The 3 options should be one for Direct Draw, one for 3D acceleration and one for Glide

Select the one for Glide (this is so Diablo 2 uses that glide dll file you downloaded).

Once that's done, run Diablo 2. It will be full screen and will not be stretched. Once you start up a character, you can go into the Options menu and change the video resolution to 800 x 600 (which is as high as it goes on Diablo 2).
You may also have to turn Perspective OFF. I've noticed video artifacts on my screen when trying to play in Perspective mode (but that is fine, as I don't like Perspective mode).

Here is what it looks like on my monitor:



So that's it! I really enjoy playing the game still. I've not played Diablo III that came out. My wife has it, and she said she enjoyed it, but she said Diablo 2 for her was a lot more fun to play, and that she likes the Skill Tree in Diablo 2 a lot better.

Here is my Let's Play video for those who have never played Diablo 2 before and want to see what it looks like (it's in 4:3 aspect as my recording software sees it that way).

I highly recommend "D2MultiResGame.exe" to play the game in higher resolution and still make it look great in 4:3, 16:9, 16:10.

I've played Diablo 2 for years and years but I will probably never play the original again since the Median XL mod is just too much better!

Median XL

It's better than torchlight, better than Path of Exile and better than Diablo 3 IMO.

Nice thread, Diablo 2 is one one these games that will live on for years...

Edit : Oh nice. You seem to be also using Plugy

I still love the game too. Have you tried Path of Exile?

a reply to: theMediator

Thanks for the tip! I'll have to check out Median!

originally posted by: Bybyots
I still love the game too. Have you tried Path of Exile?

Yes actually, a few years ago. My oldest son still plays it after he get's home from work. Has a lot of fun with it. He played Diablo 2 forever himself.

The only thing I don't like about Path of Exile, is the way they have the camera angle. It way too steep for me. If it was more of an angle like in Diablo, I think I would try it more (they've not changed it, I checked with my son the other night).

You rock LoD best part of Diablo 2. I bought D3 when it came out and i think my one and only character is level 3.

a reply to: eriktheawful

Yeah, PoE hits the spot for a moment, but I still prefer D2 and have recently set up an XP virtual machine just for playing D1 with the Hellfire expansion. Best games ever. I like Dwarf Fortress. too.

diablo 2 was one of the few games i bought twice...somehow lost it and thought man i wanna play again..then bought....id consider buying it again. The necromancer summoner so was so amazing...no summoner class has had an army of anything following them around doing their bidding. Indeed it was a great game.

a reply to: theMediator

Can you tell us a bit more about the Median mod? Or a link to a FAQ that goes in depth about it? I'm searching the link and it's a bit confusing. Went to their forum, and not really seeing anything like "About Median XL" or anything like that.

I played Diablo II for a number of years - I'm sure my Battlenet account is long gone by now, but I used to be quite rich in this game.

If you love Diablo II, I recommend the Dungeon Siege games - very similar to Diablo but you get to play an entire party of characters and there are some additional combat options that Diablo doesn't have.

a reply to: eriktheawful

Hopefully I won't get bashed for this... In case this thread is about bringing old memories up. But have you tried playing Skyrim?

I was a big fan of Diablo 2 at that time, and haven't played anything in that genre ever since. I'm not a big fan of these kinda games in general, but skyrim really caught my attention and I believe it is very much similar to Diablo 2, so many things and places to explore, Diablo was revolutionary but skyrim simply takes this genre to the next level.

a reply to: Shuye

Hehehehe......

Chuckling here. Do I play Skyrim?

But of COURSE!!!!! I've played every Elder Scroll game that's ever been release (all the Fall Out games too). Here's some videos of me playing (not Let's plays):

Short Funny


Skyrim and Fallout New Vegas put to the music of Stayin' Alive


Just more Skyrim:


Me getting a pie in the face........er.....not sure why I put this here:



I play Morroblivion, which is a total conversion mod: They put Morrowind into Oblivion, makes Morrowind much better for me. But they are taking it one step further: They are putting Morrowind in to the Skyrim game engine! They've got all the static stuff done, so I hope they finish it soon.

a reply to: eriktheawful

I try to get some time in on Diablo 2 every night before bed.

It is definitely in my top 3 favorite games.(Postal 2 and Oblivion are the other 2)

Great to see that there are others out there that are still into it.

I absolutely loved Diablo II. I could spend a great deal of time on that game. I haven't done much computer gaming in a looong time. We just got the new Diablo III Reaper of Souls game for the PS4. Sadly, I haven't even had time to open it, let alone play it. But I am super super excited to try it. Honestly, we were on the fence about getting the new playstation, until I saw the trailer for Diablo!

a reply to: eriktheawful

Haha well, I should've known better. I'm quite new to skyrim, been playing it for like 3 weeks and already finished the main storyline, thinking the game would be over soon but it just goes on and on lol...

And about the pie in the face video, as long as it's not bucket with water in it it's all good! But maybe this can be used to fight obesity? lol... just an idea...

a reply to: Shuye

Heh. If you think Skyrim is long.....then buy the DLCs for it. You have Dawnguard and Dragonborn.

There is also Harthfire, but it just adds the ability to build your own home.

Dawnguard and Dragon Born expand the game quite a bit. Dragon Born, you actually get to go to the Island of Solstheim in Morrowind!

The pie in the face was a clip from a video that I had my Webelo den make. I'm the Webelos den leader in our local Cub Scout pack, and 2 years ago, in order to earn their Showmanship activity badge, they normally put on a skit. We decided to go a step further and we made a YouTube video that is a parody of the news. They had a lot of fun making it, and I had them also help me edit it.
Here's that video (it's just fun to watch the kids having fun):

originally posted by: eriktheawful
a reply to: theMediator

Can you tell us a bit more about the Median mod? Or a link to a FAQ that goes in depth about it? I'm searching the link and it's a bit confusing. Went to their forum, and not really seeing anything like "About Median XL" or anything like that.

Yeah I agree it's a little confusing...

In the left grey panel is toooootally at the bottom, it says : Download this mod ...

Then I think you need to place the file over the original file in the game folders, you might want to make a copy of your original file before replacing it with the Median XL one...

a reply to: eriktheawful

WOW! Thanks for the instructions! Brings back some memories...used to play this game for hours especially the expansion Lord Of Destruction. I've been playing Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls, the newest expansion to the series available in High Res with a quick settings change . I have 4 Lvl 70s 3 out of 4 fully geared out in a pretty quick time. Its VERY addicting because they have a couple new things like Nephalem Rifts and Paragon Levels that make it fun even after you beat the campaign.

originally posted by: theMediator

originally posted by: eriktheawful
a reply to: theMediator

Can you tell us a bit more about the Median mod? Or a link to a FAQ that goes in depth about it? I'm searching the link and it's a bit confusing. Went to their forum, and not really seeing anything like "About Median XL" or anything like that.

Yeah I agree it's a little confusing...

In the left grey panel is toooootally at the bottom, it says : Download this mod ...

Then I think you need to place the file over the original file in the game folders, you might want to make a copy of your original file before replacing it with the Median XL one...

Oh I can get a mod installed, I just wanted to read or hear about what all the mod does is all, and I can't really find something that talks about what all the mod does. That is what I was hoping for.

I tend to like to read about a mod before I install it. Just like to see what all changes.

originally posted by: eriktheawful
Can you tell us a bit more about the Median mod?

All classes have been revamped with a new elite skill distribution.
All known items retweaked, pleeenty of new ones.
Many, many new horadric cube combinations.
Loads of enchantments to personally enhance all you equipment at the cost of higher level req.
New mobs, new mobs abilities, more bosses in the wilderness.
New bosses, new Uber areas all with level limit range.

I'm probably missing some things, I haven't played in a while hehe