Blizzard surprised everyone this last week with the sudden announcement of a new Diablo 2 patch and its release shortly thereafter yesterday. Nothing too earthshattering, though the mechanics behind the new boss fights are at least intriguing. Still, it’s surprising that they’re doing anything new with it at all this late after its release.
So, will I succumb to the old addiction and slip back into D2’s icy clutches? Not…yet. The one thing they didn’t do with this patch was reset the ladder, as many people were expecting. The date of the next reset thus remains unknown, so I’m still a bit hesitant to start new ladder characters this late into the current season and risk not getting to play them for long before the next reset occurs.
But, eventually… Maybe they’re just letting the patch have a ‘shake-down’ period before resetting the ladder, and then there will be no escape. Diablo always seems to win out in the end…
…Now if only they’d get on with D3, or another expansion pack, or something… :-)
There’s speculation that one of the two ‘secret’ projects they’ve admitted they’re working on is Diablo 3, but no official confirmation yet.
A lot of the old Diablo team, including the leads, has left and moved to other companies though, so some people worry if it’ll really maintain the same spirit…
Well, considering what MS did to the MechWarrior series, I rather imagine it won’t…
Either way, it’d be nice for some real changes. I mean, D2 is crazy addictive (I was playing my HC necro again last night, after the update finished), but it’s still too much of the same. The addictions don’t last as long as they used to as a result.
[ pipe dream mode on ]
Y’know what’d be nice? Something with the playability of Diablo or NWN, and the total randomness of the old sk00l ASCII games like Rogue, Omega, or Moria….
[ pipe dream mode off ]