Diablo 2 Remaster Rumors

[Kolvarg]

Didn't they say that Diablo 2 will never get a remaster because:

a) they lost the source code long ago, and

b) the game itself was hardcoded with a maximum resolution of 800x600 and with larger resolutions a bunch of it just doesn't work, like enemy pathing and AI.

Well to be fair, that doesn't mean it is impossible, only that it isn't as straightforward as one might think. Similar things were said about Classic WoW, and eventually, they did manage a way to do it.

With that said, the rumoris that the team behind the Crash remake is developing it, so if anything I would expect a full remake (most things developed from scratch in a new engine) and not a simple remaster (better textures/higher resolutions in the current D2 engine).

[Triceron]

Oh boy! Even less faith then. Even if the art looked good in close ups it's a mess during battle.

Yeah, it was a dumb decision to deviate it so much and throw away everything they learned about RTS graphics. They had years of experience and threw it all away by having it look like a mobile game.

Honestly Lemonsky already did the graphics for SC remaster and it looked fantastic. No real excuse for Blizzard's change in art direction for WC3R.

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Well to be fair, that doesn't mean it is impossible, only that it isn't as straightforward as one might think. Similar things were said about Classic WoW, and eventually, they did manage a way to do it.

With that said, the rumoris that the team behind the Crash remake is developing it, so if anything I would expect a full remake (most things developed from scratch in a new engine) and not a simple remaster (better textures/higher resolutions in the current D2 engine).

Double edged sword though, because part of the charm of D2 is in its unique way of coding compared to many games. A remake might try to improve and polish D2's rough edges, but many of us want D2 and not some D2 reskin over Skylanders or D3, if you know what I mean.

[tangers58]

Original article in French
https://www.actugaming.net/blizzard-...n-2020-329561/

Picked up by Bloody Disgusting and summarized
https://bloody-disgusting.com/video-...ii-later-year/

Rumour: A Remaster is in Development For ‘Diablo II’ For Later This Year?!

Don't have much faith in remasters after Reforged... I don't blame the team, making a game takes time but the suits at Activision keep pushing out unfinished products, doubt it would be any different with D2

[Ange]

I've been saying since vanilla WoW that WoW should emulate this. Create a super reward if someone levels up a fresh toon from level 1.

The difference between MMO and A-RPG players is pretty huge when you compare how much they actual play the game. Many "extreme" A-RPG players would still be considered (ultra) casuals in WoW/MMO's.

Played 6+ years D2 (SC/HC multiple leaderboard standings, sub 100 in the first D2-leaderboard) and close to 2000d /played in WoW and in my own experience the "average" MMO player is very far away from the people that play a few hours of action-RPG.

Most things that make sense for the A-RPG audience does not make any sense for the MMO gamers.

A cute bicycle bell might be a very important feature for your childrens bike, but it might not have the same priority for the rider with a 10.000 EUR roadbike that is used as a sports equipment.

You are suggesting things that players like for 8-48 hours of gameplay to the audience of people that plays 20000-30000 hours over the years.

[Liftbrul]

Oh fuck. Please no. Not after Reforged.

[McNeil]

After what happened to Warcraft 3 I don't ever want to see them remastering their games again.

[Kolvarg]

Double edged sword though, because part of the charm of D2 is in its unique way of coding compared to many games. A remake might try to improve and polish D2's rough edges, but many of us want D2 and not some D2 reskin over Skylanders or D3, if you know what I mean.

That's true, and definitely a concern for anyone involved in the project.

There is hope though, as we've actually had a fair amount of really good remakes in recent years, from the ones that reimagine the original game like Resident Evil 2 and FFVII, to the ones that stay faithful to the original despite recreating them from scratch, like the Crash and Spyro remakes.

On the Spyro remake, for instance, I recall watching some videos on the development process, and a big concern was making everything as faithful to the original as possible. They specifically programmed tools to import the old maps and all information (like the positions of objects in the world) to the new engine in order to make it a 1:1 recreation, and iirc even had AI/Machine learning tools to actively compare the movement and physics to the original in order to have a faithful recreation.

So if anything, I'd say a D2 Remake actually has a better chance as an outsourced project than as a Bliizzard in-house development. Now of course it all still depends on what sort of funding, management and deadlines they're getting from ActivisionBlizzard, of course But that was also true for Crash remake, and while I haven't played it myself yet, it was definitely well received.

Personally I'm ok with anything as long as they don't touch the original. Don't make the same mistake as W3 Reforged, just make it a separate thing and let those who want play the Classic version without any change. At least this way worst case people will still have the original, no matter how bad the remake might be.

[keelr]

OMG HAHA blizzard release game bugged, now blizzard big bad, big evil, me know

[salate]

But SC Remastered is fine.
so chances are 50/50

[Tomana]

OMG HAHA blizzard release game bugged, now blizzard big bad, big evil, me know

Because original D2 was totally not bugged
I mean, it wasn't like the bow bug wasn't around for months (if not years)...

[Triceron]

But SC Remastered is fine.
so chances are 50/50

This will be developed by Vicarious Visions though, not the Classics team. Which is a good thing IMO.

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Personally I'm ok with anything as long as they don't touch the original. Don't make the same mistake as W3 Reforged, just make it a separate thing and let those who want play the Classic version without any change. At least this way worst case people will still have the original, no matter how bad the remake might be.

I'd say I'm more reserved on that. I'd much more prefer a Remaster, though in honesty I'd rather seen an expansion of the original in all its pixellated glory, much like what many fans have done like SigamXL or Beezlebub mods.

As for a remake, I agree that we're in an age where remakes are much more welcomed. Trials of Mana is fantastic, and I love the new take on the game especially since they've released the original to be preserved as a part of the Collection of Mana. To me, their other Diablo related projects are already 'remakes'. They already started elements of that with Diablo Immortal in how it's D3 gameplay but continues the D2 storyline. Then we have D4, which was announced straight up with D2 classes with modern gameplay. I think we're already going in that direction.

But honestly, Diablo 2 is something sacred to me. I think that if they're gonna do anything with D2, they should keep it the same and just expand on the formula that everyone expects and sees working. More Runewords, more Bosses, more Affixes, etc. The rest should really be kept the same, including the limited stash space.

[Djuntas]

QOL changes don't have to fundamentally alter the game, which seems to be everyone's knee-jerk reaction to anything. While D2 is a great game, it's far from perfect and has many areas where optimizations could be made w/o changing the core game at all. Even among the circles I frequent, they still love playing D2 but would really like some QOL changes. Gamer expectations are much higher nowadays in terms of what should be standard, even from a remastered version.

A D2 Remastered doesn't have to be a FF7 Remake, but it doesn't have to be a hi-res carbon copy either. Along that line of thinking, I love both FF7 and the FF7 Remake because they're a different feel and perspective on the same game, each having their own charms. Obviously we won't get a Remake-level of D2 if they do make Remastered (especially in light of D4 development being the main focus), but they could go that route in the future with the Diablo franchise. A complete remake of a game we love doesn't mean it has to be terrible, but I can understand the trepidation after W3: Reforged. On that note...

I still put the heavy caveat that no matter what they do, they should not remove access of the original D2 like they did with W3: Reforged.

I think QOL changes are needed, not only to please "old players" but also new players, the other day I had a comment on 1 of my videos random from 1 person saying "I tried this game, but clicking on gold annoyed me to much"...So QOL changes and balance changes would be great for me....I really just wanna have a good bow amazon build really lol.

[matrix123mko]

That's true and we should be thankful for these random people that put heir time to develop and evolve this +20yo game.
The problem is that copyrights belong to Ubisoft after 3DO was bankrupt. If they want they probably could make some lawsuit and shut down whole HotA project like Blizzard did with many private WoW serves... Hopefully not since i love to play HoMM random maps like 2-3 times per year with friends.

They didn't care for too long. I doubt they are going to close HotA any time soon. They do not have any Heroes games in plans for now and they are focused on mobile games, so HotA isn't their competition.

Anyway, free mods cannot be easily removed from Internet.

[Triceron]

I think QOL changes are needed, not only to please "old players" but also new players, the other day I had a comment on 1 of my videos random from 1 person saying "I tried this game, but clicking on gold annoyed me to much"...So QOL changes and balance changes would be great for me....I really just wanna have a good bow amazon build really lol.

This is a slippery slope...

I agree with the sentiment that we should have better balance to make builds more viable, but at the same time we already have that with balance mods, and the end result is always that they end up feeling too different from the original Diablo 2.

Also, stuff like 'clicking on gold' is a matter of not understanding how Diablo 2 is actually played and failing to learn the nuances. If you want an efficient source of gold, you pick out any Elite-rank Armor or 2-slot Class-specific item like Wands and Orbs with many +skills. Those will automatically sell for 35k max gold at Vendors, and you can make a few hundred thousand every trip. There's no reason to pick up gold in Diablo 2, kinda like there's no reason to break every barrel you come across or kill infinite spawn minions that yield 0 EXP, or max out an ability like Warmth. You just have to understand and accept this is part of the game.

[Kolvarg]

I'd say I'm more reserved on that. I'd much more prefer a Remaster, though in honesty I'd rather seen an expansion of the original in all its pixellated glory, much like what many fans have done like SigamXL or Beezlebub mods.

As for a remake, I agree that we're in an age where remakes are much more welcomed. Trials of Mana is fantastic, and I love the new take on the game especially since they've released the original to be preserved as a part of the Collection of Mana. To me, their other Diablo related projects are already 'remakes'. They already started elements of that with Diablo Immortal in how it's D3 gameplay but continues the D2 storyline. Then we have D4, which was announced straight up with D2 classes with modern gameplay. I think we're already going in that direction.

But honestly, Diablo 2 is something sacred to me. I think that if they're gonna do anything with D2, they should keep it the same and just expand on the formula that everyone expects and sees working. More Runewords, more Bosses, more Affixes, etc. The rest should really be kept the same, including the limited stash space.

I understand that, and tbh if W3R, WoW Classic and Starcraft are anything to go by, is that in general they want the actual gameplay and feel to remain as intact as possible, at least in theory.

If it's true an outsourced remake is in the works, I would completely expect to be a nearly 1:1 recreation of the original with only minor changes, and it being on a different engine would be only because of them not having the original resources and the limitations it had regardless. The only big change I could see them trying would perhaps be to have the graphics be full real-time 3D, instead of 3D sprites, but even with that's I have my doubts.

I can't say I feel the same way since for me Diablo has never been about endgame or anything, just something I play through the story and have some fun with for some time. But I can understand what you're saying.

I think if the rumor is true then there are two likely situations:
1) This was already in the works for a while, and D4 still has a few years of development to go through, so they're releasing this soon and as a way to pad out D4's dev time.
or
2) This is actually still early in development, and planned for release well after D4's release, possibly to help pad out the development of D4 expansions.

[Triceron]

2) This is actually still early in development, and planned for release well after D4's release, possibly to help pad out the development of D4 expansions.

Well the rumor already stated that they plan this for q4 2020, which is pretty big considering few leaks have ever given out potential release dates before even announcement!

I figure this means the project has been well under way for a while now in secret. I don't think it will hit its target release, but at the same time we've seen and heard nothing of the project so who really knows what state it is in.

[Kolvarg]

Well the rumor already stated that they plan this for q4 2020, which is pretty big considering few leaks have ever given out potential release dates before even announcement!

I figure this means the project has been well under way for a while now in secret. I don't think it will hit its target release, but at the same time we've seen and heard nothing of the project so who really knows what state it is in.

Yea, it does seem a bit weird considering Blizzard's tendency to announce games way too early. Especially since they could have easily announced it in last year's Blizzcon as another counter measure to the PR issues they were having.

But it's not impossible, guess only time will tell!

If it turns out to be true, I'd say it's pretty good both for Blizzard and for the players, since I wouldn't expect D4 to be out next year yet.

[Gurahk]

Aslong as it's just a HD port like Starcraft then it should be fine.

[Mauzi92]

one thingni would likento see fixed is torch trading. cant trade them 1:1? thats super dumb

[Stormspark]

I won't be playing it. I've had Blizzard on boycott since Nov 2018. I was originally planning on preordering Warcraft 3 Refunded, but cancelled those plans after the travesty of Blizzcon 2018. I really dodged a bullet there, too.