My opinion is that this patch is going to be a huge let down.
You can probably tell by now I'm a fan of Blizzard games. Who isn't though. Their games are generally well designed and focused on game play and quality control. Yes, the things that actually make a game fun for more then an hour, rather than pretty eye candy.
Consider this though, Diablo II has been out for 9 years and the expansion 8 years. Gaming development and what attracts potential players is very different now from 8 years ago. Many games have set a higher bar in standards for what a gamer should expect out of game. Ironically largely set by World of Warcraft, a game also from Blizzard.
Many Diablo II fans only recently coming back to the game have mentioned that the game feels only half complete now compared to how it used to feel to play back in the day. I myself also feel this way. Largely spoiled by the closest attempt to balance game play from many angles, which is the game WoW.
Just a few of the problems are the mass amount of hacking, duplication of items. Advertisement bots spamming you to buy in game items for real world currency on their websites. A game joining system where you can't even filter through games to help you find other players to game with who have similar goals.
Content problems involving classes with useless skills, and spells that flat out fail to work at times. An uninspired leveling system that results in endless "Baal Runs." When was the last time you went through a few of the snowy levels of the last ACT just to enjoy a different scenery while leveling. Oh but why when you can sit in a throne room watching the same creatures killed over and over... by a bot. Fun. *sigh*
Along with the 1.10 patch that buffed some classes that needed it and then became overpowered, and then some classes that actually became decently balanced but unfortunately useless 95% of the time due to lack of itemization for the class.
Don't even get me started on the Assassin class, one of the expansion classes. It was supposed to be an exciting and fun addition to the game but instead was more like a rushed out the door class that never got quite finished.
A cheesy and micky-moused attempt to counter rune duping by adding runewords normally near unattainable if the game was properly coded to prevent hacking and duping. In the end it only helped the people who play unfairly rather than legit.
Not to mention the game feels extremely unbalanced and confusing. Blizzard decided they didn't want Sorceress' to be the best item finders and so to encourage other classes to be more commonly played they added the runeword Enigma. Which allows any class to use the Sorceress class defining ability Teleport. Many people like myself thought "Really, that's your approach to fixing the problem?"
If you have been following this battle.net forum post you would know that the the long awaited Diablo II 1.13 patch is going to be entering a beta phase finally... supposedly. You would also know for how long, and just how many times its been delayed. I won't give my hopes up that this will be released any time soon since it seems if a single player tutorial bug fix comes up in Warcraft III it pushes back progress on the D2 1.13 patch about 4 months.
For those who will be playing the game when the patch hits you'll be happy to hear that they will be adding a Re-spec system, and also a larger stash. They claim there will be much more but i won't hold my breathe. I mean maybe they did throw some of that WoW money at it and polish it up real nice because Diablo III is gonna be released in a few years.
Guess we will have to wait and see. The game will still disappoint if most of my noted problems remain ignored.
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