I’m quite certain that a lot of old buggers like me, played D2 most intensively in 1.09. I’ll even make the arguably foolish statement, that 1.09 was the hay-day of D2.
Many of us will probably be quite disappointed, if we expected to play ‘our’ old Diablo 2 exp experience, and then received the post 1.10 version of the game.
On the flip-side of that coin, I’m fully aware that people, who have been continuously playing the game for the past 17 years, would be quite disappointed to play the old version (1.10 released October 28, 2003.)
So I hope that someone would consider, if you could have 2 versions of the game running side-by-side.
I doubt this will happen but hopefully we can find people to still play classic and hunt down rare items… where barbs actually use lances, etc.
Yeah I prefer 1.09. When runewords gave every class skills from different classes, the game got less interesting for me. But im fine with releasing with 1.14, but a 1.09 option would be awesome
I fall into this category as well. I am excited to play 1.14, however It doesn’t feel like going back to the D2 I used to know. I personally am not a fan of the homogenization of granting other classes skills they wouldn’t have, like teleport, via runewords. Runewords seem to dominate the meta for weapons and armors thus making old classics like the Windforce obsolete.
Yeah, I played 1.09d A LOT, but I dont think they will do 2 separate versions. Its logical that it would be the latest version of D2.
For the benefit of the group (without us having to look up the difference), what were the key differences between 1.09 and 1.14d?
I’m guessing the major difference was new runewords?
I think it can be easily modded in. Game logic is actual D2 working underneath graphic shell, so if 1.09 do not have any visuals that are differ from d2 1.14, it can be easily swapped
I made a post about this too asking for Pre Lod 1.06b which was the last patch with out immunes uniques had no level requirments and Rares had a Better Affix and suffix pool but i’d also like to see other patch options
Maybe they could implement something similar to PoE where you can make custom private leagues. If there’s enough large scale interest maybe you could start a public version of a specific version of the game without having to pay for it (PoE private leagues cost money I believe).
Smaller scale private leagues could also pick from a variety of baseline patches with optional modifiers (xp, drop rates etc).
It could even evolve into letting people start private leagues for custom mods to have an official way to play mods on official blizzard servers.
Yeah, I also thought, that backwards compatibility with old patches balance would be a nice feature 
Would love to play some 1.09 again 
@ Vvin
Can’t post links, but:
diablo dot fandom dot com slash wiki slash diablo_II_version_history
Gives you an overview of the patch notes 
I would also like a way to play this patch…
Another ladder for this patch would be great.
@lvhaxor
Seems to me that the immunities came with 1.10, but I may be mistaken.
@syclone
my point excactly. Hunting for a weapon like Windforce - that I never got btw - was a driving factor for me. I had to use the awesome buriza-do-cannon and I even got a eagle-something. But the runewords never really felt interesting to me, even though hunting for an impossible rune is the same as hunting for a weapon, it didn’t feel the same.
Pretty much each version is a different game. Not just in bugfixes & features, but there were huge differences in difficulty, gameplay, balance.
a few examples:
- mana potions weren’t buyable till 1.10
- no runes & runewords
- no charms (=no inventory clutter ^^)
- no skill cooldowns
- no weapon switch (2nd weapon/shield)
- no skill synergies
- …
Also see reddit for “Diablo 2: A brief patch history”.
tldr: D2 was a different beast back then.
Yeay different versions feel weird, but if you look at 1.10 as a small extension it makes more sense, because no one would want to play 1.09 classic, since the classic experience pretty much stayed the same.
So some character creation sellection like “Classic” “Classic LoD” “Über” would make pretty much sense imho?
rune, runewords and charms came with expansion - so not just another “version/patch”
synergies came with the big change in v1.10 which also included lots of new runewords that changed the game a lot. From people farming loot and xp in cow level with nova sorc - where now people today would farm cs or baal.
Was 1.10 the patch for the expansion? Thanks for the bullets btw!
Thought runes and charms were based on expansion, not a patch.
Expac started on 1.07 I believe, released 2001. 1.10 was 2003, about 2 years later.