Did the original devs have mules in mind when making this game?

Looking back at Classic’s stash size, I have to wonder. Did they want everyone to just only use the gear they find on the character that they are currently playing as and not transfer items over via mules? I’m just wondering what was probably going through their minds 20 years ago.

I understand standards change and evolve, but that stash is so small that I can only come to the conclusion that you weren’t suppose to hoard weapons and items for other characters and you were indeed meant to just find the gear and use the gear that your character you are playing with in it’s gaming sessions only.

I’m guessing the intent was to make the game more balanced and difficult in making decisions on what to keep and throw away I think? If you found an amazing unique for a sorceress while playing Paladin was it suppose to be “oh well, tough cookie, sell it or drop it for room since your Paladin doesn’t need it?”. Were you not “suppose” to transfer items to other characters or did they just not have that in mind until much later?

What do you think the intent was for having such small stash size, no item stacking, etc?

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Brevik is known to be a miser on stash space. It was intended to force choices on what to keep, trash or trade. It was not meant to be a collect everything sort of game. Players found ways around the space restrictions by muling.

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David Brevik has said that he’s a “storage space miser”.

My guess is they originally figured that we wouldn’t need much storage space, because the game can be beaten with garbage gear. The sets, uniques and runes we all hoard are “nice to haves”, they are not “requirements” for completing the game in all three difficulties.

the D2 stash is great compared to just filling up town in D1 lol

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Did the original devs have mules in mind when making this game?
probably not.

probably yes.

yes. probably.

well. they do have the trade window. so probably they wanted you to trade those items? and not hoard them in massive bulks.

probably to make you think smart about what you needed to keep. and to keep you from picking up every possible item you could possibly pick up. not to hoard them for later or trading. they even deleted characters after a time if it was inactive.

The ATMA program was created by a D2 developer for muling on single player. I don’t know if the idea of muling was a thing when they first released it. I never played D1 so I don’t know if it was a thing in that game. However, players did mule in D2 and so I believe BN intentionally made it easier to mule in D2 LoD, though risky without help or a second character.

A few years ago Brevik said that loot specific to other character classes dropping in other character class kills was in part to inspire the player to play other character classes.

I believe they removed the game perming timer and added the extra 10 character slots on bnet in Dec 2017 to make muling easier and prevent less mule accounts from being made per ladder.

“Did the original devs have mules in mind when making this game?”

Yes, hence why you were (and still are) able to make as many accounts/characters as you want for the price of one game license

Dark Jedi and I had a small back and forth last night on a similar thing. The idea behind space and trading was also the idea that if I’m playing a Paladin and I find this cool Sorc item, I could find a Sorc that needed it and get a Pally item in return. It wasn’t necessarily to pass the item to another of your own characters or to hoard items for economy wealth; more like a barter trade rather than economy. Players just spun it into what it is today.

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could be. or maybe it was because lots of people forget what accounts they used or something. so that you could just make a new one easily. if you couldn’t get into the old one. maybe it was for families. you’re brothers and sister wanted accounts.

How every D2 mule hoarder spends their day:

In any case, regardless of if they had mules in mind or not, they did have them in mind based on how the game was setup (being allowed to make as many characters as you could want). So really the point, or question, is moot. The evidence is already on the side of the devs, based on how the game was (and still is).

ATMA wasn’t made by a D2 dev.

Ahh, makes sense now.

Funny how Brevik regrets the Stamina bar but not low stash space, lol.

I thought I had seen every Brevik interview and video but I missed where he said he was a miser about stash space. Makes sense now though seeing why space was limited and barely improve in vanilla.

My mistake, I remembered incorrectly. For some reason I always though Tenchi was a BN employee.

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regardless of the developers goal, players will always find the most fun way to play the game, so its up to the developers to reject or embrace community practices

its clear to me that d2r players want to try different builds for different scenarios so for that reason d2r devs should fix past mistakes and make hoarding easier for players

my suggestion is

  • give every char 3 personal stash tabs (this way i can hoard multiple builds in the same char with no need to gear/lvl up multiple chars of the same class)
  • keep the amount of shared tabs as it is
  • give us an extra shared currency stacking tab
  • give us 7 hero slots per game mode (21 total?)
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I wouldn’t take the old key limitation as a sign they wanted muling. D2 didn’t even have proper online mechanics when passed over to the network team.

The keys themselves were quickly cracked and sold for cents to dollars. None I’m sure wanted or planned.

They designed this game as a dungeons and dragons (demons) game

This game was meant for Single Player in mind with network connectivity…so No

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That’s not necessarily true. Sometimes, players choose extremely unfun ways of playing, due to them being more efficient than the fun ways of playing. Developers need to intervene in these cases to keep the game healthy.

i completely desagree
people can have fun being efficient
ofc that the concept of fun will vary from individual to individual

the only time devs should intervene under the guise of “healthy” is when it involves days of gaming/stream without proper rest, hydration and nutrition.