Please give us 3 versions for D2R (Classic, LOD, LOD Resurrected)

General Discussion
1
  1. Classic (Original Classic preserved)
  2. LOD (Original LOD preserved)
  3. LOD Resurrected (QOL changes, balance changes, content updates)

I keep seeing people on this forum continuously fighting this idea because they’re worried it will ‘split’ the community too much.

This logic makes no sense, because first of all Diablo is an ARPG that has still been completely playable with only thousands of active players per realm.

Second of all there will no longer be realms in D2R, meaning the player base of the original will already be much larger on a single server.

Diablo 2 Forks:
EAST Classic
EAST LOD
WEST Classic
WEST LOD
EUROPE Classic
EUROPE LOD
ASIA Classic
ASIA LOD

D2R Forks:
GLOBAL Classic
GLOBAL LOD
GLOBAL LOD Resurrected

Not even considering the fact that there are WAY more people playing video games and ARPG’s now then back in 2000 - 2010, so again player base will most definitely not be an issue.

The other argument against this that I’m seeing is ‘people will complain no matter what and they will ask for 5+ forks of the game’ and I disagree with that because from what I can see the biggest split in the community is some people want changes and some people want the original game preserved. If one fork can satisfy 90% of players instead of 50%, then I think it’s more than worth it.

Obviously there wouldn’t be 4-5+ forks of the game, that would be pointless. I do think having this third fork WOULD most definitely keep both D2 purists, but also keep new D2 players engaged. It’s an easy and cheap solution in order keep the game popular for years down the line, without messing with the original.

I’m mainly fond of this idea because I don’t ever want LOD to be touched with content / meta changes. I want the original game preserved as much as possible. In reality after a year or two, blizzard will likely see engagement decline and will be pushed by higher ups to add additional content in order to bring players back to the game, and if this is the case I would much rather have these content changes be on a separate fork/server in order to give us the guarantee of leaving the original version of the game untouched.

So not only does this benefit the community since it will only give us MORE options, but it will also benefit the D2R team since it will give them the opportunity to keep player engagement high.

I’m also not saying this is a necessary addition right off the bat, but I think it’s important to be open to this type of change as it offers mostly benefits to everyone involved.

I personally don’t want ANY QOL changes on the original game, but wouldn’t be upset if they did more on a separate fork, and I would be happy to run characters on both the servers.

5 Likes
2

People will whine about fractures player base, but D2 is already fractured:

solo
PD2
Pluggy
Battlenet
Ladder

If a solid D2, Expansion, Resurrected set of checkboxes were offered, the vast majority would be playing on Resurrected.

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D2R would still have far less splits and a much larger player base.

1 Like
4

Don’t think you have too many people who would be upset with this outside of the potential in including the updated game delays the release.

In all honesty it would be fine if they did something like this because it would be cool to always have the option to “opt out” of any patch you don’t like.

5

People already want to miss out on new stuff by saying they don’t want any changes.

6

Well it wouldn’t be opting out of ‘any’ patch, but the option to continue playing 1.14 forever. I also understand that the game needs to be finished, and this is something that could be added after a season or two.

7

A lot of this issue will be alleviated if they allow very deep, rich modding.

8

The option to not play a patch I do not like and play base LOD is an option to opt out of a patch whether explicit or not.

If I think at any point the new gameplay is worse I have another way I can play.

9

I don’t think modded servers will ever be as big as a blizzard run server.

I do think it would be nice to keep the core game intact for a long time rather than having people split up over 20 different modded versions of the game.

That said I’m still excited to see what the modders can bring out, I just think these developers are doing an incredible job staying true to the game and they have access to a vault of D2 goodies that went unused, so they would be the best choice for providing content updates.

10

There is no downside other than maintenance. You can split further(let us say another people have other ideas orthogonal to yours). Larger titles can’t afford this cost, not to say D2R.

I am not against this idea, Blizzard may.

Let us say yours and others ideas end up with 10 different versions of D2R. How can developer fix and improve 10 different version together?

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Personally, my focus is the PC playerbase and what you said is true.

I have not seen the argument posted recently, but there is someone who will claim that D2R will be even more split since there will be PC, Xbox, playstation, and Nintendo switch. That argument makes little to no sense to me once you consider the original D2 and D2R are moddable.

12

Again I think player engagement over a long period of time will more than offset the cost of maintaining one extra server. Not to mention any content additions will probably be very minimal work/effort for them. D2 is special in a way that the smallest changes could impact the entire way the game is played.

13

For now, only WoW is strong enough to convince Blizzard to have multiple versions(your idea can lead to one extra server, other people’s idea can lead multiple extra servers).

As as responsible company, Blizzard has to fix and improve all versions, not just deploy all of them once and do nothing later. Multiple versions can increase maintenance cost a lot and only WoW revenue justifies that at Blizzard’s mind.

14

Fair point, I don’t know what those maintenance costs look like.

I do think D2R is a marketing ploy to get people hype for D4 at some point, so again I think the net gain on investing a little more into D2R might not be as costly as you may think, especially with cloud servers.

15

Do you people ever stick to one thread, or do you always create 10-20 additional threads about the exact same thread as the first one?

16

This is common in the diablo forums on any hot button topic. Both sides will create a myriad of threads with arguments to support their cases. Usually, the discussions will coalesce around a few threads.

At this point, I think almost all arguments have been made, yet misinformation remains and some posters are still using widely debunked, illogical arguments on both sides.

Some would make that same argument in reverse.

17

I wanted the conversation to center around the points I made in the OP.

If there’s legitimate reason as to why something I said doesn’t make sense, I would like to hear it from someone in the community.

18

You will have plenty of you point nº 3. They are called mods, and you can make your own.

19

Do modders have access to the original unused D2 assets and lore ?

I doubt it.

Blizzard is the only one that can truly make meaningful content that is still ‘true’ to the original game IMO.

Also I highly doubt any mod would be as big as another server on D2R. And mods aren’t playable for a majority of D2R owners (console players).

20

It’s because they get shot down in other threads so they make a new one to talk amongst themselves and repeat old arguments.