Hi all!
Let me start by saying that this is truly great news. The game looks good and I can’t wait to check out some of the enhancements you’re introducing. However, there are a few things that concern me. Before going into the details, let me give you a short background on what’s my view on D2 - not to put any pressure 
I also know how annoying (but helpful) it is to hear a client tell you how the app should look and work like, so I’ll try to be subtle
Background
I started playing D2 pretty much from day 1. When I was 10 years old, my younger (!) brother brought a copy of D2 home and since that day we were both playing daily (with short breaks) for over a decade. When we got into our 20’s we obviously didn’t have that much time on our hands but we would still go back to D2 to go through the experience again.
For me, it’s the game that I’ve spent the most time on, ever. And I’ve been playing computer games before I could read, write or even talk well. I’ve listened to the soundtrack countless times and it still gives me the chills. Indeterminate amount of hours played, hundreds of full game walk-throughs (including taxis of course) and characters, and a lot of memories. D2 was also my first online gaming experience through a 128kbps connection. I’ve created my online alter ego, which I use to this day, just to play D2 through Battle.Net. Duncan Sentrus was inspired by a paladin from one of the Warcraft books, although I’m pretty sure I had misspelled the name 
I did write to you once (an old school paper letter!) and even receive a response, although my name is not George as was in the salutation. However the envelope was addressed OK and the response fitted, so I was happy either way. I have hand-written notes I put down when I was contemplating possible D3 plots, characters, locations long before the reveal. I’m not sure I’ve shared them with you but I’m happy that we’ve had similar idea e.g. about the High Heavens 
I actually did came back (again) to D2 a couple of months ago and still playing. I was thinking of introducing my girlfriend to this awesome game that devoured quite a bit of my lifespan (because “ate up my time” does not cover it Not that it’s comparable but I think I know D2 better, and definitely longer than her, so it’s like introducing an old friend 
I guess that’s enough on my personal life but I think you get the point
Feedback
My feedback is obviously based on the scarce amount of information we already have. To make sure that we’re on the same page and talking about the same thing, I’ll keep referring to specific parts of your official D2Remaster site. I also have a couple of questions and suggestions that you’ll hopefully find useful. Since we’re done with this extensive introduction I’ll try to write in short bullet points whenever possible
Praise
I’ll kick off with the things I really like about this remaster:
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Cross-progress - I’m a hardcore PC fan, however these days I don’t have much time to play, not to mention upgrading the PC etc. For the casual play I prefer to kick back in front of my 65" TV, power up the console and get into action. I also love the classic game-play and the good ol’ keyboard and mouse set up. I will probably prefer it for better control during harder fights. So this does not make a big difference for me, but it begs the question (I’m sorry if I’ve missed the answer somewhere) - cross-progress does not mean cross-play, am I right? I will be forced to use the PC to play with my friends who are using their PCs? Will there be an options to connect keyboard and mouse to a console and use them as controls?
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Interface upgrades - the UI looks good, the changes are cosmetic but some parts, like the attributes, look a lot cleaner. Big up for the advanced stats, I would like to see more of that for the mercenaries. The item comparison is also a great addition. I understand why you didn’t want to actually “judge” which item is better, however I wouldn’t mind a simple stat-to-stat comparison (+/-) or at least when I’m comparing stats for the same unique item.
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Permanent characters - not much to add, something that should’ve been done a looong time ago
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Stash - shared stash - the best addition D2 could get. Increasing the stash size - second best thing! I also saw that now there are tabs in our stash. How do they work? Is there a fixed amount of tabs (I saw they vary from screenshot to screenshot)? Is it a tab per character or something else? All in all - how much space we’ll get (comparing to 8 mule characters :D)
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Enhancements - I love your approach on adding new content - how it needs to fit and not to spoil the mechanics and the atmosphere. My only tip would be to, when in doubt and it’s not an overkill (e.g. too big functionality/change), use the Doom Eternal approach - put a checkbox in the game options and let the user decide
Concerns:
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Lighting - it’s the most important thing for D2. The lighting and the music along with other sounds - that’s what makes D2 atmosphere unique. I know you emphasized how much attention to detail you’re putting, but I think there’s a bit more to be done in this department. I’ve heard one of you talking (I think it was the console port team leader) that he feels the D2 got darker than the original. Personally I have the opposite feeling. I’ll leave this as a separate point but will cover this in detail in the following bullets based on location comparison from your site.
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Tristram - how did the black, burned down grass, or what it appears like to be a fine charcoal debris or something, turned into a nice and clean brick path? The whole Tristram went from a burning village in the middle of the night into a fully illuminated, neat town with smoke floating around, making it even brighter. Also in the original version the fire was more rapid and violent, now it’s more fluid but slower and does not feel threatening. BTW isn’t the cage a bit too small for our good ol’ Deckard?
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Barracks - the lighting is completely different here. This makes me really confused. You said numerous times that you’re trying to recreate the look and feel, and all of what makes it “1-to-1” - as close to the original as possible. Well, here the difference simply eye-catching.
Again, as with Tristram, the whole room is lit up and whole walls are easily visible. In the original, the corners were pitch black. Again we have this greyish glow all over the screen. The room is very bright and there’s only one torch near the entry corner. How could this single source of light evenly (!) illuminate the whole room?! On the other hand, I love the fire pit and how it can emit the light now. Unfortunately, because the room is so bright, the hearth glow is barely visible. It surely should glow brighter than in original but I’m sure it would not lit up the room like that.
Look how soft the light was in the original. It was even dimmer in D1. And that made the atmosphere - the damp half-dark, barely visible shadows lurking at the edge of your screen. Now the lighting is pretty binary - it’s either intense bright or pitch black. All the softness, shadows and the uncertainty is gone. It also feel like we’ve lost quite a bit of the viewport in some locations because of that missing dispersed light.
Imagine deserted barracks in an old stone-wall cathedral. Windows broken, wind chiming, it’s cold and damp. No natural light can’t get in through those thick cold walls. There’re only candles and torches that softly light up the room dancing and the glow fades gently into the dark, reflecting on the wet stone and puddles. In these dark halls there’s a big pit with a pile of red-hot coal. It may not be wet around it, but there’s probably moisture or even fog raised by the heat. There’s a subtle red glow making Hefasto even uglier and scarier. That’s how I see it. Imagine a dark cave, a scarce fire and long shadows cast on the tall walls. Sitting by a camp fire in the woods, hearing sudden movement behind your back. That’s the thing I’m looking for - tension and a grim surprise around each corner. -
Cemetery - I hate repeating myself, so I’ll just ask - where does all the light come from? You don’t want to tell me that the 4 visible torch is illuminate the whole cemetery evenly? I like the fog though, an old cemetery seems like a perfect spot, the density is appropriate and if I see well the fog “disappears” around our light radius? That’s smart and realistic at the same time - in fog we actually see only what’s near us
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Lut Gholein - I have a couple of problems with this one. The first thing is the grey fog again. At first when the Assassin approaches the market, or town centre if you wish, the stands are nice and dark as in original, and when she comes closer - they become grey. Is there any explanation for this ugly effect besides blurring a nice background? I also think the market lost some colours compared to the original.
The next issue I see is with the ground - in original have a tidy brick plaza with occasional sand piles that we’re probably recently swept aside. It fits well with a tale of a rich and beautiful city. In the remaster, the plaza does not really cut off from the sand. If not for the small curb, it would be hard to tell them apart. Near the well you could clearly distinct a clean plaza from a fresh sand brought by the dessert wind - you can’t really see these flavours in the setting now. That’s something that really catches the eye, especially if you put it in a side-by-side comparison! I don’t mean to be rude, I’m literally wondering if I’m the only one seeing these “details”?
Last, but not least, it seems that there’s some killer-diet in the Sanctuary, because most of the characters seem slimmer. It goes especially to the Assassin and Cain. Yeah, she’s a girl, but she’s also bearing weapons, wearing heavy armour, fighting demons and prime evils, so I’d say she needs some muscles. Cain now looks like a twig to me. He changed from a wise Horadric elder into an old beggar who got lost searching for food. Or maybe I’m exaggerating. -
Sewers - this is the most standing out example of differences in lighting. Again - look how soft the light was. It was more of a glow, spilling out and fading into the dark. All the effects were adding new layers to that glow. In the remaster, the light is totally local - shines bright in one place and 1 meter away it’s pitch black. Consider the Radamant. Look at the passage above the skeletons - it’s absolute darkness in the remaster. What happened to all the light? It’s concentrated in these light spots, it does not disperse or shine around. In the original, all of the effects (chest glowing, spells, skeleton mages hands) were more like subtly glowing rather than shining - now they are really bright which even further increases the sense of “local light”. Most of the lighting effects now look like fireworks - don’t get me wrong, I like fireworks, but they’re not grim. Fireworks are entertaining, eye-pleasing and fun but they’re not grim or dangerous - and that’s what we need here! I love the reflections though!
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Characters and monsters - that’s another big topic but there’s not much to go with yet. However I must say that e.g. vipers look very different to me. Not sure if it’s for better or worse. I would probably prefer to stick to the original as much as possible. There’s probably some space for improvement in the movement department - if you take a look at the trailer (around 1:30) if you can see the Fallen running in place. I don’t recall such glitches in the original. They would rather instantly turn 180 rather than walk in place.
I’ll also briefly go through the classes we can see on the site. Please note that my comments regard being truth to the original and do not reflect preferences for any of the skin colours etc. I’m also not really up-to-date with the lore, so I may have some misconceptions. If any of the words I’ll use is considered offensive, please let me know and suggest a polite replacement. Just as a disclaimer…-
Amazon - just got way more masculine, especially the face. She was always tough for a woman but it was balanced somewhere between the Assassin and the Barbarian. Now she’s more like a melee class rather than an agile ranged one. Something closer to a gladiator rather than hunter. It looks like you went from Wonder Woman to Maximus Decimus Meridius
- Assassin - pale Caucasian girl with dark hair, looking like the death itself, turned into a tanned healthy Asian. In-game looks emaciated though comparing to the original. You can see that on Lut Gholein comparison.
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Necromancer - looks OK but was definitely younger (or at least the face was smoother yet bony) in the original and that definitely added flavour this character - young man, but practising dark magic, playing with death, a bit underfed, no wonder he went grey so fast I did like his smooth moves in the character selection screen but I remembered the flames a bit differently. I’ve checked and they seem more intense and “all-over” him in the original. These are all “details” but how extremely important to feel the “power” of a given character.
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Barbarian - OK… this guy looks nothing like the old Barb to me. That guy was like a huge pile of meat that’s ready to crush you. This guy looks like ageing bodybuilder that gave up on gym a while ago. Where’s his presence and dominance? Where’s his six-pack? I wouldn’t say that it’s true to the original… at all. As a side note, his face reminds me of a Polish strongman Mariusz Pudziankowski - but he’s much more ripped
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Paladin - you got me. This one will probably be the most controversial. He was a guy that seemed to have a bit darker complexion and was rumoured to be from a different part of the world, which would explain the different skin colour. But how on earth do you go from a Latino-/Arabic-/Asian-/Mulatto-/Native-american-type complexion to a full-black? I understand the need for adjustment, especially that there seems to be some inconsistency in the art. But if you could choose from a variety of ethnic backgrounds mentioned above, that would match the original skin colour, why would you pick the only one that overdoes it? My only guess is that it was done to match the voice actors complexion? Or was paladin always meant to be “dark” black? To me, D3 Tyrael looks more like D2 paladin and the remastered version. If you see at his skin and face from the artwork and on the character selection screen you can clearly see that he’s not purely Black - more like mixed with Caucasian or Latino. I hope none of these terms is considered offensive
- Sorceress - if I’m right, she was a small girl with kind of a Persian/middle-east type of beauty. Seems definitely bigger and bulkier now, and probably a bit more Caucasian. She was probably stealing food from the assassin… Again, you’ve changed the character feeling. She was small, thin, delicate, dainty but with strong mind and powered by her magic. Now she’s just another grunt with some magic tricks.
- Druid - the guy looks nothing like the original, maybe except the partially red hair. The original was slimmer and younger. He also seemed to be taller. More like his werewolf form rather than the bear. A bit hunched over and grotesque, deceiving with his human form, lurking and waiting for the right moment to transform and strike. Calm, humble and in harmony with nature. Now he’s not very different from the barbarian, especially from D3.
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Amazon - just got way more masculine, especially the face. She was always tough for a woman but it was balanced somewhere between the Assassin and the Barbarian. Now she’s more like a melee class rather than an agile ranged one. Something closer to a gladiator rather than hunter. It looks like you went from Wonder Woman to Maximus Decimus Meridius
Summary
Questions :
- Cross-progress does not mean cross-play?
- Will there be an option to connect keyboard and mouse to a console and use them as controls?
- Will the dropped items still be shared or will they be assigned to players as in D3? From what you said about using the same “engine” in the background I believe all of the mechanics, including this one, stay the same?
- How stash tabs work? Is there a fixed amount of them? Is it a tab per character or something else? How much space we’ll get?
- How many character slots do we get?
Notes and suggestions:
- Advanced stats button - the text does not really fit the button… I know there’s still time but it kinda stands out.
- More details on mercenaries - like advanced stats but also their abilities/spells/auras with levels and values (dmg) - a more in-depth view on our companion.
- I know we get bigger stash, but what about those space-eating items that could become stackable, like gems, runes and potions? I know that messing with this will complicate for example the belt mechanics, but maybe we could get something like early D3 for potions - let them stack at least a little bit. For the runes and gems small stacks would be welcome as well. For me, there could even be a separate tab in the stash dedicated to runes and gems - like an ordered list with icon name and count. That would be especially helpful when creating rune-words - no more searching, wondering if and where you have the right runes, less moving them around and less misclicks when you accidentally put a rune into an item
- I’ve heard you talking about auto-loot. That works great for gold and IMHO is necessary for the consoles. I believe it could be optional on PCs - I would definitely use it and was actually thinking how I miss it in D2 a couple of weeks back. Mostly when I died and had to gather junk just to resurrect my merc
- When in doubt on adding a new feature and it’s not an overkill - just make it optional
- What about the weather system? Any changes there? New weather conditions like sandstorms in Caldeum? What about the day-and-night cycle? Will it become more fluent?
- So if we’re getting the remaster for the next gen console… How are you going to utilize the new DualSense pad features? :>
Sorry for the long post but hopefully you’ll find at least some of my remarks useful. If there’s anything else you’d like to know or want me to clarify something - let me know. If I come up with more ideas I’ll probably add them to the original post.
Thanks for your hard work so far and good luck with polishing this gem!
Best,
Michal