Honestly one of the most fun pieces to collect/read
the first one actually giving you some of the first insight to the lore of diablo.
i guess they’re just deemed not required any longer? ingame tutorials/online media kind of make it obsolete. a digital one would be a bonus but theres no way itll happen as its extra work for 0$
here are the old ones from 1 and 2 from blizz FTP
ht tp://ftp. blizzard. com/pub/misc/Diablo%20II%20Manual.pdf
ht tp://ftp. blizzard. com/pub/misc/Diablo.PDF
ht tp://ftp. blizzard. com/pub/misc/Diablo.PDF
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There’s plenty of lore for D4 on the official Diablo channel on YouTube.
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Not sure your age or experience with technology but everything is virtual and has been for some time. Use the site called YouTube and look up Diablo. That is basically the new version of what you seem to be talking about. best of luck.
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meh its like replacing a library with Netflix
thanks for the protip
how much internet does it cost for youtube?
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Costcutting. Plus players is more than happy to do the job with wikis.
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Correct. Paper printed manuals started being phased out around 20 years ago when websites became very popular, such as the Arreat Summit. Then third party sites started making their own wikis, guides, walk throughs, etc.
For most games you can’t buy physical media, and you can’t buy a physical guide book. Sometimes you can get Collectors Edition art or lore books I guess.
Eh, I would make it more akin to Kindle or some other digital reader. The info is still produced by someone, how you access it has changed. You also don’t have to pay for game guides anymore.
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Funny, I still buy physical copies of books despite my audible membership. When I enjoy an audible listen-through, I buy the book and read it, because it’s a different experience. I only have audible because I like to listen to books when I drive.
I have close to a thousand books in my library, and I can’t imagine replacing them with digital bologna. The smell when you walk into the office, the different covers with different art, the fact that I can actually read without power – I can’t imagine being entirely beholden to digital devices for reading/entertainment.
The fact of the matter, though, is the manual no longer exists because there isn’t enough demand. You and I are in the minority among gamers.
I remember when my grandpa bought me the first Diablo and I voraciously consumed the content in the manual during the drive home. It built an extreme amount of excitement, and the artwork was incredible.
But honestly, I don’t really fault them for no longer putting a manual together for each game. The lack of a physical copy including boxing, cd’s, manuals, artwork, etc., is probably the only reason we only recently saw a price increase for video games despite severe inflation.
It simply is what it is.
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Manuals haven’t been a thing for almost 20 years.
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I think a lot of gamers holds blizzard to an unrealistic standard.
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This is all part of the Communist plan. Physical writing presents a problem for the narrative, and so effort must be spent to destroy it. Compare that to electronic ‘documentation’ that can be endlessly modified to suit the narrative of the day.
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Written text gets outdated fast. Digital can be kept updated in perpetuity.
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There are some self-published guides on Amazon that are not very good. Someone data mined the beta or closed beta and made a guide. These guides are not official. I bought one of them for Diablo 4 and it was junk.
I still have my Diablo Official Strategy Guide (1997) and the Diablo II Ultimate Strategy Guide (2001).
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The time to get a manual to print there is too much of a chance information in it has been patched out or changed. Understandable change and everything about how to play the game should be available in the actual game.
Errr… So is it OK, reverse engineer/break data encryption to access game data? One official website would be amazing (yeah, you also brought arreat summit). If these sites are some kind of Blizzard partners and has authorization to do this (I apologize) but would be better just send them one .xls/.csv… Everytime I read “datamining” sounds like someone needs to break the game do illegal stuff to gather something that should be accessible. 
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I get why companies don’t always do official websites. Why spend resources on something when other places are going to do it for free and will probably do a better job and get more traffic?
I don’t know all the details. I know the EULA has some rules against reverse engineering and data mining. However, I don’t know exactly what parts of the product those apply to.
Basically, if Blizzard puts out an unencrypted build then the sites like Wowhead who are partners with Blizzard, are free to look for cool stuff.
If something is under NDA, is encrypted, or someone is reverse engineering to steal intellectual property/set up private servers - that is an issue.
Data mining released games or released unencrypted PTRs is not cause for penalty unless exploited some way I guess.
The partner sites are very very open about it.
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Got this part too… But the community guys doing this to D4 (if not partners) can get a cease and desist anytime, if Blizzard by cost reduction / convenience allows this would simply be more transparent provide it in some accessible way. Or get something official online.
Just venting… 
Do not work there or on the wiki sites… But is kind of weird need to check for product information with third parties not even directly related to the manufacturer.
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Oh I don’t disagree! I have just never asked the CMs or the people who run the sites how it all works legally. It obviously does work though, and it gets info to the fans at a lower cost to Blizzard I guess. Plus fans get to contribute to those sites which is fun for some.
Most of the Blizzard NDAs tend to cover info that is not released by Blizzard into the wild. Unencrypted PTR and game builds are considered released to the wild and can be talked about by anyone. If they cross into NDA territory they can end up with legal action against them.
For example, for D2R they had a closed Alpha with limited access to game parts and classes. HOWEVER, the whole code was there, and people were able to somehow access the parts that were supposed to be locked. Then some started hosting private servers or releasing info. That got cease and desist orders pretty darn fast. They also took TCP/IP out of the game after that.
Another NDA example. Those who had early access to the review build to do guides are not allowed to talk about it yet. Not until the embargo lifts. Then they can release content related to it that is within their agreements. Rod talks about it just a little bit ago.
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Nice to know, thank you for sharing!
Just interested on get the rogue’s items database and get an answer about lore:
Are the Live Action trailer characters based on existing NPCs? Need to save that boy!!!
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