Of course, trying to run some other program while D2 is open might not be exactly a good idea. ;)

However, Josh pointed out, "At this time it is impossible to have it happen vs. melee creatures, because melee attacks don't trigger the blocking animation (bug). It is theoretically possible to have it happen against a large number of ranged attackers, because ranged attacks DO trigger the animation (IIRC)."

From Josh: "In D2 bosses are enchanted versions of regular creatures. They have a bonus ability, in addition to having many more hitpoints than a normal version of the creature. On higher difficulties, they have several bonus abilities. They are always accompanied by a group of monsters of the same type who have increased hitpoints, and sometimes share in the boss' ability (extra fast, for example). This group can be identified by the word 'minion' under their name." See: unique, minion, LEB, MS, CEB.

Also can refer to certain droppings from a bull (general internet usage).

Well, this entry doesn't need to be changed much for D2, except that as of version 1.03 there are still a lot of bugs that will work to the player's advantage. However, many of these, such as the Barbarian Weapon Mastery bug, aren't very evident, and some can hardly be avoided, so a lot of current players are inadvertently benefitting from bugs. It may not be fair to call that bug exploitation, though.

You are asking for misery and heartbreak if you don't back up your character files. Single-play/Open-TCP-IP character files and game saves are stored in the Diablo 2 directory, and can be backed up by copying with any file copy utility, such as Windows Explorer, to a backup directory or to floppy disks (though I think an advanced character will have enough files associated with it to fill more than one 3.5" 1.4 Megabyte floppy)
 

(on PC's, that is; I know next to nothing about Macs, I fear).

From Mirajj: "A grouping of people of a like mind who like gaming together. Typically a StarCraft term, more than a Diablo one. Some of the bigger, well known clans are the Snakegod clan, the Tarot clan, and the Ordo Rosae."]

On the other hand, Hellfire does have the Jersey's Jersey Quest, for which the reward is the Bovine Plate, possibly put in the game to pay homage to or to take advantage of the persistent rumors. 

Well, with the release of Diablo 2, the mythical Cow Level apparently becomes real. After years of denying that a secret cow level exists in Diablo (reportedly, a password somewhere in Starcraft is "There is no cow level" or something like that), Blizzard added a secret cow level to Diablo 2. I haven't seen it yet myself, so I won't believe it 100% until I do, but the reports coming out about D2's cow level seem to be serious.]

Demons are not affected by the class of weapon; i.e., blunts, sharps, and all other weapons do the stated DAM to demons. On the other hands, a couple of unique weapons (Bloodslayer, Deadly Hunter) have a special attribute of increased damage to demons (also, see: CC, for a special case).]

[irrelevant in the same sense as D1, but worth including a bit on D's drops in D2?]

[since I haven't killed D on normal yet, this is based on second-hand info - do I have it all correct?]

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Purchased items begin with full durability (e.g., if you buy a Small Axe from Griswald, it will have 24/24 durability). However, items found in the dungeon usually show some wear-and-tear (e.g., a Small Axe may be 11/24). Unique items found usually begin with full durability. Durability can be repaired by Griswald, for a fee. Hidden Shrines will "heal" durability on most items that are equipped, but at a cost of reducing one item by 10 DUR. Warriors can repair their own equipment, but at the cost of a loss of durability. Even a high-level warrior will cause a small decrease in durability. Unless you are sure that you will only use an item for a short time, it is usually best to pay Gris to repair it, or look for Hidden shrines.]

Originally, you almost had to be "in the know" to find out about how to find Easter Eggs. However, nowadays, it has become common to widely release the methods for accessing them.

Diablo has no Easter Eggs, AFAIK. The Secret Cow Level in D2 might be considered an Easter Egg, but how to get to the Secret Cow Level is becoming one of the worst kept secrets of history. ;) ]

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If you want to get an idea of where a certain clvl character gets XP most efficiently, see Soul Toucher's famous Experience Point Table, listed in the Links section ("Everyone else got a higher level char, and you want one too! What to you do then? Cheat? No way! Cheating is low-life! With this table, you can easily find out where your character gains the most experience points, and get those points like a real player!"). Amen, Soul Toucher!

I decided it was worth adding this "nit" from a post from Jarulf concerning the XP table: "Just note that the table for the lowest levels does not take into account the second cap applicable to exp points, that is, 1/20th of the exp needed for the next clvl. It should give slightly less exp for the first few levels. Otherwise it is an excellent table."]

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intended to insult and provoke. 2. vi. To speak incessantly and/or rabidly on some relatively uninteresting subject or with a patently ridiculous attitude. 3. vt. Either of senses 1 or 2, directed with hostility at a particular person or people. 4. n. An

instance of flaming. When a discussion degenerates into useless controversy, one might tell the participants "Now you're just flaming" or "Stop all that flamage!" to try

to get them to cool down (so to speak). For more about the word "flame", see "The Jargon Lexicon" in the Links section in the Archive of Chaos.

To see your fps, while in the game screen, hit "Enter" to get the "chat window," type 'fps', and hit "Enter" again. A display of frame rate and other data will appear in the upper left corner of your display. This works as a toggle, so when you want to get rid of it, type 'fps' in the chat window again.

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From Gilmere (modified): "You know those illegal programs I mentioned above? The ones scanners can't detect? Those are generally (though somewhat incorrectly) referred to as hacks, and their use, hacking; you may also see them referred to as trainers. These insidious programs can do things like making characters unkillable ('god-mode'), allowing them to kill monsters or other players with a single click of a mouse button (auto-kill) and creating items that are impossible to get in the game. They remove any need for skill in the game, reducing it to adventures in mouse-button-testing. Use of these things is cheating..." Yes, I too remember the days when the terms "hacker" and "hack" were compliments, not referring to unethical or illegal people and their activities. However, the mass media has been misusing the terms for so long, I am not sure it's possible to correct the situation.

Most regulars on the forum, although firm in the opinion that using hacks, trainers, duped items, etc., is cheating, will concede they don't care what you do in single-player games, or in solo-MP games on Battle.net. However, if you use them in a public game with legit players, you are gaining an unfair advantage over those players, and such activity is strongly criticized. Besides, ultimately you are also cheating yourself out of the fun and challenge of playing Diablo the way it was meant to be played.]

[from Bolty's High-level Warrior Guide] "'Happy Feet,' a term first coined by Woody, involves running in a specific way to avoid taking 95% of the shots fired at you. Used when advancing to and retreating from an enemy for Warriors, it can help minimize the damage you're taking while you're not killing something. The idea is to run in a zig-zag line, crossing over perpendicular to your enemies."

Actually, the general idea of Happy Feet can be a useful tactic for all characters -- I use it frequently with my sorcerors, especially against witches in Hell, but also at times against archers, acid spitters, etc. Don't just stand there, exchanging ranged attacks with an enemy, and taking damage! Instead, dodge and weave, zig and zag, cast a spell or two or three, then move again before the enemy can reacquire you as a target.

July 2000: Well, this entry is a good example of how things change on the DSF, sometimes rapidly. When I wrote the above entry a few months ago, I don't recall ever reading that part of the reason for the effectiveness of this technique was based on a bug. However, if I understand correctly what I have read in the past couple of months, this technique in part takes advantage of a bug similar to (or the same as, it's not clear to me which) the one responsible for the "targeting bug." Some have said using this is not "bug exploitation" because the monsters are taking advantage of the same bug! :) 

A further change to note is that one of the few (maybe only) game-play changes made to the game by the infamous 1.08 patch this spring, made using "Happy Feet" much less effective. Veteran players are baffled why Blizzard would bother to tinker with such a minor bug, and leave other, much more bothersome bugs untouched. Some speculate that this may have been an accidental byproduct of some other, yet-unnoticed change. Unfortunately, most of the code-reading types who might have tracked this down in the past, are now involved heavily with Diablo 2, so maybe this will never be answered. ]

From Mirajj: "Clarification: Hardcore is a playing style, Immortal Hero is the variant, coined by Pete. If you play Hardcore, any time you die, you delete the character. IIRC, there are some restrictions on the IH variant, while a hardcore character can be anything you want it to be."

Although I don't remember ever reading about this, it seems to me that those who are looking for more of a challenge in single player (and who don't want to move on to multiplayer) could play SP in Hardcore mode. That means, if you die, no more restoring from the last saved game - that character has died, and you will have to start a new one. ]

Also, sometimes used to refer to RL ;).]

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If you quit the game at that point, you will lose all of the equipment that you dropped in the dungeon. If you choose to "Restart in town," you will appear in Tristram, with nothing equipped and with empty Life and Mana balls.

An attempt to recover the items and gold that you dropped in the dungeon is called an "item recovery." Although they can often be painful and traumatic, they can also, paradoxically, be some of the most challenging, fun, and satisfying experiences in Diablo. If you get yourself in a difficult situation, whether by carelessness, poor judgement, or just bad luck, and die, but then manage to recover your best gear against great odds, you will get a very satisfying feeling of accomplishment.

Of course, I NEVER get killed, so I have no personal experience with item recovery - this definition is just based on what I've read. ;)

Jarulf has repeatedly insisted that he will not compile a D2 version of his famous D1 JG. However, he is very active in exploring the inner workings of the game, and many of his findings are ending up in the information available on the Chaos Sanctuary, Blizzard's Website for D2 information. This is probably a Good Thing. ;)

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The best way to distribute the five points at each level-up is still a recurring discussion on the DSF. For a couple of opinions, see Armin's "Guide to Level-up Point Distribution" on "Freshman Diablo", plus Roland includes some discussion of this for beginning characters in his "Newbie Guides" on his Website, both listed in the Links section.]

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However, in spite of Armin's opinion [ ;) ], it seems like LoL is becoming a rather popular variant to play. For more informationabout this variant, see Bostic's "Living off the Land" rules in the Links section.

Also, in more general usage, LOL can mean "Laughing out loud" or "lots of luck." 

It is usually clear, but sometimes difficult to decide which of the three meanings is intended. LoL is usually "Living off the Land", whereas lol or LOL is usually one of the other meanings, but not everyone is consistent in this way.

There actually seem to be four types of spells in the game: fire, lightning, magic, and none of the above! For example, the Spells of Apocalypse, Golem, Healing, Heal Other, Holy Bolt, Identify, Infravision, Mana Shield, Phasing, Resurrect, Stone Curse, Telekinesis, Teleport, and Town Portal are apparently treated by the game as simply "not fire, lightning, or magic." Most of the new spells in Hellfire are in the same category, "None of the other three types." At least that's how I interpret the information in Jarulf's Guide about this -- any error is on my part, not on Jarulf's, I'm sure. :)]

Thus, if a Firewall does 100 DAM/second, with a frame rate of 25, 4 points of damage are applied per frame, but a -4 MDR item will then reduce the damage at a rate of -4 DAM/frame. Also, each source of attack is treated as a separate calculation, so a stack of multiple Firewalls will each be calculated separately, and you will get the full MDR effect for each one.

Iitems with MDR will stack, so equipping an item with -3 MDR and another with -4 MDR will give you -7 MDR. Finally, I believe that MDR is applied after magic resistance, so if you have 50% resistance to a type of magical attack, the DAM from that attack is reduced by 50%, and then the MDR calculation is applied. The combination of high resistance and several points of MDR can be very effective.

mob = abbreviation of 'mobile monster/character/entity' in the MUD/MUSH world. And, since that world greatly overlaps the crpg, rpg, dungeon crawl, etc. world, that usage is getting common there too. 

I'd recommend using 'group' or 'bunch' for multiple monsters. Or 'followers' is there is a boss. 

--Pete 

Be aware that some DSF regulars feel that playing mods is wrong (i.e., not legit), because mods involve changes to copyrighted or trademarked computer code without the owner's permission (the doing of which is technically illegal -- at least, it is if you benefit commercially by doing so-- however, since mods are given away, this might fall into a "gray" area). Nevertheless, several mods are fairly popular and played by lots of players, in spite of the disapproval of some and the questions about legality and "legit-ness.".]

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MS refers to the Spell of Mana Shield in D1. However, some people seem to use MS in D2 to refer to the chilling/slowing/freezing effect of the sorceress' Cold Spells. It sort of makes sense, but it can be confusing. ;)

finds jewelry more useful to a Barbarian or Sorceress. The idea is derived from what is usually called Murphy's Law: "Anything that can go wrong, will." For more information on Murphy and his laws, see my D1 site at: 

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Note that to be "nitted" on the DSF is not an insult or meant to be a flame or criticism. Everyone slips up now and then (yes, I've done it a time or two :) ) and includes incorrect information in a reply to some one. A "nit" response by someone else is just the DSF's way of making sure accurate information gets out to those who don't already know it. ]

or to "Nightmare", referring to the intermediate difficulty level in Diablo MP, or in Hellfire SP or MP.

Also, sometimes used to refer to real life :)]

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For example, to go from clvl 24 to 25 takes 1, 293, 323 XP, but to go from clvl 34 to 35 takes 11, 430, 609 XP, and from clvl 44 to 45 takes 91, 472, 909. This is why relatively few players have legit clvl 50 characters -- to go from clvl 49 to 50 alone takes 272,788,700 XP, which is nearly as many XP as it takes to go all the way from clvl 1 to clvl 43! It just plain gets tedious after a while to get the necessary XP. See Finnan Haddie's write-up on "Power-Gaming" in the "Oldies-but-Goldies" section of the Archive of Chaos. [The above numbers, by the way, are from Jarulf's Guide (thanks, Jarulf!).]

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August 23 2000 at 5:35 PM Salius"); // --> Salius 

from IP address 152.163.206.209 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
 

I know I'm not in the majority of gamers in my opinion that Diablo 1 and 2 are roguelike games, but Rogue/Moria/Angband are a large part of my gaming background. Diablo 1 in particular is simplified, boiled down Angband. 
 

I had never heard the term "mob" in connection with roguelikes until Diablo 2. Mob, before that, was something I only saw in MUD/MUSH games, and not even all of them used it, with Gemstone 3/Dragonrealms being the two big exceptions, since they seemed to have a totally seperate user-base from other text-based games, most of which probably never heard of a dikumud. Same goes for nerf. 
 

Roguelikes do have plenty of their own terms, though. Uniques, ego items, scumming, farming, diving, and probably lots more I can't think of right now. I always thought of groups of hounds as "packs" and when I would get overwhelmed by too many monsters it wasn't a mob, my friends and I just referred to it as getting swarmed. We called a unique's buddies "followers" though minions is an equally good term.

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I recommend reading Armin's Editorial "A stance on scanners", available at Freshman Diablo (see Links Section). Also, see: rant.

Scumming in Diablo includes store-scumming, church-scumming (clearing hell/church over and over for free no-risk loot), laz-scumming (doing millions of laz runs at low enough difficulty to present no danger), etc.

The trouble is that Diablo is so limited in extent compared to traditional roguelikes, that there is almost nothing to do that is NOT scumming for a high level character.

An example of a scum that is also a cheat is backing up your character save in case of equipment loss."

Note: Roguelike in the above is a reference to Rogue, one of the early dungeon-crawl type of computer game, which some people feel is sort of a precursor to or model for Diablo.

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Stone Skinned, a characteristic of some bosses.

Usually, s/s means the first, ss the second (???).

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Pete pointed out to me that tactics is not always small-scale; e.g., how to most effectively land a battalion of sea-borne troops on a beach-head would be tactics, although you are dealing with many men. Also, tactics are usually of such a nature that they can be practiced until they can be smoothly and efficiently carried out.

[from Pete]: "Now, as to scale, strategy can be small scale, as in a field commander's decision to bypass an enemy bunker, expecting that bunker to fall after it has been cut off. Tactics can be large scale, as exemplified by the air/armor/infantry sequence of the WW II German Blitzkrieg. So, scale is not a determining factor, though it can be a good pointer :)

To my mind, the basic difference between strategy and tactics is that a new strategy must be formulated for each specific situation, with the goals and objectives of that situation kept well in mind. Tactics, OTOH, are largely situation neutral. They may be dictated by the terrain, or enemy disposition, but they are usually pretty fixed and can be practiced, for instance, in field exercises." 

See: strategy.

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I think the word "trainer" applied to these programs is a misnomer. In what way are these programs "training" your character? If you work out with a personal trainer to get in better physical shape, you still have to expend the effort. Likewise, if you work with a swordsman to learn how to sword-fight, you are going to have to put in long hours of hard, physical labor and effort to get any good, plus some mental effort to learn the movements and tactics. 

Likewise, to advance in Diablo (without cheating), one must put in time and effort, and some learning. These programs allow one to replace that time and effort with a few mouse clicks. But in so doing, they remove the challenge (and most of the fun) from the game. Why bother to play if you take these shortcuts? Diablo/HF is not that hard to win, especially at normal difficulty. Killing Diablo even at Normal difficulty without cheating is an accomplishment to be proud of -- killing Diablo at Hell difficulty using God Mode is a trivial exercise, and rather pointless.

Having said that, I will add that some "trainers" are used by some legit players, simply to backup their characters, and/or to import/export items for use by other characters, especially if for some reason they can't use mules. Most don't regard this as cheating, although there are some DSF regulars who feel even this activity is wrong. The subject is too complex to cover further here -- just keep reading the DSF -- I'm sure another thread along these lines will pop up sooner or later. ;) :(.]

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Well, I wrote the above on my own, then later checked out "troll" in "The Jargon Lexicon" when I researched "flame." I was surprised how close I came to what they had: 1. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flames; or, the post itself. Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbies" which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling," a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. 2. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that the have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, "Oh, ignore him, he's just a troll." 

Yes, indeed. Ignore them if possible.

I haven't seen Troll-O-Meter used on the DSF, but I love the concept; maybe someone needs to introduce it. :)

Although he may not have been the first one to play in this way, Claudio has popularized the use of Ultra-pure as the name for it. See Claudio's Ultra-pure link in the Links section.]