d2 lod mods

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John Lame - 23 Jul 2003 12:09 GMT

I'm thinking I might try out a mod. The only other one I ever tried was
Ancestral Recall and I didn't really get into it (but admittedly I just
didn't give it much of a chance -- only played it once for a few hours).
I've seen folks here mention Gemstone and Zy-El and I've done a bit of
reading about them and they both look interesting -- although at first
glance Gemstone looks like it would be too easy and Zy-El looks like it
might be frustratingly hard (please feel free to disabuse me of these
notions). There are also Ancients: Fury Within, and Eastern Sun which look
like they have potential.

Anyway, any recommendations? I looked around and couldn't really find short
descriptive paragraphs of each -- just long lists of features. It would be
nice to understand each author's motivation in making the mod in the first
place.

Important to me in a mod (in decreasing order of importance) would probably
be:
0.) It works with D2 Lod v1.09.
1.) An original idea, something that significantly alters the feel of play
and/or the motivation to play -- otherwise I might as well just play D2.
2.) Balance -- Although being too hard is preferable over being too easy.
3.) New Stuff (monsters, items, etc.) This is different than 1. Here its
mostly about quantity I suppose.
4.) Multiplayer -- I was unable to tell if mods in general behave well under
multiplayer over a lan. I would have assumed so, but it doesn't hurt to
check.
5.) Nude Assassins <just kidding>

John

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Turtles? - 23 Jul 2003 19:57 GMT

zyel,gemstone,es,crusaders are all fun
I enjoyed zyel,gemstone,and arse,arcs
I heard es and crusaders were fun

> I'm thinking I might try out a mod. The only other one I ever tried was
> Ancestral Recall and I didn't really get into it (but admittedly I just
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> glance Gemstone looks like it would be too easy and Zy-El looks like it
> might be frustratingly hard

the first 10 levels seem impossible

(please feel free to disabuse me of these

> notions). There are also Ancients: Fury Within, and Eastern Sun which look
> like they have potential.
[quoted text clipped - 22 lines]
> Posted via news://freenews.netfront.net
> Complaints to news@netfront.net

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Doc - 23 Jul 2003 23:24 GMT

John Lame <john@jklame.com> stared blankly into space for a short
while before writing:

> I'm thinking I might try out a mod. The only other one I ever
> tried was Ancestral Recall and I didn't really get into it (but
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> also Ancients: Fury Within, and Eastern Sun which look like they
> have potential.

I have played Gemstone (GS), Ancestral recall - Skills enhanced (AR-SE),
Zy-El and Middle Earth (ME). I liked all of them for different reasons.

Gemstone - Fairly easy early on, and bumping the difficulty to "players
8" is a must in normal. I played NM mostly at 8, but lowered it to 5
later on. Hell was done mostly at 4, and it was kinda hard, but quite
doable at that difficulty. I played it first with a Necro specialising
in teeth, curses and with a strong golem and then played it with a
Bowazon. Gemstone is a fairly "Item rich" game, seeing as you can use
your horadric cube to roll unique items, and there are 2 unique jewels
which are rather powerful (One of them is +2 to all skills, the other
+3). My Necro managed to roll about 6 of these things, and 3 of them in
a Tiara adds 9 to all skills and a crapload of other desirable mods. My
rating - 7/10

Ancestral recall - Played this with various characters about a year ago.
Main features are some really hard bosses (which is a good thing), 2 or
3 excellent exp areas, some bosses that can be farmed for specific items
and some areas that have been changed completely from the original game.
I rate it 8/10

Zy-El - Pretty hard early on, but once you start getting some items,
things start to improve. I only played it to early Hell (character level
was 104!) and it was becoming very much a case of farming HoP in NM for
tokens to improve my equipment. I got bored with this "micro-management"
and gave it away after only about a week. 5/10

Middle Earth mod - I couldn't really get into this game, but I'll give
it another go later on. It was kinda hard early on (and I only played it
for the first few acts) and I got rather bored with it pretty quickly.

> Anyway, any recommendations? I looked around and couldn't really
> find short descriptive paragraphs of each -- just long lists of
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> probably be:
> 0.) It works with D2 Lod v1.09.

The 4 I mentioned are all compatible

> 1.) An original idea, something that significantly alters the feel
> of play and/or the motivation to play -- otherwise I might as well
> just play D2.

Zy-El

> 2.) Balance -- Although being too hard is preferable over being too
> easy.

Probably AR-SE has the best balance.

> 3.) New Stuff (monsters, items, etc.) This is different than 1.
> Here its mostly about quantity I suppose.

All but Middle Earth offer this (Not sure about ME, as I didn't play it
for very long.

> 4.) Multiplayer -- I was unable to tell if mods in general behave
> well under multiplayer over a lan. I would have assumed so, but it
> doesn't hurt to check.

All these mods can be played TCP/IP

--
Doc

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Romendacil - 24 Jul 2003 08:27 GMT

> > 3.) New Stuff (monsters, items, etc.) This is different than 1.
> > Here its mostly about quantity I suppose.
>
> All but Middle Earth offer this (Not sure about ME, as I didn't play it
> for very long.

Middle Earth does indeed have new items. One of the reasons that this mod is
on my personal to-do list is the fact that you can, among other things, find
Aragorns Armoury, a great melee set. I have only played it once, one char
through normal, and there were some interesting stuff there. Definately one
of the better mods out there....

Regards Romendacil

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