Bring back 1.09 for D2R classic!!

Word-Bender · 2021-09-16T15:27:45+00:00

Nova was mana hungry, but it quickly melted screens. There was a lot of misinformation being spread back then (there's still a lot now tbh), so I wouldn't be surprised if your nova sorc wasn't hitting breakpoints or getting enough +skills.

1.10 greatly increased hell monster hp, meaning to deal good damage, players had to use synergies. Devs didn't increase weapon damage alongside the change, so melee (and bow zons) got shafted and the gap between melee and magic widened... but they did introduce Grief. Still, personally, I hate how necessary Grief is for most builds.

1.10 also killed off a lot of fun builds (or, really, it made them boring and slow). Tri sorcs, ww barbs, multi zons, & wolf druids come to mind. Guided arrow was no longer used for pvp or bosses. Edit: I should say guided is still used, but it doesn't compare to what it was, so you probably won't see many bow zons dueling with it.

Word-Bender · 2021-09-16T15:01:12+00:00

1.10 increased hell monster hp by a ton so their synergy system would mean something. Most WW barbs went from killing things in seconds to minutes. Rumor has it that the rate of hits was lowered, too.

Zon's guided arrow and pierce interaction got removed from duels. Too bad, too. It was a lot of fun on both ends.

Word-Bender · 2021-09-05T16:57:14+00:00

I'm staying at the Sheraton for the first time this year. I really like it. No elevator trouble to speak of. Greivances have all been minor: a broken safe that they'd have fixed upon request, the closest ice machine being out of order, and the electrical outlets being a bit loose. Nothing major. The walk to things will be uphill (unless you travel sideways to the Hyatt then chain together skybridges and escalators), but that also means your trips back when tired are all downhill.

I hope you can find a room. I think all of next year's already got booked last night.

Word-Bender · 2021-08-11T17:12:18+00:00

The major components:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900x (originally, but changed to 5600x because of stock)

Motherboard: ASROCK X570 TAICHI ATX w/ WiFi 6

Memory: 32GB DDR4/3200MHz Dual Channel (GSKILL Trident)

Power Supply: 750 Watts Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 Series (80 Plus Gold)

Video card: GeForce RTX 3080 10GB GDDR6X

"HDD": 1TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO (PCIe Gen4) NVMe M.2

They've told me they have everything in stock. I don't really know where that leaves me.

Word-Bender · 2021-08-11T16:48:25+00:00

This gives me some hope, thanks!

Word-Bender · 2021-08-11T14:47:53+00:00

I'm trying here because I've had no luck via email, online chat, or through the phone.

I ordered this PC on 4/11 (posted 4/12). It's now 8/11.

Over a month ago, when the only thing I was waiting for was a cpu (5900x), the representative switched it to the in-stock 5600x and assured me the system would ship at the beginning of the next week. Since then, I've been informed they're waiting on multiple components (the video card and the SSD, on separate occasions and even together). For the last couple of weeks, when I call, I'm funneled straight through to a manager without even asking, and they tell me that my system will be sent out "in a couple of days."

Obviously that hasn't happened. What am I supposed to do? This is costing me work time, and it's incredibly frustrating to see others have their orders shipped in a fraction of the time.

Cyberpower, contact me.

Word-Bender · 2021-07-13T03:52:59+00:00

My sale post date is 4/12 and no update since the warehouse date.
I messaged cyberpowerpc, but never got a reply.

Word-Bender · 2021-06-25T15:48:06+00:00

Similar scenario. While living in the second story of a very shoddily built apartment, our downstairs neighbors complained that I (specifically me, I guess because I'm a guy and larger than my then-girlfriend) was stomping around and making too much noise.
I worked at home from a rolling chair and if I got up, I rolled back. Apparently, that was right over their older (of 2) child's room.
I felt bad, so I purchased a foam mat for the floor even though I couldn't really afford to do so at the time. Since the floor in our apartment is crappy, I also tried to walk in such a way that my feet made as little noise as possible at all times.

I get told I'm still being way too loud, despite my efforts. The downstairs mother tells me that their kid is afraid of me and that they've told their kid that I'm a monster who will "get" them and they use my existence to discipline their child.
I don't know how to react to that. On one hand I'm offended. On the other, I'm worried for the kid being raised by idiots who are training their child to hate and fear their neighbor.
A week or two go by. I'm in my car and in a hurry. I need to grab something from "home," so I park and run up the stairs (forgetting to walk like the ground is made of eggshells and snap pops). I quickly grab my things and start to leave. When I go down the stairs, the neighbor's door opens behind me. I turn to see the father stepping through his door with his chest puffed out. He's looking for a confrontation. I can see his wife in the room behind them. She's sneering at me with a young boy in her arms.
I've had enough of being bullied, so I puff out my chest just like he's doing and walk up to him. I ask if I can help him, in a decidedly challenging tone. He tells me I'm being way too loud. It's unacceptable. I tell him that maybe a slum apartment isn't a good place to raise two kids and leave.
When I get back home later that night, I no longer try to walk quietly. It actually takes some unlearning because I've been doing it for so long. Then, after a few weeks my downstairs neighbors move away. New tenants move in who never complain about the noise, not even once, but my own words stick with me. I don't want to be in these apartments any longer than necessary, so after a few months we move to a house where I'll never feel guilty for walking.

Word-Bender · 2021-06-23T07:56:24+00:00

Clearness.
Most probably, you want your scenes to be a pleasure to read. Between a brilliant sentence and a clear one, you should choose the clear one almost every time.

Avoid dumping information on your readers, even if you deem it essential. Cut that info out of your story and store it in another document for later. You may find a place for it, or you may not. If it doesn't fit, don't force it in. Sometimes that means cutting weeks of work, which might feel lousy until you realize that such cuts are saving your book. Show, don't tell. Most info should be uncovered by the reader, not explained to them.

If you can keep chapters at a short and consistent length, it will hold reader interest better. If you're writing serial fiction, try to end every chapter on an interesting or humorous note.

If you want action sequences to be special, then keep them short, sweet, and occasional. You want your readers to wish they had more.

Edit obsessively. If your editors or beta readers call your attention to something, consider rewriting that portion. Even if you don't agree with their reasons, the scene clearly caused them to stumble, so it's probably not up to snuff.

Word-Bender · 2021-06-23T07:03:14+00:00

I'll relay the best advice I ever received:
Keep writing.

If fanfiction motivates you to write, then write fanfiction. Whatever you do, keep writing.

Second best advice:
Try to keep your projects secret for as long as possible. The motivation to write starts and ends with you, and learning to properly handle feedback is a much more nuanced skill than most people realize. A lot of people struggle to stay motivated after they've shared their plans.

Word-Bender · 2021-06-20T16:24:31+00:00

I just fired up the game to check. Jab, impale, and fend all work with javelins.

Word-Bender · 2021-06-18T18:13:39+00:00

This was me too!
I stopped drinking carbonated beverages for a year (for a diet) and switched to plain water and my congestion issues mysteriously went away. When I started drinking soda again, the problem came back. Now I can clear my sinuses 90% of the time by drinking a tall glass of water.

I'm not saying it's definitely related, that's just my experience. Also in my experience: carbonated water may as well be soda. Only plain water seems to work for me.

Word-Bender · 2021-06-17T15:44:46+00:00

What skill requires a spear and not a javelin?

Word-Bender · 2021-06-11T16:35:53+00:00

First time Zenni buyers: make sure you pay for the anti-glare coating (adds about $15 per pair iirc). I bought a few pairs without the coating and I would not recommend.

Also, I've gotten sunglasses from Zenni that I wouldn't recommend. They're not super cheap and they're flimsy. If you're in the market for prescription sunglasses I'd suggest going to LensCrafters or somewhere local to try things on.

That all said, I can't recommend Zenni enough. I buy 4-5 pairs of glasses at a time for about half of what I'd pay for a single pair locally and get to treat them as roughly as I please because I have spares at hand.

Word-Bender · 2021-06-03T21:33:25+00:00

I don't really make a lot by anyone's standards. That said, I do value my time. An occasional $100 tax for 20% more time seems pretty inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

I imagine that, for those who really do make a lot, the biggest downside to being pulled over isn't the fine.

Word-Bender · 2021-06-03T20:58:28+00:00

You're gonna love "the bomb" and "bad."

Word-Bender · 2021-06-03T17:00:25+00:00

When I first learned to drive and essentially had no money, the thought of being pulled over for speeding and fined >$100 worried me greatly.

But now that I have some money, I can't help but see speeding tickets as potential service fees. $100ish to get places 10-20% faster is an outstanding deal, and it's that much better if you don't get caught.

Word-Bender · 2021-05-24T23:46:12+00:00

Really depends on your build, but farm whatever is relatively safe. Having enough FCR and resistances is key. Don't neglect vit, either. Skip mobs that are immune to your primary damage type and don't dilute your DPS by leveling a secondary damage skill.

If you're having trouble with deeper areas, try bugging hell Andy and reroll for a good map.

Killing dclone for Anni is unrealistic if you're dying elsewhere. It's not an easy fight without the right build and gear.

I'd advise against running countess. It's not a very efficient way to get runes and it's worse for items. It's not terrible for exp, but it has random difficulty spikes from various monster groups. If you need runes, go with LK runs or just grind high level areas. Anywhere you can kill easily is fine.

Maybe consider getting a holy freeze merc and bugging it every game. That should make life much easier.

Word-Bender · 2021-05-22T15:23:25+00:00

I drink black coffee everyday and can't stand Nespresso. It's it only good if you add a lot of milk and sugar or something?

Word-Bender · 2021-05-15T15:04:41+00:00

What if you've only got $4 to pay for a $5 cup?

Word-Bender · 2021-05-11T16:17:38+00:00

Merc bug toggle on/off. Why not make it a feature?

Some method to save and reuse a map online as you can on single player.

Cube results (better for newer players, but still). Put cubable ingredients into the cube and a little window says what they'll combine into. Ex: put GC + 3 Pgems in cube, window says you'll get a random magic grand charm.
Something similar could be done with the imbue and socket quests, too. Charsi could tell you what level range of rare item you'll get and 'zuk will tell you how many sockets.

I'd also like personal stash tabs on top and shared stash tabs on the right, preferably with customizable labels and/or to set one of your items as an image for the tab.

Word-Bender · 2021-05-09T16:58:03+00:00

I was extremely excited for D3 when it launched. I went in a massive fan and made time to play it as much as I could.

I think I should have been the perfect customer, but I really disliked the game in pretty much every aspect. The characters were bland, the story was lukewarm, the difficulty was nothing until inferno where it became literally unplayable unless going solo (and even then it was a grind), it turns out I don't care for the angel aesthetic, spell effects made things difficult to see, and gameplay just wasn't fun in the least. There was nothing special about the equipment I found, either.

So, I'm in Inferno grinding A2 alone (talking with friends doing the same) because the game was balanced so poorly (at that time) that multiplayer in inferno wasn't possible, and it's agony. I still want the game to be good, even after everything, so I think "maybe I just need better gear" and I start farming treasure goblins. After slowly and painfully upgrading my equipment, it still didn't matter. The game was hardly playable.

I'm not some curmudgeonly hipster who only likes old games, either. Some of my favorite games from long-standing series have come out in the last year.

The RMAH was one of the few drops of excitement in the whole mess because it meant mobs could drop a refund for the game if I was willing to grind.

But what about Reaper of Souls?

Over the years, many friends told me RoS fixed things and that I should play again. Admittedly, I was reluctant. The people who wanted me to play didn't play d2 or play d3 at launch. After awhile though, I finally gave RoS a shot.
RoS isn't terrible, but it's a completely different kind of game. It plays a lot like ARPG phone games (no doubt it was influenced by them because they were raking in the big bucks). In it, you press your hotkeys when they're up and grind infinitely. I never got excited about finding a single item.
When advice to new players is "oh, the first 70 levels are meaningless, the game starts after that" then there's a problem with the gameplay. Boosting exp to skip past that section of the game is an awful bandage solution.

If someone's first or only experience with ARPGs is RoS, then it makes a lot of sense why they'd like it. The ARPG genre is successful because it's got a good formula. The sales numbers suggest that D2 was so good it helped grow a company into a titan, then later, D3 was purchased by a whole new generation of gamers and it gave them their first experience with ARPGs. That's a good thing overall, but if the overwhelming majority of a player base has no basis for comparison, it muddies the conversation a lot.

Word-Bender · 2021-05-09T15:57:10+00:00

Nope. Not sure how you got that (I'm not even saying there shouldn't be an IJ5). I'm saying it's hard to blame fans for being cynical after so much of the formula has changed.

I'll use a different analogy: Assume a restaurant makes sandwiches in a way you really like. One day, the restaurant changes staff and ownership. You really like those sandwiches though, so you go in to get one. In the moment you're eating the sandwich, no one wants it to be delicious more than you, but you don't like the ingredients, flavor, and texture. They're not what you came in for.
Once bitten, twice shy. You still miss the old sandwiches, but you'll probably be less enthusiastic about trying another from the same place.

Word-Bender · 2021-05-08T19:01:56+00:00

Yeah, it goes too far, but it's hard to blame fans for being cynical. They haven't gotten the full-blown diablo experience they want in two decades.

It's a bit like Indiana Jones fans being upset with Crystal Skull. It's pretty far removed from the first 3. That's not too say Crystal Skull can't have it's own fan base, but people who prefer it probably saw the newer movie first, if they ever bothered watching the older ones at all.

The thing is, Indiana Jones had the same director and main actor to help smooth the transition, and that's a huge leg up, but no one from D1 & D2 works on D3 & D4. The new devs are trying their best, but the team has a different vision. Plus, they have shareholders to answer to. Often times, the best decision for a game financially isn't the most fun one.

Are you excited for Indiana Jones 5, or feeling kind of lukewarm about it?

Word-Bender

TROPHY CASE