D2R Patch 2.9 (no real changes for players, don't get excited), new D2R community manager Marcoose

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d2r/t ... ues/169765

Blizzard wrote:

Hello friends of Sanctuary,

There are a couple known issues that with Patch 2.9 we’re investigating internally and working to fix.

Enabling Standard Definition graphics while having your Stash open make other tabs unable to access.

On Xbox, players of different levels are unable to join the same lobby despite having no in-game restriction.

Thank you,

Diablo Community Team

The only change is that the shared stash tab UI has been slightly changed to allow for two more tabs, most likely for future monetization where they might sell them similarly to the China version of D2R, they also added the China exclusive Warlord set or w/e in the .txt files but they're disabled and can't drop on the Western client, they're still exclusive to China.

Also we've got our new D2R community manager, Marcoose is the CM for D4 and now he's also the one for D2R after PezRadar left in November.

Fun fact I just noticed:
While they're busy with a couple of issues for 2.9...
...2.8 still hasn't even made it to the patch notes in the b.net app. Tsk.

shared stash are shit, should be 3 personal 1 shared just to pass things around your characters.

MintBlancmanche wrote: 5 hours ago

shared stash are shit, should be 3 personal 1 shared just to pass things around your characters.

On the contrary, I wish we ONLY had the shared stash, like in D3. That'd limit the muling.
I believe that if D2R was created today, it'd have such a design. But instead we got the personal stash for compatibility with the old D2.

More stash is so much needed.
I never understood why you would limit stash in a game that is all about finding items.
White ones as base for sockets.
Already socketed ones.
Ethereal items for the merc.
Enhanced items.
That alone is A TON of different stuff you can find and keep.

Then tons of uniques, sets, runes, gems in different colors and qualities.
Even full juve potions are worth saving up IMO.

There are games like D2 out there that give us unlimited stash, no idea why D2 is - even in the Remastered version - so severly limited.
It's not like it would affect balance or whatever if lootgoblins and loothorder like me would be allowed to keep more stuff they find.

WedgeAntilles wrote: 4 hours ago

More stash is so much needed.
I never understood why you would limit stash in a game that is all about finding items.
White ones as base for sockets.
Already socketed ones.
Ethereal items for the merc.
Enhanced items.
That alone is A TON of different stuff you can find and keep.

Then tons of uniques, sets, runes, gems in different colors and qualities.
Even full juve potions are worth saving up IMO.

There are games like D2 out there that give us unlimited stash, no idea why D2 is - even in the Remastered version - so severly limited.
It's not like it would affect balance or whatever if lootgoblins and loothorder like me would be allowed to keep more stuff they find.

"I never understood why you would limit stash in a game that is all about finding items."
For one; you are not supposed to pick about 93% of the items coming to you which people tend to hoard incase they need later which they do never.
Developing the game poorly as they did not think the engine limits. This similar issue is on-going with D4 aswell, there are hard limits the engine can handle and do; yet they keep pushing it all to the Edge and listen to the cries of people after.

I just hope they go to 3.0 afterwards and not 2.10 or whatever. They could take a page out of the id software/nightdive playbook and actually add some new content for us to play with

(i fully realise this is a pipe Dream)

Really have zero expectations from d2r. But hey, at least they are trying to do something.

Semirotta wrote: 2 hours ago

Really have zero expectations from d2r. But hey, at least they are trying to do something.

I just hope they dont break something , like this time they probably break something and makes out client unstable. (crash)

I probably know what they break but well...wait them fix that soon.

WedgeAntilles wrote: 4 hours ago

There are games like D2 out there that give us unlimited stash, no idea why D2 is - even in the Remastered version - so severly limited.
It's not like it would affect balance or whatever if lootgoblins and loothorder like me would be allowed to keep more stuff they find.

The game uses save files (also server-side when playing online) and the save file format was invented in the late 90s. It's limited to 8 kB per character because I assume that's what they thought anyone would ever need per character - and they wanted D2R to be backwards compatible (you could take D2R save files and play them in LoD). D2R basically runs the old game engine under the hood, and the save file size limit is, as far as I understand, hardcoded into the game engine. I'm sure it's technically possible to change it, but I'm pretty sure the main reason they didn't is to be backwards compatible.
(if I'm wrong about any of these details please correct me)

As for why D2/LoD limited your stash space so much back then, I'm guessing it's just a combination of deliberate game design (force you to make decisions on what to keep) and to be able to have reasonably small & compact save files. Also, name any game with unlimited stash space from the 90s or which was released '00? I can't think of any off the top of my head, at least not any that I played back then.

ShadowHeart wrote: 2 hours ago

WedgeAntilles wrote: 4 hours ago

There are games like D2 out there that give us unlimited stash, no idea why D2 is - even in the Remastered version - so severly limited.
It's not like it would affect balance or whatever if lootgoblins and loothorder like me would be allowed to keep more stuff they find.

The game uses save files (also server-side when playing online) and the save file format was invented in the late 90s. It's limited to 8 kB per character because I assume that's what they thought anyone would ever need per character - and they wanted D2R to be backwards compatible (you could take D2R save files and play them in LoD). D2R basically runs the old game engine under the hood, and the save file size limit is, as far as I understand, hardcoded into the game engine. I'm sure it's technically possible to change it, but I'm pretty sure the main reason they didn't is to be backwards compatible.
(if I'm wrong about any of these details please correct me)

As for why D2/LoD limited your stash space so much back then, I'm guessing it's just a combination of deliberate game design (force you to make decisions on what to keep) and to be able to have reasonably small & compact save files. Also, name any game with unlimited stash space from the 90s or which was released '00? I can't think of any off the top of my head, at least not any that I played back then.

That is development guess, it can be that way. 90s game is based on hex, and so many things will need to limit to 65535 . It can be that way.

But I know their true reason is lack of motivation . Or I should say revenue. For development possibile. You can see in private server, they already able to make runes or others things stack and very big stash.

In real world, they will need to consider where to deploy their engineer plower to create money. In my understand and obviously , it is d4 or create d5.
Third choice is carefully create DLC LoD2 . Which unlikely to sell as much as LoD , I am sure it will less than total D2R sells.

As investor, program owner, and CEO opinion, include china part, D2R is not good choice but ok/ reasonable third choice, meaning if they have too much develop power, then it is d2r.

ShadowHeart wrote: 2 hours ago

...and they wanted D2R to be backwards compatible (you could take D2R save files and play them in LoD). D2R basically runs the old game engine under the hood, and the save file size limit is, as far as I understand, hardcoded into the game engine. I'm sure it's technically possible to change it, but I'm pretty sure the main reason they didn't is to be backwards compatible....

As far as I understand, you can transfer LOD characters into D2R (I transferred a number of my old characters) but you can't transfer D2R into LOD. So it's not truly backward compatible.

i think they are just adding the "remove only" tabs for the end of the season. or they are temporary extra tabs for the holiday event

RackAnewShoe wrote: 2 hours ago

As far as I understand, you can transfer LOD characters into D2R (I transferred a number of my old characters) but you can't transfer D2R into LOD. So it's not truly backward compatible.

Ah, fair enough, guess I got that bit completely wrong then. My bad!

nihilninja wrote: 2 hours ago

i think they are just adding the "remove only" tabs for the end of the season. or they are temporary extra tabs for the holiday event

Just made a quick short. While it is speculation until proven otherwise, there has been a strong thesis for sometime that the P2W monetized stash tabs from China would be making their way to the US and it certainly seems like this is the ground work.

Worth calling out the jump in the versions that was pushed. It would indicate a non-material change. So if I am a betting man, and reading the tea leaves here, it may simply just be the monetized tabs, but maybe more.

Copium

The new stash arrangement does not appear on xbox. There was an updated pushed for xbox users yesterday but the stash looks the same as before.
Granted I logged on late last night so I may have caught a second updated that fixed the known issue of lobby games acting like they have level restrictions even though they didn't.

ShadowHeart wrote: 2 hours ago

Also, name any game with unlimited stash space from the 90s or which was released '00? I can't think of any off the top of my head, at least not any that I played back then.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing comes to my mind, but admittedly, that was 2013, so later than your specified time period.

On the one hand I understand "coding reasons", but what I think is a little strange: In D3 they said us: "The server can't handle more." Well, ok, why did you code it this way then? But more imporantly:
Then they released the necromancer DLC. With +2 additional Stash-Tabs for those who bought it.
So somehow the server CAN handle it, but only if you pay extra money for it? I am not a coder, but it does not feel very believable, that the code cares if you pay more money for a game or not...

And when I read about that in China you can somehow get more stashs if you pay more, we have - yet again - the "stash for cash".

It all seems a little shady to me.
Back in the days, I guess the problem was server / code related. Internet, Server, that was all relatively new.
But today? Seems more like big company doing big company stuff.

Reminds me of Mass Effect and the Remastered edition. A very good edition overall, but one DLC was missing (this space station). They said: "The code is wrong there (or missing, or somethign like that, can't remember the exact wording), we can't do it. Sorry." A few month after it was released, fans integrated the DLC via mod into the remastered edition. So the paid pros claimed they coulnd't do it, but a handful people who do it for free totally could.

WedgeAntilles wrote: 4 hours ago

[...]I never understood why you would limit stash in a game that is all about finding items[...]

They only way Blizzard makes money off D2 is by selling game copies. Granting extra stash space decreases the need for buying additional game copies. Same with adding extra character slots. The more space we have to store items, the smaller the incentive we have to buy more game copies.

Yes, that is correct.
And while I never worked at Blizzard, somehow I don't think that the old Blizzard in the 90th only wondered "What can we do to sell more copies"
But sure, the Blizzard in the last 10 years definitly does.

And funnily enough: When Blizzard did not only care about money, they became a big company and they DID make a lot of money. Because their games were so good.
And since they only care about money, they are on a decline.
The decline began slowly, but it is getting traction all the time.

Maybe in the long run, you make more money by making good games.
Crazy idea, I know^^