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Diablo II, floppy disks with saves and clubs that no longer exist

For a better understanding of the context, it should be said that in the early 2000s we had a real boom of computer clubs in the city of Zaporozhye. They were opened everywhere – in shops, schools, basements of residential buildings, some utility rooms in the markets, etc. They did not differ in special conveniences: rare clubs had more than ten computers (often all were also with different configurations), 17- inch monitors, shabby chairs and dirty keyboards. Mousepads were considered a luxury, and the internet was often only on the admin’s computer, who mostly used it to download movies, music, and porn.

In such establishments, it was often necessary to play only what was installed on the computers. Moreover, you could pay for the time and only then find out that there is no game on the selected machine or that it is in the wrong version, which means that it will not work out with a friend over the network. In such cases, the choice was simple – either to free up space and get out (after all, the queue is waiting), or not to show off and play what is. It was at such moments that Diablo II: Lord of Destruction came to the rescue, which (lo and behold!) For some reason was always available (unlike even Counter-Strike, by the way), and also always in the same version.

Since we constantly had to hang out in different clubs (depending on where there were free computers), my friends and I began to copy our characters from Diablo to floppy disks. As a result, our favorite characters were always with us wherever we went. Having paid for the time on the computer, we simply copied six files into the folder with saves, and before leaving we copied them back to the floppy disk with all the simulated progress. The main thing is then to remove the character from the club computer so that no one else plays him after you. I don’t know why, but the inviolability of your own hero was almost an intimate feature. Everyone in the crowd took it very seriously and seriously.

At that time, there were 30-40 people in our “Diablo II club community”. Basically, we all communicated well, often ran together on quests, helped each other open teleports, etc. We also had a kind of meta. For some reason, playing as an Amazon or a druid was considered not prestigious – they looked at such people askance and with indulgence, but every second in the party was a mother’s necromancer! The barbarian and the sorceress were in slightly less demand, and the assassin and the paladin were still one step lower. By the way, I played just for the assassin – I just really liked her cathars and fighting claws, although the gameplay through traps was rather infuriating than pleasurable.

As I said before, the characters in Diablo II were intimate, and no one gave them to outsiders. True, there were always those who wanted to get someone else’s hero without demand. Someone wanted to use a more pumped character in order to run through the quests faster, someone needed stones, runes or rare amulets, and if the classes matched, then the other person’s character was completely undressed. Once in the club they caught a guy who was copying other people’s saves to his floppy disk over the network. Now it seems ridiculous, but then it was calculated only because during the copying, the computer of another player began to slow down. As it turned out later, the guy wanted to go to another club and throw other people’s things onto his own hero. As a result, the owner of the character broke his nose, and broke the floppy disk with saves. I never saw that little rat again. Serves him right!

Jesse Pinkman’s Business

Floppy disks and a convention of character integrity have created what I would now call a marketplace in our community of Diablo II fans. Sometimes from bosses or strong mobs, items were knocked out that simply did not fit your hero in class, but it was a pity to throw them away. Almost always, such things were sold to another player for a symbolic amount. At some point, computer clubs very quickly turned into trading platforms where things, runes, amulets, etc. were exchanged. Sometimes whole sets were thrown off. The demand was constant, because the popularity of the game was kept at a high level. We can say that it was a “HYIP window” into which my friend and I successfully hit and went all out.

Items sold in Diablo II were not always paid for with money. Sometimes it was possible to negotiate a block of gum or pay for time at the computer club. Those who were older – they took beer and cigarettes. I personally witnessed a situation in which a guy was solving an algebra homework for a classmate for some kind of ax for a barbarian. My friend Pashka was one of the first in our company to have a home computer. He could grind things in Diablo II for half the night, and then sell them at the club after school. Over time, this turned into a good income: he bought himself an MP3 player with headphones (almost like the guy from the Bomfunk MC’s video – Freestyler), a dozen discs with games, a cool mouse and a rug for her with some anime beauty, whose the chest served as a cushion for the hand. Well, you probably saw these rugs yourself, what is there to explain. At that time it was considered a foppishly cool thing =).

It was Pashka who incited me to “expand the business”. He did not tell me about the details, but as I later understood, he downloaded a program on the Internet that allowed me to edit the character and objects. I don’t remember the name anymore (write in the comments if you know), but the catch with this program was that it only worked with older versions of Diablo II. For the one that was in most clubs (it seems to be the standard 1.07), it did not fit. Such sadness did not stop us, and we decided to take the initiative: we brought a new version of the game to the nearest club, installed it and started playing. If anyone remembers, starting from 1.09 and above, the character’s inventory was larger and more interesting things fell from mobs. Of course, all this did not go unnoticed. Very quickly, Pasha and I in the clubs were surrounded by other players who were interested in new chips, and we were not against to tell and show. In just a couple of days of such “presentations” the whole club switched to the new version of Diablo II, and then the second and the third … So a chain reaction started, and after a while a convenient version for us was in all the nearest game libraries.

The further scheme was simple: at home, through the editor, Pasha did things with the necessary characteristics, and then we passed them on to the customers in the clubs by playing in the local grid. Fortunately, at that time, few people knew how to use the Internet, and nobody really thought about hacking the game. No kidding: people collected recipes for the Horadric Cube and wrote them down in special notebooks.

We tried not to overdo things with things. Often they did not invent anything, but took a top-end, but really existing artifact and simply made more holes in it for inlaying stones. The number of such holes has always been random, we were just “lucky” to have the maximum number. At the same time, stones were sold! Another popular “product” was a dupe of pocket talismans, which gave +7 to all skills and a certain percentage of resistance (it seems, + 20% of the poison). I don’t remember exactly when we got this cheating talisman. Perhaps Pasha made it in the editor for himself, or maybe he just knocked it out in the game (which is unlikely), but the mascot itself was damn good. By replacing saves and constantly throwing over amulets, we collected 20 of them on one character and were shocked by the result. If in the usual way it was possible to pump skills in Diablo II up to a maximum of level 20, then with the “seven-to-all” talisman, the leveling ceiling ceased to exist altogether. Skills could be level 50 or even 100, which turned the characters into some kind of unreal killing machines.

The seven-to-all mascots were the most expensive and hot commodity in our Diablo II club hangout, but the happiness of the mother’s businessmen did not last long. At one point, Pashka and I did not keep track of, and someone else leaked our saves over the network. The very next day, half of the club was running with these talismans, and a week later almost every student’s inventory was piled high with them. Well, okay. After this incident, my interest in trading in-game items cooled. Or rather, I had problems with my studies, and it was just not up to that. Pashka, for some time, was engaged in trade alone, but after finishing the ninth grade he moved to study in another city in a gymnasium. There were no modern social networks then, and there were no mobile phones either, so we eventually lost contact with each other.

Hellish esports to the populace

Gradually, the club life in our city began to change. More or less decent establishments with a large number of computers appeared. What is important, there was its own security, which did not let any scumbags and fans sit on their ears with requests: “Hey, hover, let me bang one firing pin.” Over time, the first tournaments in my memory began to be held there. Mostly played Counter-Strike, StarCraft: Brood War and Quake III. There were a lot of people who wanted to take part in the new entertainment, people poured there in droves, and the owners of the old toy libraries looked at their competitors with envy.

Our “Diablovskaya tusovka” preferred proven and habitable places, especially since the administrators in new computer clubs forbade connecting floppy disks. There were also special programs to restrict access for unauthorized users – there was only a timer with a countdown and shortcuts for games. There were no such restrictions in the old clubs, so we went there with our saves. One fine day, the owner of our game library, Uncle Misha, also decided to introduce visitors to e-sports and hold his own tournament. As a discipline, of course, I chose Diablo II.

Uncle Misha came up with a good idea, but then we had no idea how to implement and hold a Diablo II tournament. At first, it was thought that everyone would fight their main characters, but almost all of them were too strong. Any opponent died with one blow or spell, and the whole fight boiled down to a banal random. I’m not even talking about the fact that some of the things on such characters were “obtained in the editor”, and not on the battlefield. Then we decided to compete on “zero” characters, after giving them a certain amount of time to swing. As far as I remember, this idea was also rejected, since everyone created assassins for themselves and hid behind traps – at a low level they were imba, as they fired automatically and inflicted too much damage, not allowing other characters to approach the hero.

After a few experiments with formats, they eventually decided to do a speedrun. Virtually the entire Diablo II tournament was a competition to see who killed the boss faster and closed the first city. In general, it turned out quite well and interesting. The winner was rewarded with unexpected prizes – a subscription for three free nights at the club and – suddenly – a cake. Uncle Misha, of course, was very pleased with the tournament, but there have been no more similar events in my memory =).

Over time, our party broke up for quite natural reasons. Diablo II had several new versions that conflicted with each other. As a result, the regulars of different clubs played different versions and no longer traded with each other. Then someone got a computer at home and stopped going to game libraries, while others switched to Warcraft III, and there DotA Allstars did not take long. From that time there are only memories, but I hope that Diablo II: Resurrected will give me some nice flashbacks. The main thing is that the history of Warcraft III: Reforged does not repeat itself with the remaster.

P.S. I beg your pardon in advance if I confused some game nuances in the text. The memory is not the same =)