Diablo 2 goes 1.13

[Renevent]

So far they announced 3...

Multistrike
Lethality
Striking

I'm sure there will be more though, and they explained since they are items that drop, they are also effected by rarity/strength. So each can drop as minor and major (or however many variants of each).

So a minor multistrike rune would make skull of flame skill bounce once, while major would make it bounce two or more times (not exactly sure on specifics).

*edit*

Ok, there's more info out there than I knew about...

http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Skill_Runes

Blizzard now has 7 or 8 different Runes created, with 5 to 6 different quality levels like Minor, normal and Major created. Their rune creation process has them thinking what kinds of effects would many spells benefit from, and if they cover a wide range of spells from all characters, they proceed to create the Rune. The Runes will have varying levels of power depending on their quality level. For example, a Minor Multistrike Rune attached to the Skull of Flame will make projectile skip along the ground once , but higher quality Runes like the Major Multistrike Rune may raise the amount of bounces and the distance traveled by the projectile.

I guess there might even be a chance for more as the game progress too...personally I think it's an awesome idea, and definitely and evolution in terms of gameplay.

[sbach2o]

I had just hoped for at least another batch of interesting runewords, to create new builds.

There's no telling that no runewords have been added. If they did, they'd probably not mention them so the players have to find out. Unless they deploy them also with the single player version of the patch.

Apart from that I found the last batch of runewords (Insight, Obedience, Spirit and so on - actually the second to last, but Treachery & co. weren't much better) really imbalanced and dissapointing. They give out some powerful stuff far too cheaply. Take for instance Insight with its massive mana regeneration. Every build relying on mana intensive skill use now defaults to using this, practically always on the merc, so the merc choice is already made for them (to the selection that has been the most useful all along, no less). That merc gets a bunch of other powerful and cheap runewords (obedience), the others get almost nothing in the 'lower end' range. Similar could be said about Spirit.

Then, to add insult to injury, there's another bunch of runewords with multiple high runes, making sure that only dupers and their customers get the high end goodies - a loud and unmistakeable 'foo you!' in the face of honest players.

That was craptacular design all around. Hopefully the people responsible for that are gone for good, since Blizzard North has been dissolved. It would be just too bad would they secretly strike again.

Edit - my actual point:

If they [ ... ] actually made the huge content patch ...

They asked for everybodys #1 patch note. I read a few pages of the responses over at their forum, and nowhere did I see:

Patch Notes:
#1: Act IV filled in with optional side areas, quests, a full complement of waypoints and an NPC hiring out new types of mercenaries.

Neither did I ask for it. My #1 patch node would've been "all runewords from 1.11 removed" (see above). Or even better: "charms removed, Nightmare and Hell difficulty penalties somewhat relaxed to compensate". But I don't post on the battle.net forums.

Filling in Act IV would've been something, it is a bit short compared to the others, but most people were asking for bug fixes, high resolution, runewords, sometimes a bigger inventory. All that bug fixing wasn't covered by what could be expected from the patch announcement, anyway.

[yerkyerk]

Well, droprates for high runes have finally been increased; whatever that means.

There's no telling that no runewords have been added. If they did, they'd probably not mention them so the players have to find out.

And how does that work than? I don't even want to think about calculating the numerous combinations you can make with the available runes (in specific orders), sockets and weapon/armor types...

[Poet of the Fall]

Well, droprates for high runes have finally been increased; whatever that means.

Yeah, they went from "you will never see one in your lifetime" to "you might eventually see one if you play the next 100 years 24/7 - no guarantees though".
The highest runes are so incredibly unlikely to drop, that even the fourfold increase they gave them is a complete joke.
For me D2 is dead for good.

[yerkyerk]

Very likely, this is all the new content there is in their overhyped 'content' patch;
[YOUTUBE]xDS_0A7W-MA[/YOUTUBE]
The essences drop from the following bosses;
Essence of Suffering (Andariel/Duriel)
Essence of Hatred (Mephisto)
Essence of Terror (Diablo)
Essence of Destruction (Baal)

A new Mystery has been revealed!

- Players of Hell Difficulty Realm games are hereby warned once again, that a series of new and challenging tests await you! The answer lies within Diablo's Bosses, which span across the world from the Den of Evil to the Throne of Destruction...

A new Mystery has been revealed!
- Players of Hell Difficulty Realm games are hereby warned once again, that a series of new and challenging tests await you! The answer lies within Diablo's Bosses, which span across the world from the Den of Evil to the Throne of Destruction...

They finally did it. This is worse than their April's fool jokes.

[sbach2o]

Well, droprates for high runes have finally been increased; whatever that means.


And how does that work than? I don't even want to think about calculating the numerous combinations you can make with the available runes (in specific orders), sockets and weapon/armor types...

It never worked, but they did try it before. There was a server side patch after 1.10 that added a few runewords. After one of them was discovered by accident, a huge combing for other possibilities started, and maybe one or two others were found, of the maybe 5 new runewords total.

I think the runewords were Duress, Prudence, Wind, among others. They show that Blizzarders weren't all completely wack when it came to adding runewords, these aren't nearly as imbalanced as the 1.11 stuff (Wind actually a bit weak for the high rune - only one! - it employs).

IIRC, the full list of runewords was eventually revealed on their web site. It was still an 'event' in the positive sense, regarding how it stirred the community. Provided you discount all the rune duping it likely caused, to feed the experiments.

[yerkyerk]

1.11 runewords were generally much too weak.

I think the runewords were discovered by people looking into the database. There was an idea to make scrolls drop in-game, to show runewords, but this was never implemented.
Why would you waste 2-3 rare runes on an armor, if you can put in 4 runes in a magic armor?

[sbach2o]

1.11 runewords were generally much too weak.

I think the runewords were discovered by people looking into the database. There was an idea to make scrolls drop in-game, to show runewords, but this was never implemented.

At the time of their implementation, no one could look into the database because no one outside of Blizzard had access to it. The runwords were server side only during 1.10. One was discovered accidentally (someone had a brainfart when trying another runeword), the concerted effort yielded probably more, the rest was disclosed by Blizzard after a time. They were in the 1.11 client side database, if I am not mistaken, but I don't remember, if they were activated for Single Player on release.

These aren't the 1.11 runewords I am calling so grossly imbalanced above. The 1.11 runeword stuff was in the SP database from the get go (again, iirc), but it was not activated for SP. A simple mod could take care of that, of course.

Why would you waste 2-3 rare runes on an armor, if you can put in 4 runes in a magic armor?

Dupers can afford that. Some honest folk were probably running countess to try out low level stuff, although it is beyond me why anyone would do this.

I googled a little: see here.

Edit: hmmm. a few posts down that thread there is already mention of 'all three' new runewords being listed on a community site. I looked a little and the whole batch consisted of only four. So i mixed up a few things and the later systematic efforts yielded probably nothing.

This was probably sparked by the four 1.10 server side runewords: see here. There were some inactive runeword names and formulas in the database, and someone had the brilliant idea to kick off a hunt for any that might have been added. At least they had something to go by.

[Soulmatia]

If someone is interested, Blizzard, after more then a year, released this patch. Here it is with a changelog:

Patch 1.13

Regards,
S

[Deathshadow]

I am more of 1.10 fan, since its the first one with mana potions to buy , and since many good modifications were made for that patch .So i ll rather stay with 1.10 , but anyhow its good that they released new patch since it shows that this game isnt forggoten and will never be.