the S.S. Gamer Geek

jaklumen · Captain Joined: 13 Aug 2007 Posts: 7

The Diablo series is probably one of the most heavily modified series of games on the planet. Several mods exist for these games and their expansion sets. I'll list a few of the more notable mods.

Diablo

Varaya and Khan's Middle Earth Mod
Modifies the game to reflect a Tolkien-style theme. All uniques have been replaced and bosses and monsters have been modified accordingly.

Diablo: Hellfire

As some of you may know, Hellfire was Sierra Online's unofficial expansion to Diablo. I think it's a shame that it was never officially adopted by Blizzard, but perhaps its tongue-in-cheek satire might be part of it. Where else can you wear a cow suit of armor?

It's been noted that some of the changes Hellfire introduced inspired parts of Diablo II, notably a shift from a simple dungeon crawl to adding outside "open-air" areas.

Hellfire and *any* Diablo mods will not work for any Diablo version later than 1.07.

Hellfire: Fixed
Basically, this just cleans up Hellfire- fixes some leftover bugs and removes some unneeded junk.

Diablo II Mods

Back to Hellfire Mod
While the graphics of Diablo II may be dated, those of Diablo 1 are even more dated, and it shows. This mod attempts to recreate Hellfire within Diablo II by using sprites and other 2D graphics from Diablo. Most restorations fixed by other Diablo mods are here-- Tremain the Priest, for example, which was an NPC not included in the original Diablo game.

The contrast may be a turn off, but if you want to know the backstory behind Tristram and don't feel like digging for a copy of Hellfire on eBay or Amazon, and then applying the applicable mod fixes, this might be a nice alternative.

Ancestral Recall
This seems to be the Cadillac of all D2 mods. This guy really tinkered with this mod; several exist for various D2 versions, and several versions exist for 1.10 LOD. The author abandoned the project before the recent 1.11 update. (Be sure to find the 1.10 update through a separate link- do *not* let Battle.net update for you, or this mod *will* not work!)

The size for the Horadric Cube, the character inventory, and the Stash have all been increased, unique and rare items always drop, monsters are harder and more numerous, and new monsters (new sprites) have been introduced (some differ version to version). I haven't completed Hell mode with this mod yet-- some areas are a bitch even when I cheat like mad and max everything out.