The Cowlevel of Diablo 2 is one of the least kept secrets in the history of in-game easteregss ever. Its been (ab)used to the ridiculous by millions of avid Diablo 2 players and if you are one of those that just cant stand the “moo” or tons of marching cows with halberds, well…you are not alone as Blizzards own Bashiok seem to hate them as well.

Yeah, who doesn’t like fighting cows running around with halberds?

I disliked the secret cow level from a design standpoint though. It actually angered me that it existed at one point, maybe it kind of still does.

I’m not a designer, at all, but in my opinion and from a design standpoint I think the secret cow level was a failure. For a long time it was one of the most lucrative ways to level, and one of the best places to MF. For an easter egg, something fun and whimsical, to overshadow the entire rest of the game was a huge problem, and one that existed for far too long. It was a fun idea, a cool nod to the rumors that spawned it, but in execution it was just… game breaking in some ways.

It did not take long for the gloombugs to argue this point and give a bashing on how the 1.10 patch for Diablo 2 nerfed the cashcow (pun intended) to which Bashiok had this response.

Well of course, everyone wants everything made easier for them, and that’s effectively what it was. This barrel of fish that not only acted as cheesy way to pull the slot machine lever, but almost rendered the rest of the game unnecessary.

The oversight, I believe, existed in the requirement for the current difficulty to be beaten as well as the Cow King kill. It’s easy enough to avoid the King or just have the level opened by other characters, and I can only guess that the amount of replay potential of the actual game was extremely undervalued.

Apperently someone had the guts to ask Bashiok if it really mattered where you leveled up, which suggest that it was a player that could not care much about the story of the game, but rather the buzz of finding the coolest stuff and climb the ladder of level land. Bashiok did however give a response even to this silly question.

Because you’re playing a game, and it should be respected that you’re playing that game. The cow level was not part of the game, it was an easter egg that made leveling and item finding far easier than the actual game. I’m inclined to almost call it cheating.

Solivagant, a blizzard game blogger has posted an extensive post where he compare Diablo 3 with Fallout 3 and then go over how to make a proper sequel to a successful franchise. Its an interesting read indeed.

Diablo 3 looks just like it should. Stunning.

Everything I’ve seen today about D3 has got me interested. I’m a fan of D2, played it in battle.net a great number of times and it kept me consistently entertained, be it the loot grabbing rushes or the neverending hordes of demons getting their ass kicked by my party.

But it was never my favorite game. It lacked dialogue, it lacked branching paths. The story was nice, but it always took backstage to the mayhem. You’d get rewarded with gorgeous cinematics, and then you’d move on to the next chapter, finishing those quests any battle.net diehard knows by heart. It got repetitive, but the skill tree, the bosses, the hundreds of items and gems and socketed items made it interesting, and the random maps kept the experience from becoming dull.

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Today I checked my IP Ban status as usual and noticed that one battle.net IP on USEast and Asia no longer listed me as banned, so I tried to logon again. It took several tries before I was connected to the right IP, but there it finally was…the registration form! I am now registered again on USEast and can roam there for a while until my designated playground USWest is available for me.

I hope this is a sign that the IP ban is close to its end because its bugging the crap out of me not to be able to get online after all the trouble I had getting new discs for the game!

I still have not heard from Blizzard or my ISP AllTele that I contacted about changing my IP…

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Shacknews wrote about a Diablo movie on the rise a few days ago and here is the information that seems very promising:

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Some days you have everything going against you it seems and today seem to be such a day for me. I got my shiny new diablo 2 and diablo 2: lord of destruction games today and installed them with a happy grin on my face and it installed just fine.

Then I went to go online and see who I could find that still remembered me from the “old days” and to start building on my characters again, but I got errors about being unable to connect to battle.net and that I needed to make sure I was connected to internet. I assumed this was a simple matter of making sure the firewall let diablo through so I started poking…

I poked, searched online and did pretty much anything I could think of before I found the BattleNet Diagnostic Tool and could see that it was not so much a connectivty issue as my IP actually being banned?!

Considering I have not been online for…well, years, that struck me as odd and naturally I went to blizzards suppot area to get it sorted. I took some time to first try to find information about this in case there were information on what to do and if it could be a error of some sort, but no such luck of course.

Finally I gave the support webform a twirl, which of course failed with errors…not once or twice, but a dozen time over several hours. *sigh* Instead I sent a request anywhere I could find a email or webform that works, so I am pretty sure I’ll get some return mail with confused WOW people wondering why I emailed them.

Not the best of days, but a challenge is always refreshing…or so they say at least. I just wished I could get online because I am having serious withdrawl symptoms now

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Its been years since I last held Diablo 2 and Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction in my hands, but now I finally have them both and will begin installation shortly.

I had some bad luck with my old Diablo 2 disc where I actually managed to break one of the discs and after letting my brother in law borrow my Lord of Destruction it suddenly became very difficult to get it back because he live to far away.

Fortunately I managed to get my hands on both at a great price on an auction, so in a few hours I’ll be back on Battle.net again for a short spin and for a trip down memory lane.

Care to join me?

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