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.

If you have played Diablo 2 you have probably more than once seen the annoying spambots screaming about the latest items available for sale, both ingame and in the battle.net channels and I was surprised to see that not only are they still around, but they seem to have evolved into a serious business!

I checked out 3 such sites earlier today and I must say that as a returning gamer with little time on my hands I do get tempted to take the easy way out and buy things rather than spend the hours grinding them up and I started to wonder what kind of business ideas we might see for Diablo 3 and if things will change that will make these kinds of businesses impossible or less likely?

We know that Blizzard will make Diablo 3 a game where trading will be a factor and it will be far easier to move object between characters and accounts. We also know that Battle.net will see many improvements, perhaps even introduce a marketplace, like we have seen on the old diabloii.net (now changed into diii.com) to allow people to make actual trading more controlled and easier?

As I look through the items on the three diablo 2 items websites I ponder for myself what Blizzard really think about this kind of behaviour and if they will take action to move things around to their own advantage soon. It would not be a big stretch to tap into this kind of cashflow by setting up a marketplace like e-bay where anyone can buy and sell their game related items and then a percentage goes back to Blizzard in terms of fees.

The advantages are many for such a setup, not just in terms of tapping into a new cashflow, but also to be able to control the market for in-game items to prevent sales of illegal and/or bugged items. It also would set a balance between seller and buyer if adding a reputation system, which is not very difficult to do really. In such a controlled environment people could make money from their efforts and Blizzard would still benefit from the money exchange without having to actually participate, like sellers paying a license fee or something like that.

For me as a webdesigner and hopeless ideamonger I could surely consider setting up a marketplace for Diablo items like e-bay. Its not very difficult to do as there are good scripts out there that could easily be modified and re-designed for that purpose, but the question is if its worth the time and cash investment?

While I ponder on that I’ll continue to look at all the items I want to have once again from these diablo 2 related webshops and ponder on the ethics of actually buying myself my old character back or not…

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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