(Source.)"Many of you are wondering what's up with the patch and the ladder reset. While I've sprinkled some information around, it's about time it was all mashed up in one easy-to-read location.
The Story -
Once upon a time our internal legacy development teams wanted to put some much needed love into Diablo II. Diablo II doesn't have tournaments with millions of dollars swirling about them, so it generally took a back seat to the patch development time of our other legacy titles. But one day the planets aligned, and it was finally time to give the old girl a new coat of paint and break a bottle of champagne over her bow with the release of a patch. This went well. Meetings were held, the community was involved and polled, and an extremely long list of ideas and changes was created. That list was then cut down to changes felt to be either necessary changes, or easily implemented to ensure development time was efficient. This also went well.
Not long after, the alarm bells sounded. The patch was progressing quickly, and the release was potentially imminent. Early on it was decided, and somewhat of a no-brainer, that a ladder reset with coincide with the patch release. With the patch progressing well, a potential release of two weeks was estimated, and as always this is the exact amount of forewarning given to players and the community before a ladder reset. An announcement was made quickly and immediately to ensure a full two week notice was given. There are many reasons for this standard two-week notice, not the least of which is that most players don't understand the meaning of ladder and non-ladder, and how a reset affects their characters. Following any reset our support departments are flooded with issues related to the change of their characters, so we attempt to inform beforehand and avoid any unnecessary confusion.
This was all well and good, the community was excited, and the developers were having fun and enjoying being able to work on Diablo II again. Then, as it tends to do, reality struck. (http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=16888549346&sid=3000) Work had to be swiftly and immediately realigned and has and continues to be focused on addressing issues for a different title to resolve a very serious issue.
The Now -
The Warcraft III patch is now on the Public Test Realm (PTR) and testing is progressing. Once that patch is released work can shift back to Diablo II and the 1.13 patch, and we'll be working to getting that patch up on its own PTR as soon as possible. This could be a matter of weeks. Once it's up and in a testing state for all of you, it's then going to be a matter of ensuring the features are good and it's a solid patch. The more people we have testing the patch and providing valid feedback, the better the patch will be, and hopefully the quicker it will be released. So that's my challenge to you. You've been waiting a long time, you want an awesome patch, you want a reset. To get all that, we need good solid testing and feedback, reproduction steps for bugs, detailed descriptions of issues or errors, etc. So once this goes live on the PTR, I expect some crazed-youruinedtheeconomy-testing."
As previously predicted here, the other higher priority issue that was prolonging work on the patch was, indeed, the Warcraft III patch, which is now entering its final testing stage. As noted, Bashiok has said that we will most likely be seeing Diablo II's patch in a PTR (Public Testing Realm) in as little as a few weeks- a short amount of time in light of how long we have been waiting. Whether this can be trusted like his previous post about the patch being released as early as the end of April is yet to be proven.
On a similar note, suspicion continues to rise among fans as a previously-held stickied thread by Bashiok on the official Diablo II forum on the Battle.net board here was unstickied- one that was clearly labeled by Bashiok as the official patch information thread. Whether this will doll out to become a fact of significance only time will tell.
Credit goes to Lethal_Weapon and Variance for the tip-offs- be sure to give the two some rep points if you get the chance. Also, necronergal has another thread for this in the Diablo II forum here.
pvp?
or a race to beat diablo?
There will not be any information on the beta testing of the patch, simply because it is for MAP MAKERS. Once the MAP MAKERS get there hands on the patch, and start figuring things out, and checking holes, it will happen, but as it is right now, there are not many map makers that know JASS, so it will be a slow process.
Mod Note: I added a quote of the post to which I assume you're responding. It was confusing without the quote, since there are two different games and patches being referenced in this thread.
So...What? They're puting in new maps?
we could have a DuK tournament lol. Thats the funnest type of PvP (Let me copy and paste the rules in case you dont know what it is)
DuK (Defend Ur King)
A couple friends and I run a Diablo II "mini-game" called DuK. It is a dueling game involving team strategy and good survival skills. The basic idea of the game is that each team has a King. The king is the most important member of each team so choose wisely! If the king dies, your team loses. All other players on teams have two lives a piece. Once both lives are extinguished, that player is removed from the battlefield until a winning team is determined. Winning players get 5000 gold a piece from each player on the opposite team/s in a competitive game. In a friendly game, there is no gain, but you can have lots of fun playing anyway!
Here is the game play of DuK:
~"Defend Ur King" takes place in either the Arcane Sanctuary or the Chaos Sanctuary.
~All games take place in Nightmare difficulty.
~All players will act cooperatively to clear the Chaos and Arcane Sanctuaries of monsters at the beginning of the game.
~Then everyone leaves the big party and captains are established.
~Captains are either the two lowest level players or the two highest (The one with the lower level always picks first).
~The team with the most quick-moving ("Teleport" and "Leap" for example) players will hostile the opposing team and then enter the battlefield.
~The captain with the second pick chooses a side of whichever battlefield is being played on.
~Both teams choose their kings IN SECRET.
~When both teams are ready, the game starts!
Here are the combat rules of DuK:
~There is absolutely no naked killing! Naked killing will result in an immediate disqualification of your team.
~There is no looting gold from corpses during or after DuK. This will also
result in disqualification of your team, as possibly a temporary ban from future DuK games.
~When you are killed twice, you may not enter the battlefield until the current game has concluded. When a winner is determined, you may retrieve your corpse and money.
~Most hacks are allowed, but hacks such as screen flashing and other disruptive hacks are considered illegal and will result in disqualification.
~Players may place town portals anywhere on the playing field but you may only return to town when a winner has been determined.
~NO healing in anyway, other than the paladin skill holy bolt or a healing aura. You may use as many mana potions as desired.
~There are no restrictions as to what classes are allowed. All are welcomed.
I am sorry if this post was unclear. I was referencing the WC3 beta patch that is being tested as we speak, since the dev team wont start working on the D2 patch until this patch is finished and the final patch is released. I honestly do not know much about WC3 or the problems they are having with the map editor. I just know that is where the problems are.
Note: I will add a quote to that post to make sure it is not confusing anymore...
I have always been involved in PvP matches, that is really the only thing that I play for. MFing gets really old rather quickly and PvP helps shake things up (and after you have played the game for 9 years, the actual game gets old too, lol). Wow, I guess it was like 5 or 6 years ago, or longer, that my neighbor and I used to compete in tournaments (both 1v1 or 2v2) that were hosted by people on the b.net forums. It was a tiered process, strict rules, class restrictions depending on the tournament, etc. Started with as many poeple who signed up and worked its way down to the final two. Usually the winner walked away with a nice prize. It was very fun to compete. Also, it was nice to see your name as the champion for certain types of tournaments (my neighbor held the barb v barb title for a while) and get called out by many forum-goers who wanted to take a shot at your title...
Hopefully, we will see how the season goes, after a while I am going to try set-up my own PvP tournaments. Like, there will be a certain buy-in (no where near the top prize) if you want to participate and the top 3 players (or the winner only) will take a top prize. Have tournaments with different rules, etc. I think it would be fun for those who enjoy PvP. What do you guys think?
Anyway, what I meant was a management system that could organize these on a large front, especially since we can only have eight-player games.
I guess this is sort of getting off topic, though.
Agreed! :thumbsup:
Not that it doesn't surprise me... blizzard is always slow lol.
And EA is always fast.
(Actually not for patches... but heh).