Here's a quick PTR FAQ posted by Bashiok.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Q: How do I begin testing on the PTR?
A: When you start Diablo II change your Battle.net gateway to ?ClassicBeta?. When you log in the 1.13 patch will be applied to your game and you can begin testing the changes made in the patch. Since it's a new realm you'll need to create a new account.
Q: I don't see the ClassicBeta realm in my gateway list!
A: Log into one of the other gateways first, then back out and the classicbeta realm will appear.
Q: What if I want to play the normal game again?
A: Simply choose any of the other (non-PTR) gateways. Your game will be reverted to version 1.12 and you?ll be able to play on the live realms as normal.
Q: Where are my characters?
A: The PTR realm is separate from the live realms so your current characters aren?t carried over. You?ll need to create a new character to begin testing. But, cheats are enabled and you may use the following cheats by typing them into chat while in a game:
Gold # - Will provide the amount of gold specified
Level # - Will increase your level to the number specified
Waypoints 1 - Will activate all waypoints. You must still reach an act before that act?s waypoints will be unlocked with this cheat.
Q: What happens to my characters once the PTR testing period ends?
A: They remain on the PTR realm to be removed once the test ends. Characters on the PTR realm won?t transfer to the normal realms.
Q: How long with the PTR run for?
A: As long as we deem necessary to ensure the patch and changes are solid.
Q: Where can I give feedback and what kind of feedback do you want?
A: All 1.13 PTR feedback and bug reports should ONLY be posted in the Diablo II Test Realm Forum here: http://forums.battle.net/board.html?forumId=20601702&sid=3000
- All post should have a subject line that clearly describes the bug or feedback being given
- Use the search feature to ensure a thread doesn?t already exist before posting
- When reporting a bug include as much information as you can, including steps to reproduce it if possible
- Any non-constructive posts may be deleted and the poster?s privilege to post revoked
- This is a chance for you to ensure the 1.13 patch includes changes and balance tweaks that you think would lead to a better overall experience. Getting the information to us in a clear and logical way helps us understand your view and makes it easier for us to collect feedback for any potential updates to the 1.13 patch before release.
Q: What is the new "Mystery" mentioned in the patch notes?
A: It's related to the respec system implemented in the patch and can grant additional respecs beyond the three given for completing the Den of Evil quest in each difficulty. You'll have to play to find out how though.
Here's the new patch notes!
Patch 1.13
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...
Major Bugs
- Fixed an item dupe bug.
- Video improvements for Intel Mac machines with OS 10.5 or greater.
Minor Bugs
- Uber Mephisto now checks for both Uber Baal and Uber Diablo to be killed before spawning summoned minions (Before he would only check for Uber Baal).
- The game will no longer stop and then restart the game music after the window loses and then regains focus.
- Fixed an issue where the game window would minimize when running in windowed mode when it lost focus.
- Fixed an issue where the game window wouldn't center properly when it was created.
Specific changes/improvements
- Respecialization is now possible! Completing the 'Den of Evil' quest will now additionally reward 1 free respec which can be saved. Players who have already completed this quest should receive 1 free respec in Hell difficulty.
- Increased the drop rate of high runes.
- Support for blit scaling in windowed mode. The game can now be maximized to the largest 4:3 resolution supported (hooray widescreen users).
- Some rare drop items now have an orange color. i.e. Runes and items required for Uber Tristam.
- Modified the gold bank limit to be a flat cap not bound by level.
- Nightmare/Hell WilloWisps champions/uniques have had their damage greatly reduced.
- Removed the requirements to create a hardcore character.
- Greatly reduced the explosion damage dealt by Fire Enchanted monsters.
- Uber Mephisto and Uber Baal's summoned minions no longer give experience.
- Removed Oblivion Knight's Iron Maiden curse.
- Hellfire Torch Firestorm proc rate has been reduced to 5%.
- Users can now toggle the display of text over the Health and Mana globes by clicking on the bottom area of each orb.
- Updated two Act 5 mercenary names to Klar and Tryneus.
- When creating a single player game, pressing the 'Enter' key now automatically creates a Hell difficulty game if possible.
- When creating a game, each difficulty button is now bound to a unique key: Normal 'R', Nightmare 'N', and Hell 'H'.
- The 'Enter Chat' Button in the battle.net waiting room is now bound to the 'Enter' key.
- Added the windows system buttons to the game window (MIN, MAX, CLOSE).
- Added new command line parameter '-nofixaspect' which allows users to not fix the aspect ratio to 4:3 when maximizing windowed mode. This lets the game 'stretch' to fill your monitor.
- Added support for '-sndbkg' command line switch. This enables sound in background.
- Added support for '-nosound', '-window', and '-windowed' command line options.
Revised Skill balance for Player Character classes
Amazon
-Immolation Arrow - Increased radius of Explosion effect by 33% and Immolation effect by 50%.
-Immolation Arrow - Explosion effect damage increased by 20%.
-Immolation Arrow - Increased base duration by 33%.
Assassin
-Shadow Master - Increased resistance range per point from 5-80 to 5-90.
Barbarian
-Whirlwind - Reduced initial mana cost by 50%.
-Masteries - Changed critical strike chance from 0-25 to 0-35.
Paladin
-Blessed Hammer - No longer ignores resistances of undead and demons.
Druid
-Werebear - Damage bonus increased by 15% across all ranks.
-Werebear - Increased health by 25% and armor by 1% per point.
-Shockwave - Synergy from Maul adds 5% damage per point.
Necromancer
-Blood Golem - Removed negative shared life effect (player no longer loses life when golem takes damage).
-Corpse Explosion - Increased base damage dealt from 60% - 100% to 70% - 120% of corpses health.
-Poison Nova - Increased base damage by 15%.
Sorceress
-Firewall - Synergy receives 1% damage per point of Inferno and Blaze and 4% per point of Warmth.
-Blaze - Synergy receives 2% damage per point of Firewall and 4% per point of Warmth.
-Hydra - Increased base damage by 15% per rank.
-Hydra - Increased base speed of Hydra projectile.
-Hydra - Reduced cooldown by 25%.
-Lightning Mastery - Reduced overall effect by 15%.
NO change... The game still unbalanced..
The little change are somethings that Blizzard are supposed to change from a long ago.
The changement are just too normal...
I expected skills balancing..........................
A d2 mod still better than the true game AHAHAHHA
I thought blizzard fix the skills you only need to put 1 point...
I wanted more than that, like many others..
we all wanted more...
I agree with vladdracul
If there are no dupes, items will be worth alot more than they ever did. And u wont see 3/20/20's everywhere because they are FUCKING RARE!#%#$^$%*&$%%@4
But, they didnt say anything about fixing bots. So i assume the economy is going to be ruined once again.
I think about : static, Warmth, inferno, blaze, hydra, teeth, poison dagger, bone wall, dim vision, attract, find potion, battle cry, find item, grim ward, war cry, inner sight, sanctuary, prayer, defiance, holy bolt, vengeance, conversion, fist of the heavens... ok enough, I forget many.... I don't say useless for "synergy" useless to use the skill...
Beyond that, do we have any idea what content was added to hell difficulty?
Hacks on the other hand RUINED Diablo. TPPK is impossible to stop? How about looking in your code for the game or maybe downloading TPPK and finding out how it infiltrates the system and makes it possible and um...I don't know put up a block there? Hacks are stopping at all fronts just not from lazy people or people who think dupes are more of a problem then hacks.
I think the only thing they added is 4 items that drop from act bosses which you can combine to create an item that resets stats and skill points.
...
Edit: @Vladdracul: Dude... I knew someone that duped 170 bers and 170 jahs (Ber and Jah runes) on 1.12 in Europe... Tell me that 150 enigma in the hands of a clan is not ruining the economy.
I play solo, and slap a random password on my games..
Problem solved...lol
Dupes are an issue and always have been, but they are by no means greater then Hacks.
Classic ladder had barely any dupes and they economy runs off of Rares and Sojs which is how it should be. Without dupes they would be running off of....rares and.....sojs. On Expac economy is runes....sojs....without dupes economy would be....runes....sojs. Removing dupes ends in the same thing as keeping them, it just means you are trading a lower amount of rune for an items now instead of 3 runes you now only trade 1...hope those few clicks save you more grief then a TPPK or a G Mod user causes you.
Well considering about ALL of HC uses FG, and almost ALL of ladder uses FG, I haven't been on Softcore east in awhile but that was pretty much converting to FG a year or so ago, I am pretty sure alot more then just a few use FG. Also with dupes and you know items being sooooo easy to get, what's their excuse for not being "elite"?
So you want a select few to have overpowered weapons but not everyone.
2.)Increased the drop rate of high runes.
3.)Nightmare/Hell WilloWisps champions/uniques have had their damage greatly reduced.
4.)Uber Mephisto and Uber Baal's summoned minions no longer give experience.
5.)Removed Oblivion Knight's Iron Maiden curse.
6.)Blessed Hammer - No longer ignores resistances of undead and demons.
How are people not stoked about this patch?
They have cleared up almost every gripe I had with the game.
They introduced respec to see how it works in d2 so that they can better implement it in d3. I had an inkling that they were going to do this with some aspect of d3.
Sure, there is no new lore content and that is a let down, but something tells me we wont have to wait too much longer for our lore fix.
Because this is why:
1.)Fixed an item dupe bug.
- Fixed an item dupe bug rather then work on hacks. Tried to fix an economy that was already trashed and this will play very little part in fixing it, otherwise this is wasted man power.
2.)Increased the drop rate of high runes.
Increased drop rate which is good, but there is already a huge abundance of them out there this just makes them worth less.
3.)Nightmare/Hell WilloWisps champions/uniques have had their damage greatly reduced.
These were never an issue if you actually had some resistance on your character and knew how to play your character.
4.)Uber Mephisto and Uber Baal's summoned minions no longer give experience.
So now instead of doing Ubers to make my guy level 90 in an hour I have to waste days following Baal runs...yippee! I played Diablo since it came out and have leveled strictly on actually killing monsters for far to long, with the exp they offer at Baal runs you would have to be either extremely bored not to do them or just dumb. Same goes for Ubers with the experience offered why not do it? I am not sitting there for days to level up just to deal with the same hacks and BS I did before.
5.)Removed Oblivion Knight's Iron Maiden curse.
So now chaos sanc has absolutely no threat in it...again yippee! Now any newb can go in there unscathed and kill Diablo.
6.)Blessed Hammer - No longer ignores resistances of undead and demons.
This is probably only good thing they did, except you know hammers are still retardly overpowered and should be nerfed.
Something they should of fixed on paladins in Charge lock, and desynch. Remove desynch and you can keep the way to high damage of hammers, cause everyone knows hammerdins blow chunks if they can't spray and pray.
I'm glad they made those changes, but the fact that TPPK (THE SINGLE DECIDING RUINATION OF HC) isn't fixed is simply unbelievable. Good god...
I loved the loot option of softcore Diablo 2 Vanilla but yet that got removed.
I know many many people who love dupes but that got halted. (Don't worry tho they won't ever stop duping)
I know many many people that loved Marrow glitch on necro but that was removed
I know many many people who loved occulus rings and other bogus hacked items but they were removed.
Just revert the game back to 1.01 before Blizzard started breaking the game and we would be fine.
No new items or sets.
All they need to do to fix tppk is have a box where you check it and it allows, disallows people to go hostile with you.