If you are still having Diablo 2 problems, as I am, I thought I would give you my experience with the new patch: zilcho.

I still have the same unhandled exception error that pops up when I try and join a game. Lately I've seen a "decompressing sprite" error message too. If anyone has had to deal with this I'ld love to hear possible solutions.

I hope you have had better luck than I have Bub.

-Rob

I have.
Once I updated to 1.08 all problems disappeared. I didn't bring it up because I didn't want to rub it in on you Rob. But given the name of this thread... Nyahh, nyahh!

;>
-Andrew

My life is ruined.

Rob, what do you have running in the background? Any Firewall software? Just an idea, I'll have to test it tonight but I just realized that when I switched to a hardware router my problem stopped. I'm back with the software firewall now but I haven't played since then...

-Andrew

Rob, what do you have running in the background?

Nothing like that. I should point out that I can still play new characters, it is only the characters that get as far as 20 minutes or so into the second act, or shortly before the second act. I can still see these characters, but they can't initiate games or join them (the screen freezes on the load screen).

I'm just playing at home from my cable modem.

It is frustrating because soon these chars might be erased by Blizzard, and then I won't know if I've fixed anything until I replay a char that far into the game. I'm glad yours is working now though, it gives me hope.

I haven't tried multiplayer though. Same problems in single player Rob?

I don't know. I've only played multiplayer. I never really even considered single player for some reason. I can only use my battle.net guys on their servers right?

Bub,

On another note, how tempted are you to make fun of the Gamespotting guys? I don't know why I am, or what I would even say, but for some reason these guys say to me, "please, poke fun at these columns" every time I read their stuff. Maybe its the heavy pokemon/quake/red alert content. I think its a good idea in theory, I just wish the Qt3 crowd were writing them.

It's been like that for awhile. I used to put my StrategyNet column up there awhile ago but they never really cared about doing much with the whole column thing for a long, long time. Made me wish I had my own subdomain like Desslock :)

--- Alan

No, Rob, I'm never tempted to make fun of the "Gamespotting" guys. Some of them contribute here, and... I'd also like to work for them one day.

Honestly, I don't read it. I'm just too busy to read about games, honestly the paper mags only get my attention because they're in the water closet. Did it replace their 10 Questions thing? I was reading that thing when Bruce was contributing. Gamespotting is a damn good title though...

-Andrew

I like the Gamespotting thing. I get the picture the guys get to let their hair down an itsy-bitsy bit and write about a subject they feel like writing about (subject to corporate approval, of course). Kind of Qt3 for the masses. But that's cool.

DeanCo--

Hell, poke fun all you like, that's what it's there for. We're certainly asking for it with those photos we finally decided to use.

Yes, it replaced Question of the Week, which never really took off. If there's an issue with the format, it's that it conflates PC and video game topics. That's supposed to make it diverse and interesting for people who have interest in more than one platform, though. Whether or not it succeeds is subject to debate, certainly.

Rob, though we do tend to focus more on popular genres, I think we've written about RPGs more than anything else. At least as much as shooters.

DeanCo, one time I tried to sneak in the expression "pissing contest" to refer to Ubi Soft and Infogrames grabbing MMORPGs within a week of each other. Censor committee asked me to remove that, but otherwise, I do most of the editing myself and have no interest in pulling anyone's punches.

Greg,

I'm sorry I seemed to criticize it above. I think it is vastly superior to the Question of the Week (which was a pain in the butt to flip through to read everyone's answer). I realize you guys are covering a vast topic, and don't want to specialize for the hardcore pc gamers, and actually I'm happy to get a wider dose of the gaming world. The picture is goofy, but in a good way. Overall, its nice to get a bunch of fresh commentary from you guys, especially if it is updated regularly. Thanks for your response,
Rob.