That s when you really start to rock and roll. Yes, shocking though it may be, Blizzard designed this game with multiplayer very much in mind, and it shows. The ability to play games with up to eight people over the Internet is a great feature, and is a major improvement over the old direct modem connection that allowed only two people per game. The game is played in more or less the same way in multiplayer as in single player mode. Whenever another player enters a game all of the monsters get tougher, which means you d better work together or expect to have a hard time.
Players can join together to form parties, agreeing to share experience and gold.
Quests previously completed by the hosting player are unavailable during that game, but quests completed by any members of an adventuring party count for all members. Players can fight each other as well by going hostile while in town, but killing other players isn t made easy and the only reward for doing so is the gold they are carrying and a trophy ear for bragging rights. While LAN and Internet play is well done, all is not sunny and good in the area of multiplayer. One of the big selling points of Diablo 2 was Blizzard s new server-based battle.net system. Diablo s battle.net play was plagued by cheaters who used hacks to modify their characters to ridiculous levels and abilities.