Ive got a few questions

[ZachO]

OK, so i have recently become a big Diablo 2 player and i was wondering what language it was programmed in, what kind of veiw is it(top down, isometric, etc.), has anyone made a Diablo 2 clone on the forums, and how does battle.net work 1 server or multiple servers or what?

Thanks,
Zach

[hurstshifter]

I don't think anyone could have most of this information unless we have a Blizzard employee on the forums. Although I would assume that it was programmed in C/++. For windows it requires a DirectX compatible videocard so you can assume that DirectX was used. For MacOS I can not be sure. Battle.net has at least a few servers (US East, US West, Europe, etc...) but knowing the exact layout is kind of a grand question.

[alyosha]

And it's isometric.

[K-Bal]

The view is isometric and the models are prerendered in 3d.

[dandymcgee]

The game was probably mostly written in C or C++, but I believe Blizzard also developed their own proprietary language for certain aspects. It is likely that some performance crucial code was written in assembly.

The view is indeed 2D top-down isometric with some very cool hacks to make some of the 3D-ish effects.

I don't believe I've ever seen an indie Diablo II clone (not that I've really looked for one), but there are a ton of mods people have made, and some of them are quite extensive, completely redefining base game play mechanics such as skill, items, and monsters (one example is Median).

USEast, USWest, Europe, & Asia are not servers, but rather gateways. Battle.Net is hosted on a shit ton of servers, when you create a new game it chooses a server with a decently low load and creates your game on it. You remain on that same server until you leave the game.