Some big news for Diablo 2 players because Median XL is about to get a major update for 2017. There’s a load of changes thanks to some reverse engineering of the D2 code and the team also adding their own. It’s also coming very soon so read on for all the details and the trailer.
Median XL is a hugely popular mod to enhance Diablo 2 and next week, 26 May, the new 2017 core is being released. Updates to the mod include:
EXTENDED LEVELS
One of the most annoying limits of a soft-coded mod is the fact that no areas can be added to the game. Instead, existing areas need to be replaced. The game currently has 136 areas that can be used, and this limit is pushed to 255, nearly a 100% increment. This will enable us to greatly increase the game world, add new quests and areas, and give a proper location to the uberquests that are currently occupying act 2 and act 3 quest areas – which is confusing to new players.
INTEGRATED MAP-REVEAL
The core will get rid of all cheating tools that have made the online game play unfair for some people for so long. All maphacks will no longer work in M2017. However, we have always been advocates of map revealing, because let’s be fair – Diablo’s DLRG system (the way areas/mazes are randomly generated) is no longer that exciting after nearly 20 years. For this, we are implementing in-game map revealing via NPCs. Say good-bye to cheating!
CHARACTER CORPSES REMOVAL
This feature already has it’s own topic which you can find here. Resumed: the concept of “corpses” will no longer exist, meaning you will spawn with your items after you die. This will even out the game difficulty of single player vs. multiplayer (because you cannot rejoin your own games in single player) and it will get rid of people accidentally losing their entire gear because of strength bug or simply human error.
AUTO-GOLD PICKUP
Tired of clicking those gold piles and having them take up space in the screen when you hold ALT? Say no more. Gold piles will now be picked up automatically after your character walks past it.
DAMAGE/HEALTH CAPS REMOVAL
One of the biggest issues in the history of median will see a fix now
The removal of damage cap won’t be particularly impactful due to the damage rework feature explained in the main M2017 topic. And monster health cap won’t be removed per-se, however a new stat called “damage divisor” will be implemented, which will effectively allow us to make monsters with nearly infinite health. This will help us to get rid of the heroic shield mechanic as well
OTHER MINOR FEATURES
There are quite a few other features implemented by the core, but many of them are minor or too technical to be mentioned in this topic. You can expect to see the full list of features in the M2017 changelog however.
* * NOTICES * *
– Unfortunately, a new core means Median XL will no longer run on mac computers.– Our intention is the game to be run “as-is” equally for everyone. For this reason, cheats such as maphacks & resolution hacks will no longer work. D2SE and PlugY will probably still work on M2017, however they will be fully incompatible with sigma’s core. For this reason, we will no longer provide support on using these with Median XL Launcher, which will be the default way to run Median 2017.
– Sigma patch isn’t “miles away” as some of you concluded with the M2017 announcement. Most of the core work remaining are fixes and the new user interface – which is why M2017 core doesn’t provide increased resolution – and testing. M2017 will greatly reduce the amount of testing required for sigma as most of the core features mentioned in this topic are ported from sigma’s core. M2017 will be such a big patch that it’ll make you forget about sigma – and by the time you remember it – it will most likely be out.
Big thumbs-up to whist for developing the M2017 core. Finally, some of his work will come out for the entire playerbase to enjoy.
Check out the site and trailer below ahead of next week’s release. Hype!