Diablo II v1.03 patch is now available

• publisher: Blizzard
• developer: Blizzard

The Diablo II v1.03 patch is now available from all Battle.net
servers. To obtain the patch, simply sign on to Battle.net using
Diablo II.

Major bugs

- Fixed a rare bug that would mark a character as "Unable to join,
Bad item." A typical cause of this bug was high lag conditions
while two characters simultaneously attempted to use the same
item lying on the ground - for example, a Necromancer casting
Iron Golem on a sword while another tried to pick it up.
- Fixed a bug where Diablo II would crash when using 64MB video cards.

Minor bugs

- Fixed a loophole that allowed either the Necromancer wearing the
complete set of Infernal Tools or the Paladin with the Milabrega
set to temporarily boost his skills to very high levels.
- Fixed a bug that caused Amazons wielding a javelin in the right
side inventory box and a shield in the left to do no damage with
javelin-throwing skills assigned to the right mouse button.
- Fixed a bug in Open games that dropped players with slower machines
from the game when they talked to Act III NPCs.
- Fixed 3 rare lock-up bugs with Lord De Seis: 1) killing him as any
character, 2) leaping away from him as a Barbarian, and 3) being
killed by him while simultaneously drinking a potion.
- If a player tries to create a game when a Realm server is fully
occupied, the player is prompted to join a game instead. It no longer
reports "Server Down" in this case.
- The "Toggle Belt" hotkey is no longer active when the in-game chat
overlay is displayed.

Improvements

- Game creation queue added. Client now informed of game creation
position.
- Reduced the average bandwidth required for each player/client.
Effects: reduction in lag and a slight modification to the updating
of the Life Orb. There may be a period of adjustment for some players
and we encourage you to pay closer attention to your Life Orb until
you are used to this change.
- Added support for future server performance improvements.
Effect: Future reduction in lag and future increase in the number
of games per server.
- When a server goes down, the clients will no longer be left in
"limbo" for up to 20 seconds, but will exit immediately to
Battle.net chat.
- Messages from Battle.net are now yellow.
- In 3dfx/Glide mode, colors are not as washed out and cinematics
look better.

----------------------------------------------------------------
- patch 1.02
----------------------------------------------------------------

Major bugs

- Fixed a bug that deleted your single player or open character if
you deleted a Realm character with the same name.
- Fixed several bugs to improve memory usage--those bugs could cause
the game to slow down after playing for a while.
- Fixed a bug associated with ejecting the Play CD.

Minor Bugs

- More consistent closing of dialog boxes and pop-up screens when
hitting Esc key.
- Fixed a bug to allow faster drawing of the auto-map.

Improvements

- Will auto-close some NPC menus when necessary.
- The automap can be toggled when a waypoint is active.
- Game log file names follow the format D2YearMonthDay.txt.

******Game Hint/Spoiler******

- Fixed a bug that caused the portal to the Valley of the Magi to
disappear if a player had completed the Arcane Sanctuary quest (by
killing the Summoner) but exited the game without taking the portal
and establishing the waypoint in the Valley of the Magi. (Act II).

----------------------------------------------------------------
- patch 1.01
----------------------------------------------------------------

Major bugs

- Fixed a bug that prevented you from getting credit for killing a
quest boss, if you died before it did -- perhaps, by killing it
with a poisoned weapon.
- Fixed a bug that could crash the game during the countdown after
completing the final quest in Act IV, if the player used
Waypoints to return to the earlier Acts.
- Fixed a hang bug that could occur if picking up gold while
fleeing from a Gargantuan Beast (Act I).
- Fixed a crash bug that very rarely occurred when a Sorceress
cast the Meteor spell.
- Fixed the "black screen" crash that could occur if one pressed
'Alt-tab' during a cinematic.
- A Multiplayer Install running DirectDraw will no longer crash
when one cancels the Cinematic selection menu.
- Fixed a bug that prevented two quest rewards from scaling up
properly for Nightmare and Hell difficulty.
- Sand Leaper corpses no longer prevent players from moving through
a tight pass in the Act II desert.
- Wounded Act II spiders no longer greatly reduce the frame rate.
- Lower-titled characters may now join Open games created by
higher-titled characters (those who have completed the game in
Normal, Nightmare, or Hell difficulty).
- Fixed a bug that prevented some complete Item Sets from having
their full bonus.
- Fixed a bug in Open battle.net games that allowed a second player
to create another game with the same name as an already existing
game. No one could join the second one.
- Fixed a bug in TCP/IP games when a Town Portal was smothered in
piles of gold, it could cause a player entering from the other
end of the Portal to be disconnected from the Host.
- Fixed a bug that prevented interacting with the Stash, NPCs, or
Waypoints if the player clicked on the Stash, then pressed 'H'
before arriving at the Stash, and finally pressed 'H' again
after arriving at the Stash.

Minor bugs

- Removed an unused gossip from Ormus (Act III).
- Fixed a bug where if the 'Space bar' were assigned to another
function, it would erroneously continue to close the Message Log,
Quest Log, and Waypoint menu.
- Fixed a bug that occasionally allowed some monsters to enter the
Act II town of Lut Gholein.

Improvements

- Improved the stability of the servers and the behavior of clients
when a server malfunctions.
- Changed the amount of gold dropped by a player who is killed by
another player (PKed) to equal the amount that would normally be
lost "to the void" as a death penalty when killed by a monster.
- Updated the ReadMe.htm to document the PK gold-drop penalty.
- Changed the text color for Blizzard Representatives in Diablo II
chat rooms to yellow.
- Australian users connect to the USWest Realm instead of the Asia
Realm.

******Game Hints/Spoilers******

- Fixed a crash bug that occurred upon entering the red Portal to
the Canyon of the Magi, if a player had completed the Arcane
Sanctuary quest, then saved and started a new game, before
completing the Seven Tombs quest (Act II).
- Fixed a multiplayer bug that prevented a character from completing
the final quest in Act II (and advancing to Act III), when joining
a game started by a character who had already defeated the final
boss, but who had not yet visited Meshif for the reward.
- Fixed the following 3 bugs that could occasionally crash the game:
- Killing Lord De Seis (Act IV).
- In Perspective mode Glide entering a Tomb in the Canyon
of the Magi (Act II).
- A multiplayer party fighting in the Kurast Bazaar (Act III).
- Fixed a bug that caused a quest item being held in the cursor to
disappear when pressing the Horadric Cube's transmute button.