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Diablo II, the fact that it's going to be released was announced by Blizzard at the ECTS trade show in London, it's the followup of 1997's Game of the Year and best selling title, Diablo. Diablo II, currently scheduled for an early 1999 release, will return to the same dark, dungeon-filled world, with Diablo still in control and plaguing the world with his evil minions. However, Diablo II promises plenty of changes as well. The usual dungeons, dark caverns, and crypts will dot the landscape, but there are also four towns from which to begin the exploration. Wilderness areas will also be a part of each town. Within the vast world of Diablo II, new quests and monsters will be incorporated to make the game unique. On the online front, Blizzard's Battle.net remains one of the busiest gaming networks, even though currently the only games offered are Diablo and StarCraft. Battle.net has nearly a million registered users and more than 18 million games have been played on the network, so naturally Diablo II will build on that success. Diablo II will add new multi-player options for Battle.net, including an online trading post and a comprehensive system of ranking players.

According to Blizzard Entertainment, Diablo has sold one million copies worldwide. In a formal statement, Allen Adham, president of Blizzard Software, commented, "With the sequel, we will push the game's concept and design in new directions."

Some of the new game features will include:

  • Five all-new character classes with unique attributes and abilities.
  • Four different, fully populated towns complete with wilderness areas.
  • Multiple dungeons, caverns and crypts in every town for players to explore.
  • An expanded world filled with all-new quests, weapons, spells, armour,
  • monsters and non-player characters.
  • An advanced combat system which incorporates class-specific
  • fighting techniques and spells.
  • New Battle.net options including increased multiplayer support, an
  • on-line trading post and worldwide rankings.
  • Absence of load-screens.
  • Townsfolk and monsters will be able to move from their towns and dungeons.
  • Characters and monsters have the ability to run and jump.
  • New extremely rare items, might only be generated in 1 out of 83300 games!
  • Hire mercenaries to travel with you.
  • Outside, Inside, Subteranean, all these areas are connected and you can move between them without level loads.
  • Day and Night cycles
  • Awesome sound effects
  • Complete skill trees that are unique for each class. If you choose to go one way with your attack skills, you'll gain certain abilities, but others will be harder to obtain.
  • Component art. When your character puts something on, you can see it more acurately represented on the character.
  • Security for Battle.Net: there will be some kind of client side verification. Nothing more than that has been announced.