How Diablo II Characters are Classified

On Battle.net, there are four ways in which Diablo II characters are grouped, in addition to what character (Amazon, Barbarian, et cetera) they are.

Standard or Hardcore

First, characters are either Standard characters or Hardcore characters. The first type can die and return to life, but Hardcore characters have only one life and are no longer playable after they die. Because of this key difference, Standard characters cannot join games created by Hardcore characters, and vice-versa.

There are no particular benefits to playing as a Hardcore character besides the thrill and challenge. One can only create Hardcore characters once one has completed the game on Normal Difficulty, but if one does that with any character type, one can create a Hardcore character of any other type.

Classic or Expansion

The second classification is that characters are either Classic characters or Expansion characters. Expansion characters get all of the new content from the Lord of Destruction Expansion Set (assuming one has it installed). Classic characters can only play Acts One through Four, and have access to none of the new content added by the Expansion Set.

Open or Realm

Realm characters, on the other hand, can only be used on the Battle.net Realm servers and their character data is stored on those corresponding Realm servers. There are 6 Realms, including US East, US West, Europe, Asia 1, Asia 2, and Asia 3. While many hacking exploits have occurred and been fixed, this is a far more secure way of playing Diablo II because the data is far less vulnerable to hacking. Finally, Realm characters are restricted to their Realm, so they cannot join games created on another Realm.

Non-Ladder or Ladder

The fourth and final classification is only present on the Battle.net Realm servers and not Open Battle.net. It divides characters into either characters or Ladder characters. Ladder characters are just like characters except they can only join games made by other Ladder characters and therefore can only trade and play with Ladder characters.

Whenever Blizzard Entertainment declares a new Battle.net Season for Diablo II, all current Ladder characters become characters and a whole new set of Ladder characters is created by players.

This part may be a little confusing. Although there exist Ladder characters and characters, both of these types have a corresponding ranking system on Battle.net called the Ladder; characters appear on the Normal Character Ladder and Ladder characters appear on the Ladder Character Ladder.

Character Types Outlined

To help clarify, the following are all of the types of characters that can exist in Diablo II. Each of these types can only play with characters of the same type.