Hello and welcome to the first mod of the week here at PlanetDiablo. For those of you unfamiliar with mods, they are a modification to the way the game works. These changes in play can be minor, or they can lead to a completely new style of play. This second statement holds true for this week's featured mod, Eastern Sun by Perfect Cell.
Eastern Sun is a new game in itself. It takes Diablo II's rather slow-paced game play, and feeds it a handful of speed. Everything in Eastern Sun seems turbocharged. The mod is at least four times as difficult as standard Diablo II, as it tries to simulate a four-player game. To make up for this, almost every skill in Eastern Sun has been pumped to ridiculous levels, with the exception of the Barbarian, who has been weakened to preserve balance.
Items have been beefed up as well, with gems finally becoming something more than useless stash decorations. All gems have very nice and useful bonuses when at perfect level with some of them giving mammoth bonuses to damage, skills, or casting rates. Armor, boots, and belts can now generate as socketed in one way or another making gemmed items a viable alternative to rare and unique items. Gems can also be bought at vendors for exorbitant prices helping to add another level of customization to Diablo II characters. Unique items have also been given an overhaul, with a few "Diablo" items making appearances as well as a whole host of new uniques. And finally we have exceptional sets and uniques. Add in much more inventory space, cube space, and stash space and it's a Diablo II item lover's heaven.
With all of these super items being thrown around along with increased damage and bonuses to skill levels that read around +4 rather than +1 balance becomes a serious issue. To his credit, Perfect Cell has done all he can to keep the mod balanced and fun for all character classes, but there are still balance issues that stand out. Gems for instance, are incredibly potent, while gemmed items are extremely expensive to repair, having a sword that gives +6 to all skills, a robe that gives +3, an amulet that gives +2, a shield that gives +3, boots that give +2, and a helmet, which also gives +2, makes the game a bit unbalanced toward the spell casting side. While this incredible level of power for items doesn't really detract from the fun (In fact, there is something beautiful about throwing around bone spells like an organic gatling gun.) it does raise some balance issues.
Altogether, however, Eastern Sun is a very good bit of fun. My friend John remarked when we first played Diablo II over my LAN, 'Man, all you do in this game is kill, kill, kill everything!' He didn't know it, but he really wasn't playing Diablo II, he was playing Eastern Sun.
Highs: Great fun, faster than standard D2, even quake players can dig the sometimes-insane action.
Lows: Sometimes terribly imbalanced.
Items: One of the greatest things about ES is the ability to build a set of items around your character, without having to rely on the luck of the draw. Socketed items are beautifully powerful. For spell casters, sapphires should be treasured as they add a bonus to Mana, casting rates, and skills when socketed into helms, boots, and robes. Amethysts are great for fighting classes as when socketed in weapons they provide bonuses to attack rating, skills, and attack speed. Gems should not be overlooked now, as they are very useful indeed.
Monsters: Monsters are very, very deadly in Eastern Sun. Almost all of them have some type of elemental damage, making high resistances very important. They also have a great deal more hit points, making them much more difficult to kill. These two things are balanced out by the better item quality to a degree, but these changes apply to all monsters including super uniques (Read Bosses). Add to that fact that Mephisto, Andariel, and Duriel all make surprise appearances in the Chaos Sanctuary, and you've got a mountain of pain coming your way. Sometimes the only way to beat these guys is to keep coming. Enduring death after death, after bloody, terrible death. Basically, make sure you've leveled up before trying to take on the Chaos Sanctuary.
This kind of wholesale slaughter is what makes Eastern Sun a truly fun mod.
Other than that Eastern Sun is pretty intuitive. Just put more points into vitality and make sure you've got a healthy resistance built up and you should be fine.
A: I started work on Eastern Sun sometime around mid November. Lothar was just recently for his second job (what a workhorse) and was having difficulty juggling both those and progressing with the mod. I learned a bunch of modding techniques from the old mods.diabloii.net site, and forwarded him a few of the things I was working on for a version of his mod I used here on my LAN. He replied asking for me to partner up... which I did =)
Q: What inspired your progress into the mod?
A: For the most part, it was fan driven. The huge amount of users (ok, compared to Realms it's nothing) who started playing the mod (after everyone moved over to PlanetDiablo) were all pretty enthusiastic and flooded my inbox with new ideas. Not all of them have made it in, but some things, like the Mana blade (one handed staff class weapon) came from fan input, and I really liked them. I had briefly considered discontinuing the mod after I ran into some real life troubles, but that didn't last too long (thanks once again to Pete and Kinjuru!). Since then I've worked on the mod because it is fun for me. I enjoy seeing those hours I spend plugging away pay off when I see a new feature implemented.
A: My main goal for the mod has always been fun. I know I talk about balance a lot, but I think fun is what keeps people playing the longest and I try to implement that as best I can. I played the original game solidly (6-8 hours a day) back in October for a couple weeks, but it started to get stale after level 50 or so. I've done my best to put in a few things that keep the game interesting and different, even at high levels. Not many of my friends played Diablo II very long--I was pleased to hear that one of them actually played the game past Normal difficulty for the first time.
Q: How hard has it been keeping Eastern Sun balanced?
A: Keeping the mod balanced is the most difficult part of the mod. When making changes to affixes, skills, gems, monsters, items, etc balance becomes increasingly difficult. The feedback of the beta testers and the players is a big help, as I get very little time to play the game myself. I'm still only level 20, and have yet to beat Diablo on Normal since back in October. ^_^
Q: How has the mod community influenced your decisions about the mod?
A: Well, there are two sides to the mod community. The first half is the mod makers... and every one of us keeps one another on their toes. There's always something new going on, and everyone over at The Phrozenkeep is very helpful. They have really helped me add things to the mod that otherwise might not have been implemented (ie. new skills). New mod ideas pop up there frequently, and it helps me brainstorm when I'm in a slump. The other half of the community is the players, and they influence things quite a bit...Maybe not directly, but I always keep them in mind when I add new changes. They also help port the mod over to other versions of the game (German, Spanish, French and Italian), which is much appreciated.
Q: Will you be adding support for the expansion pack? If so, what are you most looking forward to in the expansion?
A: Definitely. I mentioned on my site that I would be porting the mod over to the expansion way back when it was announced to retailers in mid March. I preordered my copy for pretty much that purpose alone. ^_^ Larias sent me his copy of the beta, so I had a good look at how things were changed in the expansion. It was helpful in giving me a rough idea of how long it would take to upgrade ES to LoD, right up until 1.08 came around. With the introduction of 1.08, porting mods over to the expansion has been made much easier for everybody...it's just that big leap of upgrading from 1.06 to 1.08 that will have to be overcome.
There's a lot I'm looking forward to in the expansion...but the new classes and skill changes are the most anticipated for me. The new classes are probably at the top of everybody's list, but the added skill bonuses at high levels and item changes are pure genius. That weapon switch key is also great. There's a whole lot to like about LoD, so I'll just stop at that. ^_^
Sounds to me like PC has everything figured out. So do yourself a favor and head on over to the Eastern Sun site!
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