So yesterday I learned that the Diablo 1 levels that were added to Diablo 3 are a timed event, and that you can only visit them this January. This sucks as it disrupts my stack of games I like to play, and I have no real desire to go back to Diablo 3 so soon (I just finished a run November last).

Generally I don't do these timed events as I don't want somebody to dictate what I am playing and the pace I want to play but I cannot let this slip by as I really enjoyed D1 and played it a lot so I have to squeeze this one in. Just see it for myself.

The actual content is I think worth about 2 hours of gameplay and only you can only visit it when choosing Adventure mode. Which again sucks as I have not unlocked the 'normal' adventure mode on my console. So now doing a sort-of speedrun with a Wizard on Normal difficulty to unlock it. I have already unlocked the hardcore Adventure mode but don't want to enter it in hardcore mode.

All in all both excited and grumbling.

Has anybody else also visited Old D1 Tristram? Or intent to do?

( the level is build as a 16-level deep dungeon with retro graphics, the old sounds and old-style (movement) animations. )

I tried this just last night in fact on the ps4 with a friend of mine.

Honestly, between the limited timed event and the fact that it really didn't tickle my diablo 1 nostalgia in the slightest (it felt like playing an uglier diablo 3) I was left extremely disappointed by this "content." Blew through all of it, including the few little hidden bits in just under 2 hours. I have a bit of unique mob farming left to do for an in-game challenge and a solo run for another challenge, but I wasn't really enjoying it much. The ps4 version doesn't even do the retro-ui thing properly, I think it's broken.

I mostly finished this on hardcore the first day :3 i had to get a friend to open adventure mode for me though and then leave the party because I haven't unlocked it yet. I just have the achievement left to kill all the unique mobs but I'm not really motivated to play much Diablo so far. The cow pet is awesome though. I feel like it was an alright event, I just sort of wish they had them more often. Seasons don't seem like enough.

Diablo was the first game I bought with my first computer, as an adult. I spent countless hours playing it. I really enjoy D3, but I confess I'm disappointed with the anniversary event. It'll come back every January, apparently, but I hope they make some changes before next year. I appreciate that they included the original 16 levels, but I really would've liked it more if they'd actually included the original 16 levels. They could've at least faked the hell section, given the hell rifts.

I have no idea how you manage to play D3 on hardcore, though. That's crazy. :)

Hardcore's not so bad, really. Depends on how risky you like to be. 90% of the fun in hardcore is the risk though!

Just did the challenge where you have to start with a fresh level one character and only play through the d1 dungeon. Took me a couple hours since I was drastically slowed down compared to my beefier chars, but I got my mini butcher pet :)

The only problem I had with the L1 character was that my connection kept dropping (I was visiting family), so I'd get halfway through and have to start over. -.- Since that one didn't have to be seasonal*, I took full advantage of paragon levels and cube powers. (My crappy mostly-solo-hobbyist-player-high-200s paragon levels. :)

*(In fact, I didn't even realize the season was starting until I was halfway through my run and saw chat popping off about "season starts in 20 minutes!")

Did my run on PC and I it indeed was a let-down. The dungeons felt really uninspired and a rre-use of existing assets and map-parts. The pixelated feel felt a bit too much like a filter. Enemies were not really epic or special imo except for the Butcher and the Dark Lord. Ran through it on normal mode in about 1,5 hours. What I didn't know is that you earn a pet when you start with a fresh character, so I now have my mini-butcher which is really convenient as it picks up the fallen gold. And I like the meat he wields. I was about to skip this on console, but I also want my mini-butcher on that system. It carries over to other chars so once gotten it can be used everywhere which is kinda neat. So doing a run on console shortly. Probably some wizard as it really is the easiest class imo.

There's another mini-pet too!

You can get a mini cow pet!

edit: Swapped out to use my own image (with the awesome butcher pet)

That's awesome! Your character's armor is fantastic!

Is it bad that I've never played Diablo III? Or 1 or 2... lol.

@jwcooley - Not my screenshot, I just googled up the cow pet so I could show it. Granted, my crusader does look pretty epic.

edit: I swapped in my own screenshot above.

@Drymonema - Yes, yes it is. :P

@dhobo Haha alright, I'd better pick them up one of these days and play catch up.

Yeah, I'd call that pretty bad

The cow level is pretty easy, you only need 1.000.000 gold coins, a fungus and a bit of walking