Disclaimer: Still under work, much homework to do
Also, this is not an Official Diablo FAQ, but we're trying to make it as accurate and informative as possible
This FAQ is located on The Other Diablo Page
What determines the potency/effectiveness of the spells on Staves?
As far as we can tell (which might not say much) it seems that the level of your character affects the strength of the spell as well as the duration (when applicable) See, our dear character "tester" and "keda" kindly volunteered, and as level one punks, casted guardian with a staff just oh-so-well. The spell lasted a grand total of one shot (about half a second) before poofing off into the abyss. As Keda went up levels, the spell lasted just a wee bit longer. And longer. At level 9, it lasted for a whooping 6 shots. (yeah!) It is also speculated that your character class has an effect on the spell as well. As you go up levels, the damage of the spell increases too.
When an enemy drops an item after you kill it, how does the game decide what item to drop?
The base item such as full plate that a monster carries is generated when the level is created. I've noticed that in single player, a monster will always drop the same item when you reload the game, leading me to speculate that the monster's treasure is generated at the same time as the level is generated. The level the monster is on plays the most part in determining the base item. Whenever I find magical full plate, it is in hell or the lowest levels of the caves sometimes. There might be a 0.1% chance that a monster will have full plate on lvl 14, a 0.3% chance on lvl 15 and a 1% chance on level 16 for instance. You may be able to find full plate higher up, but the chances are reduced the farther you get from the bottom. In nightmare and hell modes, full plate will be found further up, probably the caves or maybe even the catacombs on hell mode. Full plate is quite rare in any case. It's much more likely that you'll find magic chain mail or the like, even in nightmare mode on lvl 16. At those levels of the dungeon, crummy items like rags become much rarer though, thankfully.
The magical adjectives are also generated in a similar fashion based on the difficulty mode and the level you're on. I've never found Godly anything yet. I speculate that you'd probably only be able to find Godly stuff in the lower levels of Nightmare mode (probably still very rare) or in Hell on Hell mode, where there may be a decent chance to find such stuff.
What effect does for example - resist fire - have. Does a 50% resist fire mean you take only 50% of the damage, or does it take 50% of their "to hit" percentage when they use fire etc.?
I haven't figured the resistances fully yet, but I think I have some idea of how they work. For starters, I think that the maximum resistance level is 75%. Once it hits that level, it says max beside the column for resistances. I think resistances are more determined by your level than anything else though, sort of like a hidden stat. I've noticed that if you're 30th level, you will take less damage than if you were 15th level in the same situation with exactly the same resistances. I think the amount of damage you take is dependant on your level compared to the monsters' power or "relative level". I had a person who was 15 or so levels higher than me firebolt me. The amount of resistance I had did not seem to affect the damage, but I did not take full damage from the spell. I'm guessing that since he was so much higher in level than me, my item-granted resistances didn't have much effect, but the fact that I was 20th level did grant me some minor protection. I was taking around 30 damage a hit, and his normal damage range was 36-40 or so.
What are those lighted squares where there shouldn't be any, or where there isn't a light source?
Usually those lighted squares indicate the presence or actions of certain types of monsters. There are two things that would normally cause that to occur. One would be the invible Dark One boss Shadowcrow and his followers. Although you can't see them, they light the square that they are standing in. The other occurance is one that may be found on the level of the dungeon that you are on. Counsellors and other mage types light the square which they are about to teleport to. If there are none of those mage type monsters around at that time, then it may just be a coding problem or residue left over from a mage teleporting to that spot that was not refreshed properly :)
Are there any secret levels in the game?
No. Blizzard has stated that there are no secret levels in the game. There are just a lot of wild, joke rumours floating around about pushing the cows in a particular pattern to open up fantastic levels with new monsters, great treasure etc...
Are there any hidden movies in the game?
Yep, there are supposed to be hidden movie(s) encrypted in the game. You can extract the movies with a program found at a site at http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/labby. From there you can find a link to get a program that lets you view the movie :)
How do you extract pictures from the opening movie clip?
In order to capture screenshots from the introduction you must first extract the smacker movie files from the Diablo CD using Andre Arsenault's diabmov.exe program. Second, you must obtain the actual Smacker program in order to view and edit the movies themselves. Third, you must output the individual frame you want to "capture" to the file format you desire using Smacker's utilities. For instance, the butcher movie is 77 frames long; you can output the entire movie to individual .jpgs .gifs (or any other format that Smacker lets you)... Butcher1.jpg Butcher2.jpg... etc. etc. down to Butcher77.jpg... [Or, if you prefer, you can capture only frames 5-23 by selecting when to begin capturing and when to stop.] Finally, using your graphics browser utility (Thumbs Plus, Photoshop, etc.) select the shots that you liked and delete the rest! Sorry there is no easy way to just hit "Print Screen," but this method does work and is actually pretty cool. The reason for this is because you can see the entire movie -- frame by frame -- and sit back and select the parts you like at your leisure. You don't have to sit there with your finger on the Print Screen button until just the right moment... if you catch my drift! This may seem complicated at first, but it is actually quite easy to do once you have Smacker in front of you.
What are/were seeds?
Seeds were an option that was avalible in the demo, where you pressed "r", and got a number that represented the 'blueprint' to which the dungeon was generated. There was a program that allowed you to enter in your own seeds to try out other people's dungeon blueprints or repeat one of the ones that you liked before. You can't do any of this in the full version, probably since it could take away from the randomness of the game.
How are levels generated?
There seems to be a database of levels containing a list of all the monsters, level layout, treasure and other stuff to be found on the level and treasure to be found on the monsters for that level. The random generator selects one of the "blueprints" to create the level. For the single player game, I noticed that if you reload your game and kill the same particular monster over and over, you will always find the same item off its body.
How do monster hit points change for each mode of the game?
Well, if a monster has 100 hit points in single player (We list hp for single player)
Then Multiplayer normal mode hit points are 2x that or 200 hp.(Sometimes this is listed in brackets on our page beside single player hp)
Nightmare mode is 3x normal mode = 3x200 =600hp (Ignore the hp listed for the monsters is nightmare + hell modes when you kill 30 of them since its off by 100 for nightmare mode and 200 for hell mode)
Hell mode is 4x normal mode = 4x200 =800 hp
Are there any monsters that are immune to everything in the game?
Some monsters in hell on hell difficulty are listed as being immune to fire, lightning, and magic, but that isn't exactly true. Blizzard has noted that there are no monsters that are completely immune to all forms of spellcasting. Those monsters which are listed as being immune to everything can actually be affected by Stone Curse and Apocalypse and perhaps other spells too.
Ulgh, time constraint, can't put some other notes up yet. Will do as soon as Aaron gets off work. The wording of this thing will be fixed too.
How is the xp from monsters calculated? / Why don't I get any xp from monsters sometimes?
Each monster is worth a certain base xp amount and then has a negative xp modifier for each of your characters level. For example (you can find some monster xp stats in our monster section), a Blood Claw has a base of 5425 and a modifier of 187. If you were 20th level when you killed the Blood Claw, you'd get [5425 -(187*20)] xp or 1785 xp. when you reach a certain level (In the case of the Blood Claw ~level 29) you will receive no xp because of the cumulative effects of the negative modifiers. You can't receive below zero xp for any monster however, no matter what level you are.
Do monsters regenerate/regain hit points?
Yup, monsters regain hit points, although the tougher monsters tend to regain them faster than weaker ones. You should try to kill a monster once you've hit it instead of switching monsters to attack before you've killed one of them.
What multiplayer quests are there?
The only multiplayer quests are the Butcher, King Leoric (Skeleton King), Archbishop Lazarus, and Diablo.
What do the dots mean in character boxes in the Battle.net channels?
The dots represent the "soulstones" that you get from Diablo slayings. The first dot means that you've killed Diablo on normal mode, the second means that you've killed Diablo on Nightmare mode (you also get the first dot for doing this if you don't already have it) and the third means that you've killed Diablo on Hell mode (you also get any previous dots you don't have) When you get the maximum of three dots, then your character's box gets outlined in gold as well.
How are magical items generated?
When you find a magical item, it will have either one or two magical item adjectives. There are two main types of adjectives. One type is only found before the base item in the description (ie. "Weird" in Weird Axe) and the other type is only found after the base item (ie. "Zodiac" in Ring of the Zodiac). Sometimes these adjectives are combined as in Weird Axe of the Zodiac. A list of all the before and after adjectives can be accessed from our Adjectives section.
How can you find out someone's ID on Battle.net?
To get the battlenet ID, type /whois {charname} without the braces while on a B.net channel. (ie. If you want to find my ID while I'm on B.net, you'd type /whois Alaric )
It will return a unique number for you or whomever's name you entered. You don't get a unique ID for every char you have, so if you have 2 chars on the same machine, they will have the same ID.
This can be used for several purposes. One theory is that people with extremely high ID numbers (ie 200000+) or so and characters that are like 45th level, it might mean that they have cheated to get their character that high since they wouldn't have been on Battle.net that long. This is by no means a surefire way of determining cheating however. They could have built up their characters outside of Battle.net before joining or have been rabidly playing B.net 24 hrs/day for the last week or so.
Another use of the ID is to tell who a person really is. With all the character editors and multiple characters floating around, it's hard to tell who just Townkilled you. However, with their ID in hand, you can know for sure who to get revenge on or put a bounty on.
P.S. /whereis (charname) also works too
What does Fast Hit Recovery, Fast Block, and Fast Attack do?
Whenever you get hit, your character would normally go through an animation sequence where he/she recoils and is unable to do anything for a short while. If you get hit repeated in succession, you will be powerless to do anything against the monsters. Fast Hit Recovery cuts away a number of frames of animation when you get hit, making recovery from the recoil faster, and enabling you to take action against the monsters quickly. This ability is especially important in Hell multiplayer mode, where monsters attack really fast. In order from least effect to most effect, the three types of fast hit recovery are Balance, Stability, and Harmony.
Fast Block reduces the frames of animation for blocking sequences, enabling you to block quicker as well as recover from blocking quicker. The only type of fast block is Blocking.
Fast Attack also cuts away animation frames from attack sequences. With this ability, you will be able to attack more rapidly. This ability is really good at helping you kill monsters before they can attack you. The fast attack may allow you to keep the enemy monsters recoiling from your attacks without allowing them to respond with their own attacks. In order of least effect to most effect, the four types of fast attack are Readiness, Swiftness, Speed, and Haste. Haste is really, really fast.
Does repairing a magical item before identifying it or selling it increase its value?
Nope, you can sell a badly damaged magical item for the same price as a fully repaired one. If you try to sell it before identifying it, the Blacksmith will only value it as a normal item of the same type. If you feel a magical item might be very good, you should repair it before getting it identified, since it would be a lot cheaper to repair it then.
I have had items disappear when I try to pick them up. Why does this happen, and how can I avoid this problem?
I've noticed that if you try and pick up an item and try to manually place it in an open inventory box during multiplayer, it sometimes disappears if a lag hits at that time. I think this is because the data gets lost somewhere as a result of the lag. To minimize this problem, pick up items with a closed inventory box. This will minimize possible exposure time to a lag.
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Diablo is ?by Blizzard
This FAQ is from The Other Diablo Page
Thanks to Brak! and Pierre Kluchert for their contributions to this FAQ.