Ah the CD requirement might've been what's been giving the error message then. I guess I should hunt down some older non-CD patch, or just install my CD drive back.. Haven't had it on my PC for years, but I still have my original D2 CD's.

But for most parts, just finding 1.12 install files and then upgrading the game from there has worked flawlessly for PlugY, PoD and multiple vanilla versions with different CD keys.

I'll probably try downgrading again at some point, but don't want to mess up with my currently working system, and if playing version like 1.09 would mean using CD's, well that's again one more step further which will limit the access to many people. And probably requires you to hunt no-CD patch which sometimes have been known to contain keyloggers etc.

I've never had much luck with the downgraded versions of the game, usually just finding older version of the game install files and then upgrading it has been the most fail proof way for me.

Downgrading usually causes mess with the installs and tends to just error out.

I don't think the converting tactic changes insanely much on how the run goes, like Indrek said it needs more testing to figure how much it actually does help you. But stuff like converting characters or even opening game in TCP/IP or Open battle.net to reset maps I think are still features that exist in the game and are available to everyone.

So in my opinion I don't see anything wrong about using them, and if people are worried about druid or assassin not gaining advantage from it, those 2 already are basically the strongest early level classes in-game and don't really care about the converting tactics anyway which I believe is supposed to make the early levels just slightly easier pre-tower.

When it comes to the version of the game, I'd definitely say that the basic speedrunning should only be done on latest versions of the game, I don't think difference between 1.13 and 1.14 are massive when it comes to single player so either of those should do, but I've personally only used 1.14 for my speedrunning unless I wanted to test stuff out on my PlugY version of the game.

But I'd also be at some point interested seeing how much faster some earlier versions could be, but those definitely would be falling under different category because some of the changes drastically change the game and getting access to the earlier versions in the first place is bit trickier than just buying the game from battle.net and starting to run it.

yeah, I tested it out. Pressing up and enter exactly 7 times made it stick and it works through save and exit or even creating new characters.

If you have to restart the game it will be gone so yeah it's doable that way. And makes macros not needed for changing the players.

However I'd still mention one thing in favor of using macros: I have bound a keybinding to them on my broadcasting software to show my viewers what my current number of players is which is part of the macro I've been using previously. And this just like d2 interface is only meant to give more information to the viewers, but if someone could figure how to make program like that to read the current number of players then it wouldn't be needed either.

If you want to imagine how filtered pX would look like.. You can just go click the filter button, select show obsoleted runs and imagine there just being 2 runs per person if they run both categories one on p1 and second on pX. And if you don't want to see them both at the same time you could just hide one of them.

Additional tabs make it so that you actually have to go searching for those runs and that reduces the number of people running the categories. I think that having challenge runs is fine being behind that, because people are going to be actively looking for those kind of runs.

pX however is a category that has potential of being faster than p1 and as a pX runner I hope that more people will be picking up the category. Yes, having multiple things to select from can be "confusing" at first but it works for now. My own suggestion was to just have a filter to hide different categories if you don't want to see them (which could've done from the drop down menu that says filter) and to just have them side by side on same list because even tho the routing can be different between pX and p1, they are still very similar runs in the end and are both basically "any% runs". p8 I think is more of an challenge run because it actually makes the game slower so I think that belongs to it's own category.

However my suggestion right now is to give this style a go. It's literally been there for 4 days so changing anything about it right would be bit pointless before even seeing if people like it or not. If you are looking for softcore p1 runs, literally nothing has changed about it except that the names of the classes have been shortened and that's the default suggestion for new players.

The thing about macros is that doing the run without them is about just as fast as using them.

Since you can press enter and up arrow to scroll through previous messages you only need to type it once and then change the number at the end. Also if someone could figure out why it sometimes sticks through save and exit it would be highly appreciated. Sometimes it doesn't remember your previous message in new game, and sometimes it does and then it stays until you actually restart the game.

An for having the macros publicly available, I've already shared mine on the previous suggestion about pX I made about month ago (they're visible in the locked post at the bottom of the forums if you want to check them out).

But it's kind of an wall of text, so if macros will come available for pX runs then I'll just make a cleaner post for them. On the other news, my first completed pX druid run since leaderboards was 1:55, it's still quite a lot behind my 1:37 (so I'll try to get slightly better run before posting it), but I used macros for that run and small mistake early (that would invalidate it) in the run so I'll just have to get back up to my speed and break my own records again while following whatever rules we decide to go with. :)

I'm also going to assume that using macros is not allowed currently? I'm fine either way, but I have mostly created my pX macros for my viewers to know what my current /players setting is and doing that manually would be bit hard unless diablo interface finds a way to do it.

I'm obviously going to do my first official runs without, but it would be something that I'd like as an possibility (if it was only for changing the players) but it might be getting slightly on the grey area of using external programs even tho pretty much everyone has access to them and I'd be happy to share the ones I've created.

Gosh Arctic, you really are crazy after all. D:

Anyway, all joking aside than you so much for this and all the work that went into it. As a playersX runner of almost 2 years I've been really looking forward to this. <3

And I think that the currently in use one with capitalized 3 letter names works well and looks clear because it fits on single line.

Isn't the whole point of speedrunning to improve your times..? Also I really like how you called pX runs inferior when it actually makes the run more trickier in many aspects but has the potential of being fastest way of running the game.. And p1 run is just basically RNG grind to get as good experience shrine luck as possible, sure it takes tons of skill to grind RNG somehow making it greater run skillwise..

So I've already suggested playersX being included as a category since it's been my main way of running this game for over a year now and it would be great to have more runners in the category, but without leaderboards there doesn't seem to be much interest in it even with p_funkk getting insane sorceress Hell record with it (50 minutes ahead P1 WR).

Last time I asked for it, the answer was that it would create too many categories for it, but suggestion for it would be to just have them together with already existing run categories, but add a new bracket that just says "/players X" No/Yes like for example the way Zelda: BotW does it with DLC: https://www.speedrun.com/botw#Any

This wouldn't add single new category to the already large list, but would just modify the existing ones slightly and is easy to filter out for people only seeking for P1 runs in future.

And on another topic I would recommend allowing simple macros with autohotkey to change the players for 2 reasons: It's more convenient and the way I do it, it also adds indicator to my viewers to see what /players I'm currently on.

Using autohotkey is as simple as downloading the program from https://autohotkey.com/ - then you just run the script you want to use and when you want to close you can right click it from program tray (the up arrow at bottom right corner off windows), I've shared the 3 AHK macros I have created below:

My main macro that uses F1-F8 to switch players and shows indicator to viewers (it presses Numpad keys to clear indicator on number 9 and shows indicator on 1-8, you have to setup these inside OBS): https://drive.google.com/open?id=1p96TgSy0Kx3_xRdmFdVau2tVC_YPP91E

And here's pastebin version of it: https://pastebin.com/LQYmxQw7

If you use Function keys (F-keys) to cast spells, here's version of the macro that uses Numpad keys to change players without indicators: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AUhbmc4DmZSW_jQeMmeqB4sqPJ8IpfP6

Paste bin of it: https://pastebin.com/QULm81rM

And here's version of the macro that uses Function keys to change players without OBS indicators: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1r1qJO7QD_K_wVbPyTRfu80U8haXIxnjS

Paste bin of it: https://pastebin.com/2nbeHijw

If you don't like the idea of using macros to change players, it's not too big of a deal, you can just type /players in game and enter, and when you press "enter and up arrow" it brings the latest message you typed allowing you to quickly change players even without macros, but this is just way more inconvenient in the long run and when it comes to time usage there isn't big of a difference using macros or not, if you can type one handed while moving with mouse. It's just slightly more annoying to do it manually at the beginning of every run.