The Diablo II Story

 
The twist is that the story is told and experienced from a new hero's perspective. None of the heroes from Diablo returns, and at the start of the game, even Diablo's whereabouts are unknown. 
  The hero from the first game, after containing Diablo's spirit and journeying to the East, succumbed to the more powerful will of the Lord of Terror. Now, Diablo is free from his entrapment below Tristram and has assumed his original appearance, but with much greater power. As the game begins, he is somewhere in the East, raising an army to conquer not just one city, but a whole game world. 
       The action in Diablo II proceeds through four acts, with each act comprising a town and its accompanying dungeons. Each act will also tell a little more about Diablo's origins and plans, which include freeing his brothers, Baal and Mephisto. (Together they form the triumvirate known as the Prime Evils.) As the game's hero, you will have to track Diablo through each act and town and try to prevent him from raising his army. 
      Your hero comes into the game as a powerful adventurer who has heard of the Lord of Terror's renewed rampage. No one from the original Diablo can help you. Since the heroes of the first game were too weak to defeat Diablo completely, the sequel calls for all-new adventurers. 
      As a character from one of five new classes, you start out in the mountains at the Sisters of the Sightless Eye monastery. Diablo fans will recall that the rogue character belonged to the Sisters' order. Blizzard envisions new players beginning the game here, where they'll discover that the monastery has been taken over by a tremendous evil power. The Lesser Evil Andariel, a demon from hell, is hoping to curry favor with Diablo by conscripting the rogues into her evil army. 
      Andariel soon corrupts all the captured rogues, but a small band of survivors forms around the monastery, creating a makeshift camp and Diablo II's first town. You'll need to uncover Andariel's hand in the fall of the monastery and free the Sisters. When you defeat Andariel in the town's final dungeon level, you'll move on to subsequent acts and locales in the East. 
 
 
 

Multiplayer Changes

 
Blizzard says it will increase the maximum number of players, possibly up to eight. Most important, the entire game will be available in multiplayer games. Every quest will be playable in single- and multiplayer modes. Difficulty levels will be taken out of the multiplayer game. Since each successive town gets progressively harder, Blizzard sees no need to add difficulty levels. 

 

Changes to Battle.net

New Battle.net options including increased multiplayer support, an on-line trading postand worldwide rankings. "There will also be numerous new features and options with battle.net that will give greater control and more information to game players. It seems like every day we think of a cool new feature for battle.net, and we can't wait to implement it." David Brevik, Blizzard North President.