Quote (Belarathon @ 10 Feb 2014 12:08)

I realized my time frames are probably off by a year, since I don't think xpac came out until 2001 lol

Nice timeline mikey!

Quote (Belarathon @ Nov 18 2013 03:11pm)

This is pretty stupid and it was more just for myself, but I got to thinking about when I started LLD and actually how long ago that was.  And how different things were.  So I decided to write down LLD as I remember it through my experiences.  Many of you may remember it differently, but this is just how I encountered it/what I experienced on East.  Anyone else who remembers any of this or has their own stories post up!  And Jim I'd like verification on your membership in Pirate Crew lol.  Bolded dates/important events

2000 - Probably 3/4 of anyone dueling on a low level is still using a unique item setup at this point, some 18s and mid 20's melees but really no serious lld casters.  In level 9 duels if you are up against a TS sin, it's considered GM to run around in circles throwing poison/fire pots at her while she has 3 charges up, so most would release after 2 charges.

2001-2003 - Prime LLD101 days, v1.09 (no synergies, leech worked in pvp) level limits were as follows for what we would consider the "30 bracket" today:
-FoF sin: 20 (FoF was bugged to be uninterruptible and do extra damage in this patch)
-Bowzon: 20 (pierce/leech worked pvp)
-Throw barb: 20 (barbs/sins had mastery glitch in 1.09; 100% crit even with only 1 point in mastery.  There was another damage glitch related to throw directly, I think it took only half the pvp penalty or something.  But even at 20 they were op)
-Jabberzon: 21 (taken down from 27 initially, blocklock was a big issue in 1.09 melee)
-Conc barb: 24 (the c/c build used Blood Cresent unique scimitar, mine was named Fatal-Existence [lol])
-Kicker sin/other melee sin (no fof): 24 (only person I saw with a kicker pre-1.10 was Cepheron from West.)
-Melee pally: 27 (zeal was interruptible back then)
-Maul Druid: 29 (most used 5 spirit wolves, combined with the stun from Maul and the block lock of 1.09, this made them terribly op in melee, and then spirit wolves were banned, bringing them to about even as #1 melee with 24 conc barb.)
-All casters: 30 (only casters around were blizz sorcs, necros, hammerdins, I made a firewaller lol. No synergies for damage melee could leech in combat, plus frw charms dropped as 5% back then.  And a full invent of 15 life/10+ mana sc was unheard of.  Blizz was the only one that had much of a chance at first)

Biggest duped/hacked item problem of this time: A jewel I can't remember the full name of, but they were known as "havocs". Level 26 req, +45 to max, +10% life, +10% mana, xx res all.  Mass duped.

My most memorable LLDs of this time period:
scruffy the level 9 unique item ts sin
xXBelarathonXx the level 14 throw barb
Fatal-Existence the level 24 conc barb
SuperNoobSorc the level 30 firewall/blaze/fb staff sorc


In 2003 came patch 1.10 and the introduction of synergies and so many other things.  The biggest game changer to D2 ever.  In this patch casters reign, and melee are left standing in the corner fake afking until another melee comes in

Ladder 1 of this patch had so many llds there were always multiple full games up.  You could log on and try Low Level Duels, Low lvl duels, Low duels, 9-30 duels, etc etc and you would find many games to choose from. Don't remember many item stores, definitely none with lld stuff, no in-game advertisers only channel ones, unlimited duels almost any time of day/night, was the Glory days.

As for dueling, there was a much wider variety of things to duel with this patch, and the best part was it was all new.  So at least for awhile, you had no idea what you were going up against or how strong it was, and there were no templates or advice other than experience as to how to build your character with this new game-changing patch.

I personally remember being amazed at the damage CS zons could do, the damage Tornado could deal out, and I steadily became obsessed with my necro and making him perfect.

In-game LLD crews started popping up.  I don't remember them all unfortunately.  There was one who tagged all their chars PC (for pirate crew lol! I think Jim and Tric were in it???), they had a decent size like 10 members.  One was FaT, and there was another main one I'm forgetting.  (This may have been on NL after ladder 1 rolled over, having a tough time remembering)

Before ladder ended I was introduced to all of the modern lld builds, and I myself had made:
lvl 9 ts sin /TheGreatEnigma
lvl 27 zealer /LessCryMoreDie
lvl 30 wind druid /name????
lvl 30 100% cb 6 frame smiter /name????
lvl 30 necro /TheScarsOfTime

Ladder one ended in 2004 and I never went back to ladder.  By this time LLD101 was mostly just an info reference site, and d2jsp lld section had taken over as the main place to find duels and trades.

What followed was a great time in lld aswell.  Lots of lld games up on NL, there were lots of team duels, and lots of ladders to reroll and constantly refresh our pool of active duelers.

During this long period of NL dueling I spent a lot of time experimenting with different builds to see what I liked best, wanted to branch off from necro.

I teamed up with a fellow LLDer HFCX and we started sharing accounts and pumping out mass characters to check out.  We basically made every character, discussed builds and tactics and tried to decide what we liked best for our accounts.  Was a gay old time XD.  It was probably the most fun I had in D2.

After testing, we decided we liked ww barb, fb sorc, plague/bowzon, hammerdin and trapper the best.  So we pimped out those 5 chars (I liked fb, plague, barb.  He liked trapper, hdin).  Spirit runeword came out in early 2005 I think, and changed hammerdins and indeed all caster builds forever.  It was a lot of fun but then HFCX eventually quit.  I got more into MLD and Elusive became my new D2 BFF.  By this time builds were established and it was more about perfecting them.

My most memorable LLDs from this time period:
TheScarsOfTime the lvl 30 necro
DizzyDeath the lvl 30 ww barb
Gandhi the lvl 30 fb sorc
Defenestration the lvl 30 light trapper

This glory time of super active lld/mld lasted until probably like 2008.  Although by 2008 it had severely dropped off.  I quit for awhile probably a year +.

Came back sometime in 2009 to semi-active lld but it was a prime time for Mistakes/LLDpk/L i B (if lib was created yet?) rivalry and pride so it was still fun.  Lots of new people to meet since a fairly talent loaded ladder had re-rolled.

LLD was still fairly active, I quit and came back again 2 more times between 2009 and now, and it seems LLD has gradually decayed to a state of chaos, random llders occasionally clumping together to form a tvt.  I guess the game is just too old now lol, but I find it timeless. There is still talent out there and duels to be had, but much like our universe, the LLD universe seems to be heading towards a big freeze.

I'll probably be here until the end , which is pretty sad, but no matter how busy I get I always seem to find time to check jsp or log in for some duels lol.

And that's basically how I remember the last 13 years of LLD playing out lol... I quit off and on a lot but I did my best to keep it all in order lol.  And now off to work if anyone's on in 12.5 hours I'll be iso LLD duels XD

e/ ps a lot of these time frames were rough estimates from the top of my head so I hope they aren't too off lol

Quote (mikeyjd @ Feb 10 2014 12:46pm)

2007: I was a late arrival on the scene. I made my first llder on ladder which was a hdin named Hammured. I remember my first lld game ted's lvl18 ph sin killing my hdin after like 5 minutes and being comepletely raged about it. I knew that there was allot to learn and that I was way behind, so I went into overdrive on every front to make up for lost time.

2008: Later on in this ladder I decided to make Santas-Revenge. I met a couple good duelers (Paul/asshat/kuwait, Andy/yeawhatup/Laine Jen/no jsp/Chya, Curt/Weaj/?, Uno/Skyball/MGL etc..) I had a great time learning from these guys and eventually competing with them. After the reset I decided to take my talents to non-ladder. Coming to non-ladder I met Shane and fell in love with NvN.

2009: It was a year of great competition. Many great duels on ladder and non-ladder alike. Toward the end of this year and into the following year we had many successful tourney's and ladders (Gobb's bvc tourney, 2v2 tourney, various bracket ladders etc..) There was allot of trash talking especially amongst the lvl18 charging elite lol... I found myself in this group with roy, ted, tom among others. Similar things went down in the lvl18 mele bracket as well, but probably not to the same degree. Tvt's were easy to come by just about any time on nonladder and if I or my team did poorly, we go to ladder and take out our frustration there afterwards. It was always nice to be on Jon's team, if you wanted to win. He was the man and could be counted on for 2-3 kills each round whether he was on his bowa or teledudu. After the reset there were quite a few solid players that didn't continue on. I remember 2008-09 as the best players I knew all being around on a consistent basis.

2010: There was a noticeable drop off in overall dueling skill and sheer numbers here. Tvt's were still fairly common, but afk's were seemingly more of an issue. NvN ladder, lvl30 and 18 dueling ladder were some of my favorite times. I quit about this time for a few months. When I came back, bjcummings had deleted one of my favorite chars (lvl30 trapper Malasia), which lead to him being chastised on a pretty consistent basis from this point forward. There was consistently more talk of the good old days, of which I only experienced the tail end of, but still understood all to well. After several months of playing I quit again for a year.

2012: I came back and found that allot of things were pretty much as they were when I had left, albeit a few less players. LLD on ladder had gotten basically totally unplayable for lack of competition, but there was still a diehard population clinging on to what had been. One of the strongest draws for me to LLD had always been item finding/character building. Duped jewels had always been a small issue, but basically still manageable. When item sites began publicly selling custom made items (imports or w/e they are) for fairly modest sums (in comparison to their actual rarity and time it takes to find them), I felt like a large piece of the game that I enjoyed was taken away. I decided that it was my time to walk away for good. I'll always have fond memories of the countless hours that I put into this silly game. The people are, and always were what made it what it was. It was an ideal medium for competition and creativity. It gave those with more skill and time invested the upper hand, but there was always the just the right amount of chance and luck involved to keep things unpredictable.

2014: Hai