I started playing D2 around when LOD was released, at the ripe age of about 7. Some of my earliest memories of playing were just joining pub games and asking people for free stuff—specifically “hacked” items. My memory is a bit hazy now, but I distinctly remember items that had what looked like a full screen of crazy affixes on them, way more than anything normal in the game. I also remember characters glowing strange colors like white, gold or even black when wearing some of this stuff.
Looking back, I'm wonder if some - or all - of those items were actually legit items and I just didn't know 90% of the items in the game. Things like runewords were brand new ( to me and the game), and full sets could make characters glow as well, so maybe some of it was just normal gear that seemed insane to a kid me. But I’m pretty sure some truly hacked items were floating around in multiplayer
I also vaguely remember there being some kind of glitch/bug people used to jump all the way to level 99 almost instantly. I don’t really remember how it worked, but i can remember having it down to me. If ladder seasons existed at the time, I’m assuming that kind of stuff probably didn’t happen there, but I wouldnt have know a the differenceat the time
I’m curious if anyone else remembers any specific hacked items from back then, or if some of you ran into the same kinds of things in public games. What kinds of crazy gear were people using back then
it sounds like you are describing open battle net back with jamala's hero editor and hacked duels tbh.