• Adds support for Battle.net gateways.
• Changes default Battle.net font so that it is easier to distinguish certain characters while in chat.
• Adds command completion to Battle.net chat. It can be accessed by pressing the "tab" key.
• Fixes some minor battle.net issues.
• Displays cancel dialog in situations when server is busy.
• [PC Only]. Multiplayer character files are now located in the Diablo directory. These files are visible, more descriptively named, and may be moved from one computer to another.
• Color cycling On/Off now appears in options menu. This will help some low end systems and systems with troublesome drivers.
• Spawn is now updated.
• [Mac Only] Improved Mac vs. PC multiplayer, modem, and direct connect.
• [Mac Only] Added Input Sprocket/multibutton mouse support.
• [Mac Only] Added option to share processor time.
• [PC Only]. The registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER is used rather than HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.

But that's nothing compared to the massive ramifications this patch has on the Diablo mod scene - ALL mods are not playable over Battle.Net at this time!  Mod players everywhere are dismayed by this development.  Mods are still playable Single Player, but B.net play won't be workable until the mods are patched for the latest changes.  Says Varaya, co-author of the V&K and Middle Earth mods, in the Lounge forum:

We had this situation once when we had that mod for Diablo 1.04. Blizzard then put out the 1.05 patch (IIRC), but soon said they would create an 1.07 patch. Since even that early mod was quite a ton of work to carry over to a new version (and that was WITHOUT lots of code changes), we waited for the 1.07 patch and then sat down for several days to carry the mod over to 1.07. That was back when we had 99% only data changes and one or two little tweaks like Big D not ending the game.

Now we have again a new Diablo patch, but this time the mod is HUGE (the ME mod is really, REALLY large), and it contains DOZENS of code changes, from the really, really small ones like F1 to F4 hotkeys right up to things like shrine modifications, changes to speed/haste on different weapon types, changes to the treatment of boss levels, the new stuff like dropped item highlighting and random monsters on lvl 16, etc. etc.

And that only two or three weeks before D2 comes out.

That is quite a kick into the groin area.

I do not know whether Khan and I (or all the other mod creators out there, there are dozens of them) want to go through all of this once again.

Khan, Varaya's counterpart in modmaking, put it shorter and (unfortunately) sweeter on the VK Mods Message Board:

It is a catastrophe.

There is still hope that some programmer-guru will come up with a solution but I don't expect any mod to be playable via Bnet for at least some weeks (with D2's release this is pretty bad).

So it may well be that we are all to play mods only via IPX or Modem for the rest of our lives.

Is this the end of the Diablo mod scene?  Express your feelings on the Diablo Strategy Forum here and here.  It has yet to be seen, but it could be.  Mods are of course still playable over Kali, but Battle.Net is much more popular in comparison.

Also, since Blizzard has now abandoned the longtime storage of multiplayer characters as hidden files which need the correct computer name to be seen, backup utilities and HowGozIt's Backup Guide appear to be useless.  What a bomb for Blizzard to drop; one which may have killed off the popular mod scene today.  More information to come in the next few days on mods and what progress is made towards restoring playability.