The One on One series is a collection of comprehensive interviews with people influential in the Diablo I/II community.  This interview's subject is Pedro Faria, aka , author of Jarulf's Guide to Diablo and Hellfire.  Jarulf's Guide is considered the definitive source of all technical information regarding the inner workings of the game.

Greetings, Jarulf. Can you tell us a little about yourself for starters?

Well, my real name is Pedro Faria, I live and was born in Lund, Sweden. I am 31 years old, got my MSc in Chemical Engineering some years ago and am now a PhD student.

When did you first start playing Diablo, and what intrigued you about the game? Tell us about your early days with the game.

Well, I first played the game with a friend some time in May 97, just the day before the 1.04 patch was out. I still remembering the first time I connected to bnet, and was slightly surprised it was so smooth and easy. I had to download the patch though and was surprised that the next day I had to download it again. Turned out they just released the new patch that day.

As it was a friend's game, I could only sneak in games late in evenings. I played both a single player character and a multi player one. As cheating was rampant at this time already (after all, the game had been out for 5 months or so), I tried to find nice friendly people to play with varying success. Usually trying to remember who I had fun playing with and trying to find them next time. Sort of built a small list of people that was fun to play with and that did not cheat.

As I hate not knowing "everything" about games I play, I soon started to read the Diablo Strategy Forum and the alt.games.diablo news group. I also found that I had Desslocks guide printed at home. I had an early version downloaded way before I actually played the game as my friend had told me I should try the game as it was fun. I had downloaded the Guide to check it out, but for some reason I never got to play the game; I think, in my imagination, I pictured another game that I would not like sort of.

I also went to the Open Tech Support (OTS) channel a few times, just to see what it was and quickly realized that lots of people in that channel (at least the ones that used to be there every time) were both fun and civilized (as opposed to what could be found and still can in many channels on bnet) and I soon started to "hang out" in that channel, mostly listening although I was soon both chatting and playing with people there.

To someone who has no memory of Desslocks Guide, could you explain what was in it at the time? Any funny "facts" about the game that you can recall that are now known as quite wrong?

Well, what was in it? I would say the only numerical facts were things that the game actually showed you. For example, resistances and immunities were not present for bosses (unless by trial and error someone had found that a particular boss seemed to be immune to fire). Spells generally had only a small text block describing it generally, and for characters there was an exp table and the starting/max tables. It of course had all the prefixes/suffixes, base items, and uniques, and all the data from them (since the game shows most of it) and very good walkthroughs of the quests. I would basically consider it a very good Guide and it was completely based on playing the game only. And it is still available on the net for example at: http://www.gamespot.com/features/diablo/index.html

As for funny facts, not sure if you refer to Desslock's Guide or in general from that time. From what I recall, Desslock's Guide had no major errors; it contained mostly smaller numerical ones. As for funny things people believed that were later proven wrong, I would say the non implemented Hit Recovery is perhaps the most famous one. People swore it worked and that the game was MUCH easier with a harmony item equipped and they could easily notice a difference in the animation and so on. As we know, it was not until the 1.07 patch that they fixed the bug and actually added code that increased the hit recovery. It just shows how easy it is to believe in something that does not exist.

Another interesting thing was when people, including myself, started to measure the swing speeds. I think Varaya was the first one to do it and found that haste was the same as speed. People claimed that it could not be (some referred to Prima's Guide telling it said more frames was skipped) and that they for sure could see and notice it was faster and they for sure killed monsters more easily with haste than speed. It was also easier to stunlock monsters and so on. When people started to realize that it actually WAS the same, they went on to claim that it "hit" earlier in the animation but as we know, that is also proven false by now. It is still amazing to see what people believe and feel. It also tells you that one should always be skeptical of information. And that includes my Guide too. Although by now most of it has been both verified and shown to be without doubt true by many others, there might still be errors by me or misunderstandings on how things work.

Then we had the famous King's Bows and Godly Full Plates and so on that even Blizzard claimed existed for some time. Here it is also fun to see what people claimed when they were asked where they got the item, such as a godly full plate of whale (since a king's bows can't exist at ALL, it was not an issue, but as we know, a GPOW can exist as a non morphing item although the game will never create one). At first people claimed to have found it in hell (especially on hell difficulty and from bosses). When people seemed to NEVER find godly items or any of a few other prefixes and suffixes either in the game from anywhere except Wirt, it shifted towards being imported from Single player (people played way less single player). Then it shifted towards having been bought from Wirt (and even Griswold at times). When it was clear that Wirt had a price limit, people claimed to have found it in version 1.00 of the game, that supposedly was slightly different in item generation (note, NO ONE claimed to have got it in 1.00, people just used the easiest excuse and when it was proven impossible, shifted to another excuse, the only exception being "given by someone else as a gift and that person assured it was found"). Well, it was again shown that even 1.00 was an impossible source as the item generation had not been changed. At this time there were not really many more explanations for people to claim. Some not knowingly still claimed found it in the dungeon but it was now finally starting to be accepted that it was perhaps not possible to get such an item from the game at ALL.

What's your favorite memory of playing the game?

Ohh, hard to tell. I really do not have that much memories of it as it to me is mostly a way to relax and have some fun to play games. I still remember one of my first times ever in the catacombs. It was on bnet with some people I did not know and can't remember the names of. Soon it was just me and another player left and we played for an hour or so and had a great time. My characters were not really up for the cats at that time, but it was the very first game where I actually played nice good co-op game without cheaters. I think he played a Rogue as one of the memories was me getting nailed in a doorway by the arrows. And every fight was a dance with the death as my character was not really good enough for the cats, but we made it together and I think I only died once except from the arrows in that doorway.

My second memory was probably when I took my warrior, Jarulf, for my first "3rd dot" ever. I was around level 37 (sure, would be quite easy today, but that was my first ever character above level 20 or so, and I had way less experience with the game than I have today), and was hanging out in OTS and had become determined to get a solo 3rd dot. I told some of the other regulars in the channel I was going for it. Most thought I would lose all my items in the attempt and so on. But know I really had to do it so off I went when I got home (I had finally bought the game myself now and could play at my own home). It took some 2 or 3 hours of cautious play. I still remember when I turned the corner and about 10 Steel Lords came running for me; I jumped into "safety" over a wall only to find that they soon walked around it and sort of trapped me but eventually I managed to sort it out and then got my 3rd dot.

Apart from that I really don't have any special memories.

Over the years, many a Diablo fan has watched your guide grow from a small endeavor to the humongous tome of information about everything Diablo. It's even nicknamed "The Diablo Bible" by some. How did it all start?

Well, as I have already said, Desslock's Guide was "the" guide at that time (we are talking 97 here). However, already during the summer, (way before Bostic found out about qlvls) I had realized that people were still asking such "simple" questions as: how are the AC, damage and ToHit shown in the character screen calculated? Well, I thought that it would be dead easy to just take a few characters of various levels and check it out and make a formula. I made such formulas for all characters' damage. I think others also made them, so it was not "me only". I started to put all such things (not that many) into a document and added it as a sort of appendix to Desslock's Guide (it was only for myself though, and I also printed it for a few close friends that played Diablo). I had also found several minor errors in Desslock's Guide. Armour with an AC outside the range given, monsters appearing on some levels not mentioned and so on. Unfortunately, Desslock had at that time already made what was called "the final version" of the Guide. I still entered the corrections to my own printed version of his Guide.

Then came Bostic and the qlvls and much more information. I added in all the corrections to my own copy and made additions.

And you immediately began expanding the Guide for Hellfire information?

In November 97, Hellfire was to hit the market. As it took about two weeks for the game to reach my own local store, I was sort of late starting. I thought that it would be easy to get all the necessary data for all the new monsters (people where still collecting them sort of "as they played", I could simply extract them as I knew how the monster table looked and just had to check the added ones. I also quickly found the command.txt entry, it just sat there staring at me! Although others had also found the multitest, for some reason, no one seemed to have tried the new quests and the Bard (people were perhaps mostly occupied with trying to make Hellfire multi player possible and the "hack" for that already existed since almost the release of Hellfire).

Anyway, I made a list of all the data for the new Hellfire monsters. Desslock had promised an update for his Guide but for various reasons, he never got around to it.

Already before I had sort of thought of making my own Guide. The main reason was that there were quite a lot of new information available to put into a guide that was not covered by existing guides and FAQs. So I started to make my own Guide.

I started out from scratch, recollecting all data. I had already much of it as I had used Desslock's Guide and simply for my own personal use corrected all the errors I found and added new information. But I didn't want to take someone else's work, and I also wanted to go through all data to make sure it was all OK. So as I already needed to go through it all, it was no extra trouble starting over from scratch. I guess I started out sometime in November 97. I must admit that I borrowed some design and general concept from Desslock's Guide, but I really made up the new Guide from scratch. Some things though, like the experience table, starting and max stats for characters and so on, were floating around freely on the 'Net and in forums without seemingly any "author", at least none that I could find, and some such general knowledge was not rechecked although I have for later versions actually rechecked all such things, even starting stats.

Ironbeard had, at the time, just figured out the basic concepts of item pricing, so I contacted him and asked if I could add it to my Guide. I also contacted others like Bostic to add some of his discoveries. With the help of Sourceror and his recursive formulas, I also could add more information about the damage of spells (although as we know, it was only the printed damage; the real one was in many cases somewhat different). I had also asked some people I knew on some forums and from other places if they wanted to have a look at it and give some general comments. As I had already done some experiments at that time with Da O'Toth, it was natural to ask him, among others. He proved to be a great help (and has been so ever since) on various topics regarding the Guide.

I had hoped to be finished after the Christmas holidays, but it took far longer than I had thought and I had less time than I had thought (as opposed to Blizzard, I never told about the work though, so no one could bash on me for delays!). Finally, on the 15th of February 1998, I was finished and announced it. I would say it was somewhat of a success already from the start. Interestingly, Landru never got to flame me for posting my link, not even the first time, although a poor soul who reposted it just a few hours later got jumped by Landru. It was an early build of Landru though, perhaps he actually HAD some intelligence by then. :)

Did you have any hand in the design/creation of Landru?

No, none whatsoever, although I have a version (probably later one) of it somewhere on my hard disk. I actually was one of the people that replied and complained to it about the "spam" of the forum. One should realize that the initial version of Landru posted VERY frequently. It was not uncommon to have say 20+ posts from Landru on a single page of the forum. This was at least what I complained about, so I guess it was as well directed to the bot owner, although I had no idea it was a bot at that time. I guess the creator of Landru must have had a blast at that time. I think it was Da O'Toth who was the first one to reveal it was a bot, at least the first one that made it public, by posting a "bait" for Landru.

What drives your commitment to making the Guide the most complete resource for Diablo?

Almost before the Guide was out, I had already started to work on an update. Firstly, due to errors in it, but also as I had new information. At this time Crystalion popped up and helped out with quite a lot of things. Varaya and Khan were already working with their mods at that time and the amount of mails between Crys, me, and them was simply insane at times, but it was fun.

So, why spend all the time one may ask? Well, at first it was as I said, only for myself. I tend to get stuck in a few games and then play them a lot, turn them inside out and so on. I try to find how it all works (I hate the approach by companies that "you have to find it all out by trial and error, but we will never tell you how it really is, you have to guess forever"). So I collected and figured out a lot just for my own pleasure, think of it as a hobby (yeah, we all have crazy hobbies :), as I then already had much collected, I thought, why not make it available for others. And so it has continued.

Would you say that those were the "glory days" of the Diablo Strategy Forum?

I would say there have been two different periods of "glory days" for the DSF (I was never part of it during the first 6 months or so, so I can't comment on that period). The first started sometime around late Summer of 97. At that time, most of the basics was known. Desslock and other Guides including Primas, covered the simpler things and for many, I guess all that was needed to know, was known. But then people started to look at smaller details. What is really the difference between a sword of haste and swiftness? What about a club? Or an axe? Hence people started to experiment and did tests. Did "deal damage to the attacker" work against players? What was really the correct chance of a critical hit for a warrior? How much resistance did monsters have? And did -damage from attacks apply to magic? And if so before or after resistance (I still remember when I made tests on witches to see what applied and in what order and also how much damage they really did). What items were really possible; did a king's bow really exist although NO ONE had ever seen a bow better than warrior's? And how do you calculate the price of items? This also lead to people starting to look at the game files for information, and Bostic found his occurrence and qlvl information. People started to collect all these new findings and information, and Varaya's site was probably one of the best at the time. It was also the reason why I finally thought that one should really collect it in a more organized form and started to think about making my own Guide.

The second "glory days" period was most likely the Spring of 98 (although they probably merge much into each other). This was when Varaya and Khan were spitting out new versions of their mods, and hence from pure experimentation of altering things like monster stats, gained new insights into how the game worked. At the same time Crystalion started to take a deeper look into the actual code. Although he preferred and loved Hellfire over Diablo, most applied to both games. His amazing finding that "of thieves" also halved all spell damage from monsters is perhaps one of the most surpassingly informative discoveries that has been done. I still remember how we almost daily had new and fresh insights into the game at this time, and I had a hard time just to catch up adding it into the Guide for updates. It was also at this time that item generation was for the first time more or less understood (and one could sort of "prove" that the GPOW was not possible as mentioned above).

What made you feel a need to delve into the code of the game to discover its inner secrets? Was there a specific moment when your shifted your attention from gameplay to game code, or was it a gradual process?

I think it was a natural step to take. It was probably around Fall 97 and Bostic had just posted about his finding of the qlvl of prefixes and the flags telling what prefixes/suffixes could go on what item. At that time, no one knew that you could not get a king's bow or an emerald ring. Actually, at that time, even Blizzard claimed that King's bows and godly plates of the whale were findable and someone at Blizzard Tech Support had actually found a GPOW. We know that he either had played a pre release or "found" it on bnet from someone cheating.

Anyway. I had for quite some time thought that it would be nice to get data like AC and ToHit for monsters. They were sadly lacking from any information about the game, even from Desslock's guide. I thought it would not be too hard to find it, after all, the game already showed the HP so it would just be a matter of finding the HP and search on from that. So I wrote a program that scanned the files for HP values and soon found them. After some checking I had worked out the size of the table, and could with the help of the HP shown and actually looking in Prima's Guide, find things like HP, AC, ToHit, what levels monsters appeared on, damage, and some other things. This was also when I found that Prima's Guide was wrong in many things, although at least it helped me identify what was probably the AC and so on, and also distinguish between monsters with the same HP, as that was the only real and correct data I knew. It was then only a matter of time before I carved out the boss data, prefixes/suffixes, unique and base items. Of course, most of the data was at that time still a mystery, although with some help from others we worked out all the important data.

When did you first start to look at the code yourself?

That was actually much later. I don't know why I had not done it before. Lack of time, or just having enough new information already coming in so that I was simply drowned with work updating the Guide anyway (Crystalion could be VERY exited and at times was a bit too quick; thus, I always had to wait for the next mail to see what his "discovery" had changed to). It was a fun time though and I think Varaya can verify that.

Anyway, during the Summer I got tired of Diablo altogether and decided to part from Diablo completely. I think it lasted for several months; I hardly lurked the forums, played the game or anything like that. It was actually quite a relief. I played some other old games (I tend to stick with games I like for a LONG time which means I really don't need to buy new games too often. :) Went back to one of my all time favorites, Panzer General for example, but generally it was a time away from games and computers and Diablo.

As the Fall came, I started to play again, post, and also update my Guide. However, it has never reached the time or energy I spent previously and it never will. I still hardly play the game, and I tend to post and read the forums and newsgroups in a much less frequent way, that is, I sort of pick my posts better to things that I feel either others can't for example explain or to correct what I feel are obvious errors. I also skip most posts completely, looking more for interesting subjects and/or interesting posters. On the whole, for the last year I actually spent a LOT less time on Diablo in any way. It also shows in that the Guide is updated less frequently. Hmm, I am really drifting away from your question, right?

Not at all.  It's always good to take a break from things, as it keeps it fresh when you come back to it.  So when was your "comeback"?

Well, it was with this "comeback" that I felt that I had pretty much exhausted Diablo in all "normal" ways. There was not much left to do, except starting to look at the code. I caught up sort of where Crystalion and I left off before that Summer. As I did not have much time, it had taken quite a long time to get to various parts (also meaning I tended to forget things I had looked at for along time). I primarily did not do it for the Guide or for the Diablo community or whatever. The main reason was actually that I wanted to do it for my own curiosity and also refresh my assembler knowledge.

Assembler knowledge? Were you heavily into programming?

Once long ago, I owned a Spectrum (yeah, that was LONG ago :), it had one of my all time top 5 favorite games, called Lords of Midnight. I simply loved it (and its follow up) and used to bring out the Spectrum just to play it. I have since found both a Spectrum emulator and the game converted for the PC, so I can now play it without either the Spectrum or an emulator. That was the first game that I actually "took into pieces". It is not uncommon that for games I tend to mess with the save files, at least when I have finished it. For CRPGs like Bards Tale, Ravenloft and so on, one reason was to see all the items I had missed. With Lords of Midnight it was to see how it worked and also to make it harder (after playing it so much I could almost beat it blindfolded). I also had an idea of converting it to PC as I just got my first PC (or my father got one actually, a 286). I never got that far but in the process I learned assembler on the Spectrum and its Z80 processor (is that the name?). It is actually quite similar to today's x86 and Pentium processors, although it was of course only a 8 bit processor.

Later on, I made my first ever major program on the PC, a simple game (the common work, you know, where the worm constantly grow and you have to catch as many "goals" as possible before you collide with yourself). It was again just a simple hobby of my own (and some close friends who got the game), but I really learned to program from it (it was complete with cheat codes, a hidden track, various high scores, a demo, and lots of other things). I was sort of obsessed with optimizing it for size while still keeping it structured (it could of course have been optimized a LOT more, but that would mean I had to design it differently). As such, I rewrote about every single procedure of Turbo Pascal (I used that language for it) in assembler in some way or another (for the TP freaks, basically the CRT unit which was a bloated thing that simply added too much unnecessary crap :) but also such things as direct writing to the screen, my own interrupt handler for key input (to disable things like CTRL-ALT-Delete) and to control the speed of the game (basically reprogram the time interrupt). That meant I had to learn the BIOS and other things about the PC (Brown's Interrupt list anyone?) meaning I got a VERY good understanding on how the PC worked in low level (under DOS, not Windows, this was ages ago :) I also learned the Intel assembler in the process.

So how did you apply this knowledge to dissecting Diablo's innards (Not with a sword, but a keyboard...)?

Well, I thought it would be a good opportunity to refresh my assembler knowledge while learning more about Diablo. So I slowly started off (and still slowly progress). At this time more and more people also started to do mods and even mod makers, and for some reason I sort of turned into almost a mod consultant. Especially for VK - I offered to convert Crys' code changes that had mostly been for Hellfire, while also providing several new things. Never the less it was an entertaining and fun period. I learned a lot from others, both mod makers and people like Stu and Moe and possibly also contributed to them in various ways (this was the time when the so called scanners were starting to appear). Trainers, cheats and that type of thing have never been of any interest to me, meaning I at times found that my interest of the game was somewhat different from others (and probably the other way around, I mean, no maker of, say, a trainer, would be interested in how the barrels pop out items :). I tended to look at things that had anything to do with my Guide (or rather, my Guide reflects things that I was interested in) or in the case of helping mod makers, things they were interested in. I don't think I have ever in any way contributed anything to any trainer or other similar thing, at least not directly or intentionally. It is sort of a two sided thing though, knowing how to change the ToHit of monsters in a mod, can of course also be used to make a cheat that prevents you from being hit by monsters.

Anyway, slowly I have found myself looking at new things, and by now I feel I have basically covered all the things I myself have an interest in. Of course, some of it has never made it into the Guide, as it is not something that has anything to do with the Guide, but at least I would say I have a pretty good grasp of how the game works on about any aspect. And to be honest, it does not take THAT long with the right tool to look at something, and the more you know, the easier and faster you get to know more.

Well, how about this: How much of your guide would you say is gleaned from code reading compared to gameplay observations? Are there any common gameplay observations which are proved wrong readily by code reading?

Well, it would depend on what version you mean and what you mean by "from code". The initial version had a lot of game play experience information. Much of this to a great extent still remains, although I have verified it by code or data. A good example is Ironbeard's and to some extent Bostic's great work on item pricing. Almost everything off it was carved out and found by him. I have later just dumped the values of prefixes/suffixes and items into my Guide directly and also looked through the code calculating it mostly to verify. It is usually a VERY quick thing to verify something if you already know more or less what the result should be, so it really does not take that much time. Of course, at times one misses small details such as the oversight that some prefixes count twice when getting picked (I recently posted about that on the DSF). Such small errors or mistakes are impossible to avoid, but usually they are sooner or later pointed out by others or found myself; by now, most of the information in the Guide is probably very correct and error free, although I am sure there still exist lots of them.

So to summarize, I would say that in the latest version 90-95% is actually directly taken (about all data and formulas are) or have been verified by code.

With your substantial knowledge of the game's design, have you ever considered writing a mod?

Well, once, when I started to think of making a Guide, back in Fall 97, it was about the same time Varaya and Khan started talking about the possibilities of modifying monster stats to make the game harder. I had some thoughts of doing something myself too, but realized I just did not have the time, so I used the little time I had on the Guide instead. Afterwards, I think it was a wise decision, since I would probably not have been able to make as good a mod as some others have turned out.

How long did it take before Blizzard finally linked to your Guide from the www.battle.net website?

Ohh, I think it was sometime in November or December 98.

As time went along, your guide grew in popularity. Now, there isn't a serious player of the game who hasn't heard of Jarulf's Guide to Diablo and Hellfire. Do you have estimates of how many times your guide has been downloaded in its history, as of February 2000?

Well, I have most of the back logs from the web server and made a check up until 31 December 1999. Estimating the same rate for the few periods I lack logs form, I get around 75000 downloads. That would include all versions and all variants (PDF and Word). As people tend to download a new version when it is released, some of those downloads are probably the same person but then, I know it is available from a few other places and that people tend to give it away to friends and so on so there are probably at least that many persons who got it in one version or another.

Will we be seeing you in Diablo II? And, more importantly, the question we'd all like to know the answer to: is there going to be a Jarulf's Guide to Diablo II?

Well, I will probably buy it to test it. Will be as good or long living as the first one, we can only speculate on, but I will probably play it, yes. As for the Guide, no, there will not be a Jarulf's Guide to Diablo II. Of course, one never knows, but for sure it will not be something as large or comprehensive like the first one. And people would probably just be disappointed with it unless it was at least as good and complete as the first one. People tend to demand and expect too much and not always appreciate what others do. Just look at any current forum about Diablo 2. It is insane what people post, demand, and act like they deserve from Blizzard. After all, it is something not even done yet. Here I must say though that I have got a LOT of nice mails and encouraging notes about my Guide from many persons. After all, when you get a mail simply stating "Your Guide Rocks!!!", what can one do? I guess such mails and appreciation of the Guide in other ways on Forums and so on, are really what have kept me still working, updating and correcting the Guide.

After Diablo II's release, do you think there will be anything else to add to your giant compendium? Will the sequel's release hail the final version of The Guide?

Well, I thought the 1.50 version would be the last major one. I then intended to just make small updates like 1.51 and also 1.52. However, now I am working on a bigger update again. It seems there are endless possibilities to add new stuff. Will I continue to do so after Diablo 2? That depends much on the Diablo community. Will it die? Or will it continue to thrive? Who knows. I think I will still spend some time on Diablo in the future. I already have the time reduced to a minimum, and play other games, so I can't see why I should stop just because a follow up comes out? Besides, it still remains to see how great a success Diablo 2 will be. No doubt it will sell a LOT, and I think it will be a very good game, but will it manage to live up to its predecessor? Will it be as long lived and revolutionary as Diablo once was? I am not so sure. Not that many follow ups have managed with it, but Blizzard might manage to pull it off, they apparently managed with Warcraft II. Hopefully they have not complicated the game too much. I think one of the main reasons Diablo was a such a success was that it in the end was quite a simple game, although with endless possibilities for each person that played it. We can only wait and see, but I believe that I will still pay attention to Diablo for as long as others do so too.

Have you ever considered the money you could have made by selling your guide? Your dedication to offering a free resource to all Diablo fans is to be heavily commended.

Well, yeah, the thought has crossed my mind, but really, the whole purpose and the way I have worked with it, have been on a non commercial basis. I would actually "blame" its success on Blizzard. For some reason, and I could partially agree on some of it, Blizzard seems to feel that people should be told as little about the game and how it actually works and sort of "figure it out" by trial and error as one plays the game. Personally I hate that to some extent. Sure it is fine to do it at first, but then, at least I, want to know it all. I think for example that in Diablo 2, you will not even be told the resistances or immunities of most monsters, not even if you kill a million of them. Another good example is the game manual of Diablo. I would say that as much as it is better than many other games' manuals, it still lacks a lot of information. Sure, it explains how the game functions as far as interface and controls very well, and it is great for explaining the story and setting the mood, but for actual information about, say, spells and monsters, it has basically NO information whatsoever and is even plain wrong in the few cases where it tries to explain anything.

And if you look at the official "strategy guide", well, I would call it at best an introduction to strategy for novice players. Anyone spending a week playing the game has far surpassed the Guide strategy-wise. And this is even disregarding the obvious fact that it is completely based on a beta version that apparently did not even have the belt interface. If you turn to actual game statistics, well, sure it has some information, but much is just plain wrong, and some information is not even explained; try figuring out what the various "level" columns mean. Some I have personally still not managed to figure out. Hopefully Blizzard does not do the same mistake again, although it certainly looks so. The publisher of the Official Strategy Guide for Diablo 2 seems to be planning a release at the same time as the game goes gold. As a personal advice, I would tell both Blizzard and the ones they have given the rights for an official Guide to, to wait so that none of the "pre-release" errors appear. And this is not only true for facts like items or spells, but also equally true for strategy. Imagine if they had instead filled the guide with information like I have collected in my Guide. Not necessarily as much, but still. Then I would guess people would actually have recommended the official Guide. Imagine the money they could have made instead of just hoping enough people are foolish enough to buy it just because no one warned them in advance.

I also believe it is ironical that a company that claims to have very high standards for their games and never releases something until it is finished accepts the fact that their official Guides do not meet the very same standards.

Thanks, Jarulf!  Keep up the good work.