Blizzard has quietly announced that they're removing TCP/IP multiplayer from Diablo 2 Resurrected

Just wanted to give a quick heads-up for people not following the Diablo 2 Resurrected news too closely. In the most recent blog post on their official website Blizzard has quietly announced, buried in the FAQ section, that they're removing the TCP/IP multiplayer feature from both the beta and the final game, despite explicitly stating in the past that it will still be available.

A: TCP/IP support will not be available in the upcoming Beta or the final game. After careful deliberation, we will no longer be supporting this option as we identified potential security risks and are committed to safeguarding the player experience.

TCP/IP multiplayer was a mode in Diablo 2 that allowed people to play online using a peer-to-peer connection instead of the official dedicated servers. Its main function was enabling playing over LAN, but it was also possible to play over the internet using a tool like Hamachi or GameRanger, completely circumventing Battle.net. The downside was that it used your local save files, so you were extremely likely to encounter cheaters when playing with strangers.

Although it's not exactly the end of the world, it's still quite unfortunate. Other than the intended purpose, TCP/IP multiplayer is also the only way to quickly reroll maps without external tools when speedrunning the game on normal difficulty. Also it should be mentioned that only the most popular mods, such as Median XL, Path of Diablo and Project Diablo 2, have their own dedicated servers, so this change makes it impossible to play the less popular mods online with remastered graphics and features.

One other thing to note is that although this mode has become increasingly rare over the years, it's not completely unheard of in this day and age. For example, EA bothered to release a patch to reimplement the LAN mode with proper mod support in the recently released Command & Conquer Remastered Collection. While Blizzard mentions some unspecified "potential security risks", the most likely explanation is that they don't want people to play online using pirated copies of the game, as was possible using the technical alpha client released back in April.

submitted by /u/Crypto2k to r/pcgaming
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