'Is Alive' is a modification for Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction. There are new recipes, new monsters, new monster abilities, new locations, new quests, end-game dungeon and the most important - the game is much more difficult. No new character skills, no new acts, no new characters, no new uniques, no new sets, no new runewords. 'Is Alive' isn't a total conversion mod, and it never will be. The mod can be downloaded as D2SE modplugin. Extract the file and the folder 'IsAlive' just copy into 'MODS' folder in your Diablo 2 folder :) Enjoy ;)
I understand some people want a challenge, but I found that this mod was too difficult to be enjoyable. The regular monsters are fine, but the bosses are extremely hard and don't feel balanced from my standpoint. I don't really see the point in making every single zone difficult. Sure, you can grind anywhere, but if a boss you can't kill just follows you around everywhere it definitely takes away from the game. Cool concept, but I think that's all it really is.
This mod could be good for a few people who really want to experience something unnecessarily difficult/inconvenient. Overall, I don't think this mod is suitable for the vast majority of people.
Good mod.
The mod I was looking for. It changes litle but adds a ton. Great work ZOMB_
Honestly, a very good challenge with a lot of new monster variety. Only problem here is that the stamina seems to be bugged to where it wont go past lets say if I have 97 total stamina, it wont go past 96.
Author of isALive hates melee characters, so if you play Barbarian, you will feel pain, like I did at first ;_;
This mod begins pretty sweet - Den of Evil is pretty challenging, but still fair.
However, when you go into any other cave of Act 1 you will be swarmed by new mobs, which have insane stats and special effects - resistance auras, cold on hit, you know the drill. It seems that Zomb just put anything he could think of just to ramp up the difficulty. This causes gameplay to be frustrating, especially if you would like to go a bit faster. A horde of absurdly durable monsters with high resists and health regen, which move faster than TGV and kill you in a few hits? This is a staple in Diablo 2 isAlive.
Also: Andariel(Blood Raven too) teleports you on hit. Why would anyone do that?
Although it gets slightly better, if you somehow manage to slay Act 1 Boss(protip: trap assassin always works). In the later acts, Zomb is a bit more sensible with making humiliatingly dangerous monsters, so I give it a 3/10 instead of 1/10.
I could only recommend this modification for those who love ridiculous amount of grinding and cheap tricks that will kill your character again and again.
The modder specifically explained that he wants you to spend hours playing the game in the opposite way of what you prefer.
1/10 It's trash.
This mod makes D2 much more difficult but it changes only little aspects of the game and adds some nice features. So it's like the vanilla game with more skill needed to play (more kiting and run away). The new added crafting system and new runewords seems pretty nice and interesting, though :)
But there is maybe 1 big disadvantage atm, it's not that balanced but this mod is really new so I think this think will be fixed in the near future :)
So if I were you, I would take a look at this mod, it has much potential.
[Plz excuse my not perfect english =)]
Makes the game alot harder which is both good and bad. Good as in there are new unique and magic monsters with e.g. aura's which are a challenge. Bad as in some bosses like Blood Raven are quite annoying to fight against cause they teleport you random away on each hit (annoying for melee builds). Or for example killing a boss/unique monsters kills you instantly (on normal) when you are near it (the Count, deals >200 damage when you are near her and kill her on normal difficulty! == instant death).
The other major feature is an expanded crafting system which allows e.g. crafting rare weapons/armors through crafting points you can collect from monsters. But the crafting points can also be used to do optional quests which involve finding ingredients to complete them (which are found on the unique/strong monsters). Good system but finding ingredients require alot grinding cause their drop chance is very small. If you love grinding, you will love the optional quests. If you don't love grinding, luckily you can still use the crafting points for the before mentioned crafting of e.g. rare weapons/armors, which requires less grinding and also rewards nicely. Finally about the crafting system, there are new gemwords which make gems finally usefull and are a nice touch.
Besides that it fixes some skill bugs and some good skill balances which is good. There is also a shared stash now through plug-y which is always welcome and really fun.
This seems to run on an other patch (1.10?), no respec, hirelings don't matching your character level when you hire them etc.
Overal great mod that adds more challenge, expands the crafting system and has some annoyances but it gets better and better.
The absolute best thing about this mod is that it does a great job of being subtle. A lot of mods are complete overhauls that don't feel like diablo 2 anymore. This mod manages to capture the difficulty and feeling of both diablo 1 and 2, forcing you to do more than point and click. Learning how to adjust your tactics on the fly or prepare for certain the overall themes of the different acts can make areas easier or neigh impossible to proceed. New players will struggle at best and veterans will find new ways to appreciate the game.