Diablo II 1.13 patch released

Ten years after release, Blizzard has released a new and very substantial patch for Diablo II.

Version 1.13 fixes a ton of bugs of course, greatly improves balancing, and also introduces some delicious features like respecialization and improved resolution support (widescreen users have reason to rejoice). Lastly (and this is very cool), they've even added a brand new quest.

Note the ladder has been reset and "all previous ladder characters are now normal non-ladder characters." If you want to get in on the new ladder, make a new character and make sure the "Ladder Character" option is ticked. For more info, head here.

See the release notes below (the class-related balancing stuff is at the source), and grab the patch via Battle.net or via Blizzard Support (link below).

A new Mystery has been revealed!

- Adventurers of Sanctuary are hereby warned once again, that a new challenge
awaits you. Within Diablo's Bosses, spanning across the world from the
ancient Monastery Catacombs to the Throne of Destruction, is where you'll
find what you seek...

Major Bugs

- Fixed an item dupe bug.
- Video improvements for Intel Mac machines with OS 10.5 or greater.
- Fixed an issue where some players could kill other players while in town
("TPPK").
- Fixed an issue where some players could disconnect other players when
they had too many active states.
- Fixed two issues where players could stack auras in an unintended way.

Minor Bugs

- Uber Mephisto now checks for both Uber Baal and Uber Diablo to be killed
before spawning summoned minions (Before he would only check for Uber Baal).
- The game will no longer stop and then restart the game music after the
window loses and then regains focus.
- Fixed an issue where the game window would minimize when running in
windowed mode when it lost focus.
- Fixed an issue where the game window wouldn't center properly when it
was created.
- Fangskin should now properly drop loot in Hell difficulty.
- Fixed an issue where auras were not re-applied to your mercenary after
it was resurrected.
- Fixed an issue where if you had two items which provided auras to
a mercenary and you unequipped one, the aura from the remaining
item never became active.
- Fixed an issue where the Paladin class runeword 'Principle' wasn't
having all of its stats applied properly.
- Fixed an issue where the Paladin's Charge ability would become locked
out if Holy Shield faded while charging.
- Fixed an issue where the Barbarian's Leap ability could become locked
out if they were hit when they started to leap.

Specific changes/improvements

- Respecialization is now possible! Completing the 'Den of Evil' quest
will now additionally reward 1 free respec which can be saved. Players
who have already completed this quest should receive 1 free respec in
Hell difficulty.
- Increased the drop rate of high runes.
- Support for blit scaling in windowed mode. The game can now be
maximized to the largest 4:3 resolution supported (hooray widescreen users).
- Some rare drop items now have an orange color. i.e. Runes and items
required for Uber Tristam.
- Modified the gold bank limit to be a flat cap not bound by level.
- Removed the requirements to create a hardcore character.
- Greatly reduced the explosion damage dealt by Fire Enchanted monsters.
- Uber Mephisto and Uber Baal's summoned minions no longer give experience.
- Removed Oblivion Knight's Iron Maiden curse.
- Hellfire Torch Firestorm proc rate has been reduced to 5%.
- Users can now toggle the display of text over the Health and Mana
globes by clicking on the bottom area of each orb.
- When creating a single player game, each difficulty button is now bound
to a unique key: Normal 'R', Nightmare 'N', and Hell 'H'.
- The 'Enter Chat' Button in the battle.net waiting room is now
bound to the 'Enter' key.
- Added the windows system buttons to the game window (MIN, MAX, CLOSE).
- Added new command line parameter '-nofixaspect' which allows users to
not fix the aspect ratio to 4:3 when maximizing in windowed mode.
This lets the game 'stretch' to fill your monitor.
- Added support for '-sndbkg' command line switch. This enables sound
in background.
- Added the following aliases for pre-existing command line options,
'-nosound', '-window', and '-windowed'.