Slow and Rhythmic

You could easily romp through Diablo II and slice, shoot and zap your way through the dungeons, faster than a stamina pumped gladiator on roller skates. To complete most of the quests there is no need to explore too deeply or battle with every mob you come across. This certainly holds true for the single player offline game. However, if you intend to battle online, co-operatively, then it is essential for you keep the pace steady and constant. The game mechanics seem to be geared towards like-levelled adventurers, who complete the quests one-by-one, side-by-side. If there is a quest mis-match between players, then the player who has completed more will not be able to take an involved part in the earlier ones. He can accompany the other player and kill the mobs, but none of the story or questing items will be available to him. He will either become bored of treading old quests, or will try and hurry the other players along by killing mobs before them, thus reducing the enjoyment of the other players. Group experience points are also shared out unequally depending upon level, a higher level character will always suck more experience from a battle than the lower ones. So it makes sense to play online, with similarly levelled characters, who have acheived the same level of questing.

In fact, this is what myself and Pinwig are doing. We play Diablo II as a password protected online game logged onto Open Battle.net - we can take our time with each quest, enjoy the delights of scenery and mood, really indulge ourselves in the story line, yet remain at the same level so neither of us become tired or impatient. It does take some discipline, because the Open Battle.net game allows you to play that character online AND offline. We must abstain from offline play to retain our similar status. Another benefit is that the quests seem to take around 2 to 3 hours to complete. Bitesize time chunks that fit into our hectic real-life schedules. So we'll still be plodding through the original Diablo II, when the new expansion is released. At least this assures the games longevity and adds to our online gaming. Us old timers like it slow and rhythmic.