I know I'm not the only one that's playing some D2X to relive the old days before D3 arrives, and I can definitely say that 7L is much more fun than regular D2X. I can't remember what version it was when I stopped playing, but I can certainly say that there've been some changes and additions (new monster types; I definitely know BG2-derived dragons and djinni weren't in at the time) and it's overall a very different experience. Since it's reasonable to assume there will be more people new to 7L or coming back to 7L, and there doesn't appear to be much in the way of readily available information about it (excepting Icewraith's little minisite, which appears to be from v1.22), there should be a post people can look for in order to get some basic information so they know what they're in for
InstallationFirst, you'll need to update Diablo II: Lord of Destruction to (URL coming later) v1.12, the most recent version. You can either get this from the earlier link, or just simply connect to Battle.net. Next, you'll want to grab
SevenLances v1.26b, which is an installer. It'll automatically find your installation of D2X and install itself. After that, grab the
SevenLances v1.27 "patch" and unzip it using an archive-extraction tool (I prefer
WinRAR v3.80) to your Diablo II directory (default path C:\Program Files\Diablo II) and tell it to overwrite everything. This should give you a version of 7L v1.26b that's compatible with v1.12 D2X.
There should be a shortcut to 7L either on your desktop or in your D2X Start menu folder, or both. Just run 7L from the shortcut like you would any other.
Key DifferencesIt won't take long till you notice some very large differences between D2X and 7L. Beyond numerous skill adjustments, monsters are now stronger, tougher, and in many cases faster. You'll probably notice this right away on the zombies; they move faster, hit harder, and have significantly more HP. Monsters also frequently have higher resistances to various kinds of damage, to the point where you'll probably run into single-immune uniques in Act I Normal, and monsters with two or more immunities are quite common in Nightmare and Hell.
How you earn gold early on is also quite a bit different. In D2X, wands, staves, and scepters with multiple skill bonuses were worth huge amounts of gold; it wasn't too hard to find some that reached the 5000g limit for Act I. In addition, most monsters didn't drop crap for gold - champions might drop 250 or so at the high end, with most dropping between 20-50g by the end of the Act. It's different in 7L. While you can still find some high-value caster weapons, they're now likely to be worth a few hundred gold, not a few thousand. To compensate, monsters now drop gold more often, and in larger amounts. You may see champions or uniques dropping upwards of 250g in the Den of Evil alone, and seeing 400-600 from the same by Act's end is pretty common. Gold income in 7L is closer to 60/40 vendored/dropped, while D2X often ends up being something like 95/5
Elemental damage plays a larger role in 7L. Resistances become more important earlier, and by Act III Normal, you're going to want to be rocking at least 50% Poison, Fire, and Lightning to deal with the powerful attacks you'll be eating (Great Wyverns/Greater Mummies, Efreeti/Flayer Shamans, and Lightning Enchanted uniques, respectively.) Bring Antidote potions. Elemental damage YOU do is also more important, and much easier to attain. For example, by Lv6, my Barbarian was doing 1-93 Lightning with his usual attacks, having picked up a sword and pair of gloves with the stat on them. He's only Lv23 now, but is already doing Fire and Poison, and I've found swords and bows that'll be doing over 200 poison damage when he can use em, at Lv30. The resistance cap has also been lowered to 60 base, with the quest from Anya (in Act V) giving you +5 to your max, up to 75 base by the end of Hell difficulty. Moreover, your resistance totals will be lowered (specific numbers to come later) in Nightmare and Hell difficulties, meaning it'll be nearly impossible to reach max resists without different loadouts, even WITH skills like Natural Resistance and Salvation Aura. Expect to truly fear Fire Enchanted enemies, and you may just want to start over if you run into a Multiple Shots+Lightning Enchanted.
This ties in with the next major difference: Inventory and stores. One of the first things you'll notice is that both your inventory and stash are literally twice as big. Beyond convienence, there's a reason for this: because resistances are so much more important, you're probably gonna want to save items with high resistances for later use, because those gloves with IAS and damage won't be much use if you're eating an Inferno with only 10 fire resistance.
Stores also function quite differently. They generally don't sell non-magical socketed items, or non-magical items at all, for that matter. This can make finding socketed items for runewords (for example, that elusive 2-socket hat so you can make your Idea heln real early) a bit of an adventure, and might cause you to hang on to items you may want for later... again, bigger stash/inventory. They also tend to sell USEFUL equipment, rather than forcing you to go butcher your local Fallen camp in the hopes of getting a useful weapon. Because 7L is specifically a D2X mod, item availability is stretched over all five Acts - this means you probably won't see full plate until late Act IV or Act V, and you probably won't see much metal armor at all until Act II. This isn't necessarily a bad thing with the way magic affixes work, though; it's pretty easy to get a skull cap with 60 AC with a little vendor trolling. Just expect some waiting before you get to wear that snazzy full plate armor
HP and MP leech are more important, and much harder to get. They're cut to one half effectiveness in Nightmare (4% becomes 2%), and one third in Hell (4% becomes 1%), rounded down. Because of this, you may not be able to attain enough MP leech to permanently fuel your skills; this is why +x MP after kill and x% damage becomes MP modifiers are in the game. If you can't leech enough, try adding those kinds of modifiers in combined with +MP, +Energy, or +MPregen modifiers.
Important Item InformationIcewraith's item minisite does a pretty good job of explaining things, but there are some key details that're missing, especially regarding cube recipes.
I haven't figured them all out yet, but these're the ones I've gotten so far:
Adding sockets:
A magic item and four normal gems of any type will add a socket to a weapon. Very useful if you've got a great weapon or piece of armor that's lacking something you can fix with a gem, rune, or jewel. You can do the same with rare items and flawless gems (great for adding sockets to something Charsi made for you.) These won't work if they already have socket(s).
Three HP potions and three MP potions of any kind become a single lesser restoration potion. Three lesser restoration potions become a single greater restoration potion. This is also in D2X, but it's more important here; greater restoration potions WILL save your ass here.
Four flawless gems and a magic ethereal item will reroll the item and restore its durability. Use four perfect gems for a rare. Useful if you're particularly attached to an ethereal rare and want to try and get a durability restoration mod on it. Note that it DOES reroll the item's mods.
I'll add to this and try and keep it updated as I continue playing some 7L. All bets are off when D3 arrives
