I don't have an optical drive on my PC, and would like to use the expansion as well.

no. Hellfire is now abandonware. Sierra Online is no longer a publisher, last time they were alive is when Activision bought them. Now Activision is part of Blizzard so basically if this addon can be sold only current Diablo owner can make that choice.
However there's very little hope because Blizzards never liked Hellfire and refused to have anything to do with it because it "breaks lore" or something. Maybe after these 20 years their attitude changed and we can see Hellfire bundled with D1, but I wouldn't count on that much.

no way to buy it digitally. even used copies on ebay are expensive just for jewel case. most of us either have original CD, or made a disc image of the CD and mount it, you can find it online just search.

90% that Hellfire never be available online digitally. I think that (only) 1 store can sell it long ago - TryMedia (trial-shareware installers)

djoxyk
Нет, ну написать что Activision купила Сиерру - это ок, ладно. Но написать что Activision часть Blizzard... :facepalm:

Activision никого не покупала, а сама была куплена Vivendi. И объединена с VU Games (в US это были Universal, Blizzard и Sierra) в Activision Blizzard.

I don't speak Russian, in English please

wikipedia:
"In 2008, Sierra Entertainment's parent company Vivendi Games merged with video game publisher Activision to form the Activision Blizzard holding company. Vivendi Games was absorbed into Activision after the merger and the ownership of Sierra and its properties went to Activision. Later that year, Sierra was closed down for possible future sale. "

"Activision Blizzard currently includes five business units: Activision Publishing, Blizzard Entertainment, King, and Major League Gaming, and Activision Blizzard Studios. The company owns and operates additional studios under an independent studios model under Activision Publishing
Among major intellectual properties produced by Activision-Blizzard includes Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk's, and Spyro/Skylanders through Activision's studios, World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, Hearthstone, and Overwatch through Blizzard Entertainment, and mobile titles including Candy Crush Saga through King.
"

It is not IMPOSSIBLE that this will happen. It's true that the guys who wrote (and thought of as their baby) the original game were very unhappy about their owners allowing a third-party to do what Blizzard North had claimed, in their original pitch, was part and parcel of the game design... expansions. They wanted to be the only ones to do this... but after Diablo, instead of creating the expansions they'd promised their publisher, they decided to create a whole new game (Diablo II). Which, itself, only ever got ONE expansion, though a good one IMHO.

So, the guys who made Diablo were unhappy from the start that someone else got to play in their sandbox. The odd thing is, "Hellfire" is actually an improvement on the base game, and a number of the things that they implemented for Hellfire showed up in Diablo II as well. In fact, they'd created THREE new characters, but were told that they could only use one of them (since two of them were characters that Blizzard either had thought of on their own already, independently, or actively stole from the Hellfire team... accounts differ on which actually happened). But yes, Hellfire had a "Barbarian" character, and they had what was basically an "Amazon" character (a "rogue with magic").

So, we get a new version (separately installed, not a "DLC" on contemporary terms, but requiring the original game CD to play) of Diablo, with several new features (running was added, just for one example), some new loot items, one new character (a hack can give you the other two which were removed, but they (as of now) use the graphics for existint Diablo characters). And it adds several new levels, which are outside of the main "dungeon crawl" and are accessed from the areas around Tristram. It doesn't actualy interfere with the main original Diablo gameplay in any real way, just "tweaks" it a bit in ways that consumers wanted.

So, it's hard for me to understand why David Brevik and his team at Blizzard North were SOOOOO angry about the game. He likes to bring up the "teddy bear quest" but that's another thing that can be restored by "tweak" to the game... and it's actually NICE. A girl in town asks you to rescue someone who sure sounds like her brother. It turns out that one of the monsters stole the girl's teddy bear, and after you slay the monster and his clan, you recover it along with some loot. It was actually a "feel good" moment to return the teddy bear to the little girl... and it didn't clash with the overall feel of the game at all. It simply wasn't as "dark and brooding" as everything else in the Diablo-verse apparently has to be. (Remember, these are the guys who turned your characters from Diablo 1 into enemies you have to kill in Diablo 2... and who turn your armorer in Diablo 1 into a high-level zombie "boss" in Diablo 2. They tend to be VERY, VERY DARK.

Personally, I was fine with Hellfire. My main issue with it was the "Sierra installer" routine, and the fact that it had to be installed to a "Sierra" directory... which was sort of stupid, IMHO.

But as pointed out, above, Blizzard (as it existed then) no longer exists... and Blizzard North is long since gone. Everyone who "hated" Hellfire is gone. And the same "holding company" owns both the remnants of old Blizzard and the remnants of old Sierra... so there's no LEGAL impediment to selling it, and nobody with a vested interest to NOT sell it anymore. The parent company will sell it if they think they can make $$$$ from doing so, in other words.

yeah i quite like Hellfire, the bosses were a let down but the monk is fun to kick demons to death.

yeah sometimes the Hellfire installer does not run, but you can just copy the entire contents of Hellfire CD to a new folder on your hard drive and run the game directly without installing.

but if you are able to install it, the freshly installed Hellfire folder is only 168MB. which you can move elsewhere after.

the Barbarian or Bard are actually among my favorite characters. Yes, they're not "official" within Hellfire, but both are remarkably fun to play.

They use other character's graphics (the Barbarian looks like the Warrior, and the Bard looks like the Rogue). Presumably, had Synergistic not been forced to remove them, there would have been all-new artwork. As it is, you can get them back as playable characters with a simple text-file in your Hellfire directory. (You can also get a pallet variation for the nest, and a couple of different... odd... quests... including a guy dressed up in a cow suit... and you can re-enable multiplayer, though this also requires a different DLL to be installed and present as well)

The Barbarian is basically a "no magic except for armor, etc" character. He has NO mana of his own, and can't regenerate it or gain it through potions. However, he's very strong, and has the greatest life/vitality of any character. Perfect for playing as a brute. Even if he still LOOKS like the warrior.

The Bard looks like the Rogue but is really designed as a weapon-in-each-hand multi-strike character, and is also very high in magic, while not being especially strong or (unlike the rogue) good with bows. She can have a sword in each hand, or a sword and an axe, or an axe and a mace... and can hit three enemies with a single swing, without any bonuses. So she's a blast to play with if you like the "swift and deadly ninja" type of character.

As for the other "fixes," I don't play multiplayer, sooo... that's not a concern to me. The nest pallet change is very slight... a bit more muted, mainly... so is trivial. And I find the "cow suit" quest to be silly, and prefer the farmer (which this replaces) to it... though the "Bovine Armor" you get for completing it is pretty good armor! But having the Bard and Barbarian in the game is just a no-brainer for me.

I just finished a playthrough of Hellfire with the Barbarian class. After all the negatives I've heard about Hellfire, I was very pleasantly surpised. I think it improves the original game quite substantially.

The new classes are actually really neat and well thought out. The Barbarian gets free defensive bonuses and faster attack speed when he uses a two-handed axe or mace. So you don't want a shield with this guy. His axe attacks also hit all 3 spaces in front of him, which makes him unstoppable at close range and surrounded by enemies.

His biggest weakness is his range attacks. This will really bite you in the later stages where you'll get raped by the Succubi and other ranged monsters. It became critical you get your resistances up high (particularly magic and fire). You'll also probably want to find a ring or amulet that increases your magic level artificially (you can't increases it through levels) just so you can learn firebolt or something to attack from ranged. Other than that, I don't know, does anyone have more advice for remedying this weakness? I just wish they had given him some kind of speed boost or leap skill - that would have made him perfect.

The new levels are really cool too. The Hive feels like a mix between Aliens and the Meteorite short in the film, "Creepshow". The music is atmospheric and creepy here. The only thing I hated about this area were the tentacled eye-monsters that shoot magic from range. Ugh...

The Crypt is amazing. Probably the best area in all of Diablo. It uses the Cathedral layout, but really improves the eye-candy. The music is top-notch here too, and some parts remind me of the haunting music of Dark Souls. Both new areas have cool new mini-storylines with a boss at the end. I thought both were done well, but the Crypt's story, in particular, was awesome.

New items are great too. I especially liked the sharpness potions and Stat elixers.

So, yeah, go grab Hellfire and follow the instructions in the stickied thread. Don't listen to the naysayers, this expansion is amazing. :)

Not legally. There are plenty of illegal means of getting a copy... but I would never suggest that.

Realize, Hellfire is not a "DLC" for the main game. It is, in fact, a wholly separate game, which just happens to be built upon the retail Diablo, and which does a CD check for the Diablo CD.

What this means is that the GoG version of Diablo won't help you... AT ALL... in running Hellfire. You need the retail CD of Diablo. There are "no-cd fixes" out there, but they're all 16-bit "cracks" and even if you can find one, it won't run on any modern system (as pretty much everything at present runs 64-bit, and can run 32-bit emulation internally, but NOT 16-bit). The sad thing is, the game doesn't actually NEED the Diablo CD... you can copy the one file it depends on to your local drive, and it'll NEVER access that disk once the game has started!... but the CD-check is hard-coded into the "Hellfire" EXE.

It's my hope that GoG will manage to finagle the rights to sell Hellfire as a separate game... since both the former Sierra and the former Blizzard are both now wholly owned properties of a single entity, which exists ONLY to make $$$$... but it's not possible to get it digitally at present, nor to use it on the digital version of Diablo GoG is now selling.This is my only question re: your post... otherwise, I fully agree.

There are "stat elixirs" in Diablo proper. I'm not aware of these being added to in Hellfire. Are you confused, or am I?

I just played through Diablo 1 a couple of times with a Warrior, and used elixirs of strength and vitality to significantly boost my character. So these are not "new" features in Hellfire... so unless you're talking about something else (which I've forgotten)... I think you might be mistaken.

This is just plain false. I'm running Hellfire off of GOG Diablo just fine. See the stickied thread on how to install, you only need to copy a few files from the Hellfire disk to get it working.

You're probably right. I must have forgotten about that. Last time I beat Vanilla Diablo was 1997. ;)

It is not "just plain false." The game Hellfire uses a separate EXE, as well as a series of new or altered MPQ resource files. And the CD check is hard-coded into the Hellfire EXE.

And the retail Hellfire did, in fact, install as a separate program, not "on top of" the retail Diablo, because installing Hellfire on top of Diablo would over-write key Diablo files and would thus affect "stock" Diablo.

Perhaps you're not wanting to ever be able to play "stock" Diablo? That might work... you'd get Hellfire, and "altered Diablo with elements of hellfire" as well. But you would no longer have "stock" Diablo.

And the CD-check is, as I said, hard-coded into the hellfire EXE. The only way to remove that is to use a "crack" which hex-edits the Hellfire EXE. Perhaps you already have done that, and that's why you're not getting a requirement to insert the retail Diablo CD?

You said, "There are "no-cd fixes" out there, but they're all 16-bit "cracks" and even if you can find one, it won't run on any modern system". As I said, this is just plain false. I'm running the game on 3 desktop computers and my Linux Mint Laptop without any Hellfire CD at all with the GOG Diablo. So don't bullshit with me.

That add-on is free