This is fantastic, thank you, the only mod i knew about that was any quality was TheHell 1 and TheHell 2

https://www.patreon.com/thmod click "show more" in the DOWNLOADS and INFO section

Ah, nice necro boys. This deserves a poem!

Arise long forgotten thread,
lost to the ages,
arise and return,
to the frontmost pages.

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First, lets add some useful info.
Diablo I does not have a CD key. Never had.
Diablo I has a Spawn version. Sometimes also called the Demo version or Shareware version. Diablo Spawn allows you to play as a Warrior, and is limited to Cathedral dungeon levels only, after which the game will tell you to buy the full game.
Diablo I Demo may also refer to a pre-release version of the game, what we commonly call an alpha build or beta version. It is an incomplete version of the game, an unfinished version. Depending on the build it can offer even less content than the Spawn version.

Now to answer the topic's subject:
Diablo I full version is sold here on GOG. It should run on modern systems without issues. It cannot be downloaded for free from the Blizzard's website.
Diablo I Spawn version is available for download from the Blizzard FTP, but not from the Blizzard website.
Diablo I pre-release versions are not available for download from the Blizzard website either.
Finally, Diablo I doesn't exist in Blizzard's Battle net client.

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Now, if you are hunting for other freebies, Blizzard offers/has offered these games for free at some point:

Blackthorne (PC and MAC version)
The Lost Vikings (PC version)
Rock N' Roll Racing (PC version)
Starcraft I (PC version)*
Starcraft II (PC version)*

Blackthorne, Lost Vikings and Rock N' Roll Racing are full game releases of "classics" - games they made before Diablo I. They were available for download from the official website between years 2013-2021, however the download links are currently removed from Blizzard's website. Most likely due to them releasing the "Arcade Collection" which includes remasters of these games.
But you can still download the free originals, if you can find the links :) Try Archive.org or Reddit. Blackthorne comes as a local setup program while the other two come as a .ZIP archive, so the games are DRM-free,

Starcraft I full game was released for free with the Starcraft I Remaster. You can install the original through their Battle net desktop app. The official starcraft website has a download link in the Features section, but it downloads an online installer that also installs their Battle net desktop app, hence Starcraft I is NOT DRM-free.

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty is the base game version (without expansion packs) that is available for free through their Battle net desktop app. Sadly, you're being given an "outdated" version of the game since you'll be missing 2/3 of the campaign, heroes in coop mode, units in multiplayer, etc. Basically all features are limited in some way. The list is too long, so google it if you want to know more. Obviously, Starcraft II is not DRM-free.

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There we go, necro'd thread turned into something useful.

Realpsojed, that was the Post of the Day! Thanks! Also appreciated the info on the other games. Always was curious about Starcraft. Perhaps someday...

Anyways, Thanks!

Für dieses Game ist schon 5.- zuviel, es ist uralt und Blizzard hat die Frechheit, der Super Konzern mit Activision, Milliarden schwer, noch Geld dafür zu verlangen.

Ich hab von damals noch 2 Ausgaben, aber die werden wahrscheinlich nicht mehr laufen, müsste ich mal ausprobieren...

about abandonware: that is not piracy. the original publisher have given the sites permission to share their games. some games like tubes and plague of the moon will never become abandonware, because the publisher does not want then to be.

I believe you're confusing abandonware with games that are released to the public domain.

Abandonware are games that have been abandoned by their publishers, and are definitely illegal here in the US with its strict copyright laws. I cannot speak for Norway, but abandonware is most certainly illegal here. It's just that, since the games have been abandoned, nobody usually pursues legal ramifications towards the people who download the games.

Case in point: Wasteland 1 was on all manner of abandonware websites, but the IP was in fact owned by EA. Brian Fargo bought the IP back for InXile, and now you have Wasteland Remastered as well as Wasteland 2 and 3.

This is a direct illustration of how abandonware is not "legal" in any sense of the word. It's just that EA didn't give a rat's behind about Wasteland, and gladly sold it back to Fargo fairly cheaply after he was prodded by myself and many other fans to do so.

Public domain games, and there's a fair number of them, are completely legal to download and share with any and everyone. They are part of the public domain, and are freely used by anyone in the public. What you describe in your post is a publisher giving a game to the public domain, not giving permission for it to appear on shady websites that frequently have keyloggers attached to them.

For what it's worth, all the articles I've read over the years, about "abandonware" and "public domain", line up exactly to what CymTyr just posted above. There most definitely is a difference between the two.

(Though when it's all said and done, the end result is a game on your hard drive for free. Cheers!)

abandonware is games have been released to the public domain. that is what abandonware means basically.

You might as well be say that vigilantism is a form of law enforcement. That or you go by a very different definition of Abandonware then anyone else.

> Proponents of abandonware preservation argue that it is more ethical to make copies of such software than new software that still sells. Those ignorant of copyright law have incorrectly taken this to mean that abandonware is legal to distribute, although no software written since 1964 is old enough for copyright to have expired in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware#Arguments_for_and_against_distribution

Abandonware is software that has been neglected by the developer, and no official support for it exists. That is different from public domain. Something enters public domain 70 years after the original author died. Diablo is and old game, but it's not that old.

There is nothing to discuss here (since topic creation based on wrong info). Wikipedia article describe all sides.

Not matter here. Diablo is re-released digitally here on GOG. And now it not abandonware in any forms\meaning of term. At same tme it never be available free on Bnet even as key-required installer (like available free StarCraft+BW, Diablo2+LOD, even Warcraft 3 Classic 1.28+ been avialble WITHOUT accounts).

Normal abandonware sites replace links to download to link to GOG. Cause it no more abandonware.

diablo was never abandonware. blizzard still maintains the servers. diablo never had a cd-key. abandonware sites have to ask the publisher before they can upload the games. though some sites skip that stage. they still need to do it for games that they can not find anywhere.

your expertise in abandonware almost seems to match the one with getting hellfire to run...
It was impossible to buy d1 legally anywhere for YEARS and it required various community made wrappers to run fine (ipx wrapper / ddraw.dll etc.)
For me this is the very definition of abandonware.
As for blizzard "maintaining the servers" - it's been said that d1 bnet was literally running on a single PC, so all blizz is probably doing is having some old crappy win98 PC running somewhere till a janitor accidentally turns it off - wow, that's dedication right?

it never needed a wrapper to run. even the disc version of hellfire works perfectly in windows 7 and 10. multiplayer is also possible with serial cable, which i have. though none of my newer pcs have serial ports. windows 7 have a wierd script however that messes up the graphics in older blizzard based engines. they removed that in windows 10 however.

The experience varies - for some people it works just fine (including me) but there are others that simply can't run it without ddraw.dll wrapper because it crashes.