The Sylvan Cliffs

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Welcome to the Sylvan Cliffs. The Sylvan Cliffs is devoted to things pertaining to Diablo and Diablo 2 by Blizzard Entertainment. In particular, this site hosts variants for Diablo, Hellfire, and Diablo 2.

The Variant Archive is a downloadable collection of variants for Diablo 1 and Diablo 2. Due to its large size (1.9 megs) and Geocities' bandwith limits, you may encounter problems downloading it. If this occurs, don't worry - just try again later. Updates to it will be forthcoming in patch form so in the future you will not need to download the entire file again. Updates will be made available when there are more variants to add.

Q: What is a variant?

A Variant Playstyle is a different way of playing. It requires no downloads, just imagination and a want of challenge. Let's use Diablo 1 for an example. A typical warrior might use a King's Sword of Suffix, Saintly or better Full Plate, some sort of shield, Royal Circlet/Unid'd Gotterdamerung, and prefixed Zodiac rings. Furthermore, they could start using these things as soon as they were found. A variant, however, may need to meet special requirements before they can use some of those items, or may not be able to use these items at all! For example, my Hamster variant (D1/D2) for the warrior class must have double the strength requirement listed on an item before he may use it. Hammy needs 180 strength to use full plate. Wow, right? Well, that's just one of the restrictions. ;o]

Not all variants are heavily restricted, and many will eventually use typical items, but until then you will have a good challenge (and a lot of fun :) getting to a point where you can use such an item. And that's basically the goal: to breathe new life into the game. :o]

Finally, I must address the issue of cheating while playing variants. Quite simply: Do NOT cheat when you play Diablo. You gain absolutely nothing from doing so and you only lose out on fun. "But it's fun to cheat and use trainers!" You say? Then go play your cheated characters with your cheater friends, but keep the hell away from non-cheaters and don't you DARE proclaim your character a variant.

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Q: What's there to do around here?

The navigation bar to the right can transport you to different areas of the Sylvan Cliffs. The Variants page hosts a variety of variants, though you can find many, many more if you download the Variant Archive. The Variant Archive contains over 300 variants for Diablo 1 and Diablo 2! It is updated monthly if any new variants are added.

If you're in the mood for some recreational reading, check out the Strategy section, the Polls section, the Interviews section, Stories section, or the Shrine to TFoS. (If you don't know what TFoS is, you'd do well to find out. ;)

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Q: Doesn't this page ever get updates?

The Sylvan Cliffs doesn't have a formal news page. However, updates are always posted on the Sylvan Message Board. It is open to the public and is a great place to ask game-related questions. Off-topic chatter is fine, too.

The other Cliffs forum is the Team Variant Forum. This forum is used for posting recruitment calls in order to assemble a team, and for posting about game times and other team-related topics. It would also help to post on other Diablo forums for initial team assembly.

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Q: I'd like to contact the webmaster of the Sylvan Cliffs. How can I do that?

You can post on the Sylvan Message Board or use the E-mail link. Know, however, that abusive posts will be deleted, and abusive e-mails will be ignored.

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Q: This page isn't very fancy, you know?

It works, and that's good enough for me.

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Q: You have such low standards. How embarrassing is it to run this place?

I'm not going to let you turn this into a Q:nterview, Q:. Now back to the Interview section with you! *cracks whip*