yujintong / charon

an utility for the finer life in Diablo 2

Charon

This is an experiment and utility for Diablo 2. It is intended for single player and TCP/IP game use, so connections to Battle.net are disabled. It's main features include:

Always in Direct 3D Mode with Alt+Enter fullscreen toggle.
Ladder Runewords, Cube Recipes, and Unique Items in Single Player and TCP/IP
Uber Tristram and Diablo Clone in Single Player and TCP/IP
Gently Improved Drop Rates with Respect to Single Player
Gently Improved Rune Drop Rates with Respect to Single Player
Map Reveal (more information now)
Display Monsters, Missiles, and Items (superior and above) on Automap
Updated Item Tooltips and Item Level Display
/players X uncap (16-20 is reasonable, but very difficult)
Experience Bonuses and Scaling
Repeatable Socket, Respec, and Imbue Quests
Repeatable Cow Portal (even if you killed the Cow King)
Disabled Weather and Screen Shaking
Regenerate Single Player Maps (always a new map!)
All Items Drop Pre-Identified
Single Player FPS Uncap (40 FPS is a good spot)
Multiple Simultaneous Windows
Fixed Unique Monster Color Bug
Loading additional mpq via command line parameter: -mpq "filename.mpq"

Almost all features are optional now! Press F11 while Diablo 2 is running to enable/disable these options!

A note about 'Always in Direct 3D Mode': This feature causes the game to ignore command line flags that control the video, such as -w. The game now starts windowed every time, and you can toggle full screen mode on and off by holding Alt and pressing Enter (Alt+Enter). We're currently trying to understand how the game uses the rendering API, and we'll be looking to update the renderer to newer APIs, since the game currently uses DirectDraw v7 and Direct3D v3.

Instructions

• Download Charon.zip from the releases tab.
• Unzip Charon.zip to your Diablo 2 directory (Game.exe should be here).
• Create a shortcut to Game.exe
• Edit the shortcut and add this at the very end of the 'target' line: -loaddll Charon.dll

Now you can run the game using the new shortcut and it will load Charon automatically!

Note: Do not try to run Charon with any other Diablo 2 modifications. It will most likely crash!

Compiling

To use Charon you'll need to compile it with Visual Studio 2019. Once you've compiled Charon you must load Charon.dll into the game using DLL Loader. Loading it with traditional injection techniques may work, but will most likely crash or not function properly, since this is written to operate completely on Diablo 2's main thread for stability.

A lot of hard work is being put in by us at Blizzhackers to bring you this tool with love.

I see him there at the oars of his little boat in the lake, the ferryman of the dead, Charon, with his hand upon the oar and he calls me now. ~Alcestis (from Alcestis by Euripides)