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Blizzard has released a very minor patch for the expansion pack Diablo II: Lord of Destruction to solve a very minor problem some are experiencing while playing on Battle.net. What may be more interesting to Blizzard fans is their announcement that sales of LoD have surpassed all previous records, and they have moved more that 1 million copies at retail in just over a month.

The patch, which brings LoD to 1.0.8b, fixes a Mac-specific crash caused by combining Rune words while playing online -- that's all it does. As of the writing of this article most of Battle.nets server problems (especially those with the East Realm) seem to have been solved and the characters "rolled back" successfully.

The news that Blizzard has sold this expansion even faster and in greater initial quantity than the game itself is beyond even their expectations, and it may be a strong indication of the continued growth of the game market in general. Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Blizzard Entertainment® announced today that Diablo® II: Lord of Destruction™ has surpassed 1 million units sold worldwide, according to NPD INTELECT* and key retail accounts from around the world. Over two million units of the game have been shipped to retail to satisfy demand for the fastest selling expansion set in PC game history*.

Following in the tradition of other Blizzard titles, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction becomes not only the sixth Blizzard product to sell 1 million copies, but also to reach #1 in U.S. sales. The expansion, which shipped on June 29, is topping most PC sales charts in North America, Europe and Asia. In its first week alone, the game captured a record 17.7 % percent of total U.S. PC game market share, also according to NPD INTELECT*.

"We are very pleased by the worldwide demand for Diablo II: Lord of Destruction," stated Mike Morhaime, Blizzard Entertainment president and co-founder. "We worked very hard on increasing the gameplay and depth of Diablo II and the expansion's popularity is confirmation that our long hours and hard work have paid off."

"Diablo II: Lord of Destruction has enjoyed a stellar debut at retail," stated Bob McKenzie, Director of Merchandising for Babbages, Software Etc. & GameStop.com. "Sales of the expansion have rivaled those of the Diablo II and based on our experiences with the previous Diablo products, we expect Diablo II: Lord of Destruction to remain a top seller throughout the year," added McKenzie.

Diablo II: LoD Press Release on Sales Record

Diablo II: LoD 1.0.8B Patch (4.3 MB)

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction Support Page

Blizzard Entertainment

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

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