It's so nice for me to read this and be able to relate. I probably wouldn't be working as a software developer today if I hadn't spent those countless hours as a kid hacking the game, setting up (d2jsp) bots, fiddling to run multiple instances on the same computer, scripting together bot detection evasion patterns etc etc.

Recently installed it again during lockdown after not playing for a good 10 years. Still has some 20k+ people online at times. Really solid game.