What is a Diablo II Realm?
A Realm is a cluster of computers all interconnected that is hosted by Blizzard Entertainment and maintained by the Battle.net Team. There are different types of computers, typically called servers, connected to each Diablo II Realm. When capacity is increased on a Realm, often additional game servers are added.

Why have you added only one new Realm (Server) since release?
We have added one additional realm to our Asia gateway, and we just added another on June 20, 2001. Also, we have added many new servers to all Diablo II Realms since its release.

Why can't I connect to the Asia Realms?
You must first select Asia as your Gateway using the main menu Battle.net button in Diablo II. Now create a new Battle.net Account. Asia Battle.net is separate from USWest/USEast/Europe Battle.net gateways which means your US/Europe account does not exist on the Asia Battle.net servers. You may create the same Battle.net account as you use on the other Battle.net if it is not already in use. Once you have created your account you will now be able to create characters on the Asia I, Asia II, or Asia III Realms. To play on USWest, US East or Europe again you must change your Gateway back to those servers.

What is a Realm Character?
Realm Characters are played exclusively on Diablo II Realms over Battle.net and cannot play in Single Player, Open, or TCP/IP games. A Realm is a Diablo II game server hub that is hosted and maintained by Blizzard. While playing on a Realm, your character is secure from many cheats, hacks, or other abuses that could occur in an Open Battle.net or TCP/IP game. Realm Characters are stored on a Diablo II Realm and can be accessed from any computer when you log into Battle.net. There are several Realms on Battle.net, each located in a different part of the world. When creating a Realm Character, choose a Realm whose location is closest to you for the best play experience.

Note: You cannot transfer an existing character from one Realm to another, so you should find out which Realm your friends are playing on before you make the choice.

How many Realms are there?
There are six Diablo II Realms: US West, US East, Europe, Asia, Asia 2, and Asia 3.

Where are the Realms located?
AT&T hosts the US West and US East Realms.
Telia in Sweden hosts the Europe Realm.
Dacom in Korea hosts the Asia Realms.

Will you add more Realms?
We have launched Diablo II with four Realms strategically located to give us the best coverage and service for the most players. We added an additional two Realms after release. While we do not have Realms in every country, we have tried to provide our customers with server hubs colocated with ISPs that are easy to access and possess excellent connections to the Internet. While we will watch the usage of gamers from around the world, we would only add Realms if doing so would provide a better range of service to a greater number of people. Unfortunately, we cannot fund Realms in each country, so we are doing our best to provide hubs in central locations.

Can Realm Characters be saved and backed up?
We have designed the Diablo II servers that run with Battle.net as a redundant system with streaming Character data backup so that we should have an absolute minimum of downtime. If we do need to schedule downtime for a Realm, all character data will be saved at the time that we shut down.

When is my character saved?
Your character is automatically saved every 5 minutes. It is also saved whenever anyone leaves the game, whenever you are disconnected for any reason, and when you exit the game, either through the menu system or by hitting Alt-F4.

Can you transfer a character between Realms?
No, Realm Characters can only be played on the Realm in which they were created.

Can you convert a Realm Character into an Open Character?
No, Realm Characters can only be played on the Realm in which they were created.

How long does a game have to be active on Battle.net before it will stay up without any other players in the game?
If the game has existed for less than 1 minute, it will stay up for 1 minute to make sure players can join the games they create.

If the game has existed between 1 and 5 minutes, it will go away immediately if there is no one in the game.

If the game has existed for over 5 minutes, it will stay up for an additional 5 minutes if there is no one in the game.

How long does a game stay on the game list if it has no players?
A game with no players will never show up on the game list.

What are the rules for naming characters?
When creating a character, be aware that your character's name must be between 2 and 15 Characters. Character names may only have upper and lower case letters (A-Z). In addition, names may have one dash ( - ) or one underscore ( _ ), as long as it is not the first or last character of the name. Finally, Diablo II character names cannot contain any spaces or numbers.

What are the character expiration rules?
Diablo II Battle.net Characters track their own expiration status. For example, the character selection screen will show an expiration period of 10 days for any newly created character. Once you log two hours of in-game time on that character, the expiration indicator will disappear. If you play the character for less than two hours total game time, then you will continue to see an expiration indicator on your character selection screen. Each time you log into that character, the expiration indicator will show 10 days until you accumulate a total of two hours of game time. If the character does not have two hours of game time and is not played for 10 consecutive days, it will expire and we will not be able to restore it.

Once the character has logged two hours of total game time, it is considered an active character. If this active character is not played for three months, it will expire. After one month of inactivity, a new message will appear displaying a 60 day countdown before the character will expire. Once the character is played in a game, the countdown will once again be reset to three months and the expiration message will no longer appear. Be sure to keep your characters active by playing each of them in a game at least once every three months. We are not able to restore expired characters for any reason.

How many characters are allowed per Battle.net account?
You can maintain 8 characters per Realm on your Battle.net account.

How many characters can have the same name on a Realm?
Names of Realm Characters are unique and Realm specific. Once a character name has been taken on a Realm, it cannot be taken by anyone else on that Realm until that character becomes inactive and the name is again made available for use.

How do I transfer a name on a Realm to a new or different character?
You cannot switch names between existing characters. You can, however, delete a character and then quickly create a new one with the same name. Another player will be able to take that name if they happen to be creating a character with that name while the name is "free."

Can you rename your character once he has been named?
No, characters cannot be renamed.

Can you give all of your characters the same name?
No. You can only use the same name once per Realm. You can have different characters with the same name on different Realms, but only if the name is available on each Realm.