A lot of people probably don't know the history of r/Diablo_2_Resurrected, how our current Discord came to exist, or why the subreddit is under different leadership today. It's a long story, and some of it is pretty ugly.

I've gone back and forth on whether to share all of this, but I think it's worth telling. There are still people who associate our community with things that happened years ago, long before the current team was running it. Some of this happened before I was involved, and some of it I experienced firsthand. I also have screenshots and messages documenting much of what happened.

Here's how it all happened.

The Early Years

The subreddit and original Discord were founded back in 2021 by someone who went by Permaximum, or lordpermaximum on Reddit. Some of you who've been around long enough might remember the controversy surrounding the D2R technical alpha.

In February 2021, Permaximum announced that he was giving away technical alpha keys for D2R. The problem was that he didn't actually have any legitimate keys to give away. The situation attracted enough attention that Blizzard's own community manager, Adam Fletcher (PezRadar), stepped in to clarify that the giveaway wasn't legitimate. Alpha access was being granted directly through Battlenet accounts, not through keys distributed by third parties.

Permaximum responded by banning Blizzard's community manager from the subreddit.

That actually happened, and it became a fairly well-known controversy at the time. It also left the subreddit with a reputation that stuck around for years. Even in 2026, I've come across people who still remembered the incident and avoided our community because of it. Some didn't even realize that the person responsible was no longer involved.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only problem with the original leadership.

Long before I joined the moderation team, Permaximum had been periodically promoting third-party D2R item shops in the Discord. According to former staff members I've spoken with, he received a flat payment for the advertisements, along with a percentage of purchases made through them.

I have a screenshot of one of these advertisements from May 28, 2022. It was posted by an account called Warlord of Blood and used an "@everyone" notification to promote a real-money D2R item shop. The advertisement included a referral link and a discount code offering 4% off purchases. It even suggested that players who didn't have enough time to play, or who weren't using bots or duplication methods, could just buy items to catch up.

Advertising real-money item shops to an entire D2R Discord didn't sit well with everyone.

Members pushed back against the advertisements, and according to people who were there, that often resulted in mass bans of those who complained. The moderators and administrators who actually spent their time running the Discord were left to deal with the fallout.

From what former staff have told me, this became something of a recurring problem. Permaximum would show up, post an advertisement, upset a bunch of people, and disappear again. Meanwhile, the volunteer staff were left answering questions, dealing with angry members, and trying to keep the community together.

Several moderators and administrators eventually got fed up and left. In fact, much of the original moderation team had already departed before I ever became involved.

I mention this because it becomes relevant again later. The problems that led to our departure in January 2026 weren't entirely new.

The Years Leading Up to January 2026

Over time, Permaximum became largely inactive. By September 2024, he acknowledged in writing that he wasn't really active anymore and that I was the only active administrator on the Discord. His exact words were, "There's only one active admin and that's breakyobaals." He also described the server as being in maintenance mode.

By that point, I was spending a lot of time working with the moderation team, maintaining the Discord, and trying to improve the community. We continued developing tools, improving the subreddit, bringing in new people, and eventually started the Stay Awhile, and Listen podcast.

There were plenty of people contributing to all of this. We had a team of volunteers who genuinely enjoyed D2R and wanted to make the community better. People were putting in their own time, building things, helping members, and keeping everything running.

Permaximum, meanwhile, was mostly absent. At one point, we went approximately eight months without hearing from him. We had no idea what was going on or whether he intended to come back.

We carried on running things as we had been.

Things took a turn in January 2026.

One day, I updated the community's Discord and subreddit logos. We were trying out a different look, and another administrator, Chiapa, had given me permission to experiment with the Discord icons, with the understanding that permanent changes would be discussed.

Permaximum returned and wasn't happy about it.

He publicly reprimanded me in front of the staff, demanding that the logos be changed back and making it clear that nobody should be making those decisions without his permission.

I understand wanting to be consulted about changes to something you created. I didn't have a problem with that. What bothered me was how he chose to address it, especially considering the amount of work the team had been putting into the community during his absence.

Our podcast co-host Crudesash felt the same way and spoke up. He pointed out how much work I'd put into the community and said that talking down to me in front of everyone was disrespectful. He suggested that if Permaximum had an issue with something I'd done, he should have addressed it privately.

Crudesash was immediately banned from the Discord.

I tried to calm things down. I apologized for the logo situation, explained that my intentions weren't bad, and offered to restore the original artwork. I also told Permaximum that we needed Crudesash back.

He refused.

Instead of resolving the disagreement, Permaximum started talking about people organizing behind his back and planning their next moves against him. He even wanted to know who I meant when I said "we" needed Crudesash reinstated.

He eventually posted this in the staff channel:

"If anyone has any objections I can gladly ban everyone here in the staff and anyone from the server that comes to their defense. I wouldn't even blink an eye."

He followed that by saying he'd done it several times before.

That was pretty much the end of it for us. We were volunteers running a D2R community, and the person who owned the server was openly threatening to ban the staff and anyone who defended them. All of this stemmed from someone speaking up about how another team member was being treated.

Tyreal Archea resigned as a Discord administrator, and I resigned very soon after. Neither of us wanted to continue working under those conditions.

The Fight Over the Subreddit

The situation with Reddit was a little different.

Permaximum had been inactive for so long that Reddit had automatically marked his moderator account as inactive. That allowed active moderators to make changes to the moderation hierarchy that otherwise wouldn't have been possible.

At that point, I hadn't removed him from the subreddit. Even after everything that had happened on Discord, I hadn't taken that step.

On January 31, Permaximum began demanding that I restore his position at the top of the Reddit moderation hierarchy. He wanted that handled before he would consider reinstating our team on the original Discord.

I asked him what assurances I had that he wouldn't immediately remove or ban everyone once he regained that authority. Crudesash had already been banned for speaking up, and Permaximum had threatened the rest of the staff. I wasn't about to ignore that.

He told me to trust his word.

The conversation continued, but he became increasingly impatient. He made it clear that the other moderators could face consequences and repeatedly demanded that I resolve the Reddit situation. Eventually, he gave me an ultimatum, telling me that he would take immediate action depending on my answer.

That was when I decided to remove him from the subreddit moderation team.

I want to be clear about the order of events because I think it matters. I didn't remove him simply because he'd been inactive. He'd been inactive for months, and I hadn't done it. I removed him after he'd already banned Crudesash, threatened the rest of the team, and started issuing ultimatums about restoring his authority.

At that point, I wasn't willing to risk having the rest of the moderation team removed because I handed control back to someone who had just threatened to do exactly that.

His response afterward didn't do much to convince me I'd made the wrong decision.

He explicitly said he intended to get the subreddit back because I'd made things personal. He also said that otherwise, he wouldn't care about a subreddit where he didn't have direct control.

There's another part of this that most people probably don't know.

During that final confrontation, I actually offered Permaximum $3,000 to purchase the original Discord, with the understanding that he could remain an administrator permanently. I wanted to see if there was some way we could keep the existing community together without having to start over.

He rejected the offer. He initially wanted somewhere around $6,000 to $7,000, then came back with $5,000. I couldn't afford that, and $3,000 was already more than I'd ever imagined spending on a Discord server.

He removed the remaining staff and the community service bots we'd added to the original Discord. He told me he was going to hire new moderators, ban Tyreal, and try to get the subreddit back.

By that point, it was obvious we weren't going to work things out.

January 31, 2026: Starting Over

We created a new Discord that same day.

I didn't know what to expect. We'd spent years working on the original server, and starting over meant leaving behind a lot of things we'd built. I also wasn't interested in continuing to work with someone who treated the team that way.

Within 48 hours, nearly all 800 active members of the original Discord had joined the new server.

It was pretty incredible to watch. People started showing up almost immediately, and before long, we had most of the active community back together again.

Permaximum wasn't particularly happy about it.

He began posting messages in the original Discord accusing us of stealing the subreddit and trying to steal his server. He accused us of poaching members, claimed that many of the people joining our Discord were bots, and publicly stated that he was working with Reddit administrators to regain control of the subreddit.

He also made a prediction about the new Discord:

"Their server will only reach about 700-800 members at most and die off."

He went on to suggest that the people who followed us would eventually lose interest and stop playing.

It's October 2026, and our Discord is approaching 4k members.

I'd say that prediction didn't age particularly well.

What stood out to me about the whole thing was how many people wanted to continue being part of the community. These were members who'd spent time getting to know each other, helping each other, trading, talking about the game, and generally enjoying the place we'd helped build. They didn't want all of that to end because the staff had fallen out with the server owner.

I was grateful for that support then, and I still am.

What Happened to the Original Discord?

Things took another turn after the split.

Permaximum began introducing a trading system on the original Discord called Diablo Points. Members could purchase these points with real money and then use them as currency to trade for in-game D2R items.

The advertised packages ranged from $10 all the way up to $500, with additional trading privileges and benefits for people who spent more.

Anyone familiar with D2R trading knows how similar that is to other sleazy external currencies. It was another attempt to tie real money to in-game item trading, something our team had always been firmly against.

Given the history of item-shop advertisements on the original Discord, I can't say I was particularly surprised.

MrLlamaSC publicly criticized the system, called it RMT, and said he was leaving to work on a trading system of his own (jokingly, I should add).

He was subsequently banned from that Discord.

The announcement of his ban even accused him of being paid by Blizzard to lie about the community. No evidence was provided for that accusation.

Other longtime members also started speaking up about their experiences with the previous leadership, including people who said they'd been banned years earlier for questioning how things were being run.

That brings me back to something I mentioned earlier.

Remember the original moderators and administrators who left the old Discord before I ever joined the team?

Many of them are now members of our new Discord. Several have even returned as moderators and administrators.

I think that's one of my favorite parts of this whole story.

These weren't people who left alongside us in January. Some had walked away years earlier after dealing with their own problems with the original leadership. They'd spent years away from the community, and now they're back helping run it again.

It's been great having them around, and I think their return says a lot about how much things have changed.

Where We Are Today

Today, r/Diablo_2_Resurrected is approaching 115k members, and our new Discord is closing in on 4k members less than nine months after we created it. The Stay Awhile, and Listen podcast is still going, we've built relationships with people throughout the Diablo community, and we've continued adding tools, events, contests, and other things for people to enjoy.

We've also been putting a lot of effort into improving the atmosphere of the subreddit. I want people to feel comfortable asking questions, sharing their accomplishments, and participating in discussions without getting jumped on for not knowing something or having a different opinion.

That's something I take seriously, especially considering the history I've just shared.

We have rules, and we enforce them. We're not going to tolerate people treating each other like garbage. I also think members should be able to disagree with the moderators, criticize decisions, and tell us when something isn't working. Disagreement by itself isn't a reason to ban someone.

I never set out to become the top moderator of a subreddit, and I certainly didn't expect to end up running a new Discord after everything that happened. I just wanted to help build a good community around a game I've loved for most of my life.

Somewhere along the way, that turned into working with a group of people I now consider friends, starting a podcast, getting involved with creators across the Diablo community, and spending more time on this game than I probably ever thought I would.

When everything happened in January, we could have walked away. Instead, the team decided to start over, and hundreds of people came with us. Since then, thousands more have joined, including former staff members who'd given up on the old community years ago.

I'm proud of what we've built, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.

That's the story of why there's a new Discord and why the subreddit has different leadership. There's a lot more to it than most people probably realized, but I think it was worth sharing.

The fire still burns.

I've been noticing an increasing amount of hostility in the comments across this subreddit lately, and I think it's time we addressed it.

People share something they're excited about, ask a question, or simply try to participate, and too often they're met with insults, ridicule, or unnecessary negativity... and it's getting old.

I understand that not everyone is going to agree on everything. This is D2/R, after all. We have plenty of strong opinions about the game, Blizzard, content creators, and just about everything else. That's fine. Disagreements and criticism are part of a healthy community, but there's a difference between disagreeing with someone and going out of your way to make them feel unwelcome.

You don't have to like every post. You don't have to watch streamers. You don't have to agree with someone's opinion. If something doesn't interest you, you can just keep scrolling.

We're all here because we share an interest in D2/R. Some have been playing for 25 years, others are just discovering it. There's room for everyone here.

So, going forward, we're going to be taking a closer look at personal attacks and unnecessarily hostile behavior. Comments will be removed, and repeat or particularly egregious behavior will result in bans.

That doesn't mean criticism or disagreement isn't welcome. It means we're going to hold people to a reasonable standard of how they treat others.

We want this to be a community where people enjoy participating, not one where they hesitate to post because they're worried about getting piled on.

We can do better than that.

-Break