With the release of the expansion, the usage of rose dramatically. There was also expanded ladder support including a " Hardcore" ladder which listed players whose characters would be removed permanently if they died in-game. It also used a different interface than previous games, where previously there were mainly only color differences. Diablo II also had a unique feature that would show the players in the chat room as avatars who looked like their characters did in the game. However, any open games played on were not protected from cheating by other players since they could have modified their characters locally. This allowed players to play characters locally or on a LAN, and then use those same characters on. The game also had an open character feature on which stored the player's character on the client. This also meant that all of the character data for the game was stored on the servers. The game was no longer simulated on each player's computer, but instead was run on Blizzard's server. The main highlight of Diablo II as it relates to was that the game was completely client-server based. Hellfire did not have any kind of multiplayer options, except those added by editing the Command.txt file. However, since there was an option to create private games, many players ended up playing with people whom they knew. While this made the service quick and easy to use, it quickly led to rampant cheating since players using cheats could modify their game data locally. When a player connected to a game, they would be connecting directly to the other players in the game. Besides user account data, no game data was stored on the servers. Players could connect to the service, talk with other gamers and join multiplayer games of Diablo. When the service initially launched with Diablo in December 1996, offered only a few basic services like chatting and game listings.