Bashiok has finally revealed the reasons Diablo II patch 1.13 was delayed.  Basically, the Diablo II team resources were moved to work on an emergency contingency when the Warcraft III custom map exploit affected players with injected malware.  This is what Karune said on January 5, 2009:

	Blizzard Quote:
	Warcraft III Custom Map Security Warning We have identified an exploit that could allow malicious software to be spread through Warcraft III maps. We have applied a temporary fix to address this issue when playing on Battle.net, and we are working on a patch to permanently address the issue when playing on a LAN or playing single-player custom maps. In the meantime, we recommend that players avoid downloading maps from unofficial sources or websites they do not trust—be aware that corrupted maps may share the same name as other popular maps. If you encounter custom maps that no longer function or other issues related to this fix, please post details below. As a reminder, this is a serious issue we are working on, and we want to make Battle.net the best online service for gaming as possible. Please only post in this thread if you have constructive feedback to add in regards to this Warcraft III exploit.

This was obviously a very critical exploit that needed action.  The Diablo II team really wanted to dispatch patch 1.13 to players back then, but reality-check ... things happen.  The good news is that the patch to fix Warcraft III custom map vulnerabilities is now on PTR. Once that PTR is over, the Diablo II team will be free to resume work on the final steps of Diablo II patch 1.13.  They were almost ready to launch within a two-week window.  That means patch 1.13 will be hitting PTR any time in the next few weeks folks.

We want all our fans and visitors to be alert on the news and to join Diablo II patch 1.13 PTR to submit feedback and bug reports to the developers.

You can read Bashiok’s long story after the break.

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