No optical drive on that MacBook Air, eh? No worries, after a little bit of setup, you can still rock some classic Blizzard gaming goodness—no disc necessary.

Few games are updated eight years after their release, but few games are as timeless as Blizzard’s classics. StarCraft, Diablo II, and WarCraft III all run on current Macs, even though all but WarCraft III launched before Mac OS X. You don’t even need to keep a pesky CD in the drive to play, making these low-system-requirement titles great for the drive-free MacBook Air. You can download new copies of the games from www.blizzard.com/store ($14.99 for StarCraft; $19.99 for Diablo II or WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos), or follow these steps to get your original game discs running on a current system--even when you don’t have the discs around.

Difficulty: Easy

What You Need:
>> Original CDs for StarCraft ($9.99 on Amazon), Diablo II ($17.99), or WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos ($20.99)
>> Internet connection

1. Download the Installer

Diablo II and StarCraft need a Mac OS X installer to extract the files from their discs. Visit www.blizzard.com/us/patches/ and click one of those two games. Download the Mac OS X installer (for the original game) on the following page.

Step 1: You can't install Diablo II on your modern Mac without grabbing the Mac OS X-compatible installer first. (Click to embiggen.)

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2. Install the Game

Run the installer you downloaded, or open the original, Mac OS X–native installer for WarCraft III. Have the original discs handy, and insert them when needed. If you’re on a MacBook Air, connect to a USB or networked drive.

Step 2: Diablo II, locked and loaded.

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3. Download the Patch

You’ve installed a classic game, but don’t bother trying to run it yet, since it’s exceptionally out of date. Visit the game’s page again at www.blizzard.com/us/patches/ to download the latest Mac OS X patch. Choose the full patch option, and be sure that the update says it’ll work on all versions and not just the most recent release.

Step 3: Click the link for Diablo II and grab the Mac OS X patch. (Click to embiggen!)

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4. Patch the Game

Run the update patch to make the game compatible with current Mac hardware and software. In addition to bug fixes, your game won’t check for the disc before launching, making these games great for portable players.

Step 4: Here’s the Diablo II patch in our Finder. After running this, we won’t need the disc to run the game.

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5. Copy Final Files

For StarCraft and Diablo II, you’ll need to save certain files off of the original discs before putting them in storage. With Diablo II, copy the D2MUSIC.MPQ or Diablo II Music file into your Diablo II folder on your hard drive. If yours has the former name, rename the file as “Diablo II Music”. In StarCraft, copy the StarCraft Archive from the CD into your StarCraft folder.

Step 5: Copy this Diablo II Music file from the game disc to Applications/Diablo II.

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Next: Playing these Blizzard games if you don't even have the discs available for the setup above. Plus, running non-Blizzard games without the game discs—sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't...