Cant create ladder characters

Me and my gf reinstalled diablo 2 today, and we couldnt figure out why we couldnt join each other games. Then I ended up remote connecting into her pc and checked to see what she was doing wrong. So I went to make her a new character and I noticed that she didnt have the option of making a ladder character, which would be the reason she couldnt join my games. We want to play HardCore ladder but she cant make a ladder character and I can't figure out why. She has Diablo 2 and Lords Of destruction installed. Does anyone have any ideas on whats going on or how to fix this.|||I did not know that there was a lords of destruction out, I'll have to check it out. :)|||if you can connect to bnet, you should be able to make ladder or nl chars

with 1.13c you no longer need to beat the game to create hardcore chars|||Thats what Im saying though, we can connect to bnet but it will not allow her to make ladder characters. She can make non ladder and hardcore characters but it doesnt give her the option of making ladder characters.|||Make sure you aren't playing open or single player.|||Yeah I figured it out she was playing open