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Diablo devolved – magic behind the 1996 computer game

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Re: Diablo devolved – magic behind the 1996 computer game

#191

Post by terandle »

kevstev wrote: post #168
gwicks56 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had totally forgotten about Descent, thank you for the reminder. That game seriously scared me as a 13 yo boy at the time. I loved it.

The entire genre of flight and space-sims has almost entirely gone away and to me its such a tremendous shame- with today's multi-monitor setups and wide screens they would be such a better experience. X-wing, descent, flight simulator, were all so much fun. I still have my MS sidewinder collecting dust in a closet- which may be part of the problem- these games really needed a decent flight stick to enjoy, and that's…

The descent guys recently did a kickstarter for a new game: Overload. It just came out on Steam. I haven’t checked it out yet to see if it’s any good.

Re: Diablo devolved – magic behind the 1996 computer game

#192

Post by cabaalis »

Exuma wrote: post #9

I remember going on vacation with my parents and all I had was the Diablo game manual, because I got the game 1 hour before we left. I read the manual about 100 times in the car... good memories

That manual and the warcraft/starcraft manuals are responsible for a large part of the person I am. I was 10 at the time, and the universes that Blizzard created got me into gaming, from there into social gaming (m:tg) and then into computers and programming so that I could make my own games.

Re: Diablo devolved – magic behind the 1996 computer game

#193

Post by SiempreViernes »

kirbypineapple wrote: post #16
Exuma wrote: post #9

I remember going on vacation with my parents and all I had was the Diablo game manual, because I got the game 1 hour before we left. I read the manual about 100 times in the car... good memories

For me it was the Starcraft game manual. I took that thing everywhere!

I still have the tech tree from Civ 2 saved in my bookshelf, along with the Caesar III manual...

Re: Diablo devolved – magic behind the 1996 computer game

#194

Post by ben_w »

Zardoz84 wrote: post #186
ben_w wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even Duke Nukem 3D ran full speed on a 100 MHz 486dx4. That could not have all simply been due to a lack of optimization on the Mac side. Curious. I remember playing Marathon 2 on a 75MHz 603e and it seemed fine. What counts as “full speed”? I think Marathon was frame limited to 30 fps or close to that, from experimenting with semi-transparency based on fast-moving platforms…

Doom II on a 386 at 40 MHz was running fine.

That’s irrelevant, isn’t it? I’m gave an example of a game comparable to the one I quoted, which did manage to run fine on Mac hardware of that era, presumably because Bungie was really Mac focused at that time so it was optimised for the hardware properly.

Re: Diablo devolved – magic behind the 1996 computer game

#196

Post by amatecha »

im3w1l wrote: post #107
spapas82 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember trying to play Diablo multiplayer through a 55.6 kbps modem. It was nice for like 5 minutes but then the connection lagged and I couldn't control my character. When the connection quality improved, I saw my character dead with all his (high level and very diffucult to find) gear stolen by other players. I was so frustrated I removed the cdrom from the drive and threw it on the wall; the cd broke and that w…

I played Diablo II on a 55.6 kbps modem. Worked fine.

Yeah, I played on a 28.8 modem. What he's describing is probably the result of someone using a "trainer"/cheat software that would essentially packet-flood the other player(s) so you can kill them and take all their stuff while they cannot respond/escape. Happened all the time once those hacks became prevalent, kinda ruined the [public multiplayer aspect of the] game IMO :(

Re: Diablo devolved – magic behind the 1996 computer game

#197

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

kevstev wrote: post #168
gwicks56 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had totally forgotten about Descent, thank you for the reminder. That game seriously scared me as a 13 yo boy at the time. I loved it.

The entire genre of flight and space-sims has almost entirely gone away and to me its such a tremendous shame- with today's multi-monitor setups and wide screens they would be such a better experience. X-wing, descent, flight simulator, were all so much fun. I still have my MS sidewinder collecting dust in a closet- which may be part of the problem- these games really needed a decent flight stick to enjoy, and that's…

To this day I have to ‘invert’ my y-axis when I play for any sort of 1st person perspective game.

Re: Diablo devolved – magic behind the 1996 computer game

#198

Post by JohnBooty »

raesene9 wrote: post #58
Exuma wrote: post #9

I remember going on vacation with my parents and all I had was the Diablo game manual, because I got the game 1 hour before we left. I read the manual about 100 times in the car... good memories

For me it was the Bard's Tale. A demo of Skara brae and a couple of levels of the first dungeon was put on a magazine cover in the UK months before the game came out. I played that demo to oblivion, I can still pretty much remember all the street layouts

"Name the endless byway"

Re: Diablo devolved – magic behind the 1996 computer game

#199

Post by mihaifm »

vkou wrote: post #134
EpicEng wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Diablo 3 is actually pretty good now if you want a successor. Diablo 3 is in no way a spiritual successor to D1 and 2. Yes, it's much better than it was at release, but it is still very much a streamlined, mass market friendly ARPG. Modern Diablo gameplay consists of leveling (1-2 hours), finishing your season journey (another 2-3 hours, maybe), getting your free super-powerful six piece handed to you, and then grin…

To be fair, the only commonality between Diablo and Diablo 2 was in: 1. The Atmosphere. (Except for most of Act 1, and Acts 2 and 5.) 2. The Name. Diablo was a slow, tile-based click-and-slash dungeon crawler. Diablo 2 was... Something else entirely. Blast/teleport[1] through everything at top speed to farm bosses. Non-linear power curves. Incredibly high emphasis on gear[2]. Far less tactical, and far more forgiving…

Enigma wasn't an abomination by itself, since the runes were incredibly hard to drop. It was the fact that they were easily accessible through trading from people exploiting dupe bugs and botting. These issues aren't fixed to this day in D2.
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