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Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

graybeardgames.com

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Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A game without actually fighting Diablo, that looks like an endless zone grind, based on what I saw on multiple Twitch streams. No thanks.

It's literally an endless grind because enemies scale with you as you level up, so all mobs feel the same and there's no sense of progression.

idk, i feel like items are how you progress - My character at 48 with upgraded legendaries is a badass compared to 28.

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#82
post #17
post #2

As a software engineer, I wonder how accurate they stuck to their said schedule at the last page.

The schedule looks very waterfall to me. I wonder if games are developed more iteratively/agile these days.

Game development once you have the core technology in place is mostly iterative with content and play testing .. but requires a lot of waterfall foundational work - production design, sound , engine , core gameplay and graphical design ideas aren't really something that evolves from requirements discovered from a customer or PM that come at you gradually.

It's more like lean product development of a car or other product: you have design targets and may do concurrent engineering / spikes to explore the design space iteratively, but eventually you converge on what will be achievable (or you get stuck in game development hell), which point its a matter of bug fix triage and endless tweaks from game testing feedback. It's iterative but not what one would call "agile"

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get through the story in a few days maybe a week or so, then you have the rest of the end game. Compare it to Path of Exile and the difference is night and day

What about compared to PoE in the first week it came out? D4 will get better as they iterate on it based on gameplay and feedback just like they did with D3 and D2.

I really hope you are right, because I love Diablo and Diablo 2. I spent so many hours in D2.

Let’s see what happens I suppose

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A game without actually fighting Diablo, that looks like an endless zone grind, based on what I saw on multiple Twitch streams. No thanks.

It's literally an endless grind because enemies scale with you as you level up, so all mobs feel the same and there's no sense of progression.

This, part of building your character is the power fantasy you get when you go to weaker zones and absolutely obliterate everything.

With the current system, you actually end up getting weaker as you level up

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#86
post #80
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no clue why, but the Diablo style dungeon-crawler ARPGs are literally the only subgenre of game that I have not found a single game from which I like. I keep trying examples because it's such a strange (and popular) hole in my tastes. Games I've tried: - Diablo - Diablo II - Nox - Dungeon Siege - Divinity - A few others I'm probably forgetting.

Same here, after a bit of thought I think it is because I bounce hard off the control scheme. the controls are for a rts, which would be fine if I was controlling a bunch of units but I am not. I am controlling only one unit. I keep concentrating on how much the controls suck and how much fun it would be as a run and gun(or twin stick shooter if you prefer that terminology).

I suspect if you don't approach games from the 'I must be immersed' angle you'll enjoy it much better. Games are much more than that.

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there's a massive trickle-down in terms of what very small teams are able to accomplish now by leveraging modern tools, engines, and art pipelines. It astonishes me to this day that Hollow Knight was basically developed by three people, including all the writing, art, design, and programming— there's definitely more content in that game than what passed for triple-A in the PSX era, maybe even PS2.

It's easy to say "oh this modern indie game was made by only X people!" forgetting that the [open source] stack it was developed on has hundreds if not thousands of contributors. So no, Hollow Knight wasn't developed by three people "including all the programming ". It uses Unity. Unity is worth billions and employs thousands of people, many of them certainly programmers. I agree though that very few people are neede…

Well if you see it that way, the original diablo was also written by the hundreds of people that wrote windows, the GPU drivers etc etc.

Almost no software is written in a vacuum, but it doesn't really make sense to always include all preexisting dependencies in work estimates.

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#89
post #15

It was a different time: “Condor plans to spend one year in the development of Diablo. Personnel will consist of: one designer, one chief programmer, 2 junior programmer, 2 art director/artists, 1 illustrator/sculptor, 3 pixel artists, and 1 sound FX person” So, 11 people for a year for Diablo. Meanwhile Diablo 4 took 300+ people 6+ years. So over 150x the cost, not accounting for the fact that game developers are pa…

Definitely. This complexity creep is very visible with certain franchises which churned out a new game steadily every 3-4 years but not a peep for 10+ years now. (Elder Scrolls, Grand Theft Auto etc)

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#90
post #54
post #7

My favourite story of Diablo's development (as relayed by David Brevik in the Diablo Postmortem - see below) is the part where Diablo was made real-time. He passionately championed that it should be more like Rogue or Moria purely turn-based and permadeath. That was until he implemented real-time movement in an afternoon and attacked a skeleton. This was a directive from Blizzard, and it effectively created the ARPG…

Nitpick: ARPG games are much older than Diablo[1], though Diablo might be considered pioneering a special type of ARPG. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_role-playing_game#Histo...

I think it is pretty fair to say that Diablo 1 did effectively create the genre as far as the history of gaming is concerned. The commercial and mainstream impact of that game vs anything prior to that is on a different magnitude.

A similar comparison is saying that Apple didn't invent touchscreen phones - sure, but the iPhone had such an overwhelming impact that it shook up the entire industry. Relevant phone comparison image: https://www.cultofmac.com/145083/what-phones-looked-like-bef...

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