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Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

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Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#111

Post by vancroft »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #98
ricardobayes wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Said franchises - well, mainly GTA and now D4 - also are a live service though, in that they have recurring income from in-game purchases - in the case of GTA 5, it paid off to spend hundreds of millions on development, given it's earned the company billions ($6bn according to wikipedia).

Elder Scrolls kinda falls under that umbrella, given that Elder Scrolls Online is a subscription-based MMO that I believe is still receiving content updates. Unfortunately that's probably a lot more profitable and safe than developing a new single-player game that has to surpass the bar set by previous games.

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#112

Post by nottorp »

atdrummond wrote: post #102
aidenn0 wrote: 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.

I historically have not been a major fan of ARPGs and share with you the list of games that haven’t moved the needle for me. Path of Exile fundamentally changed my view on the genre and enabled me to retrospectively re-evaluate many of the ARPGs I had played to this point. The granular level of control you have over your playstyle and strategy is incredible; it is insane how rewarding it is to be the first person to…

> cerebral, long term planning

That is, until you reach the end game and you realize how much you have to grind because of their completely random crafting system.

PoE is the game that weaned me off "but the microtransactions are cosmetic". It's simply designed to keep you ingame for so long that you get bored and buy a few hideout skins and character skins.

If you mean the skill tree, most people just follow a guide.

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#113

Post by sbergot »

bexsella wrote: 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…

The whole video is great. The turn based vs real time starts after 23 minutes.

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#114

Post by rozularen »

pyinstallwoes wrote: post #59
cm2012 wrote: post #43

Aside: Diablo 4 is an incredible couch co-op game, the best made in ages. My wife and I are having a blast with it.

Wait is it built in to support co op ?

Yes you can play couch coop in console. It will ask for a separate PSN + Battle.net account for the 2nd player tho

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#115

Post by drexlspivey »

logicchains wrote: post #79
nemo44x wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s what great I think. Levels give you skill and paragon points which eventually makes you stronger so you can go to higher tiers where better gear drops. They give you many ways to customize your gear (affix modifications, aspects, gems) with your build and paragon board. That’s what it’s all about.

> Levels give you skill and paragon points which eventually makes you stronger so you can go to higher tiers where better gear drops Paragon points are only granted around level 50, and skill points stop making much difference around level 20-30 when all the core skills are unlocked. I got so bored of combat I stopped playing at around level 40. Particularly annoying is after getting a few items with good aspects, it…

Can’t you extract the aspect and put it in a better item?

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#116

Post by az226 »

meitros wrote: post #5

An underrated choice of the original diablo is that it would only show you a subset of story quests and boss monsters in a single play-through. A few (like the butcher) would always show up, but for most others there'd be multiple options for which story quest would be in the game. A lot of games since include every quest in every playthrough (or change it based on what choices you make), and games like the Witcher 3…

Oh man. I remember playing the paladin/knight character and I was 6 years old, didn’t know English. Spent maybe 100 hours trying to kill a monster. Bugger just wouldn’t die. Couldn’t complete the game and had to play on other characters. A few years later I returned, now knowing some English, and turns out the monster was immune to swords. I think I bought a rinkydink bow or staff and killed the monster in a few seconds.

I do remember slight confusion as some things were the same and others weren’t.

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#117

Post by Kiro »

cubefox wrote: post #105
AOsborn wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 compar…

> 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. Definitely not, there were many successful Japanese ARPGs long before that, like Dragon Slayer, Hydlide, The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy Adventure, Secret of Mana etc. Diablo may have created its own subgenre.

No-one would call Zelda an ARPG. You just need to live with the fact that the term has come to mean something else.

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#118

Post by cubefox »

Kiro wrote: post #117
cubefox wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Definitely not, there were many successful Japanese ARPGs long before that, like Dragon Slayer, Hydlide, The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy Adventure, Secret of Mana etc. Diablo may have created its own subgenre.

No-one would call Zelda an ARPG. You just need to live with the fact that the term has come to mean something else.

Zelda II even had experience points, and Wikipedia counts all the other games I named as ARPGs. There is no way in which Diablo was the first ARPG.

Edit: Maybe the influence of Diablo is more that it effectively ended the era of Western/PC turn-based RPGs. For Japanese RPGs, turn-based (non-action) RPGs did hang on for longer, e.g. in form of Final Fantasy.

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#119

Post by vultour »

drexlspivey wrote: post #115
logicchains wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Levels give you skill and paragon points which eventually makes you stronger so you can go to higher tiers where better gear drops Paragon points are only granted around level 50, and skill points stop making much difference around level 20-30 when all the core skills are unlocked. I got so bored of combat I stopped playing at around level 40. Particularly annoying is after getting a few items with good aspects, it…

Can’t you extract the aspect and put it in a better item?

As he said, once.

Re: Diablo Pitch Document (1994) [pdf]

#120

Post by nottorp »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #18
meitros wrote: post #5

An underrated choice of the original diablo is that it would only show you a subset of story quests and boss monsters in a single play-through. A few (like the butcher) would always show up, but for most others there'd be multiple options for which story quest would be in the game. A lot of games since include every quest in every playthrough (or change it based on what choices you make), and games like the Witcher 3…

There's a fascinating trade-off there. Diablo (and much more so its sequels) was focused pretty hard on replayability. After beating the game once, the player is encouraged to play the again with the same character, continuing to level it up. Keeping some content back for those later playthroughs is a way to make the second or third trip through more interesting. The very nature of the randomly generated levels is a…

Funny because Witcher 2 had the audacity to have a completely different chapter 2 (like 1/3 of the game) based on a choice at the end of chapter 1.

To the point that you need to play chapter 2 twice to get the whole story.

Then Witcher 3 went more mainstream.

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