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Diablo

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Re: Diablo

#3

Post by strictnein »

Really a great, well written article. They've got the "Town" them embedded in the page and every time I hear that song it really brings me back. In Diablo 1, going deeper and deeper into the dungeon was meaningful. Coming back out of the dungeon, barely alive, to the peaceful yet gloomy music was impactful.

I've played all the Diablo games when they were released. I'm sad about what they created for Diablo 4. It's obviously been really successful for them, but I have absolutely no want or need to play through the game again. It's a slog, running across the map, equipment with so many stats that I don't know what's actually better or worse, fighting monsters on the surface and in dungeons that all feel the same. There's hardly any time journeying into the depths of hell, or into deep, deep dungeons, but a lot of the plot instead revolves around the jungle for some reason and how the "jungle gives and takes". A big focus on builds and grinding as opposed to fun. It's been sacrificed on the altar of "live service" and, unlike Diablo 1, you won't be able to play it in 25 years, nor will you really want to.

Re: Diablo

#5

Post by babblingfish »

I tried to leave a comment on the article but it's down due to the hacker news hug of death. I wonder if the author plays new games and what their opinion is on Diablo 4.

It's interesting to me that hacker news has become a place for this kind of niche content about old video games. Who would have known there is such a large audience that is willing to pay for magazine length / quality articles about the history of games?

Re: Diablo

#7

Post by giobox »

Jimmy Maher's writing on old PC video games continues to be some of the best around, at least if you are of a similar age to Jim. When the site recovers, I highly recommend reading his back catalog - one of the best collections of articles on 90s PC gaming I've seen. The site is especially great because Jimmy writes so well and he has obvious passion for the period.

Re: Diablo

#9

Post by ecshafer »

strictnein wrote: post #3

Really a great, well written article. They've got the "Town" them embedded in the page and every time I hear that song it really brings me back. In Diablo 1, going deeper and deeper into the dungeon was meaningful. Coming back out of the dungeon, barely alive, to the peaceful yet gloomy music was impactful. I've played all the Diablo games when they were released. I'm sad about what they created for Diablo 4. It's ob…

I love Diablo 1 and Diablo 2, I don't care much for what the genre has become though (Diablo 3/4, Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, etc). The genre of loot focused ARPGs really took after the worst aspects of Diablo 2 LOD end game. An extreme focus on grinding and optimizing builds to maximize your ability to grind, so you can get gear to beat end game content that is otherwise impossible, to repeat the process. The genre took this and ran with the concept and brought it up, but also kind of killed the simple parts of the game. A lot of older 90s / early 2000s games had this game first, that then maybe had this end game aspect which some communities played towards. But now the industry plays towards the end game aspect, and neglects the person that just wants to sit down and fight into the dungeon for a while.

Re: Diablo

#10

Post by aidenn0 »

This quote resonates with my experience playing Diablo (though as a teenager I definitely couldn't put my finger on it):

> One nice thing about getting older is that you learn what makes you feel good and bad. I’ve long since learned, for instance, that I’m happiest if I don’t play games for more than a couple of hours per day, even on those rare occasions when I have time for more. But I want those hours to have substance — to yield fun stories to tell, interesting decisions to remember, strategies or puzzle solutions to muse about while I’m cooking dinner or working out or taking a walk, accomplishments to feel good about. For me, Diablo is peculiarly flat; I went, I saw, I clicked on monsters. For me, it feels less like a time waster than a waste of time. I almost find myself wishing the game wasn’t so superbly polished in every particular, just to relieve the monotony.

[edit]

And it's not due to an inherent grindy-ness of Diablo either (as one comment on TFA suggests). I have enjoyed other games that were about as grindy before and since.

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