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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

#271

Post by kevstev »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #202
kevstev wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Huh? DCS, X-plane, Kerbal Space Program (especially with Ferram Aerospace) , Elite:Dangerous , IL-2. This off the top of my head. There's many more.

I feel you are actually supporting my point with your post. This is a handful of games released over a number of years. Space sims used to be its own genre with AAA titles. There would be hype, people would be excited for months about a release.

Its just not the same- yes space/flight sims still exist, as do puzzle/adventure games, but they are small niches now when they used to be very popular.

Re: Diablo devolved – magic behind the 1996 computer game

#272

Post by quikoa »

yareally wrote: post #270
quikoa wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea it's too bad that the actual complication is more an obfuscation of game mechanics. That and the game is quite grindy compared to Diablo2 even if you know what you're doing. A single player version with support for mods could've been very nice. Sadly it's online only.

It's online, but multiplayer/co-op is optional.

Exactly, so unfortunately no potential for modding.

Re: Diablo devolved – magic behind the 1996 computer game

#273

Post by Exuma »

khalilravanna wrote: post #267
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

I remember bringing the manuals for Civ II, Black & White, and Morrowind to school. Oh man, I miss manuals

Black and white!!! I forgot about that too. I also read it about 100 times for The Sims

Re: Diablo devolved – magic behind the 1996 computer game

#274

Post by bfrydl »

jgrowl wrote: post #18
have_faith wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's such a shame there's no modern spiritual successor to Diablo / Diablo 2. The aesthetic and gameplay was great.

David Brevik, the creator of diablo is currently working on an indy game pretty much by himself called It Lurks Below. It's kind of like if terraria merged with diablo. You have to survive by growing crops and you get items by venturing lower and lower into the world using your pickaxe. It's still in pre-release on steam, but even at this stage I played it for quite a number of hours and found that it had a surprisin…

I've heard about this game but what exactly is it that makes people say it's a mix of Terraria and Diablo, besides the creator? It looks almost identical to Terraria to me, which also has you building on the surface and descending deeper and deeper into the world.

Re: Diablo devolved – magic behind the 1996 computer game

#275

Post by floor_ »

gameswithgo wrote: post #61
stormbrew wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a very real possibility it wasn't your connection that was the problem. Since Diablo 1 was a peer to peer game it was super easy to just flood another player to lag them out and steal their crap. The game's public multiplayer was notoriously full of griefing like that. There were also ways to get firewalls to go on the spawn point and pvp was easy to force. It was a mess. Going into a public game was basicall…

What is fascinating is the guy who coded and designed the multiplayer is actually a genius, he was just inexperienced at the time. His next big project was a huge, complicated, MMO that you could start playing before it finished downloading, and everything worked from day 1, which is rather unique among MMOs!] edit, sorry: Pat Wyatt of Guild Wars good interview with him talking about screwing up Diablo and doing a go…

I love the part where he talks about people thinking the installer was broken or didn't download fully because it was so small. They ended up padding it with some assets to make it feel more authentic.

Re: Diablo devolved – magic behind the 1996 computer game

#276

Post by crocal »

aleden wrote: post #269
crocal wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it is vastly different in terms of program structure. They lost variable names and maybe some optimized intermediary calculations, but functional calls and branches are usually preserved through decomp (unless some compiler optims have been activated)

Could you provide an example to corroborate your claim?

This, maybe: https://github.com/avast-tl/retdec/blob/master/README.md

There is a talk presentation linked in there that gives nice explanations and examples.

I used to do a lot of decompilation of Java apps back in the days. It’s easier to decompile but still, all intermediary variable names disappeared ^^.

Re: Diablo devolved – magic behind the 1996 computer game

#277

Post by vkou »

loosetypes wrote: post #239
vkou wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There was (hopefully still is) a thriving community of D2 single player enthusiasts that had a very welcoming crowd and managed to avoid the craziness of battle.net[1] at the Single Player Forum of diabloii.net[2]. To this day, it's maybe my ideal of the internet done right (though its in-page ads seem a little more obnoxious now than I remember). It had fairly strict rules w.r.t. documenting what mods you play with[…

There were similar, but in my experience, more vibrant, communities for Diablo I (DSF, LurkerLounge, RBD). Variants (Self-imposed restrictions) were far more prominent in Diablo I [1]. Pretty much everyone in the DSF maintained at least one or two variant characters, even if it was just a naked mage or a SNOB.

Diablo II, especially after LOD, just didn't feel as fun with most self-imposed restrictions. Too much power creep came from gear and patches, enemy health and damage scaled too much, and due to immunities [2], too many strategies for dealing with problematic enemies involved running past or parking them. In Diablo I, with its tile-based movement system, this had to be done incredibly carefully. In Diablo II... It's much more difficult to be boxed in, and if things don't work out well, just save and exit, and reset the level.

[1] https://www.realmsbeyond.net/diablo/variants.html

[2] Immunities worked much better in Diablo I. Every character had a reasonable answer to immune enemies. In Diablo II, with its locked skill trees, there was much less headspace for dealing with them - unless you use overpowered gear!

Re: Diablo devolved – magic behind the 1996 computer game

#278

Post by stevenwoo »

gameswithgo wrote: post #61
stormbrew wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a very real possibility it wasn't your connection that was the problem. Since Diablo 1 was a peer to peer game it was super easy to just flood another player to lag them out and steal their crap. The game's public multiplayer was notoriously full of griefing like that. There were also ways to get firewalls to go on the spawn point and pvp was easy to force. It was a mess. Going into a public game was basicall…

What is fascinating is the guy who coded and designed the multiplayer is actually a genius, he was just inexperienced at the time. His next big project was a huge, complicated, MMO that you could start playing before it finished downloading, and everything worked from day 1, which is rather unique among MMOs!] edit, sorry: Pat Wyatt of Guild Wars good interview with him talking about screwing up Diablo and doing a go…

It also really helped a lot of folks in the game development community when Carmack published his thoughts on dealing with latency in QuakeWorld around that time, and the Valve guys working with the Quake3(?) engine published something a bit later that pretty good IIRC.

Re: Diablo devolved – magic behind the 1996 computer game

#279

Post by ddtaylor »

brailsafe wrote: post #173
ddtaylor wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These archive.org people are really awesome.

Who is involved from archive.org?

I meant the community of people at archive.org - but also the staff building the tools are awesome and their stance on abandon-ware.

Re: Diablo devolved – magic behind the 1996 computer game

#280

Post by catacombs »

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 must have been the longest vacation ever.
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