Deadron wrote:

I'm still thinking through it, cause there is so much to the design of Diablo II, so you'll have to wait a bit from me!

I will say that, like you, when I started playing Diablo last year I wasn't that impressed. However over the last few months I've been playing it again (and I just ordered the expansion) and I've come to see the attraction.

Going into dungeons, fighting, and coming out is the mechanism, but it's all the other trappings that make the mechanism work.

I read somewhere that the programmers pitched Diablo to Blizzard as a rogue-like game. Strip away the graphics and twitch play, and it is similar to Rogue.

I found the variety of items in Diablo most interesting. They made up for the lack of interesting characters by making items widely varied with tons of wild combinations available. I like the prefix/suffix system, but at the same time it takes some of the mystery away from the game.

For most people, the graphics was what hooked them. I'm perfectly happy with ASCII graphics games, but many people (even in BYOND) want a pretty package. They don't care if there is any depth as long as it looks pretty. It's hard to get the general populace to stay in your game long enough to sample the depth of play if you don't have pretty graphics.

Another strong point is that it's so easy to get started. You click wizard and start shooting people, as opposed to games like Baldur's gate or Gemstone III where you spend a long time working on the characters before you can even begin to play. I love customized characters, but I got very frustrated making a character in Gemstone III. The game mechanics are foreign, and after I rolled a character that I was pleased with, I found out that his stats where a bad combination for his class. (A Gemstone III rogue should have more strength than dexterity?!) I think the best compromise is to have premade characters for the people who want to click and play, but allow a more indepth creation system for people who enjoy tweaking thir characters. Also, stats should each be useful! How many games boast a charisma attribute (just because every other game has it), yet it's useless in all but a very few situations?



The thing Diablo is missing is the interesting permutaions that rogue style games had.

I was delighted the first time I read a scroll while confused in Hack. If anyone missed out on Hack, reading a scroll while confused caused it to have slightly different effects. Reading a scroll of teleport normally teleported you somewhere on the same level. If you read one while confused, it teleported you to a different dungeon level!

Experimenting with the different edible monsters was a blast too. Some things would give you unusual powers when you ate them. The best thing was that you didn't get some message saying you had the power. When you discovered the combination of effects that let you see all the monsters on the level when you became blind, you had no way of knowing what exactly caused it. You would retrace your steps, trying to think of what thing you'd eaten that could have caused the effect. Great replay value. :)

Of course, Hack wouldn't be nearly as fun in this age of spoiler websites. Modern gamers don't appreciate mystery and the sense of discovery. I imagine Hack would become dry pretty fast for a generation of gamers who would rather beat the game than play it.

Deadron wrote:

Shadowdarke wrote:

For most people, the graphics was what hooked them. I'm perfectly happy with ASCII graphics games, but many people (even in BYOND) want a pretty package. They don't care if there is any depth as long as it looks pretty. It's hard to get the general populace to stay in your game long enough to sample the depth of play if you don't have pretty graphics.

Actually, in the world of non-text games, Blizzard has proven this isn't true. Their two latest smash hits, StarCraft and Diablo II, both sported graphics that were years behind the times. The critics trashed them for it.

But the players played anyway, because of the quality of the games. They are both in the top 20 selling games of all time.

The real difference is the lowest level of graphics people will accept. Once you've reached their acceptance level, then they will play the better game in most cases, not the prettier game.

Asheron's Call is prettier than EverQuest. EverQuest has a 10-100x more customers, because it's a better game. Anarchy Online has often much prettier graphics than EverQuest -- at this time it doesn't stand a chance because the gameplay is much less interesting.

Hm, as far as Ive seen, Anarchy Online's graphics arent THAT much of an improvement compared to Everquest. Asherons call is though.

Alathon

Of course, Hack wouldn't be nearly as fun in this age of spoiler websites. Modern gamers don't appreciate mystery and the sense of discovery. I imagine Hack would become dry pretty fast for a generation of gamers who would rather beat the game than play it.

I don't think I've ever once looked at a spoiler for ADOM, myself, so would I be considered a modern gamer or an adventurous one? =)


(Incidentally, I've looked at many spoilers for the other Roguelikes, though. That's because I haven't played any other Roguelikes much (vanilla angband twice, mangband with Theodis twice, and I got bored of those quickly), and those things are chock-full of nifty game ideas. As far as I can tell, Biskup's game is different than all the rest. Also interesting is that it is closed-source, but one of the most popular RL's out there...)