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DIABLO (1996): THE ROGUE GOES TO HELL

Perhaps the handiest way to illustrate Diablo's (Blizzard, 1996; Apple Macintosh, PC, Sony PlayStation) impact is by comparing it to another breakout hit of the 1990s: id's first-person shooter Doom (1993; Apple Macintosh, Atari Jaguar, PC, and others; see Chapter 5, “Doom (1993): The First Person Shooter Takes Control”). The two games have much in common. First, they both introduced critical innovations that established new genres. Second, they were staggeringly successful in their own right, inspiring other developers to shamelessly duplicate their formula. Both games offer similar plots (go to hell, confront demons). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, both games took full advantage of the tremendous graphics and networking potential of the PC. Simply put, Diablo did for the action role-playing game (RPG) genre what Doom did for the first-person shooter. Like all the games in this book, they have helped shape the videogame industry as we know it today.

Diablo-inspired games are still produced today, and the major game sites and magazines wax endlessly over highly anticipated games like Ascaron's Sacred II: Fallen Angel (2008, Microsoft Xbox 360, PC, Sony PlayStation 3) and Blizzard's own Diablo III (2012; Apple Macintosh, PC). Although Sacred II and Diablo III boast terrific graphics and interesting innovations, they still have much in common with the original—which was still being sold a decade later as part of Blizzard's Diablo Battle Chest.

Before going into detail about the game, let's explain the differences between conventional computer role-playing games (CRPGs) and action RPGs. The key difference is how the games handle time. Conventional CRPGs like Sir-Tech's Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (1981; Apple II, Nintendo Entertainment System, and others) and Origin's Ultima (1981; Apple II, Atari 8-bit, and others; see Chapter 23) are turn-based, much like their table-top role-playing cousins. This means that the gameplay is periodic; the game pauses at key periods to allow players time to make decisions and devise tactics. The advantages of this setup is that battles can be more intricate; the player has time to weigh more variables and assign complex tasks to her hero or party members.

Games like Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, box back and front shown, have a very different design philosophy than games like Diablo, relying more on careful planning and strategy than quick fingers.

In real-time games such as FTL Games’ Dungeon Master (1987; Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, PC, and others) and Westwood's Eye of the Beholder (1990; Commodore Amiga, Nintendo Game Boy Advance, PC, and others), the monsters don't stand around waiting for the player to make a move. Instead, they roam about freely, and the player has to respond immediately to threats. Combat in these games tends to be reduced to clicking on monsters rather than wading through complicated menus; there simply isn't time to devise elaborate tactics once battle has commenced. Some games, such as Bioware's Baldur's Gate (1998; Apple Macintosh, PC) or New World Computing's Might and Magic VI (1998, PC) offer hybrids of real-time and turn-based gameplay, but Diablo and other action-RPGs are purely real-time.

Another defining characteristic of action RPGs is the emphasis on rapid dexterity with the mouse. Typically, this means moving the mouse pointer over each enemy and quickly pressing the left or right mouse button—taken to extremes, the game becomes a “clickfest” and a true test of hand-eye coordination. Later action RPGs such as Gas Powered Games’ Dungeon Siege (2002; Apple Macintosh, PC) reduce the clickfest aspect, automating many tasks that formerly had to be manually executed by the player.

Finally, unlike older real-time games such as the aforementioned Dungeon Master, action-RPGs are depicted in third-person, isometric view. This means that players see their avatars, rather than viewing the action from a first-person perspective. Although other action RPGs differ markedly in their details, they all adhere (at least to some degree) to these basic paradigms.

One of the major breaks that Diablo made with conventional CRPGs concerns complexity. Conventional CRPGs, especially venerable old classics such as SSI's Wizard's Crown or Interplay's The Bard's Tale (both 1985; Apple II, Commodore 64, and others), tend to be far more difficult to learn than Diablo. This fact is apparent from the start of the game. In Diablo, the player simply picks one of three premade characters (warrior, rogue, sorcerer) to serve as the avatar, then the gameplay begins. Wizard's Crown and The Bard's Tale require players to build a whole party of characters from scratch, making dozens of critical and esoteric decisions that have a crucial, permanent impact on the gameplay. A few bad choices can make winning the game difficult or even impossible. Making smart decisions means reading the often-lengthy instruction manuals, and having a solid background in pen-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons and fantasy novels is helpful if not mandatory. Players are likewise challenged to make their own maps or risk becoming lost in dungeons. In short, these games require far more preparation and patience than many modern gamers are willing or able to commit. They simply are not casual games.

Unlike many CRPGs, which require lengthy character or party creation sequences, Diablo asks players to make a single choice before the game begins.

Blizzard's strategy was to keep what was fun about CRPGs intact, but move the complex and often intimidating statistical and literary elements under the hood. All fans of CRPGs enjoy watching characters “level up,” becoming stronger and more proficient as the game progresses. They also enjoy the visceral nature of defeating increasingly tougher monsters and exploring dangerous and mysterious places. However, standard CRPGs can take days or even weeks for novices to master, whereas any reasonably intelligent person can get Diablo up and running in minutes. Indeed, the single-player campaign can be beaten in under 10 hours. Blizzard also added a brilliant online component through Battle.net, which ensured that avid fans would continue to enjoy the game long after they had completed the single-player campaign. The new formula was a tremendous success for Blizzard, and many of the innovations we see in the Diablo series were carried over into the even more successful massively multiplayer online game, World of Warcraft (2004; Apple Macintosh, PC). In this chapter, however, we focus on Diablo and its impact on the industry.

The action begins in this foreboding village. Lovely but slightly disturbing guitar music sets the mood. Note the red and blue orbs indicating health and mana (magic power), respectively. A comparable setup is seen in Blue Sky's critically acclaimed first-person-perspective role-playing game Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (1992; PC, Windows Mobile, and others).

Blizzard was not the first developer that attempted to inject more adrenaline into what many considered an overtly nerdy and contemplative genre. FTL's Dungeon Master offered real-time dungeon crawling from a first-person perspective, and was itself inspired by the earlier wireframe game Dungeons of Daggorath (Tandy Corp, 1982) for the Radio Shack Color Computer. Origin and SSI had also released some intriguing action-based CRPG titles such as Moebius: The Orb of Celestial Harmony (Origin, 1985; Apple II, Commodore Amiga, and others) and Hillsfar (SSI, 1989; Commodore Amiga, PC, and others). Moebius is a hybrid beat ’em up (see Chapter 17, ” Street Fighter II (1991): Would You Like the Combo?") and CRPG, whereas Hillsfar is a simplistic CRPG with a series of action-based minigames. There were even some real-time games that offered a similar third-person isometric view featured in Diablo, such as Shadow Sorcerer (SSI, 1991; Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, PC), The Four Crystals of Trazere (Mindscape, 1992; Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, PC), and The Summoning (SSI, 1992; PC). However, none of these games attracted as much attention as Diablo and are seldom played today. Without question, the most enduring of these pre-Diablo games is Origin's Ultima VII: The Black Gate (1992; PC, Super Nintendo). This richly interactive game was well received by critics and fans of the series, and remains a fan favorite.

Action-oriented RPGs were far more plentiful on consoles than computers. In particular, Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda (1986, NES), which is covered in Chapter 21, ” The Legend of Zelda (1986): Rescuing Zeldas and Uniting Triforces,” is worth mentioning here. Although the first Zelda game isn't a true role-playing game (it lacks a statistical system for leveling and is referred to as an “action adventure”), it nevertheless shares many of its features, and few developers could ignore the profits it reaped. Origin seems to have been thinking along these lines with Ultima VIII: Pagan (1994, PC), which added precision jumping sequences reminiscent of a Super Mario game (see Chapter 19, “Super Mario Bros. (1985): How High Can Jumpman Get?") to the venerable old series. However, reactions to the games were mixed. Writing for Computer Shopper magazine, Barry Brenesal remarked, “Pagan is certainly harder to play than any previous Ultima, and its mouse-based combat may frustrate fans of earlier releases.”¹

Brenesal's comment brings us to an important point regarding computer and console games: modern computers are far more likely to have mice and keyboards than game pads, a factor with serious implications for gameplay. Game pads are designed with arcade-like gameplay in mind; keyboards and mice are primarily intended for productivity. Although it was easy enough to buy a game pad or joystick for PCs, few outside the hardcore gaming community ever bothered to do so, and not all games supported them anyway. Furthermore, computer gamers (particularly CRPG fans) were thought to be older and more sophisticated than their console cousins. They thrived on complexity, not dexterity. The common assumption was that, at least on computers, role-playing and action games were mutually exclusive, and the long line of failed action-CRPGs seemed to attest to that fact. Blizzard finally proved, once and for all, that they were wrong.

Perhaps the most significant feature of Diablo is its highly polished, instantly addictive gameplay. In many ways it is comparable to Rogue (see bonus chapter, “Rogue (1980): Have @ You, You Deadly Zs”), a very old but still widely played CRPG that originated on university minicomputers.

Like Diablo, Rogue offers procedurally generated dungeons and bite-size, quick-fix style adventuring—a vast change from the drawn-out and even laborious campaigns of other CRPGs. A procedurally generated dungeon is one that relies on predefined algorithms to create dungeons on-the-fly; it's important not to confuse this process with purely random dungeons. After all, no one wants to play a dungeon that has no exits, or has hordes of the highest-level monsters roaming about the first levels. The major advantage of procedurally generated dungeons is replay value; as the dungeons will always be fresh, there is no need for the adventure ever to end. Indeed, several other CRPGs took advantage of the same technique; examples include Telengard (Avalon Hill, 1982; Commodore PET, TRS-80, and others) and Sword of Fargoal (Epyx, 1982; Commodore 64, Commodore VIC-20).

As with Rogue before it, characters gain levels quickly and frequently in Diablo. With each level, the player gains points to distribute among four attributes.

However, though randomizing the dungeons may improve replay value, it seems to diminish the opportunities for narrative and creative level design. What usually happens is that the gameplay descends into a simple yet addictive “hack ‘n’ slash” style, similar to the gameplay in the multiplayer arcade classic Gauntlet (Atari, 1985),² in which the objective is only to kill the next wave of monsters with little thought to plot or long-term planning. If your character dies in Rogue, for instance, it's painless enough to create a new character and begin anew; little is lost in the process, and many versions lack any way to save a character anyway. Compare this to a game such as Pool of Radiance (SSI, 1988; Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, PC, and others), which offers a huge campaign that takes weeks and hundreds of hours of gameplay to complete. Although Diablo has a plot and a mission for the character, it also lacks the long and drawn-out character creation sequence of most other CRPGs, and dying is a relatively trivial affair. As with Rogue, the idea is to get the player up and hacking as quickly and painlessly as possible, and although it is possible to save the current game, the player cannot save and restore multiple games.

Battles tend to be over and done with quickly, though the character can face dozens of enemies at once. Note here the transparent map overlay that can be turned on and off.

By far the most obvious difference between Diablo and Rogue is the audiovisuals. Whereas Rogue is based on simple character-set graphics and has only rudimentary sound, if any, Diablo offers quality graphics, full-motion video, and some of the best music of its era. Every spell and attack is fully animated, and a semitrans-parent overlay provides an onscreen map to help navigate the dungeons.

Diablo’s storyline is probably the least remarkable thing about it. As with Doom, the goal of the game is to battle wave after wave of demonic forces, ultimately battling it out with Diablo, Lord of Terror. Many of the game's most raving reviews, such as Trent C. Ward's for GameSpot, make no mention of the plot whatsoever. Nevertheless, the game and its sequels have inspired a series of six novels by Richard A. Knaak, and there have long been rumors of a movie based on the franchise.

Like Doom, Diablo also took advantage of the by-then exploding network multiplayer scene, and its massively popular Battle.net server became the first such project to turn a profit.³ Battle.net stood out in stark contrast to other online gaming offerings of its era by focusing on its excellent player-matching service. First, anyone who had bought Diablo could use the service for free, without any monthly fees or obligations whatsoever. Although Blizzard was able to fully recoup the losses by advertising revenue, the service was mainly intended to boost sales of the game itself. According to Paul W. Sams, spokesman for the service, “We don't look at Battle.net as a profit center. We look at it as a value add to our customers that is justified by increased retail sales.” Sams estimates that Battle.net led to a 10% boost in sales.⁴ The genius of Battle.net was that game data wasn't channeled through Blizzard's servers. Instead, the service functioned as a matchmaker, connecting gamers directly. However, this setup opened the door wide for cheaters, who could modify their data files to gain an unfair advantage. Blizzard struggled mightily with this problem, regularly issuing patches to stymie the cheaters.

Even though Battle.net was free to use, that didn't stop a group of programmers from reverse-engineering the code and releasing bnetd, a free alternative to Blizzard's own service. Blizzard moved quickly to shut down bnetd, arguing that it promoted piracy. After all, Blizzard required users of Battle.net to verify their purchase by entering a special code printed on their game discs. The rival service offered a refuge to gamers who, for whatever reason, were unable or unwilling to provide a legitimate code. After a series of court battles, Blizzard ultimately prevailed.

Rather than design their own expansion to Diablo, Blizzard North outsourced to Synergistic Software, a company with roots going back to some of the earliest CRPGs produced for home computers. Their Diablo expansion, Hellfire, was released in 1997 to lukewarm reviews. Although it added plenty of new content and two new character classes, it lacked multiplayer support and was not nearly as well received as the original. Writing for GameSpot, “Desslock” wrote that the expansion “fails to provide as compelling an experience as Diablo” and that fans of multiplayer ought to pass on it.⁵ However, Blizzard's first official sequel, Diablo II, released in 2000, became another smash hit for the company—and this despite what one reviewer described as “somewhat outdated” graphics.⁶ The sequel maintained much of the gameplay that had proven so successful, but added several welcome features. These included large outdoor areas to explore, a more linear quest structure, new classes, and a branching tree system for leveling. Blizzard also improved its online experience for Diablo II, now storing all the private data on their own servers. This change greatly curtailed the cheating that had been such a problem for fans of the first game.

Diablo II offered superior graphics, more classes, and outdoor areas to explore. However, the core gameplay remained the same.

Diablo II offered a more sophisticated leveling system than the original. This branching tree system would show up in later games such as World of Warcraft.

Diablo’s impact on the industry was immediate and has proven long-lasting. Though simplistic compared to classics such as Wizard's Crown or Pool of Radiance, the game compensates with highly polished gameplay, attractive audiovisuals, and a highly intuitive interface. It was easy enough for even total novices to learn, but certainly challenging enough to keep from getting boring—and the randomized dungeons and highly active multi-player options upped the replay value substantially. Its legacy is seen today in the aforementioned Sacred II and Diablo III games, but developers took the concept in wildly different directions; consider Iridon Interactive's Dink Smallwood (1998; PC), a comedy set in a typical fantasy setting; Interplay's Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel (2004; Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation 2), set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland; or Activision's Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (2006; Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation Portable, and others), where the familiar fantasy paradigms are replaced with a contemporary superhero setting.

Other noteworthy Diablo-influenced games include Gauntlet Legends (Atari, 1998; Arcade, Sega Dreamcast, and others),⁷ Darkstone (Delphine Software, 1999; PC, Sony PlayStation), Revenant (Cinematix Studios, 1999; Apple Macintosh, PC), Nox (Westwood Studios, 2000; PC), Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (Interplay, 2001; Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, and others), Divine Divinity (Larian Studios, 2002; PC), and Champions of Norrath (Sony Online Entertainment, 2004; Sony PlayStation 2). Blizzard has also gotten back into the Diablo business with Diablo III, which has a richer single-player story with multiplayer integration possibilities. As Leonard Boyarsky, Lead World Artist for Diablo III, says, “It's kind of like, ‘I'm playing a single-player experience, but I can share that with my friends. There are going to be things like class quests that only certain classes go on, but my friends can get experience from going on those and helping me.’”⁸ Though differing in their details, all of these games—and ultimately all modern action-CRPGs—derive their core gameplay elements from the original Diablo.

Although the commands in games like Champions of Norrath (box back shown) tend to be executed in a more direct manner than Diablo, the influence from Blizzard's classic game is clear.

Although Diablo may not have inspired quite as many derivatives as Doom, there's no doubt that it belongs in anyone's list of historically significant games. The influence it exerted on CRPG developers is striking, comparable only to the blow made by Dungeon Master and Ultima before it. Even prior to its release, there were few games attracting more attention than Diablo III, and even if that game is little more than a relatively minor overhaul of the first, no one doubts that Blizzard will continue to reap enormous profits from the series’ immense, dedicated fan base.

All kinds of themes have been explored in the myriad games inspired by Diablo's style of play, ranging from superhero to military to comedy, such as in the well-acted single-player fantasy spoof, The Bard's Tale (Vivendi Universal, 2004; Microsoft Xbox, PC, Sony PlayStation 2), box back shown.

¹Computer Shopper (June 1994).

²Games like Dandy (APX, 1983; Atari 8-bit), Gauntlet, and their direct sequels and numerous clones focus almost entirely on direct action rather than any type of exploration or role-playing, mitigating their ultimate influence on Diablo's design.

³See Greg Costikyan's “Online gaming's store-self chains” article on Salon.com: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/04/21/battlenet/.

⁴See Barbara Walter's interview with Sams at http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/hellflre/review.html.

⁵See http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/hellfire/review.html.

⁶See Desslock's review at http://wwwgamespot.com/pc/rpg/diablo2/review.html.

⁷After the original's release, the Gauntlet series of titles continued refining the original game's scope by introducing an increasing number of exploration and RPG elements until the latest releases had little to differentiate themselves from the myriad of Diablo-like clones.

⁸http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19259.