Diablo (video game)

Diablo
Developer(s)	Blizzard North
Publisher(s)	Windows, Mac PlayStation NA/EU: Electronic Arts
Designer(s)	Erich Schaefer David Brevik Max Schaefer, Eric Sexton, Kenneth Williams (game developer)
Composer(s)	Matt Uelmen
Series	Diablo
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, PlayStation
Release	PC Mac PlayStation
Genre(s)	Roguelike, Action role-playing game, hack and slash
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer

Diablo is a dark fantasy-themed action role-playing game developed by Blizzard North and released by Blizzard Entertainment on November 30, 1996.

Set in the fictional Kingdom of Khanduras (located in the Diablo series fantasy world of Sanctuary), Diablo has the player take control of a lone hero as he or she battles to rid the world of the eponymous Lord of Terror. Beneath the town of Tristram, the player journeys through sixteen dungeon levels to ultimately come face to face with Diablo and his demon minions.

An expansion pack, entitled Diablo: Hellfire, was released in Template:Vgy, although it was not created by Blizzard Entertainment. This was followed by a true sequel, Diablo II, in Template:Vgy, and a third game, Diablo III, was announced on June 28, 2008, at Blizzard's World Wide Invitational in Paris, France.

Story

The story of Diablo is based on the premise of a war between Heaven and Hell. The town of Tristram has come under attack by demons, and the player must save the town and, in effect, the world, by ridding it of the Lord of Terror. Also as quoted in a Warcraft 2 preview of Diablo, the hero is also there to avenge his family who died at the hand of Diablo. As the player delves into the underworld, some of the history behind the war between Heaven and Hell, as well as knowledge about Diablo himself, are revealed through large tomes that are found throughout the levels.

Diablo is the Lord of Terror and one of the Three Prime Evils of Hell, the most powerful lords of demonkind. Long before the events of the game, he was captured by a secretive order of mortal magi known as the Horadrim. The Horadrim imprisoned two of the Prime Evils in a Soulstone; Diablo's red stone was buried in caverns deep beneath the town of Tristram, and as the generations passed, was forgotten. Though his imprisonment was meant to be eternal, the power of the Soulstone weakened over centuries, eventually allowing Diablo to use limited power from within the stone. He telepathically turned an inhabitant of Tristram, the Archbishop Lazarus, into his pawn. In order for Diablo to actually leave the Soulstone, Diablo needed to possess a host. Through his minion Lazarus, he initially tried to gain control of King Leoric, the local ruler, but Diablo, in his weakened state, was unable to overpower Leoric. Abandoning the idea, he caused Lazarus to kidnap King Leoric's son, Prince Albrecht. He inspired such terror in the child that the boundaries between the realms were broken and parts of Hell appeared in the mortal world, taking root in the labyrinth beneath Tristram. Diablo then chose to bide his time and wait for the opportune moment to strike.

Soon afterwards King Leoric was driven to madness by the loss of his son. With Lazarus whispering in his ear, he ordered a foolhardy attack on a far stronger neighboring realm - a campaign to which Lazarus made sure to send all of the King's most loyal and good-hearted heroes. The campaign proved a suicide mission, and soon the King had only the lies of Lazarus for counsel. Leoric began brutally executing the subjects he once protected, suspecting everyone of the kidnapping of his son. Lazarus led groups of townsfolk into the labyrinth in supposed pursuit of the missing prince - but Lazarus's only purpose was to deliver the innocents up to death at the hands of the demons. At length, the few survivors of the army returned home, led by the noble Sir Lachdanan. Leoric immediately ordered their execution, and, seeing the King for the tortured soul he was, Lachdanan killed his King with a mercy stroke. Upon his dying breath, Leoric cursed those who were close to him that they should serve him in the underworld for all of eternity, creating the horrific undead knights of the labyrinth.

Shortly after, the time period of the game begins as the player's character arrives. He or she has to fight through sixteen levels to face Diablo, encountering various monsters and quests along the way. The labyrinth descends from a simple dungeon to dark caves and catacombs and finally the fiery pits of Hell. The player finds a portal to Archbishop Lazarus' lair, slays him, and fights through to Diablo. At the end of the game, the player's character has killed Diablo's mortal form, and left Diablo once more with just a soulstone to inhabit. Now in hopes of retaining the Lord of Terror, the hero pierces his head with the soulstone, attempting to contain the Lord of Terror within his or herself. This was exactly what Diablo had planned all along, as the hero would be a much better host than the prince. Diablo II later confirms that Diablo indeed possessed the hero who slew him.

Gameplay

Diablo is one of the most well-known examples of the action-RPG subgenre. Although players level up, choose character classes, and manage a variety of spells and equipment as in a typical RPG, all actions are done in real time, as in an action game. Diablo in many ways resembles roguelike games, some differences include the commercial quality of the game's graphics, the fact that it plays in real time rather than as turn-based, games can be restored after the player dies where most rougelikes feature permadeath, and Diablo's relatively short learning curve. Diablo was influenced by Moria and Angband. The majority of commands in Diablo, such as moving and attacking, are executed by mouse clicks; however, learned spells can be assigned hot keys.

Gameplay is structured around a monster-filled dungeon located near the town of Tristram. In town, players may rest, buy items, and repair equipment. There are sixteen levels of the dungeon, divided into four areas. Each area has a different appearance, architecture, light level, monster mix, and musical soundtrack. The first level of each of these areas has an additional exit leading back up to the town of Tristram. In single player, these entrances are blocked until the character opens them from the dungeon side, and the entrance is available for two-way travel from then on. In multiplayer, the entrances to town all start in their "open" position, but with a level requirement to access them from town.

Diablo is highly re-playable thanks to its randomly generated level layouts, monsters, and items. In addition, in single player mode there are only three core quests as the rest of them are drawn from several pools, making it impossible to complete every quest in one playthrough of the game. Either way, only the last two quests are compulsory. Given this arrangement, no two playthroughs of the game are ever exactly alike.

Characters

The three character classes of Diablo are the warrior, rogue, and sorcerer. Each character, following typical role-playing conventions, has his or her own particular traits. The warrior possesses physical strength, the rogue has high dexterity, and the sorcerer is oriented towards magic.

• Warrior: The warrior is a powerful melee fighter, master of weapons of war and capable of enduring more damage than the other classes. They range from barbarians from the northern highlands to noble paladins.
• Rogue: The rogues are the best archers in the world of Sanctuary. They can have a higher level of magic than warriors, although not nearly as high as sorcerers. The rogues belong to a group called the Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye.
• Sorcerer: A powerful master of the arcane arts, the sorcerer is able to achieve the greatest heights of magic, so that he doesn't have need of physical weapons. Sorcerers belong to the Vizjerei mage clan, and have come to Tristram seeking long-lost tomes of magic knowledge under the cathedral.

Unlike other games that strictly differentiate between classes, a character's abilities are not unique; a warrior can use the same spells as a sorcerer, while a sorcerer can use weapons such as axes. All three classes require the same amount of experience to level up, and there are no class-based requirements for equipping items or using spells. However, different classes have different starting attributes and different maximum possible levels for their attributes, and gain different amounts of life and mana per level.

A warrior engages in combat with a ghoul enemy. A "Level Up" button indicates the character has attribute points available to distribute. The icon at the lower right indicates that the character's head protection is damaged and in danger of breaking.

Four numerical character attributes (Strength, Magic, Dexterity and Vitality) in Diablo affect the characters' combat statistics, which in turn determine how powerful the character is.

With each level up, the player may distribute points among the four base attributes to permanently increase them. They may also be modified by elixirs and magical shrines encountered in the game. Various magical items increase character attributes while these items are being used. Certain items may have minimum attribute requirements before they can be equipped or used.

Characters can learn spells from tomes found in the game, and add them to their spellbooks. Spells can later be cast repeatedly, if the character has enough mana to do it. Spells can also be improved by learning higher levels of the same spell. Different spells, and different levels of the same spell, require varying amounts of mana to be cast. Each class also has a unique skill: Warriors can repair items (although not as well as the village blacksmith, Griswold), Rogues can disarm traps, and Sorcerers can recharge magical staves that have a certain amount of spell charges on them.

Monsters and items

Each of the sixteen levels in Diablo contains monsters that are tougher and stronger than ones from the level before it. When the player kills a monster, it may randomly drop an item or gold. Upon killing more enemies of the same type, the player may find out more details about the monsters, such as hit points and resistances or immunities. Enemies are divided in three groups: Animals, Demons, and Undead. Group determines which weapons the enemy takes more or less damage from.

Items are sold by the vendors, randomly dropped by slain monsters, and can be discovered within the labyrinth inside of chests or barrels or sometimes lying on the floor. There are several types of items. Gold is the currency used to buy goods and services from the vendors. Consumables are items that are destroyed when used, and include life and mana potions, elixirs to increase base attributes, scrolls to cast spells and spellbooks to learn spells permanently. The player has eight slots representing a belt which can contain only consumables (except spellbooks). These slots are numbered, and pressing the corresponding hotkey will use the associated consumable. A special kind of items are quest items, which come in many varieties. Some of them activate a quest when picked up or found, while others must be carried along or used to interact with the environment, and yet others are given as special rewards for completing quests.

Any character can use any piece of equipment so long as they meet its statistical requirements (Strength, Dexterity, and Magic). Weapons and protective gear have durability values that decrease with use, but can be restored through several means. If durability reaches zero, the item is destroyed. Staves are two-handed weapons used primarily for the spell charges they contain, which can be recharged. Each charge allows one casting of the spell contained within the staff.

Diablo helped popularize a system used in other RPGs such as the Might and Magic series, to handle the many combinations of random items imbued with random magical properties. Magical items in Diablo have an idiosyncratic naming system; a particular enchantment will be either a suffix or prefix. For example, the "Godly" prefix, appearing only on armor, adds greatly to armor class. An item with this ability would appear as "Godly (itemname)". Magical items can have both a prefix and a suffix; however, certain systemic limitations within the game mechanism prevent some prefixes and suffixes from appearing together on the same item. Different equipment types draw from different pools of affixes; some affixes are never available on certain types of equipment.

Equippable items can have various modifiers, and break down into three major classes: normal items (items that have no any special attributes and are most abundant), magic items (that can have up to one prefix and one suffix) and unique items (very rare and powerful, and may have up to six magic bonuses). Magic and unique items must be identified before their modifications become known.

Multiplayer

The game supports several types of multiplayer connections. It can be played over a local area network using the IPX protocol, a telephone line with the use of a modem, or by means of a serial cable in a direct connection. One can also play Diablo over the Internet via Battle.net.

Unfortunately, the game lacks the stronger anti-cheating methods of Blizzard's later games and as a result, many characters online have been altered in various ways by common third-party programs known as "trainers". It is difficult to play a fair online game of Diablo in public games, as hacks and duplicated items are common. The use of trainers (which modify memory locations while the game is running in order to cheat) is fairly common and character editors are often used to give incredible statistics to even newly made characters. Additionally, there are a number of glitches which allow exploits such as infinitely duplicating items.

Versions and expansion pack

Diablo was released by Blizzard on January 2, 1997, with an official announcement on the release by Blizzard Entertainment on January 3, 1997. An oft stated release date of November 30, 1996 is incorrect as Diablo only went gold and into full production on December 27, 1996.

Diablo normally requires the original CD to play, however also included on the disk is a shareware version of the software that could be played without the CD called "Diablo Spawn". This version of the game could be used to join multiplayer games hosted by someone with the "Full" install, but was not playable in single-player mode.

In 1998, a PlayStation version of Diablo was published by Electronic Arts. The game lacked online play, but featured a two-player cooperative mode. It also featured an option to learn the story through a narrator without having to find the books in the game. This feature can be found on the main menu under the title 'history'. This version was infamous because of its need for 10 blocks free on a PlayStation memory card; the standard size of memory cards for the platform was 15 blocks.

The only official expansion pack made for Diablo was Diablo: Hellfire in 1997. The expansion was produced by Sierra Entertainment rather than an in-house Blizzard North development team. The multi-player feature of the expansion pack was disabled with version 1.01. The added content included two additional dungeon segments located within a new side storyline, several new unique items and magical item properties, new spells, and a fourth class, the Monk. There were also two possibly unfinished "test" classes (the Bard and Barbarian) and two quests which could be accessed only through a configuration file modification.

Re-releases

The original game was later re-released alongside Hellfire in a 1998 bundle, called Diablo + Hellfire. 1998's Blizzard's Game of the Year Collection contained copies of Diablo, StarCraft and WarCraft II. The Blizzard Anthology (2000) contained Diablo, StarCraft, StarCraft: Brood War and WarCraft II: Battle.net Edition. The Diablo Gift Pack (2000) contained Diablo and Diablo II, but no expansions. The Diablo: Battle Chest (2001) contained Diablo, Diablo II and Diablo II's expansion, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction.

Reception and influence

Reception

The large majority of reviews Diablo received were very positive. It received an average rating of 94 on Metacritic, with many awarding the game near-perfect or perfect scores on their respective grading systems. Most praised the game's addictive gameplay, immense replayability, dark atmosphere, superior graphics (for the time), moody musical score, and its great variety of possible magic items, enemies, levels, and quests. This last aspect was praised by GameSpot editor Trent Ward in his review of Diablo: "Similarly, although a set number of monsters is included, only a few will be seen during each full game. This means that players going back for their second or third shot at the game will very likely fight opponents they haven't seen before. Talk about replay value."

Diablo was awarded GameSpot's Game of the Year Award for 1996.

Diablo's online multiplayer aspect was also cited as one of the strongest points of the game, with it being described as greatly extending its replay value.

The most common complaint about the game was the length of its single-player aspect, which many felt was too short. Others criticized what was seen as the simplicity of the story, with RPGFan stating: "It's been said already, but I'll say it again - if you consider plot to be a highly important part of your RPGs, and can't play any RPGs without a solid plot, stay away."

As of August 29, 2001, Diablo has sold 2.5 million copies worldwide.

Influence

Diablo has been credited with creating a sub-genre of point-and-click action RPGs. Since 1999 many games have used the concepts introduced in Diablo and some have imitated the game. These games include Dungeon Siege, Mu Online, Sacred, Nox, RF Online, Titan Quest, Mythos, Spellforce, Champions of Norrath, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Fate, Divine Divinity, Conquer Online, Darkstone, Throne of Darkness, and Dungeon Runners.

The Cow Level

One of the more well known aspects of Diablo was something that didn't actually exist. Rumors started of a "cow level" with varying instructions or ideas on how to enter such a place and what existed in this level.

The Hellfire expansion gives a tongue-in-cheek nod to this rumor: if cowquest is added to command.txt, the Farmer's Orchard quest is replaced by a Cow Quest. Lester the Farmer is replaced by a Complete Nut who is dressed in a cow suit and wants his Brown Suit back. The quest is accomplished when the player returns the Brown Suit, and the quest reward is a unique armor, the Bovine Plate. The player might also find a Gray Suit, though its sole purpose is to enhance the humor-oriented nature of the quest.

Blizzard actually did put a "secret" cow level in Diablo II, although they made no secret of it. It consisted of an area full of 'Hell Bovines' who were cows walking upright and carrying halberds.

References in other Blizzard games

• The canon hero who defeated Diablo in Tristram was a Warrior: this can be found in Cain's diary in Diablo II's instruction manual and on Diablo III website.
• After the player beats Diablo II or the expansion, an item called "Wirt's Leg" (which is obtained from Wirt's body in Tristram) can be used to open the Secret Cow Level. This item is a reference to the character Wirt from the original Diablo, a teenager who lost his leg to demons and wears a peg leg, and the level it opens is a homage to the well-spread "cow level" rumor from the earlier game.
• The Warcraft 3 single player campaign contains 2 secret items: Wirt's leg and Wirt's other leg.
• One of the items that can be found in Blizzard's MMORPG, World of Warcraft, is called Wirt's Third Leg.
• In Blizzard's StarCraft series, there is a cheat that references the "cow level" rumor called "There Is No Cow Level" which ends the current match in victory for the player.

External links

• Official site
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