Diablo III Wild Speculation and Rumor Mongering Abounds

[Dtrain]

Gauntlet isn't anywhere in Diablo's DNA.

The common "ancestor" is pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons. Of course, that's not a very tight association when we're talking about computer games.

Dungeons and Dragons inspired an MIT graduate student's 1982 thesis that was later called "Dandy" (D and D ) which was apparently borrowed from very liberally to make Gauntlet (they repaid the guy with a gauntlet arcade game?) Although it is tempting to draw a link from Rogue to Dandy, the creator of Dandy says that he was unaware of Rogue at the time he was making Dandy, and had been inspired by watching his dorm-mates playing dungeons and dragons (which he himself did not play.)

Meanwhile, the first dungeon crawlers that would eventually lead to rogue were popping up on university networks as early as 1974, the same year Dungeons and Dragons was first published.

So I can see why one could look at Gauntlet and Diablo, squint a little, and see the same type of game. They're not exactly "night and day" different. I find it interesting to consider the different inspirations that lead to these somewhat similar games from the common root of dungeons and dragons.

[Yegolev]

Tolkien.

[Nebu]

Tolkien.

/agree

In 1974, D&D was pretty rare in my world.  Even by 1978 I still had to mail order handbooks and dungeon modules as the hobby shops in Minneapolis didn't carry much.  I'm sure it was more widespread among the college crowd, but I wasn't in college then.  I can tell you that I was playing all sorts of dungeon crawlers in 1975 and 1976 on teletype.  From my personal view, I knew of many more dungeon crawl type games in 1976 than I knew about D&D and PnP type games.   It's tough to tell whether computer influenced PnP or vice versa, but certain that Tolkien influenced the entire enterprise.

[Yegolev]

Interestingly, I have read that "hack" was originally a physical game of sorts with MIT students exploring the facilities of the university.  From this supposedly came the game hack, which spawned rogue and nethack and others, which I think we can identify as an ancestor to Diablo.  Why would these students be crawling around in basements?  I blame the story of Moria.

[Ghambit]

Someone needs to produce an isometric RL movie short based on Diablo.  Make the rig follow the player/group and what not from a birds-eye perspective.  Y'know, something like Dorkman vs. Ryan only Diablo.   

[rattran]

Between this thread and the roguelike thread, I'm either going to have to fire up Diablo2, or Nethack.

Or likely both  Goodbye, free time!

[Ironwood]

Yeah.  I was looking at Necro builds today.  Not cool.

 

[Murgos]

Interestingly, I have read that "hack" was originally a physical game of sorts with MIT students exploring the facilities of the university.  From this supposedly came the game hack, which spawned rogue and nethack and others, which I think we can identify as an ancestor to Diablo.  Why would these students be crawling around in basements?  I blame the story of Moria.

All of the MIT facilities are connected via underground tunnel.  You know, for when it snows.  They are actually very clean and well lit, well now that are, in the 60's and 70's it may have been different.

[Ingmar]

Tolkien.

And Vance, and Leiber, and Moorcock, and Anderson, and Howard, and...

Let's be clear about this, Gygax stole from *everyone*. The kind of default world you inevitably end up with running OD&D out of the box really looks a lot more like something out of Leiber than anything out of Tolkien, honestly, at least once you get past that initial "hey this game has orcs and hobbits" thing.

[Soulflame]

Yeah.  I was looking at Necro builds today.  Not cool.

Skelemancers are boring.  Poison nova more or less hits the wall in Hell diff, unless you are wearing some high end gear.

[Dtrain]

Tolkien.

/agree

In 1974, D&D was pretty rare in my world.  Even by 1978 I still had to mail order handbooks and dungeon modules as the hobby shops in Minneapolis didn't carry much.  I'm sure it was more widespread among the college crowd, but I wasn't in college then.  I can tell you that I was playing all sorts of dungeon crawlers in 1975 and 1976 on teletype.  From my personal view, I knew of many more dungeon crawl type games in 1976 than I knew about D&D and PnP type games.   It's tough to tell whether computer influenced PnP or vice versa, but certain that Tolkien influenced the entire enterprise.

One of the first games we might call a precursor to roguelikes was called simply "dnd" - it was first made available in 1974 or 1975. D&D probably was pretty rare in those days (I wouldn't know - I was just in the process of being born at the time,) but clearly these guys had the source on the good stuff - likely the result of the college scene for comp sci students at the time.

Gygax always tried to minimize the credit he gave to Tolkien for inspiring D&D, of course, but I think that had more to do with legal issues than truth.

So yeah, take it one step back and you've pretty clearly got Tolkien behind it all. In any event, it's not like D&D and Tolkien are mutually exclussive, so chances are that all of the games we are talking about received inspiration from both sources.

[Ironwood]

Yeah.  I was looking at Necro builds today.  Not cool.

Skelemancers are boring.  Poison nova more or less hits the wall in Hell diff, unless you are wearing some high end gear.

Fuck Skeletons.  Revive is always where it's at.

[Yegolev]

Revive 4 life!  Down with skeletons!

[Dtrain]

I can link Serek Dmart to Diablo III in 4 steps:

1. Diablo III inspired by Rogue
2. Rogue inspired by Avatar
3. PC version of Avatar, Mordor made by David Allen
4. David Allen -> Alganon w/ Serek Dmart

[Yegolev]

If there is a line in this sad excuse for a thread, you crossed it.

[Dtrain]

It was like forum bingo, and I had to do something.

[Yegolev]

Inevitable.

I'm still playing TQ in brief lulls.  I am concerned that D3 isn't going to be as good as TQ.  We'll get a Hellgate add-on, or DLC as they kids say these days, then maybe some mods.

[Malakili]

Inevitable.

I'm still playing TQ in brief lulls.  I am concerned that D3 isn't going to be as good as TQ.  We'll get a Hellgate add-on, or DLC as they kids say these days, then maybe some mods.

I've honestly been extremely happy with Torchlight, and while it hasn't become a game I play obsessively, Diablo 3 better feel at least as good, and have a lot more depth.   Part of me worries they are over doing it, and should just stick with what works.  Not to mention that this will have to compete with whatever the guys at Runic are cooking up.  I mean, sure Diablo 3 is going to see a billion copies and blow Torchlight and whatever else comes from them out of the water from a financial standpoint, but then, if I play Diablo 3 for a month solid and then never again, its going to feel like a let down.

[lesion]

Do you find this is often the case with Blizzard titles?

[Soulflame]

I've never been comfortable with Revive.  Three minute duration?  Feh.

Sorceress is where it is at.

[bhodi]

Have they released what they scrapped the skill tree system for, yet?

[Teleku]

From what I remember, they just took out the tree aspect of it.  You now basically have a pool of skills to choose from, with new ones opening up at different levels.  What has me excited are the skill runes, which are suppose to allow you to specially customize any skill in the game.  This seems like a good bridge back to what I was talking about earlier in the thread, where spell drops helped determine what a mages build would be in D1.  Except everybody can customize their skills based on the runes they find.  Of course, it remains to be seen how well they do it, but on paper it sounds amazing.

[Malakili]

From what I remember, they just took out the tree aspect of it.  You now basically have a pool of skills to choose from, with new ones opening up at different levels.  What has me excited are the skill runes, which are suppose to allow you to specially customize any skill in the game.  This seems like a good bridge back to what I was talking about earlier in the thread, where spell drops helped determine what a mages build would be in D1.  Except everybody can customize their skills based on the runes they find.  Of course, it remains to be seen how well they do it, but on paper it sounds amazing.

That would make me very happy if it works the way you make it sound.

[Teleku]

Here's a video from blizzcon from awhile ago of them demoing it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouYP1zGfd0s

[Sjofn]

Inevitable.

I'm still playing TQ in brief lulls.  I am concerned that D3 isn't going to be as good as TQ.  We'll get a Hellgate add-on, or DLC as they kids say these days, then maybe some mods.

The D3 demos at Blizzcon are more fun than TQ! Or I think so, at least. 

[K9]

Video demoing the new crafting and loot management side of things

[Yegolev]

[Malakili]

I think it actually looks pretty decent as a way to implement crafting.  "Earning their trust" sounds suspiciously like a rep grind, but then, you had to complete quests for lots of NPCs in D2 before they'd do stuff for you so I'm not too worried. 

[Yegolev]

Nor am I.

In fact:

[K9]

I think it looks like an entertaining alternative development path

so 

[Nonentity]

I like how that nice little blacksmith guy upgrades his workshop from jaunty little cart to mobile metal rape cart of bondage and replica swords.

[K9]

The Diablo series has always had a thinly veiled BDSM undertone.

[Megrim]

Meh, TF2 "crafting" flashbacks.

[WindupAtheist]

I liked the narrator's quip about "rainbow viewing" toward the end. 

[Nonentity]

Well, crafting is somewhat nice in that i won't just start straight up ignoring items if they fall under a certain quality threshhold, i can pick them up to feed them to the grinder to potentially do things with my better items. A good addition overall, I think.