You've heard of Diablo 2. At some point in your life, you've probably played it, or at least something that is exactly like it in almost every superficial respect. Titan Quest, Fate, Dungeon Runners - we've seen countless lookalikes trying to cling on Diablo 2's coattails. Some are recieved well, some not so well, but they're all pretty similar; you're running around, left clicking on monsters a lot and holding alt to pick up little magic objects that are color coordinated according to the amount of unicorn rainbow magic contained within.
But why is it that all these clones are all but ghost towns, while Diablo 2 still has a thriving online community after seven years? It's not the graphics, Titan Quest is prettier. It's not the accessibility, Dungeon Runners is easier. It's most certainly not the interface, as any of these new clones hardly changed that at all. So, it must be the gameplay. Which brings us to the real question: why is Diablo 2's gameplay so damn good?
The reason is the same, suprisingly enough, as the reason many of the great fighting games stick around to be competetive, while all the others die off in crusty arcades: it looks superficial, but it's got depth. It's easy to beat Diablo 2, that is, defeat the last boss in the single player game. However, to make a truly powerful character requires a knowledge of the mechanics that is far more demanding and far more rewarding than anything you will find in Titan Quest or any other Diablo lookalike.
To prove my point, I'm going to show you something beautiful:
But why is it that all these clones are all but ghost towns, while Diablo 2 still has a thriving online community after seven years? It's not the graphics, Titan Quest is prettier. It's not the accessibility, Dungeon Runners is easier. It's most certainly not the interface, as any of these new clones hardly changed that at all. So, it must be the gameplay. Which brings us to the real question: why is Diablo 2's gameplay so damn good?
The reason is the same, suprisingly enough, as the reason many of the great fighting games stick around to be competetive, while all the others die off in crusty arcades: it looks superficial, but it's got depth. It's easy to beat Diablo 2, that is, defeat the last boss in the single player game. However, to make a truly powerful character requires a knowledge of the mechanics that is far more demanding and far more rewarding than anything you will find in Titan Quest or any other Diablo lookalike.
To prove my point, I'm going to show you something beautiful:
Holy Christ.
This is merely a small segment of Diabloii.net's massive mechanics compendium. The mechanics are so deep, there are pages upon pages simply devoted to the manipulation of your chance to get a high level rune, or a great item. Hell, there are about three or four pages devoted to your chance to block an attack with a shield, and not even that many characters use shields.
Of course, only the very hardcorest of the hardcore figure out these numbers by themselves, and make these posts. But, as I mentioned in my last article, gameplay at the expert level trickles down; bad gameplay and good gameplay. Only a handful of people will actually do the tests to understand these mechanics, but most of the serious players will understand the results they come back with and everyone will benefit from the strategies those results produce, as even the most casual player will want to know the best build for their level thirty-three barbarian.
Finishing Diablo 2's story is easy. But not only is Diablo 2 not harmed by this, its deep gameplay almost rests upon it. Without the ability to powerlevel newbie characters from levels 5-80 in about half an hour (literally), the work involved in testing new builds and new numbers would be terrifying, and Diablo 2 would likely lose most of its playerbase. As most of Diablo 2's long term draw comes from the mechanics of building a character and not beating the same story over and over again, the ability to powerlevel is crucial.
Ultimately, its deep mechanics, aided and abetted by powerlevelling, are the reason why Diablo 2 is still afloat; while its prettier, shallower clones are all going under.
This is merely a small segment of Diabloii.net's massive mechanics compendium. The mechanics are so deep, there are pages upon pages simply devoted to the manipulation of your chance to get a high level rune, or a great item. Hell, there are about three or four pages devoted to your chance to block an attack with a shield, and not even that many characters use shields.
Of course, only the very hardcorest of the hardcore figure out these numbers by themselves, and make these posts. But, as I mentioned in my last article, gameplay at the expert level trickles down; bad gameplay and good gameplay. Only a handful of people will actually do the tests to understand these mechanics, but most of the serious players will understand the results they come back with and everyone will benefit from the strategies those results produce, as even the most casual player will want to know the best build for their level thirty-three barbarian.
Finishing Diablo 2's story is easy. But not only is Diablo 2 not harmed by this, its deep gameplay almost rests upon it. Without the ability to powerlevel newbie characters from levels 5-80 in about half an hour (literally), the work involved in testing new builds and new numbers would be terrifying, and Diablo 2 would likely lose most of its playerbase. As most of Diablo 2's long term draw comes from the mechanics of building a character and not beating the same story over and over again, the ability to powerlevel is crucial.
Ultimately, its deep mechanics, aided and abetted by powerlevelling, are the reason why Diablo 2 is still afloat; while its prettier, shallower clones are all going under.
5 comments:
It seems that you're equating depth with complexity. Complexity doesn't matter if there's still a single, demonstrably optimal approach to playing the game.
I played quite a bit of Diablo 2 and had a great time finding new equipment and optimizing my character for various strategies, but I assume that the reason that Diablo 2 is still being played is because it is well-balanced. Balance – the ability for multiple approaches to gameplay to remain viable in the face of relentless player abuse and min-maxing – is the key to keeping a game intriguing.
Wow. I should probably play Diablo II.
Anyway, I'm enjoying this so far - keep it up! And to respond to malteze, yes, balance is very important - but Rock Paper Scissors is balanced. Underneath, on some highly theoretical level, every (with a bunch of caveats) game can be played perfectly, and thus is boring. While it's kind of depressing to admit, complexity is a huge factor in what makes games awesome. Balance is of course also necessary, since without it 90% of the complexity gets thrown away in favor of the better 10%. That doesn't sound like a good sentence to end on, but I don't have any more to say :( The end.
Thanks for writing this.
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