Interview: Diablo Creator David Brevik Discusses His Feelings on Diablo 3
Posted 19 August 2012 by RushsterThis week I was fortunate to catch up with 
David Brevik at Gamescom in Cologone to find out more about his new title Marvel Heroes but also to find out what he thought of Diablo 3, after all, he created the Diablo franchise. In the interview David talks quite openly about Diablo 3 and the mixed emotions he feels about the game and all the backlash from the community since the game was released.
Watch the video, or if you prefer, you can read a transcript after the break.
You can also check out the press demo video I shot of Marvel Heroes with the Gazillion team on IncGamers, view the full interview with David or jump into our new Marvel Heroes forum.
IncGamers: You are very well known in the world of ARPGs, and I am going to ask you, Diablo 3 is probably the most anticipated PC title in 10 years. What’s your opinion on the final product?
David Brevik: Honestly, I think that they did a lot of the things the best they could, it was a very different game than I would have created, the team and personalities, the people, the talent and all the design philosophies of the people that worked on it in Irvine, we called them Blizzard South, those people have their own style and the their own way they like to design. It was very, very different from the Blizzard North.
So I think that when Blizzard South took over the development of Diablo 3 it was inevitable that they were going to create an experience that was in the Diablo theme but concentrated more towards the things that they liked to experience. Including more story and things like that.
When Blizzard North shut down they lost a ton of experience with why the Action RPG works and what about it works. That’s really difficult to recover from. They didn’t have the experience of people that knew it well. This is why you do things with random levels for example, and so when you lose that experience you are going to create a very different experience in the end than we would have created.
IncGamers: Do you think they bought the wrong people in? As we understand, Jay Wilson, for example, his background was RTS. From our point of view it looked like they misunderstood what kept people playing, The type of loot drops, which has been a big issues. One of the other issues is they have not listened to their community, and they have not analysed what makes up that addictive Diablo experience. What are your thoughts on that?
David Brevik: Well, the loot system. They made some decisions with the loot system that were very different than the way that we did it in Diablo 2 and I think that obviously the community has been upset with some of the decisions they made. Having all of your powers work off your main weapon and things like that, to having blues that are more powerful than yellows. Eventually the auction house and how that worked, even something as simple as when you equip an item and it’s bound to your character permanently would have totally changed the dynamic of the game.
It seems odd that they have not really responded in a quick fashion to some of these things. I think they are very well aware of the problems at this point and are trying to fix some of this stuff. It’s a shame that they had to learn some of these painful lessons
IncGamers: As you created Diablo, how do you feel about it? Do you feel a little let down that the legacy has kind of been mashed up?
David Brevik: I have very mixed emotions about it (laughs). On one hand I am sad that people haven’t enjoyed Diablo because it’s a love, a passion, and its obvious people still have a giant love and passion for Diablo and they are speaking out about it because they have such love for it. That makes me feel great.
I am sad because people are outraged and, you know, some of the decision they have made are not the decisions I would make and there have been changes in philosophy and that hasn’t gone over very well. I think in that way I am a little sad.
I am also a little happy, which I hate to say, it shows that the people that were involved in Diablo really did matter, and so I am happy that it has come to light that how talented that group was and how unique and special that group was. I am hoping that, as this happens very often in the industry, you see it with Call of Duty and things like that , when the people leave the game changes and it shows how critical people are in this industry.
IncGamers: One of the questions the Gazillion guys asked me to ask you was, where did the name Diablo come from?
David Brevik: I thought of the game when I was in high school and I lived in the east part of San Francisco in a town called Danville and I lived at the base of Mount Diablo and that’s where the name comes from. Once I found out what the mountain name was, I thought that was awesome, I didn’t speak Spanish, so I thought I wanted to use that as a title for a nemesis in a videogame. It’s simply from where I lived.
IncGamers: Well thanks a lot David, you’ve brought a lot of pleasure to millions of people over the years and hopefully you’ll continue to do so.
Update: Some of the Diablo III developers, including Jay Wilson, reacted angrily to Dave’s comments in this interview. See this post for quotes.
Update #2: A few hours later Gazilli0n issued IncGamers with a statement reading
“We admire Blizzard and Blizzard games. David was asked about Diablo 3 and gave his honest opinion and we stand by him 100%. Marvel Heroes is David’s vision and is the spiritual successor to Diablo 2. We’ll be in closed beta soon, so visit MarvelHeroes.com if you want to check it out.” – Leo Olebe, VP Marketing Gazillion Entertainment.
Excellent interview!
Interview was okay. Nothing too special, although what he was saying about the Irvine team knowing nothing about ARPGs was amusing [and probably true]. He’s obviously disappointed with some aspects and he’s being professional about it. What I don’t understand is his comment on the story.
There are a lot of things I like about the game [even though I quit a month ago], and I’m really excited for the new patch, which looks like it’ll fix much of what was bad.
However, it isn’t just the itemisation that’s the problem. Despite the fact that they’ve focussed on the story and stand by it as something set in stone, it’s the narrative and the way the story was presented that turns the game from something fun into a gigantic face-palm whenever an NPC opens their mouth in-game.
For instance, Cain’s death is underwhelming. He’s been around since the first game. I don’t mind that they killed him off, but it was the way they did it. Maghda is a 2-dimensional uninspired thug straight out of the worst sort of Saturday morning cartoon serial. Come on! This is Deckard Cain! He’s been around since the first game. He should have his heart ripped out by Diablo him[her?]self in a beautifully animated cinematic, not just lamely falling over in his house or whatever because Maghda so bad.
The other thing that churns my stomach is the constant moronic prattling from the act bosses. It breaks up gameplay, the dialogue is rubbish and unnecessary, and what’s worse, it makes them look stupid. They’re supposed to be the embodiments of vice and evil, not Skeletor Mk 2. Please don’t reveal your evil plan just before you kill me like a bad Bond villain.
Let’s compare to the first game, where you only hear about Diablo in passing from townsfolk and tomes lying around the catacombs. When I first saw him, I practically **** my pants when he Apocalypsed my character to cinders in only a couple of hits, pretty much before I even saw him. That guy is SCARY. He’s the Lord of Terror. He’s supposed to be a bad-ass, conniving, terrifying demon from Hell whose mere presence makes ordinary people go insane simply from being near him for five minutes. Now, don’t get me wrong; I like what they did with the design of the character in the third game. But *why* did they make him so stupid? It’s very disappointing for a long-time fan. If I have to hear the TERR-ROAR one more time…
It’s the same for Azmodan and Maghda. OH LOOK YOU’VE PROGRESSED. MY FACE, LET ME SHOW IT TO YOU. RAAAAAH I’M SCARY. You’re not. You’re stupid.
Not to mention *Belial and the Most Obvious Cliche of Pretending to be an Innocent Child*.
And *Look! More hidden footprints! Enchantress from the Realm of Annoying*.
Okay, this would be bad, but not game destroying if we only had to play through it once… except for the fact that the *whole point of the game* is to replay it constantly. It’s a game about finding gear and grinding to get said gear. I guess my point in all this is that these sorts of interruptions to ordinary play get really old really quickly. I really hope they give an option to turn them off in a future patch.
Yes, and what evil god from hell would leave his orders laying around everywhere!? The diary of a girl is harder to find…
this is so painful to read, b/c is so f***g true, man, so wrong on their part that despite 18 rating the story is told to 10 year old. However, in terms of everything else that is broken right now, i wanna believe this game still can be saved…
He never said the story was good. He just said that Blizzard South likes to make their games a lot more story-”focused” than Blizzard North, which is entirely true.
If blizzard north have make diablo3, its have look like gothic look, and no one would have level 60 after one month, i think would take much longer.
So blizzard have fail will diablo3, the first game they real “EPIC Fail hahaha..
I play one month then i end up..
Good Interview and I agree with him , that people on the team do matter ALOT , I used to play Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and when the team left , I did notice how bad it affected Modern Warfare 3 , same thing happened to Diablo3 , I played Diablo 2 for 10 years on and off and the game is still amazing and addictive til this day , the team did alot of mistakes in D3 and I hope they will fix it and will listen to the community more often from now on.
Waiting on 1.0.4 hoping it will make me get back to Diablo.
If anybody told me before diablo 3 was released that I would be looking for a different game to play after just 2 months from the release of diablo 3 I would have said that he was crazy and didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.
I just can’t believe that Diablo 3 , the game that I waited forever to get my hands on , became boring and meaningless after 2 months.
The game is good and it has alot of potential and hope they take care of the game very fast.
^This
@ematanis: “Waiting on 1.0.4 hoping it will make me get back to Diablo.
If anybody told me before diablo 3 was released that I would be looking for a different game to play after just 2 months from the release of diablo 3 I would have said that he was crazy and didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.”
What a boss. <3
Great man. What’s the real reason these guys left ? O yeah i know … its about new Greedyvision… and new greedy policy of Blizzard.Who now only cares about MONEY.Well that’s the result. F U BLIZZARD SOUTH!
This is why I am so happy with the recent developments in crowd funding. On Kickstarter some the greatest game developers are already coming together, to make new or recreate games they cannot make anymore in the corporate gaming industry. Ron Gilbert, 2 guys from Andromeda, Iron Lore anyone? I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw the original Blizzard North developers team up again in a few years and make the real Diablo 3… Even if it can’t be called that, I wouldn’t care because we’ve learned from D3 and many other examples, it’s not the graphics (or the ‘shiny’ as Blizz likes to call it), but the gameplay what makes a good game. But if you were gaming in the 80′s you of course already knew that.
The real Diablo 3 already exists … in spirit. That game is called Torchlight 2.
I don’t think he is downspeaking the people at Blizzard, he is just saying that the people that worked there 15 years ago did matter a lot and it’s not only about Blizzard and the money for long development cycles.
On the other hand lots of the Blizzard North people had their chance with Hellgate: London and that didn’t work out, much less than Diablo 3 I’d say.
Hellgate was boring, but remember that was 1-2 from Blizzard north, not the full team..
8 of the 9 founders of Flagship Studios came directly from BN, including all the creators of the series. And dozens of other BN employees joined them in 2004 and 2005 after BN shut down.
That said, the problem with HGL was they didn’t budget their time or money well and ran out of both and had to launch maybe a year before they’d have liked to. I’ve talked to Max and heard interviews with others and they are all adamant that HGL would have been a great game if they’d just had another 6 or 8 months to balance and polish.
Sadly we’ll never know, and it’s fair to criticize HGL, but realize that it was far from a finished product. The same can’t be said for D3, where they took their years and years and put out the game more or less as they wanted it to be.
Awesome interview, well done incgamers/diablo incgamers
Captcha: rise and shine
As an old Diablo fan, I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place – on one side, Diablo 3, as it stands, just isn’t living up to what it should have been. At the same time, the improvements that was made compared to Diablo 2, has made it impossible for me to enjoy that game as well…