Jay Wilson, lead designer of Diablo 3, once told us about the design philosophy behind Diablo. He told us six of seven rules, which were replayability, accessibility, customization, the dark license, brutal combat and cooperative online play. But what would you say - what is, in your opinion, the core of Diablo's success, the "Diablo formula”? Did you have different rules?
Our initial "list” was very similar, and here's what we always talked about
:
Accessible
We very much followed the Blizzard philosophy of making our games "easy to learn but difficult to master.” We worked very hard to lower the barrier to entry in terms of both the game and access via Battle.net. We wanted players to be able to have one-click access to getting online and playing with anyone around the world. And in terms of game play, focusing on a simple point-and-click interface was essential to making the game accessible.
Replayable
The very random nature of the game made it infinitely re-playable. We also came up with the idea to recycle the main game flow not once but twice by introducing difficulty levels (Hell and Nightmare) and then again by have a "Hardcore” mode where if your character died, he was gone.
A Gothic Fantasy World
The setting was dark, and we didn't back down from that. We accepted and embraced the fact that the game was going to be rated M, so we went all out to create a frightening, demonic-infested world where the players were the beacons of light and hope.
More Blood & Fire
When it doubt, add more blood or more fire. Simple, but effective in making the game feel ore exciting and frightening.
Cooperative Online Play
Making the focus of the game co-operative as opposed to competitive separated it from Warcraft and StarCraft, and added to the "heroes versus demons” elements of the storyline. It also fostered a very solid community where our players helped each other by default.
Action-Oriented Combat
We moved away from the common turn-based pace of RPGs and pushed it into the realms of action games. This brought on many arguments as to whether Diablo was even an RPG, but it proved to be incredibly popular with gamers.
The "Slot Machine / Piņata” Effect
The random nature of the game extended into the item system and added an element of anticipation and excitement to every fight. Even opening a chest had that moment of, "What's inside” because of the rarity and randomness of the item system. Internally we called this the "Kill/Reward” mechanic because every time a monster was killed, you should be hopeful for some possibly cool reward.
Originally Posted by Hallfiry
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