6 ms·

I thought it was weird to credit someone as Diablo's "creator" since there must've been a large team given how long I remember the credits being. But indeed if

by zawerf 9y ago

I thought it was weird to credit someone as Diablo's "creator" since there must've been a large team given how long I remember the credits being. But indeed if you look at the wiki he seems to be the main programmer listed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_(video_game) Some other team members such as Max Schaefer and Erich Schaefer (co-designers of Diablo and Diablo II) went on to make Torchlight so many consider it to be Diablo's spiritual successor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchlight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchlight

antjanus 9y ago
I wasn't a huge fan of Torchlight but it's still such a solid game.
- sleepybrett 9y ago
  He didn't work on torchlight. He did hellgate london (pile of shit) and Marvel Heroes (kinda a mmo successor to the marvel ultimate alliance games but deeply diablofied (didn't play much but it seemed .. ok))
jrs95 9y ago
Personally I consider Path of Exile to be the best successor to Diablo I/II. If you were a fan of Diablo and haven't tried it, I highly recommend it.
- stryk 9y ago
  I'd also say Path of Exile does the [PC] free-to-play thing right. They offer an extremely good product up front for free, they don't have any of the time counters or other F2P bullshit from mobile, and they don't put up arbitrary gates to any of the gameplay. They just sell cosmetic stuff for your in-game avatar. And the game is so good, and they know their fanbase so well, that they have apparently been doing well with that model considering the game has been around for a good while now and they keep putting out expansion packs and such.
- jebeng 9y ago
  Brevik does/has done consulting and currently does some sort of ambassador type role in China for Tencent's version of Path of Exile too.
taneq 9y ago
I agree with your first line. I'm a coder (sometimes a game coder, even) and I'm all for giving credit where credit is due, but the main programmer on a game isn't the game's "creator". The software which renders the sprites and plays the sound effects is the game engine, and Brevik is undoubtedly the game engine creator, but the actual game itself is in the story and characters and game mechanics and challenges that the player experiences while playing the game. These are created by the game designers (both gameplay and artwork), and it's these people, if anyone, who are the "creators" of a game.
- benjaminjackman 9y ago
  If you read the back story of Diablo, Brevik was definitely involved in the decisions one would typically attribute to one credited with creating the game, it was certainly a team effort so he definitely wasn’t the only creator. Keep in mind this was a different time and everyone was generally expected to wear more hats back then and blizzard north wasn’t that big of a company at that time regardless. Particularly he had a lot of experience with the rogues which heavily inspired the original Diablo. Because of this he was initially opposed to making the game real-time as opposed to the traditional turn based, enemies only move when you do rogue style. However as he tells the story he programmed real time movement in a few hours on a Friday night just to see what it would be like. When he tried it out for the first time and clicked the mouse; almost magically the warrior walked over and smashed a skeleton into a pile of bones. He was convinced right then that real-time was the right choice. That moment may have been the birth of the ARPG genre.
  - electricslpnsld 9y ago
    > That moment may have been the birth of the ARPG genre. Gauntlet (1985) had real-time combat, and predated Diablo by at least a decade. If that isn't RPGish enough, Ultima Underworld came four years before Diablo. Diablo definitely perfected the ARPG, though.
    - e12e 9y ago
      I'm also mindful of an amiga game I only played the demo of, "Shadowlands" from 1992: http://hol.abime.net/1898 http://hol.abime.net/1898 The first graphical game I played that leveraged the need for a lightsource similar to Moria. Not sure if you also needed food for your team. Like a mix of rouge-likes and isometric/3d real-time with a pinch of "eye of the beholder".
stevenwoo 9y ago
I was a programmer on Diablo 2 and used the Diablo 1 source code as a starting point for some features - all of the source files I looked at had David Brevik as the author, it was very straightforward C that one person could keep in their head.
- electricslpnsld 9y ago
  > I was a programmer on Diablo 2 and used the Diablo 1 source code Don't leave us hanging, is there a hidden cow level in the Diablo 1 source?!
  - stevenwoo 9y ago
    Ha - that would require some time travel plot twist, IIRC the cow level got added late in the D2 development as homage to the fans - I wrote the code for the Horadric Cube UI and the triggers to call the level/item changes (other programmers wrote the level stuff and item stuff separately). The gem that did nothing in the Battle.net chat was added just to spur rumors.
    - rshar 9y ago
      It's quite a serendipitous surprise to be able to meet the creators of one of the most played video games of all time (or at least me) on a random thread here. What are you working on these days? Are you still in the games industry?
      - stevenwoo 9y ago
        Programming, not games right now. Switched to mobile/server stuff so it might be difficult to change back.
    - gcatalfamo 9y ago
      Just so you know: my childhood and I love you.
    - gillette 9y ago
ollifi 9y ago
Maybe games need the director concept from movies where one person can act as the face of the project. I think it helps everyone that group efforts are projected through single person who carries responsibility of the outcome.

by zawerf 9y ago

antjanus 9y ago

I wasn't a huge fan of Torchlight but it's still such a solid game.

sleepybrett 9y ago
He didn't work on torchlight. He did hellgate london (pile of shit) and Marvel Heroes (kinda a mmo successor to the marvel ultimate alliance games but deeply diablofied (didn't play much but it seemed .. ok))

jrs95 9y ago

Personally I consider Path of Exile to be the best successor to Diablo I/II. If you were a fan of Diablo and haven't tried it, I highly recommend it.

stryk 9y ago
I'd also say Path of Exile does the [PC] free-to-play thing right. They offer an extremely good product up front for free, they don't have any of the time counters or other F2P bullshit from mobile, and they don't put up arbitrary gates to any of the gameplay. They just sell cosmetic stuff for your in-game avatar. And the game is so good, and they know their fanbase so well, that they have apparently been doing well with that model considering the game has been around for a good while now and they keep putting out expansion packs and such.
jebeng 9y ago
Brevik does/has done consulting and currently does some sort of ambassador type role in China for Tencent's version of Path of Exile too.

taneq 9y ago

I agree with your first line. I'm a coder (sometimes a game coder, even) and I'm all for giving credit where credit is due, but the main programmer on a game isn't the game's "creator". The software which renders the sprites and plays the sound effects is the game engine, and Brevik is undoubtedly the game engine creator, but the actual game itself is in the story and characters and game mechanics and challenges that the player experiences while playing the game. These are created by the game designers (both gameplay and artwork), and it's these people, if anyone, who are the "creators" of a game.

benjaminjackman 9y ago
If you read the back story of Diablo, Brevik was definitely involved in the decisions one would typically attribute to one credited with creating the game, it was certainly a team effort so he definitely wasn’t the only creator. Keep in mind this was a different time and everyone was generally expected to wear more hats back then and blizzard north wasn’t that big of a company at that time regardless. Particularly he had a lot of experience with the rogues which heavily inspired the original Diablo. Because of this he was initially opposed to making the game real-time as opposed to the traditional turn based, enemies only move when you do rogue style. However as he tells the story he programmed real time movement in a few hours on a Friday night just to see what it would be like. When he tried it out for the first time and clicked the mouse; almost magically the warrior walked over and smashed a skeleton into a pile of bones. He was convinced right then that real-time was the right choice. That moment may have been the birth of the ARPG genre.
- electricslpnsld 9y ago
  > That moment may have been the birth of the ARPG genre. Gauntlet (1985) had real-time combat, and predated Diablo by at least a decade. If that isn't RPGish enough, Ultima Underworld came four years before Diablo. Diablo definitely perfected the ARPG, though.
  - e12e 9y ago
    I'm also mindful of an amiga game I only played the demo of, "Shadowlands" from 1992: http://hol.abime.net/1898 http://hol.abime.net/1898 The first graphical game I played that leveraged the need for a lightsource similar to Moria. Not sure if you also needed food for your team. Like a mix of rouge-likes and isometric/3d real-time with a pinch of "eye of the beholder".

stevenwoo 9y ago

I was a programmer on Diablo 2 and used the Diablo 1 source code as a starting point for some features - all of the source files I looked at had David Brevik as the author, it was very straightforward C that one person could keep in their head.

electricslpnsld 9y ago
> I was a programmer on Diablo 2 and used the Diablo 1 source code Don't leave us hanging, is there a hidden cow level in the Diablo 1 source?!
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  Ha - that would require some time travel plot twist, IIRC the cow level got added late in the D2 development as homage to the fans - I wrote the code for the Horadric Cube UI and the triggers to call the level/item changes (other programmers wrote the level stuff and item stuff separately). The gem that did nothing in the Battle.net chat was added just to spur rumors.
  - rshar 9y ago
    It's quite a serendipitous surprise to be able to meet the creators of one of the most played video games of all time (or at least me) on a random thread here. What are you working on these days? Are you still in the games industry?
    - stevenwoo 9y ago
      Programming, not games right now. Switched to mobile/server stuff so it might be difficult to change back.
  - gcatalfamo 9y ago
    Just so you know: my childhood and I love you.
  - gillette 9y ago

ollifi 9y ago

Maybe games need the director concept from movies where one person can act as the face of the project. I think it helps everyone that group efforts are projected through single person who carries responsibility of the outcome.