The history of the creation of Diablo
The world of computer games is full of drama: great ideas are killed by Krivoruk’s managers in the bud, and ideas that could not reach the title of “greats” are subjected to painful public euthanasia. That is why the birth of Diablo seems even more triumphant. From the very beginning, the boys were successful, including in the person of Stieg Hedlund, who helped them to organize the working process. Even the transformation of Condor into Blizzard North six months before the official release did not affect the further popularity of the game.
For complete immersion in reading and memories, I recommend including the Tristram theme music:
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Indeed, the game Diablo once and for all changed the idea of gamers about RPG. The mix of bloody fights, deep dungeons and trophy collection has become, according to Erich Schaefer, a source of "simple pleasures."
Simplicity is the hallmark of Diablo. "In those days, the RPG games were oversaturated with statistics, so the circle of their fans sharply narrowed," recalls Max Schaefer, Eric's brother and co-founder of Condor. “We wanted to create something similar to Dungeons & Dragons: killed a monster - got candy. It was necessary to minimize the time between the start of the game and the first skeleton rummaging. ”
The Condor company, within which Diablo was born, was founded in 1993. “We started the three of us - me, Eric and Dave Brevik,” says Max. “Dave had just quit Iguana Entertainment, and our first meeting took place within his house. Suddenly the phone rang and a voice on the other end of the wire offered Dave a new job. He was a spokesperson for SunSoft, who learned about his retirement from Iguana Entertainment. We looked at each other and did not believe in our happiness. ”
After signing a contract with SunSoft, Condor began working on the Justice League Task Force for the Mega Drive console. It was a Street Fighter II clone with characters from DC Comics League of Justice. The work was in full swing, when suddenly the guys were lucky again. "SunSoft developed the SNES version of the game with another company," Max laughs. "This" other "was Blizzard Entertainment. We met with her representatives on one of the game shows and immediately became friends. Blizzard just released WarCraft and was about to get into PC games. We wanted the same. ”
As they say, at the right time in the right place.
A new project was not long in coming. “I’ve been carrying out the idea of Diablo for several years,” says Dave Brevik, chief programmer for Condor. “The first sketches appeared in high school, and it was 1985. However, over time, not only its design has changed: the Moria and Angband games created for Unix machines had a huge impact on Diablo. ”
“As for me, it all started with X-COM: UFO Defense,” says Eric. "Viewing angle, character size and" random "maps. Even then, I realized that all this fits perfectly with the "underground" genre. " Soon, Condor and Blizzard signed a new contract.
“The main concept of the game has always remained the same: killed a monster - got candy. But this does not mean that Diablo was born in the blink of an eye. Just the opposite. At first we thought this way: the player moves - and the monster moves. The first one takes out a weapon - the second gets the opportunity to tear it into small pieces, ”says Eric. "It must have been an echo of Nethack or any other bagel from which Brevik's fanatel."
However, Blizzard judged differently and offered to rewrite the game in real combat mode. As a result, Brevik did not leave his office for a week. “As soon as I finished making changes, I pressed the skeleton and my character smashed it to smithereens, I saw the gates of Paradise and the Apostle Peter beside me. Here it is, the long-awaited magic.
The game gradually took shape, but the problems from this only increased. By analogy with X-COM, Diablo used randomized content, that is, partially delegated authority for the design of the dungeon to the central processor: the system should create playable, atmospheric and not too confusing cards. “Randomization has become a real test for us, since there were no tools for its implementation. What is the secret, you ask? In repetition. We lost and tuned the same plot over and over again. ”
The structure of Diablo was frankly crude, and the team members often changed roles. But in general, Brevik was in charge of programming, and the Schäfer brothers were in charge of the design and feel of the game. Plus Max actually did business. However, the team spirit was still in the walls of Condor. For example, the guys worked together on the character management system. Movement, struggle and search for trophies - all this had to be reduced to a few mouse clicks. “The right button, the left button and a couple of keys are what we were striving for,” explains Brevik.
Eric agrees: “Among developers, grind (i.e., the continuous destruction of the same monsters) is notorious. We concentrated all our attention on it. The player should get maximum pleasure from the game, feel the bones of each skeleton he killed crunch. So the mouse has become a perfect weapon. On the one hand, I had to click a lot, on the other hand, it allowed anyone to play Diablo, even my mom. ”
“The simpler the game, the harder it was for the developer to write it,” says Max. “One of our doctrines says that there should be no stick in Diablo - only gingerbread. Many RPG projects have collapsed because of a developed punishment system: if a character does not eat, he dies, and the player gets up because of the computer with a strong sense of resentment. In our case, the opposite is true: every movement brings pleasure. ”
Six months before the release of the game, Condor ran into financial problems. Diablo at that time was almost ready, but this did not save its creator from inevitable closure. Help came quickly: Blizzard offered to buy out the company and turn it into its branch - Blizzard North. “It was unexpected, but just in time,” laughs Eric. "The tax has already stood on the threshold, threatening to cover our shop to all hell."
“We worked well together,” says Brevik. "Our ideas were similar in many ways, so there were no difficulties in communication."
After taking over Condor, the process of working on Diablo has changed dramatically. “Initially, our budget was about half a million dollars. For the game is not enough. As part of Blizzard - no financial restrictions, plus six months left. This opportunity could not be missed, so we headed for Battle.net. ”
The Battle.net system, owned by Blizzard South, put into practice the idea of a multiplayer game. “She loomed on the horizon at that very moment when we were close to the end,” admits Max. “And speaking frankly, it seemed fantastic: two people in different parts of the globe can fight each other by pressing one button only. In those days, it was necessary to enter the user's IP address in order to get in touch with him. And although Diablo was still working on a peer-to-peer network, we began to record the first cases of fraud. None of us was ready for fame, millions of fans, and success in principle, so we were absolutely not ready for such machinations. ”
Max acknowledges that Battle.net "very chaotically" fit into the gameplay. However, the future popularity of Diablo depended heavily on it. “Our team worked in conditions of relative anonymity,” he recalls. “Therefore, when we got the opportunity to get on the Windows demo disk, there was no limit to joy. The day after the release, our phone was literally torn to pieces. It was here that we realized that we were on the threshold of something new. ”
Further more. Crazy demand, huge sales, long-awaited sequel and, of course, the first clones. Competitors do not hesitate to copy every element of Diablo, trying to give their games the spirit of "devilhood." At the same time, Quest Giver’s with exclamation marks above their heads became widespread.
After the release of Diablo II, the brothers Schafer and Dave Brevik left Blizzard. Together with Bill Roper (Bill Roper), they founded their own company - Flagship Studio - and started to implement a new project - Hellgate: London. In the new game there were two modes: from the first and from the third person. Levels were randomly generated, and events still unfolded in the dungeon.
Inconvenient payment system and the crumpled release did not bring happiness Hellgate: London. In the end, the project failed. “Working in the Flagship, I learned a lot more than during the creation of the first part of Diablo,” Brevik laughs. “From now on, we didn’t have an older brother who would reinsure if anything happened. There were problems with the design, the conclusion of the game in the Network, and at some point we realized that we had taken on too much. ”
“Flagship had the potential,” Eric agrees, “but we failed to realize it.” For the most part, I blame myself for this, since it was I who was responsible for the design. It is bitter to realize that Bill Roper took the whole blow. He stood with his chest for the team and each of its participants. However, life goes on. "
Indeed, Torchlight was soon born, in the creation of which the Schäfer brothers took part. “This time we got an order of magnitude better. I think we finally found our place in life, ”laughs Max. Then he pauses for a second and continues: "And we will not get away from him anymore."
For complete immersion in reading and memories, I recommend including the Tristram theme music:
')
And now, "Let's go!"
Indeed, the game Diablo once and for all changed the idea of gamers about RPG. The mix of bloody fights, deep dungeons and trophy collection has become, according to Erich Schaefer, a source of "simple pleasures."
Simplicity is the hallmark of Diablo. "In those days, the RPG games were oversaturated with statistics, so the circle of their fans sharply narrowed," recalls Max Schaefer, Eric's brother and co-founder of Condor. “We wanted to create something similar to Dungeons & Dragons: killed a monster - got candy. It was necessary to minimize the time between the start of the game and the first skeleton rummaging. ”
The Condor company, within which Diablo was born, was founded in 1993. “We started the three of us - me, Eric and Dave Brevik,” says Max. “Dave had just quit Iguana Entertainment, and our first meeting took place within his house. Suddenly the phone rang and a voice on the other end of the wire offered Dave a new job. He was a spokesperson for SunSoft, who learned about his retirement from Iguana Entertainment. We looked at each other and did not believe in our happiness. ”
After signing a contract with SunSoft, Condor began working on the Justice League Task Force for the Mega Drive console. It was a Street Fighter II clone with characters from DC Comics League of Justice. The work was in full swing, when suddenly the guys were lucky again. "SunSoft developed the SNES version of the game with another company," Max laughs. "This" other "was Blizzard Entertainment. We met with her representatives on one of the game shows and immediately became friends. Blizzard just released WarCraft and was about to get into PC games. We wanted the same. ”
As they say, at the right time in the right place.
A new project was not long in coming. “I’ve been carrying out the idea of Diablo for several years,” says Dave Brevik, chief programmer for Condor. “The first sketches appeared in high school, and it was 1985. However, over time, not only its design has changed: the Moria and Angband games created for Unix machines had a huge impact on Diablo. ”
“As for me, it all started with X-COM: UFO Defense,” says Eric. "Viewing angle, character size and" random "maps. Even then, I realized that all this fits perfectly with the "underground" genre. " Soon, Condor and Blizzard signed a new contract.
“The main concept of the game has always remained the same: killed a monster - got candy. But this does not mean that Diablo was born in the blink of an eye. Just the opposite. At first we thought this way: the player moves - and the monster moves. The first one takes out a weapon - the second gets the opportunity to tear it into small pieces, ”says Eric. "It must have been an echo of Nethack or any other bagel from which Brevik's fanatel."
However, Blizzard judged differently and offered to rewrite the game in real combat mode. As a result, Brevik did not leave his office for a week. “As soon as I finished making changes, I pressed the skeleton and my character smashed it to smithereens, I saw the gates of Paradise and the Apostle Peter beside me. Here it is, the long-awaited magic.
The game gradually took shape, but the problems from this only increased. By analogy with X-COM, Diablo used randomized content, that is, partially delegated authority for the design of the dungeon to the central processor: the system should create playable, atmospheric and not too confusing cards. “Randomization has become a real test for us, since there were no tools for its implementation. What is the secret, you ask? In repetition. We lost and tuned the same plot over and over again. ”
The structure of Diablo was frankly crude, and the team members often changed roles. But in general, Brevik was in charge of programming, and the Schäfer brothers were in charge of the design and feel of the game. Plus Max actually did business. However, the team spirit was still in the walls of Condor. For example, the guys worked together on the character management system. Movement, struggle and search for trophies - all this had to be reduced to a few mouse clicks. “The right button, the left button and a couple of keys are what we were striving for,” explains Brevik.
Eric agrees: “Among developers, grind (i.e., the continuous destruction of the same monsters) is notorious. We concentrated all our attention on it. The player should get maximum pleasure from the game, feel the bones of each skeleton he killed crunch. So the mouse has become a perfect weapon. On the one hand, I had to click a lot, on the other hand, it allowed anyone to play Diablo, even my mom. ”
“The simpler the game, the harder it was for the developer to write it,” says Max. “One of our doctrines says that there should be no stick in Diablo - only gingerbread. Many RPG projects have collapsed because of a developed punishment system: if a character does not eat, he dies, and the player gets up because of the computer with a strong sense of resentment. In our case, the opposite is true: every movement brings pleasure. ”
Six months before the release of the game, Condor ran into financial problems. Diablo at that time was almost ready, but this did not save its creator from inevitable closure. Help came quickly: Blizzard offered to buy out the company and turn it into its branch - Blizzard North. “It was unexpected, but just in time,” laughs Eric. "The tax has already stood on the threshold, threatening to cover our shop to all hell."
“We worked well together,” says Brevik. "Our ideas were similar in many ways, so there were no difficulties in communication."
After taking over Condor, the process of working on Diablo has changed dramatically. “Initially, our budget was about half a million dollars. For the game is not enough. As part of Blizzard - no financial restrictions, plus six months left. This opportunity could not be missed, so we headed for Battle.net. ”
The Battle.net system, owned by Blizzard South, put into practice the idea of a multiplayer game. “She loomed on the horizon at that very moment when we were close to the end,” admits Max. “And speaking frankly, it seemed fantastic: two people in different parts of the globe can fight each other by pressing one button only. In those days, it was necessary to enter the user's IP address in order to get in touch with him. And although Diablo was still working on a peer-to-peer network, we began to record the first cases of fraud. None of us was ready for fame, millions of fans, and success in principle, so we were absolutely not ready for such machinations. ”
Max acknowledges that Battle.net "very chaotically" fit into the gameplay. However, the future popularity of Diablo depended heavily on it. “Our team worked in conditions of relative anonymity,” he recalls. “Therefore, when we got the opportunity to get on the Windows demo disk, there was no limit to joy. The day after the release, our phone was literally torn to pieces. It was here that we realized that we were on the threshold of something new. ”
Further more. Crazy demand, huge sales, long-awaited sequel and, of course, the first clones. Competitors do not hesitate to copy every element of Diablo, trying to give their games the spirit of "devilhood." At the same time, Quest Giver’s with exclamation marks above their heads became widespread.
After the release of Diablo II, the brothers Schafer and Dave Brevik left Blizzard. Together with Bill Roper (Bill Roper), they founded their own company - Flagship Studio - and started to implement a new project - Hellgate: London. In the new game there were two modes: from the first and from the third person. Levels were randomly generated, and events still unfolded in the dungeon.
Inconvenient payment system and the crumpled release did not bring happiness Hellgate: London. In the end, the project failed. “Working in the Flagship, I learned a lot more than during the creation of the first part of Diablo,” Brevik laughs. “From now on, we didn’t have an older brother who would reinsure if anything happened. There were problems with the design, the conclusion of the game in the Network, and at some point we realized that we had taken on too much. ”
“Flagship had the potential,” Eric agrees, “but we failed to realize it.” For the most part, I blame myself for this, since it was I who was responsible for the design. It is bitter to realize that Bill Roper took the whole blow. He stood with his chest for the team and each of its participants. However, life goes on. "
Indeed, Torchlight was soon born, in the creation of which the Schäfer brothers took part. “This time we got an order of magnitude better. I think we finally found our place in life, ”laughs Max. Then he pauses for a second and continues: "And we will not get away from him anymore."
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/179739/
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