IRVINE, Calif. — Writing about a game that hasn’t been released to the public can be risky. It might end up as vaporware or simply not live up to the awesome impression that publishers can gin up in a short, canned demonstration. But when it comes to a new game from Blizzard Entertainment, perhaps the world’s most accomplished and prestigious developer, an exception seems merited.
And if there is one game in the pipeline I can’t wait to play on my own time, it’s Blizzard’s Diablo III.
So on Monday I found myself within Blizzard’s gated, guarded headquarters complex here, navigating my witch doctor and his canine minions through the Torture Chambers of the Mad King. (I didn’t actually fly across the country to preview this game; I was visiting Orange County for a family function and stopped in at Blizzard.) For about an hour I explored the dungeon, hurling lightning bolts, summoning zombies and unleashing swarms of locusts to decimate the waves of bloodthirsty foes standing between me and the next treasure chest.
I don’t think an hour has ever passed so quickly.
And that, of course, is what Diablo is all about: drawing you in so pleasurably, almost hypnotically, that time becomes an abstraction. At that, it appears Diablo III may end up without peer (at least in the electronic realm).
The original Diablo, released in 1997, basically invented the genre of action role-playing video games. While traditional role-playing games can be enjoyably painstaking affairs that test players’ ability to master tactics, complex rule systems and dozens of skills and abilities, Diablo has always been an orgy of wanton slashing and hacking. In the universe of Diablo and its imitators, like Torchlight, you are truly a conquering hero, mowing down evil monsters and raking in loot.
The brilliant, fundamental roots of the Diablo game-play style are both psychological and neuromuscular.
Diablo’s main lure is randomization. Every time you step into a dungeon, it’s different. The layout has changed from the last time, and so have the monsters. Most important, though, each time you kill some slavering, otherworldly abomination, you never know what it may be carrying. Most likely, it will be garbage. But there is a slim chance that you’ll end up with an incredibly powerful relic that no other player in the world has seen. That’s because each piece of treasure is generated randomly.
Call it the slot-machine effect. Every time you pull that handle, you might, just might, hit the jackpot. You probably won’t, but the tantalizing possibility keeps you playing. (The human brain’s eager response to intermittent rewards is well known and explains much of the appeal of sports like golf, where the memory and feeling of one good shot maintains players’ interest even though they are hacking around dreadfully most of the time.)
Like a well-designed slot machine, a good action role-playing game also satisfies the brain’s craving for feedback by rewarding near-constant clicking of the mouse (or the pulling of the entirely cosmetic wooden handle) with a steady stream of little audio cues like chimes and bloops.
To the uncharitable or suspicious, this could all sound a bit manipulative. But every successful mass-market product or service reflects a sophisticated understanding of consumer psychology and behavior.
Yet for all its power, the slot-machine effect is in many ways only a short-term hook. Diablo’s long-term draw is its online community and, particularly, its virtual economy.
Jay Wilson, Blizzard’s game director for Diablo III, has been working on the project full time for five years. (Others on the team have been at it even longer.) Mr. Wilson knows what keeps folks coming back.
“At its core, Diablo is about trading,” he said. Here’s why: in Diablo, the statistics and attributes of each item that drops from a fallen monster are generated on the fly. That means every item is potentially unique. So if you find, say, a halberd that inflicts extra damage to demons, increases your strength, leaches health from your foes and increases the amount of gold you discover (a potent combination), it is possible that no one else has ever found a halberd with that exact combination of goodies.
This is far different from a persistent online game like Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, where each item must be individually, meticulously designed and fixed in its attributes so that it is properly balanced for its location in the game universe and the difficulty of obtaining it. Players there want to know that if they get together with 10 or 20 people and spend four hours conquering a certain dungeon, they will certainly reap specific rewards.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/arts/video-games/diablo-iii-from-blizzard-a-preview.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1
And if there is one game in the pipeline I can’t wait to play on my own time, it’s Blizzard’s Diablo III.
So on Monday I found myself within Blizzard’s gated, guarded headquarters complex here, navigating my witch doctor and his canine minions through the Torture Chambers of the Mad King. (I didn’t actually fly across the country to preview this game; I was visiting Orange County for a family function and stopped in at Blizzard.) For about an hour I explored the dungeon, hurling lightning bolts, summoning zombies and unleashing swarms of locusts to decimate the waves of bloodthirsty foes standing between me and the next treasure chest.
I don’t think an hour has ever passed so quickly.
And that, of course, is what Diablo is all about: drawing you in so pleasurably, almost hypnotically, that time becomes an abstraction. At that, it appears Diablo III may end up without peer (at least in the electronic realm).
The original Diablo, released in 1997, basically invented the genre of action role-playing video games. While traditional role-playing games can be enjoyably painstaking affairs that test players’ ability to master tactics, complex rule systems and dozens of skills and abilities, Diablo has always been an orgy of wanton slashing and hacking. In the universe of Diablo and its imitators, like Torchlight, you are truly a conquering hero, mowing down evil monsters and raking in loot.
The brilliant, fundamental roots of the Diablo game-play style are both psychological and neuromuscular.
Diablo’s main lure is randomization. Every time you step into a dungeon, it’s different. The layout has changed from the last time, and so have the monsters. Most important, though, each time you kill some slavering, otherworldly abomination, you never know what it may be carrying. Most likely, it will be garbage. But there is a slim chance that you’ll end up with an incredibly powerful relic that no other player in the world has seen. That’s because each piece of treasure is generated randomly.
Call it the slot-machine effect. Every time you pull that handle, you might, just might, hit the jackpot. You probably won’t, but the tantalizing possibility keeps you playing. (The human brain’s eager response to intermittent rewards is well known and explains much of the appeal of sports like golf, where the memory and feeling of one good shot maintains players’ interest even though they are hacking around dreadfully most of the time.)
Like a well-designed slot machine, a good action role-playing game also satisfies the brain’s craving for feedback by rewarding near-constant clicking of the mouse (or the pulling of the entirely cosmetic wooden handle) with a steady stream of little audio cues like chimes and bloops.
To the uncharitable or suspicious, this could all sound a bit manipulative. But every successful mass-market product or service reflects a sophisticated understanding of consumer psychology and behavior.
Yet for all its power, the slot-machine effect is in many ways only a short-term hook. Diablo’s long-term draw is its online community and, particularly, its virtual economy.
Jay Wilson, Blizzard’s game director for Diablo III, has been working on the project full time for five years. (Others on the team have been at it even longer.) Mr. Wilson knows what keeps folks coming back.
“At its core, Diablo is about trading,” he said. Here’s why: in Diablo, the statistics and attributes of each item that drops from a fallen monster are generated on the fly. That means every item is potentially unique. So if you find, say, a halberd that inflicts extra damage to demons, increases your strength, leaches health from your foes and increases the amount of gold you discover (a potent combination), it is possible that no one else has ever found a halberd with that exact combination of goodies.
This is far different from a persistent online game like Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, where each item must be individually, meticulously designed and fixed in its attributes so that it is properly balanced for its location in the game universe and the difficulty of obtaining it. Players there want to know that if they get together with 10 or 20 people and spend four hours conquering a certain dungeon, they will certainly reap specific rewards.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/arts/video-games/diablo-iii-from-blizzard-a-preview.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1
Pretty fun, but I was too little to understand what was going on xD. Good to hear after 11 years it is coming out ;_;
