Blizzard Once Toyed with Diablo in Space

Shacknews has promotion for an upcoming book on Blizzard Entertainment from David Craddock titled Stay Awhile and Listen describing a point following the release of Diablo II when Blizzard North prototyped a project codenamed "Starblo," since it was basically going to be Diablo in a science fiction setting. They offer this anecdote as a tease of a full chapter of the book they will publish online as a tease for the book. "The project earned the nickname Starblo for its mix of a space setting and the action-RPG formula that made Diablo so successful," he said. "Like Diablo 2, Starblo would take place over several acts, but rather than journey across a single world, players would board their customizable spaceship and travel to new planets, killing and looting the space creatures they found there. By the time Dave Brevik and the Schaefers left Blizzard North in summer 2003, the Starblo team had produced a few playable builds of the game, but still hadn't come up with a proper name."
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Re: Blizzard Once Toyed with Diablo in Space
Oct 23, 2012, 13:05
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Re: Blizzard Once Toyed with Diablo in Space Oct 23, 2012, 13:05
Oct 23, 2012, 13:05
 
Verno wrote on Oct 23, 2012, 10:41:
InBlack wrote on Oct 23, 2012, 10:28:
I disagree. In fact the main problem with D3 is that they tried to implement some new ideas (for the genre) instead of just going for the tried and true formula they tossed the dice, which were loaded for 'greed'...

They also abandoned the gritty and dark atmosphere, for better or for worse...well for worse.

Blizzard failed because instead of making Diablo 2.5 (something they are rather good at with their other IPs) they made a game that was fun for a while and tedious for the rest for all the rest of the time you played...

I disagree with your disagreement Diablo 3 failed because they tried to shoe horn in shitty MMO elements into the ARPG genre, spammed their overwrought story and cut down on things that mattered like randomization. Diablo 2 did a lot of new and interesting things that Diablo 1 didn't, people were expecting a similar transition with the third game. The biggest thing they did with Diablo 3 was the auction house which is amusing and offputting at the same time.

I think the biggest problem D3 had is that there are too many bad items/not enough great items that drop. Also it turns out that trading items in an ARPG only works if it is sufficiently difficult to trade, such as trading between a group of friends playing, then maybe trying to trade big ticket items in public channels.
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