“Wow, you’re working too hard, manager, you just got back from your break! Anyways, could you tell me what kind of game you’re going to make?” asked Zou Zhuo.
Chen Mo smiled, “Hold your horses, I’ll need to do some research and see if feasible.”
Zou Zhuo nodded, “Alright! Manager’s new game has got to be good!”
—
Chen Mo did some quick research for standalone RPG games on both PC and VR.
Basically, no matter in or out of China, MMORPG was the dominating genre. There were many points for MMORPGs, and the best point was that the interaction between players could extend the lifespan of the game, which in turns extends the profitable window of the game.
There were still traditional RPG games, but it was gathering far less attention than it did, and naturally there were fewer high quality games.
This was one of the greatest pitfalls that this world had fallen into as placing too much emphasis on MMORPGs bought a series of chain reactions.
Most MMORPGs were in first person view and had a focus on the artstyle.
This was because first person perspective was widely accepted to allow players to immerse more into the game. And combined with high quality arts allow players to spend more time in the world.
However, this introduced a problem, the information that the players get becomes incredibly limited as their field of view is smaller, making it harder to deal with large groups of enemies.
And in most MMORPGs, players fight in groups. There were already many players, and if many monsters are introduced, the screen will be incredibly cluttered as the players get overwhelmed with information.
This was much better on VR, but because most VR games are imported from a PC version, it would still be more or less influenced by their PC counterpart.
And combined with various other reasons, this led to a lack of hack and slash games in this world.
This was one of the reasons RPG maps in Warcraft were so popular. Players still liked the feeling of being powerful, killing many enemies in one hit, but they didn’t understand what they wanted. Therefore, their voices would never be heard by the developers.
Of course, they might not execute it even if they noticed. Although hack and slash might seem easy to execute, there were a lot of technicalities to it. If the design wasn’t done well, the players would quickly leave the game.
And coincidentally, Chen Mo has a pretty good hack and slash game on his hands that he could use as a transitional work to pivot into an RPG, filling out gaps in this world in the process.
At the front desk, Chen Mo turned on his laptop and started writing a concept design document for Diablo.
It was harder for Chen Mo to develop Diablo than Warcraft. The game must be comparable in quality to Diablo 3, therefore the resources required was much more than Warcraft.
Most of the maps in Warcraft can be done in the map editor, but the same couldn’t be said with Diablo as maps in Diablo are dynamically generated with very high quality. This was a major challenge for Chen Mo.
Diablo was a decent traditional game as Chen Mo had never made an RPG in the past and it would be risky to rush into MMORPGs.
Moreover, even in the previous world, Diablo’s theme and playstyle were all unique. There were many Diablo-like games, yet not a single one could surpass the original.
It was still one of the most classic hack and slash games.
Lastly, it was time to choose which generation to recreate.
Diablo 1 was too old and had a simple playstyle.
Diablo 2 was a timeless classic and pioneered Diablo-like games. Moreover, the atmosphere and playstyle fit Diablo the best.
However, Diablo 2 was still quite old. Although many concepts in that game were timeless, the combat system, user interface, and artstyle didn’t age too well.
Diablo 3 was also really successful, but Diablo fans felt that it never reached Diablo 2’s level. Although the graphics were quite nice, it was lacking in what players sought in a Diablo game.
Chen Mo had no problems making Diablo 2 or Diablo 3 with his current abilities. The quality of the game he would make could match Diablo 3, so the only considerations were the atmosphere and the playstyle of the game.
Chen Mo decided to use Diablo 3 as its foundation, using its world design, story, and artstyle, while making some improvements to the playstyle and artstyle to make it feel more like Diablo 2.
One of the reasons the older fans dislike Diablo 3 was because of its art style and gameplay.
Diablo 2 had dark and dank jail cells, weird monsters, blood trails, and limbs to create a scary atmosphere. The player’s vision would also be limited in forcing the players to play more vigilantly. Combined with music and audio effects, players were always kept on their toes.
But Diablo 3 gave up some of that artstyle, perhaps as a process of making it look better, losing the sad, mysterious, and scary atmosphere.
At the same time Diablo 3 was much easier, most players could easily beat the levels. This resulted in it being less satisfying to defeat bosses.
Chen Mo wanted to make a game that was as Diablo as possible, because being able to recreate that atmosphere would make all that hacking and slashing feel more meaningful, which in turn extends the lifespan of the game.
Of course, there were some obstacles in the way of making the game.
The biggest obstacle would be getting it through the review process.
In the previous world, Diablo would have struggled to get past the reviewing process, and Diablo 3 took a long time before being passed.
However, the parallel world was more tolerant with gore and violent themes as long as they had age restrictions. Moreover, Chen Mo was part of the committee which would surely help with the reviewing of the game.
It probably would be easier if they submitted the concept of the game to the committee ahead of time for the final review of the game.
Next was an overview of a design overmap, planning various aspects of the game.