On Sun, 02 Jan 2022 16:37:41 -0600, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

https://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&boardid=1&threadid=243910

I still remember downloading and playing its 50 (EXE)/56 (zipped) MB
demo file that took several hours in my college dorm back in
(19(96/97)). It was worth it since I got addicted! And then, I had my
suite mate buy it for me from Fry's Electronics (RIP :~() store! Again,
worth it and oops addicting again. ;)

I only played "Diablo" some time after its release. It wasn't a 'real'
CRPG, after all; it was just some 'dumbed down' action-RPG hybrid.
When I finally did pick it up, it was in part to see what all the hype
was about, but probably more because of its procedural-generation
technology.

I can't say my opinion of the game was changed much by actually
playing the title; its superficial narrative, lack of any real
character interactions and bewildering (to me, anyway) focus on loot
collecting just didn't make for a very enjoyable experience. Worse,
its success seemed to indicate that 'traditional' CRPGs were dead in
favor of the rush of Diablo-imitators, which left me rather sore about
the whole thing. These days, I'd like to think I've become a bit more
mature and can accept that different people can like different things
(and, anyway, traditional CRPGs have had their own resurgence), but
for a while I was rather outspoken in my dislike of the game. ;-)

So it's great that "Diablo" has reached its silver anniversary, even
if I can't really share in the joy. I'll get a bit more excited in a
couple of years when "Planescape: Torment" hits its 25th, though. Now
THERE was a game worth remembering. ;-)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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XPost: alt.games.diablo, comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On 04/01/2022 14:07, Mike S. wrote:

On Mon, 03 Jan 2022 16:48:35 -0600, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

For me, I loved it since I was and still am an action type of player. I
always loved Gauntlet and other types. I'm not crazy about real RPGs
like Eye of Beholder, etc. Although, I don't mind turn based these days
since I'm old and slow. :(

I love Diablo style RPGs. I also love dungeon crawlers like Eye of the Beholder. What I do NOT like are RPGs with pages and pages of text to
read.* You guys can have your Planescape Torments and your Disco
Elysiums. Give me Wizardry and Might & Magic - preferably good remakes
like what was done for Bard's Tale.

* I do really like Ultima 7 though.

Horses for courses and all that. I'm not a big fan of Diablo type games
but one thing that does irate me is that they use the RPG title. The
reason for that is that I come from a table-top RPG background and
action RPG's really struggle even to get to the stage of what AD&D
typical was in the 80's.

I should add that Disco Elysium has for me displaced Planescape Torment
as my top CRPG of all time.

In terms of TT RPG's. my main game is Call of Cthulhu (where combat is
rather deadly) and last week I played a game called Fiasco. That takes
the idea of it's all about the story to the next level as it's GM-less
and a session of played with a bare bones structure for a setting and
the motivations for each character. From that it's very much a case of
the players trying to cooperatively write what can best be described as
a Cohen brothers' movie.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Never have understood the popularity of that style of game.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2022-01-03, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 02 Jan 2022 16:37:41 -0600, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

https://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&boardid=1&threadid=243910

I still remember downloading and playing its 50 (EXE)/56 (zipped) MB
demo file that took several hours in my college dorm back in
(19(96/97)). It was worth it since I got addicted! And then, I had my
suite mate buy it for me from Fry's Electronics (RIP :~() store! Again, >>worth it and oops addicting again. ;)

I only played "Diablo" some time after its release. It wasn't a 'real'
CRPG, after all; it was just some 'dumbed down' action-RPG hybrid.
When I finally did pick it up, it was in part to see what all the hype
was about, but probably more because of its procedural-generation
technology.

I can't say my opinion of the game was changed much by actually
playing the title; its superficial narrative, lack of any real
character interactions and bewildering (to me, anyway) focus on loot collecting just didn't make for a very enjoyable experience. Worse,
its success seemed to indicate that 'traditional' CRPGs were dead in
favor of the rush of Diablo-imitators, which left me rather sore about
the whole thing. These days, I'd like to think I've become a bit more
mature and can accept that different people can like different things
(and, anyway, traditional CRPGs have had their own resurgence), but
for a while I was rather outspoken in my dislike of the game. ;-)

So it's great that "Diablo" has reached its silver anniversary, even
if I can't really share in the joy. I'll get a bit more excited in a
couple of years when "Planescape: Torment" hits its 25th, though. Now
THERE was a game worth remembering. ;-)

Diablo it's just a dumbed down Moria roguelike in the end, with real
time mechanics and no permadeath. Also, on roguelikes, Nethack/Slashem
and Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup have far more depth than Diablo I.
Diablo II is not that bad at least, but still far inferior to TomeII,
which is a boosted up Angband set in the LOTR universe.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)