Diablo (computer game)

Diablo is a point and click action computer role-playing game released by Blizzard Entertainment and developed by Blizzard North, released in late 1996. In it, players fight against evil demons attempting to conquer the world. The central goal in Diablo is to slay the demons threatening the small town of Tristram while collecting weapons, armor and magical items. Each new edition of the game extends the gameplay through additions such as new character classes, monsters, and items. The latest installment, the expansion pack for Diablo II, Diablo II Lord of Destruction has a huge online gaming community, complete with a primitive economy. Diablo in many ways resembles roguelike games, the main differences being the vastly more realistic graphics (utilizing DirectX) and the fact the game is in real time, rather than being turn based.

Contents

1 Classes 2 Monsters 3 Items 4 Story 5 Online play 6 Expansion packs 7 Secrets and hidden files 8 PC System requirements 9 Macintosh System requirements 10 Console System requirements 11 Relative Topics 12 External links

Classes

The three character classes of Diablo are the warrior, rogue, and sorcerer. Each character, following typical role-playing conventions, has his or her own particular traits. The warrior possesses physical strength, the rogue is very dexterous, and the sorcerer is oriented toward magic. However, unlike modern class-based games, character's abilities are not unique; a warrior can use spells and a sorcerer can use a bow.

• Warrior: The warrior is a powerful melee fighter, master of weapons of war and capable of enduring more damage than any of the other classes. Seeking fortune and glory, warriors come to Tristram every day to challenge the dark unknown in the subterranean labyrinth. Warriors are able to repair their equpment at the cost of diminishing maximum durability. This skill improves as the warrior gains levels.

• Rogue: The Sisters of the Sightless Eye are the best archers in the world of Sanctuary and the Rogue therefore is master of killing enemies from a distance. They are more intelligent than warriors and thus able to make good use of magic in their battles. Willing to test their skills against the evil in the labyrinth, where untold riches are rumored to be stashed, Rogues have come from the Far East to Tristram. Rogues have the ability to spot doors, chests and sarcophagi that have traps. They are able to disarm those traps and this skill improves with the growth of the hero's agility.

• Sorcerer: A powerful master of the arcane arts, the sorcerer is the hero that is able to achieve the greatest heights of magic, so that he never uses weapons - he kills his enemies solely with magic, whether it would be balls and walls of fire or powerful bolts of lightning. Eager to gather knowledge about demons and see them slain, Sorcerer Acolytes of the Vizjerei mage clan have come to Tristram - seeking to discover long lost tomes of magic knowledge under the cathedral. The sorcerer is able to recharge magic staves at the cost of the maximum number of charges. This skill improves as the sorcerer gains levels.

Monsters

The monsters of Diablo are spawned from Hell. As the player progresses, he passes through four discrete areas: the church, the catacombs, the caves, and hell. Each area contains monsters that are tougher and stronger than ones from previous areas. When the player kills a monster, the monster may randomly drop an item.

In the world of Diablo monsters are divided according to their masters. The followers of Mephisto, the Lord of Hatred are the undead (skeletons and zombies), demonically corrupted creatures whose misshappen forms and twisted limbs leave them in eternal agony and rage (overlords), and lava demons spawned by the spilling of Mephisto's blood in Hell.

The followers of Baal, the Lord of Destruction are creatures that seek the undoing of the physical Universe and the manifestation of chaos. Some of them are the Fallen Ones, Goat Men and Poison Spitters.

The minions of Diablo, the Lord of Terror are the fears of man in a corporeal form. They prefer to attack their victims from the shadows, especially after their prey demonstrates weakness. Some of those demons are The Hidden and Scavengers.

In Diablo, enemies are also divided in 3 groups:

• Animals: take greater damage from swords/blades and less damage from blunt/clubbing weapons.
• Demons: Take equal damage from all kinds of weapons.
• Undead: Take greater damage from blunt/clubbing weapons and less damage from swords/blades. Vulnerable to Holy Bolt spell.

Items

Items are dropped from monsters or sold by the vendors. Items are:

• Cursed: Enchanted in a way that has very bad effects for the wearer, making him/her weaker and more vulnerable.
• Normal: Common mundane items without any special attributes. Most abundant in the game.
• Magic: Enchanted items that have 1 or 2 beneficial effects to the wearer.
• Unique: Very powerful and hard to come across items that may have up to 6 magic bonuses (including a unique outer appearance). They grant great bonuses but might also possess some negative qualities.

Story

The story of Diablo is based on the premise of a war between Heaven and Hell. The town of Tristram is under attack by demons, and the player must save the town. As the player delves into the underworld, he discovers more about the demon Diablo, through large tomes that are read aloud by the character. Eventually, the player reaches the lair of Diablo and must kill him. Here is a more detailed summary of Diablo's background story:

The Prime Evil Diablo, who had been imprisoned in a soulstone and buried in caverns deep beneath the town of Tristram, awakens and turns the archbishop Lazarus into his loyal puppet. The corrupted archbishop kidnaps king Leoric's son, prince Albrecht, so that Diablo can use his body to manifest into the mortal plane. At the moment of the boy's possession, his terror is so great that the boundaries between the realms are broken and parts of Hell itself seep into the mortal world and take root in the subterranean labyrinth. Diablo spawns countless hordes of demons and infests the whole underground complex, claiming the parts of Hell as his personal lair.

Soon afterwards the maddened king is slain by his own lieutenants. Demonic creatures appear in the countryside as the Lord of Terror regains his strength in the heart of the labyrinth and prepares for the time when he would once again emerge in the world and seek out his brothers - Baal and Mephisto.

Then, one day, a lone traveller approaches the town of Tristram...

Online play

Diablo can be played with others over the Internet via Battle.net. Unfortunately, the game lacked the rigorous anti-cheating methods of Blizzard's later games and as a result, many characters online are hacked. It is difficult to play a fair online game of Diablo, as hacks and duplicated items are common. The use of trainers (which modify memory locations while the game is running in order to cheat) and character editors is often used to give incredible statistics to even newly-created characters.

Expansion packs

The only official expansion pack made for Diablo was called Hellfire and was produced by Sierra Entertainment rather than an in-house development team in 1997. The game featured two additional dungeon segments located within the main storyline, several new items, and a fourth class, the Monk. This expansion pack never achieved the fame of the original, and is hard to obtain today.

Secrets and hidden files

Like a great majority of games, Diablo has many files hidden on its CD that were never used. Some of these "loose ends" are:

• There are some secret doors in the catacombs and monastery levels that are hidden at first, but become visible once clicked and open into rooms containing special rewards.

• Some spells never made it into the final game. The original game was supposed to have six spellbook pages (this can be checked in Diablo's manual, page 18, in a screenshot where the spellbook has six pages), unlike the four in the final, and the spells left on the CD are: Invisibility (whose icon graphic was reused for the Teleport spell in Diablo 2), Blood Boil, Blood Ritual, Armageddon, Doom Serpent, Etherealize, and Sentinel. Most of these spells are disabled, but some, like Etherealize, can be enabled with the help of hacks, and Doom Serpent's graphics can still be extracted from the game's main data file.

• Some enemies don't appear in the final game, such as the Unraveler (which is now a monster found in Act 2 of Diablo 2), Goat Lord, Incinerator, Bone Demon, Invisible Lord, The Arch Litch Malignus, and Devil Kin Brute. Their images can still be viewed in sprite form (.cl2) in the game's main data file.

• A towner named Tremain the Priest does not appear in the final game, but there are sound files of his speech in the game's main data file. He was supposed to travel in and out of Tristram. He was also supposed to be the trigger of the "Fleshdoom, Wielder of Shadowfang" quest, which also never made it into the game's final stage. In that quest, when you return the ancient demonblade named Shadowfang to Tremain he becomes consumed with hellfire, disappears, and does not seem to return for the rest of the game. He was also said to have been supposed to guide you through the "Archbishop Lazarus" quest, instead of Cain; your reward in that quest is a mace called Lightforge.

• Many hints for quests that never made it into the final game can still be viewed on the game's main data file. These include "Izual, the Fallen Angel," in which the player talks to Gillian the Barmaid and receives a quest to find and destroy Izual to release his tormented soul. The reward of this quest was likely Azurewrath, a unique sword which can be found in Diablo 2.

• Two cutscenes appear on the CD but not in the game. One of them is a video you are supposed to see when you enter the Butcher's lair, and the other one is a different video of Diablo dying.

• Many item graphics were never used in the final game, including the Map of the Stars, which was hacked many times into the game and spread over Battle.net. When the stars become aligned, Diablo will become "all but invincible," so you had to complete this quest on time or you "may never have a chance to rid the world of his evil ever again." This is the only quest of the whole lot which was ever officially recognized by Blizzard. They said that it was turned off because it "changed the way you played Diablo."

• A sound file of the game's namesake, apparently speaking in tongues, is played when entering level 16. It can be extracted from the game's main data file and, when played backwards, produces "Eat your vegetables and brush after every meal." The file is named lvl16int.wav; it is in the directory sfx/misc in the MPQ file named DIABDAT located on the Diablo CD.

PC System requirements

• Pentium I 60 MHz
• 8 MB RAM
• Windows 95/98/NT
• SVGA video card
• Microsoft compatible mouse
• Double speed CD-ROM

Macintosh System requirements

• PowerPC processor
• 16 MB RAM (32 recommended)
• System 7.5 through 9.x
• One or Two button mouse
• Double speed CD-ROM

Console System requirements

A Sony Playstation video game system (version released in 1998)

Relative Topics

• Hellfire expansion pack
• Diablo II
• Lord of Destruction expansion pack

External links

• Blizzard's official Diablo site (http://www.blizzard.com/diablo/)
• Jarulf's Guide to Diablo and Hellfire, an in-depth strategy guide for the game and its expansion (http://www.lurkerlounge.com/jarulf/index.shtml)
• Planet Diablo (http://www.planetdiablo.com/) - official Diablo site at Gamespy.
• Diablo 2 Guide (http://www.diablo2guide.com/) - Provides informative look on D2.
• Diablo 2 Top 200 (http://www.gamesites200.com/diablo/) - Large listing of D2 fansites and clans.

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