Diablo (video game)

Diablo is a hack and slash action role-playing game released by Blizzard Entertainment and developed by Blizzard North, released on November 30, 1996.

Diablo
The CD insert for Diablo.
Developer(s)	Blizzard North
Publisher(s)	Vivendi Universal
Designer(s)	Erich Schaefer David Brevik Stieg Hedlund
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Sony PlayStation
Release	(PC), (Mac) / November 30, 1996 (PS) March, 1998 April, 1998 July 9, 1998
Genre(s)	Action role-playing game
Mode(s)	Single-player, Multi-player

Overview

In this hack and slash game, the central goal is to slay the many demons summoned by Diablo, the Lord of Terror, in a sixteen-level dungeon underneath the small town of Tristram, and ultimately confront Diablo himself.

Early in its history, Diablo had been influenced by Moria and Angband.[1] Diablo in many ways resembles roguelike games, the main differences being more realistic graphics (utilizing DirectX) and the fact the game is in real time, rather than turn based.

Its own expansion Diablo: Hellfire, its popular sequel Diablo II and also the subsequent expansion pack Diablo II: Lord of Destruction extend the gameplay through additions such as new character classes, monsters, items, quests, areas, and plot. The latest installment, the expansion pack for Diablo II, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction has a huge online gaming community, complete with a primitive gameworld economy due to the rarity of most of the popular items.

Levels

Diablo is highly replayable because of its randomly generated levels. Even the monster population is random, though they are generated from a group appropriate for that level. In addition, there are only three core missions as the rest of them are drawn from several pools, making it impossible to complete every quest in one setting. (Indeed, all but the last quests are compulsory, although it is recommended to complete missions for experience, items, or learning more of the backstory.) Thus, no two playthroughs of the game are ever exactly alike.

Diablo pioneered a system to handle the many combinations of random items imbued with random magical properties (i.e. any item "of the Eagle" will give hitpoints to the player, any "Bronze" item will increase the chances of a hit, etc), this system is adopted by its sequels. The only items which are constant are Unique items but they are either exceptionally rare or quest related.

By contrast, its sequel Diablo II is much more linear by comparison, as every playthrough follows the same levels, quests (which are compulsory), and monster encounters, with only limited random generation in outdoor/wilderness and tunnel/maze areas.

Classes

File:DiabloScreenshot.jpg

Three Warriors and a Rogue battle enemies in the Caves.

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 has high dexterity, and the sorcerer is oriented towards magic.

Differences between Classes

Unlike Diablo II and other games that strictly differentiate between classes, character's abilities are not unique; a warrior can use the same spells as a sorcerer, while a sorcerer can use an axe. All three classes require the same amount of experience to level up, and there are no class-based requirements for equipping items or using spells.

In terms of game mechanics, the different characters each have different maximum possible levels for their statistics, and gain different amounts of life and mana per level. As a result, some classes may have difficulty attaining the statistic levels required to equip or use high level items/spells. For instance, to raise a spell to high levels require 255 Magic to read the spellbook; this is only possible for the Sorcerer class and is not possible for a Warrior (and very difficult for a Warrior to achieve in the Hellfire expansion). In an opposite example, only the Warrior can achieve the necessary strength to wear a full suit of field plate or wield a heavy sword, while only the Rogue has the maximum possible dexterity required to use a high-level bow.

Also, the characters have hidden differences in their in-game performance. The Warrior has an innately higher chance to hit in melee combat, a chance to cause a critical hit (which the other characters lack), as well as the best chance to block with a shield. The Rogue calculates not only her strength but her dexterity as well when determining the damage she can deal with a bow. The Sorcerer has the highest chance to hit with a magical spell, as well as gaining more mana than any other class from items that improve Magic.

Result on Gameplay

Overall, there are no class-based requirements for equipping items or using spells, but class-based attributes and performance do limit the ability of characters to cross over.

Warriors are the most effective for melee combat, though their limited level of magic allows them to use spells for support situations, notably Stone Curse against tough enemies and Teleport for "telekilling" (to quickly move in close quarters with ranged enemies). Their maximum magic levels are enough to allow them to access every spell in every tier but not to raise them to high enough levels to be efficient and/or effective in the later stages of the game.

Like Warriors, Rogues use magic mainly to supplement (their main expertise is archery) rather than as a primary offense/defence, as their maximum mana level is not much higher than that of a Warrior. Their magic is sufficient enough so they can rely upon Mana Shield and Golem on a more regular basis than Warriors.

Sorcerers on the other hand essentially rely on spells, given their high levels of magic and low levels of strength, dexterity, and vitality. They have little use for dexterity and vitality, instead focusing on the use of Mana Shield to compensate for low hitpoitns. Nnetheless players often max out a Sorcerer's strength in order to wear certain types of armour (these are nicknamed "Battle Mages" or "Tank Mages").

The large majority of "abilities" are spells, and only Sorcerers have the maximum amount of magic possible to raise tier four spells (Fireball, Bone Spirit, or Chain Lightning) to high enough levels to be efficient (reduces amount of mana required) and/or effective (does more damage, faster casting). Thus, Sorcerers are considered the most powerful characters in the long run, while Warriors and Rogues generally drop off as the game progresses.

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. They are not necessarily of any particular clan or group and range from barbarians from the northern highlands to noble paladins. Warriors are able to repair their equipment at the cost of diminishing maximum durability. The amount of maximum durability lost with use decreases as character level increases. Given this lost durability, most players opt instead to pay for non-destructive repairs in town for equipment they will be using in the long-term.

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 can have a higher level of magic than warriors and thus are able to make better use magic in their battles, although not nearly as well as sorcerers. 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 and are able to disarm them. The chance to successfully disarm a trap increases with the character's dexterity attribute.

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 really has need of physical weapons - he can kill 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. The amount of maximum charges lost with use decreases as character level increases. As per the warrior class's skill, this is less-used in late-game and with equipment used in the long-term.

Character attributes

The four numerical character attributes in Diablo affect the characters' combat statistics which in turn determine how powerful the character is. With each level up, five points may be distributed among the "Base" attributes to permanently increase them at the player's choice. They may also be modified by elixirs and magical shrines encountered in the game. Various magical items acquired in game increase the effective character attributes "Now" (while these items are being used).

• Strength affects the amount of damage the character may deal in melee combat. Advanced armor and weapons have minimum Strength requirements.
• Magic affects the amount of mana the character has (see Character Statistics). Magic affects the chance of a spell striking its target. Also, many spells are affected in some way (such as damage dealt or duration) by the Magic attribute. Spellbooks, staves, and many scrolls have minimum Magic requirements.
• Dexterity affects the chance of hitting enemies in combat and the chance of being hit by enemies. It also increases the amount of damage dealt by ranged attacks (for the Rogue only). Advanced bows have minimum Dexterity requirements.
• Vitality affects the Life statistic of the character (see Character Statistics). It also determines how much damage a monster needs to deal in order to stun the character.

Character statistics

• Life represents how much damage the character can take before dying, also informally called "hit points". The amount of Life remaining is constantly displayed as a red orb on the left.
• Mana represents the character's spiritual life force. Casting spells requires mana. Therefore the more mana is available, the more spells can be cast. The amount of Mana remaining is constantly displayed as a blue orb on the right.
• Chance to Hit represents the likelihood that physical attacks will inflict damage on their targets. The caveat is that players must carefully control ranged attacks to actually enter the game tiles that their targets occupy; failing this, there is zero chance to hit.
• Armor Class represents the amount and quality of armor worn as a whole, modeling this as a reduction in chance of being hit. The body location, type of armor (fabric, chain, plate), and type of attack (bow, sword, etc.) are not considered by the game in combat. Armor does not protect a character against magical attacks.
• Damage represents the reduction in Life a physical attack will cause if it hits.
• Resist Fire, Resist Lightning, and Resist Magic represent the character's ability to resist damage from the respective categories of magical attacks. "Magic" attacks are all those that are not fire or lightning, which include magical acid. These statistics can only be non-zero as a result of the use of magical items, as characters can never innately possess resistance. None of the resistances can exceed 75% under any conditions for any character, though some creatures in the Labyrinth have immunities to Fire, Lightning, or Magic.

Monsters

The monsters of Diablo are undead monstrosities, vicious creatures of the night, and demons spawned from Hell. As the player progresses, he passes through four distinct areas: the church, the catacombs, the caves, and Hell, which starts to seep into the mortal plane due to Diablo's presence. Each of the sixteen levels contains monsters that are tougher and stronger than ones from the level before it. When the player kills a monster, the monster may randomly drop an item or gold. Upon killing more enemies, the player may find out more details about the monsters, such as hit points and resistances and/or immunities.

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 unshapely 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 include 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, figuratively-speaking. 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. Diablo himself is considered a Demon.
• Undead: Take greater damage from blunt/clubbing weapons and less damage from swords/blades. Undead are the only monster type (aside from Diablo himself) vulnerable to the Holy Bolt spell.

Items

Items are sold by the vendors, randomly dropped by slain monsters, and can be discovered within the labyrinth inside of chests or barrels or sometimes just laying on the floor. There are several types of items :

Consumables

These are items that are destroyed when used.

• Potions : Healing Potions (red) refill life, Mana Potions (blue) refill mana, and Rejuvenation Potions (yellow) refill both. All varieties come in normal (partial refill) and full (complete refill) types. Potions take their effect instantaneously, rather than over time as in Diablo II.

• Scrolls : Appear as "Scroll of (spell name)". When used, the scroll simply casts the named spell. The benefits are that the spell costs no mana to use, and the user doesn't need to actually know that spell in order to use the scroll (though they must meet the scroll's Magic requirement, if it has one). Scrolls of Town Portal and Identify are staple items for any player. Some scrolls bear spells which the player cannot learn, such as Apocalypse in the original Diablo.

• Elixirs : Appear as "Elixir of (attribute name)". Using an Elixir increases the named base attribute by 1 (but not over the base attribute's natural limit). They typically don't begin to appear until late in the game. Three of the Elixirs can be bought from Adria for 5000 gold apiece, as well as from Pepin (in Single Player only). Elixirs of Vitality can never be bought.

• Spellbooks : Appear as "Book of (spell name)". Using one grants the player the named spell, or increases the spell's level by 1 if the player already knows it. Minimum magic requirements have to be met in order to read a book; but in order to cast the spell the player only needs enough mana to pay its casting cost. To that end, most players keep a special set of "reading gear" (equipment with +magic modifiers) in town in order to learn spells that they otherwise couldn't. Spellbooks can be found in the dungeon (either dropped by monsters or found on bookshelves and scroll racks), or can be bought from Adria. Some spells cannot be learned from books; in the original Diablo, Apocalypse cannot be learned from a book; in the expansion, Hellfire, books of Apocalypse are dropped by the boss Na-Krul. Those spells which cannot be learned from books must be cast using staves and scrolls.

Equipment

Weapons, shields, helmets, armor, amulets, and rings are the basic types of equipment. Any character can use any piece of equipment so long as they meet its statistical requirements. The only restrictions are that characters may not equip two weapons simultaneously or use a two-handed weapon in conjunction with a shield.

Weapons and protective gear have durability values that decrease with usage. When a piece of gear gets low, an icon appears the corner of the screen to warn the player. If a piece of equipment runs out of durability, it breaks. An item's durability can be restored by paying Griswold to repair it, or using the Warrior's repair skill on it.

Staves are magical weapons used primarily for the spell charges they contain; each charge allows one casting of the spell contained within the staff; staves also can have magical prefixes. Some of the most popular abilities found on staves are "Angel's" and "Archangel's", which add to all spell levels, and "Emerald" and related prefixes which improve resistances. A Sorcerer can recharge a staff using his Recharge skill, but at the cost of permanently reducing its maximum charge level. Therefore, it is preferable when possible to have Adria recharge staves, though this can be expensive.

Equippable items can have various modifiers, and break down into three major classes as a result:

• Normal (white text) : Common mundane items without any special attributes. Most abundant in the game. These can be bought from Griswold or found in the dungeon.

• Magic (blue text) : Enchanted items that can have up to one modifier prefix and/or one modifier suffix. Unless buying one from a vendor, magic items must be identified using a Scroll of Identify or a visit to Deckard Cain in order to reveal and enable their modifications. Most modifiers are beneficial to the player, but early in the game it is possible to get items with negative modifiers that make them less powerful and less valuable. These are sometimes referred to as "Cursed" items. Non-cursed Magical items can be bought from Griswold, Wirt, and Adria, and an item with negative affixes will only sell for one gold piece.
  • Prefixes and Suffixes: Magical items in Diablo have an idiosyncratic naming system; a particular enchantment will be either a suffix or prefix. The "Godly" prefix, appearing only on armor, adds greatly to armor class. An item with this ability would appear as "Godly (itemname)". The "of the Whale" suffix adds a great deal to the character's life stat. An item with this ability would appear as "(itemname) of the Whale". Magical items can have both a prefix and a suffix; however, certain systemic limitations within the game mechanism prevent some prefixes and suffixes from appearing together on the same item. For example, the item "Godly Plate of the Whale" (abbreviated on Battle.net as "GPOW") cannot be generated by any monster or vendor in the game. It was created, and then duplicated, using third-party software known as item editors.
• Unique (gold text) : Very rare and powerful items that may have up to 6 magic bonuses. Some unique items have a unique item graphic. They grant great bonuses but might also possess some negative qualities. Like magic items, uniques must be identified before their modifications become known and useable; but unlike magic items, uniques have pre-determined stats that are largely the same each time the item is found. They can never be bought from vendors.

Gold

Last but not least, gold is the currency used to buy goods and services from the vendors. When gold is picked up from the ground or received from selling an item, the amount is added to the smallest pile of gold in the player's inventory. A maximum of 5000 gold pieces can be in one pile (which takes up 1 square of inventory space). In the Hellfire expansion, an item gained as a quest reward is a unique amulet that allows each inventory space to hold 10,000 gold instead.

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 found throughout the levels. Eventually, the player reaches the lair of Diablo and must kill him. Here is a more detailed summary of Diablo's background story:

Diablo, an incredibly powerful demon, is the Lord of Terror and one of the Three Prime Evils of Hell, who had been imprisoned in a Soulstone and buried in caverns deep beneath the town of Tristram. Though his imprisonment was meant to be eternal, the power of the Soulstone weakened over the centuries, eventually allowing Diablo to awaken from his forced slumber. He telepathically turns a nearby human, the Archbishop Lazarus, into his loyal puppet. In order for Diablo to actually leave the Soulstone, Diablo needs a human body to possess. At first he tries to gain control of King Leoric, the local ruler, through his puppet, Lazarus. But, since Diablo is in too weak of a state to possess the king, he fails and merely drives the unfortunate monarch insane. He then gets Lazarus to kidnap King Leoric's son, Prince Albrecht, so that Diablo can possess and warp his body, thereby attaining physical form and freedom from the stone. 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 beneath Tristram. Diablo may have a body now, but he is nowhere near his full power, so he bides his time and summons countless hordes of demons and infests the whole underground complex, claiming the new region of Hell as his own personal lair.

Soon afterwards the maddened Leoric 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 - and free them as well. It seemed to be a matter of time until the Prime Evils gained dominion over the entire mortal realm.

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 stronger anti-cheating methods of Blizzard's later games and as a result, many characters online have been altered in various ways by common third-party programs known as "trainers". It is difficult to play a fair online game of Diablo in public games, as hacks and duplicated items are common. The use of trainers (which modify memory locations while the game is running in order to cheat) is fairly common and character editors are often used to give incredible statistics to even newly-created characters. Additionally, buggy game code allows any player to infinitely duplicate items and avoid being stunned in combat using the Mana Shield spell. A typical duped/hacked item seen online is the "Godly Plate of the Whale", a combination of enchantments which actually can never appear on a legitimate item due to the way the game generates items. Another is the "Archangel's Staff of Apocalypse" with 255 charges (while Archangels' Staves of Apocalypse are possible, they can never have more than 12 charges legitimately). However, a number of legitimate players still exist and may be found primarily on forums related to Diablo, as well as on Battle Net.

Expansion packs

The only official expansion pack made for Diablo was Diablo: 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 a new side storyline, several new unique items and magical item properties, new spells, and a fourth class, the Monk. There were also two possibly-unfinished "test" classes (the Bard and Barbarian) and two quests which could be accessed through a configuration file.

The offline only expansion pack never achieved the fame of the original, and is hard to obtain today. Some complaints included the fact that much of its content seemed less "polished" than that of the original game, nor did the new content mesh with the atmosphere of the original perfectly. Hellfire was also relatively buggy, and since a version of Diablo with Hellfire installed could not be patched using Blizzard's Diablo patches, and Sierra themselves only released one patch for Hellfire, Hellfire retained some bugs that the original Diablo did not. Hellfire also had design problems wherein many of the new unique items could simply never be found.

Influence

Diablo has been credited with creating a sub-genre of point-and-click Action RPGs. Since 1999 many games have used the concepts introduced in Diablo and some have imitated the game. These games include Dungeon Siege, Mu Online, Sacred, RF Online, Ragnarok Online and Titan Quest. Other influenced games are Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Freedom Force, Champions of Norrath, Drakengard, Dungeon Lords, Fate and Divine Divinity.

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:

• 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 II), Blood Boil, Blood Ritual, Doom Serpents, Etherealize, Sentinel. Most of these spells are disabled, but some, like Etherealize, can be enabled with the help of hacks, and Doom Serpents' 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 II), Goat Lord, Incinerator, Bone Demon, Invisible Lord, The Arch Lich Malignus, and Devil Kin Brute. Their images can still be viewed in sprite form (.cl2) in the game's main data file. Several of these monsters later appeared in Hellfire.

• 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. As originally planned, Tremain was to give the player a quest to destroy the demon Fleshdoom and retrieve his cursed sword, Shadowfang. However, when the player returned the demonblade to Tremain, he was to be consumed by hellfire and slain. He was also said to have been supposed to guide you through the "Archbishop Lazarus" quest, instead of Cain; the reward in that quest was to be a powerful unique mace called Lightforge. Since the quest was not removed, it is not possible to obtain a Lightforge legitimately; many players have used third-party programs to gain this item, and some have even changed it into other forms to create Lightforge helmets and armor.

• 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. Both the quest and the sword were used separately in Diablo II.

• 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 of Diablo gaining power if you failed the (never implemented) Map of Stars quest.

• 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. This may in fact be a reference to the earlier Commander Keen games.

• One of the extra sub-quests from Diablo supposedly involved Gillian. Gillian was involved in two quests, the first one she would issue early in the game. Rumor has it that Gillian requested that you cleaned out a cellar in one of the town houses. "Giant Worms" had invaded the cellar. To complete this quest, you needed to enter a town house. A very interesting thing to note is that there is an abandoned house inside Tristram with an opened door. This could possibly be the house you were meant to clean up.

The legendary Cow Level

One of the more infamous aspects of Diablo was something that didn't actually exist. It was a rumor started on the Internet about a secret level, which (according to many forum posts) supposedly contained ridiculously powerful items, incredibly dangerous enemies, and was headed up by a boss who was stronger than Diablo himself. The manner of accessing this level varied from report to report, but the most popular involved clicking on one of the cows in Tristram more than fifty times in a row. As such, it eventually became known as the "Cow Level". Of course, it did not really exist; no matter how many times you clicked on the cow, it would only ever cause the cow to moo at you (and cause some humorous comments from the hero). Internet forums were awash with increasingly grandiose stories by players who claimed to have been to the cow level, along with the various items they found and monsters they fought. Later in the rumour's life, players new to the idea became confused by the 'cow level' name, and described the level as being full of cow monsters: one popular version of the rumor stated that the cow level contained 'cow' variants on every type of monster in the game, for example, an acid spitter with a bell round its neck, a white and black skin pattern, and a milk spraying attack. The boss in this version of the cow level rumor was a monstrous creature called the Cow King, who was indeed supposedly stronger than Diablo.

Although the cow level was nothing but a fantasy and a lie, badly edited screenshots and detailed stories kept it alive for years, to the point where Blizzard, who'd been receiving 'how do I get to the cow level' emails for a long time, put a cheat code in StarCraft: 'there is no cow level.' Typing this caused instant victory. The Hellfire expansion also mocks this rumor - the first new dungeon segment is accessed by speaking to one of the townsfolk, who's dressed in a cow-suit (reason: clothes stolen).

As fan service, Blizzard actually did put a cow level in Diablo II, although it was merely a very large area full of monsters called 'Hell Bovines' who were cows walking upright and carrying halberds. All of their sound files were of humans saying the word 'moo'. Net lore has it that the ridiculously bad voices of the cows were those of various Blizzard employees. The Cow King did make an appearance, but only as a unique Hell Bovine, nowhere near as strong as Diablo is in either game.

In recent years, since the real cow level was discovered, the cow level is rarely brought up other than as a joke, for example, World of Warcraft players who tell each other about a cow level that can be accessed from Mulgore, the homeland of the Tauren, who are a race of anthropomorphic bulls and cows. A recent update to the game also introduced tips on loading screens, one of which appears as "TIP: There is no cow level". There is also a secret quest on the Alliance side which can be obtained by using the /chicken emote many times in row on an ordinary chicken, which seems to be a reference to the myth of how to get into the cow level. (Note for interested World of Warcraft players: the Prairie Chicken quest can be completed by Horde if an Alliance player begins the quest, and simply allows a Horde accomplice to open the resulting quest egg. The quest can be repeated an infinite number of times, so Alliance need not worry about "wasting" their quest on helping a Horde buddy receive the otherwise-unavailable quest reward.)

Trivia

• References to Diablo are scattered throughout the various Blizzard products that followed.
  • When the Diablo game launcher is opened, the game plays a deep, evil laugh (often assumed to be that of Diablo). When this laugh is recorded and sped up several times, it becomes the sound that Fallen Ones emit upon death.

Diablo II and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

• • According to Diablo II, the canon hero who defeated Diablo in Tristram was a Warrior: the wanderer who is possessed by the Lord of Terror is clearly a man, ruling out the Rogue. His skin is pale, edging away from the dark-skinned Sorcerer, and in the opening cutscene, the wanderer leans on a sword, the weapon most closely associated with the Warrior.
  • Blood Raven (the corrupted Rogue from the first act of Diablo II) was evidently the Rogue in the first Diablo game. Akara and Charsi say that Blood Raven was a rogue captain at Tristram, battling Diablo. They say she returned unlike before, bringing an evil influence, shortly thereafter Andariel's uprise in the west began and Blood Raven began raising the dead.
  • The Summoner, the corrupted Mage from the Second Act that was impersonating Horazon, was evidently the Sorcerer in the first Diablo game. Jerhyn and Drognan speak of a near-insane Vizjerei mage who arrived in Lut Gholein (presumably seeking Horazon's sanctuary) claiming to have fought against Diablo in Tristram, suggesting that mage became the Summoner. The Summoner is also dark skinned, like the dark-skinned Sorcerer in the original Diablo.
  • Both the Diablo manual and the Arreat Summit battle.net strategy guide gives an account of the Sin War between Horazon and his brother Bartuc. Bartuc, who was known as the Warlord of Blood supposedly meets his end in the first Diablo self-titled quest Warlord of Blood though this is disputed (see below). Horazon presumable meets his fate in Act II, although this is disputed as others say that Horazon was being impersonated by the Sorcerer (in this case, Horazon's end is unknown).
  • Bartuc the Bloody makes an appearance in the Lord of Destruction expansion Act V, as the leader of Baal's Council Members during the battle in the Throne Room of the Worldstone fortress. This however may conflict with the Warlord of Blood quest from the first Diablo.
  • Act I continues the story of the town of Tristam and Act IV revisits Hell, making these acts the most similar to the first Diablo game. In Tristam, you rescue Deckard Cain and learn the fate of Griswold the Blacksmith, while Wirt is killed, though there is nothing told on the whereabouts of the other town characters.
  • Although Act II and Act III present an entirely new theme, they expand upon what happens to Tal-Rasha's tomb and the Zakarum religion, respectively, stories which were presented in the first Diablo manual.
  • The expansion Act V plays little homage to the first Diablo, but it does bring back Succubi, enemies that were not found in the original Diablo II. Although it is thought that all of the Succubi were killed in the battle beneath Tristam, Baal unleashed his personal harem on Arreat.
  • After the player beats Diablo II or the expansion, a weapon called Wirt's Leg can be obtained in Tristam and used to open the Secret Cow Level[2]. This item is a reference to the character Wirt, a teenager who lost his leg to demons and wears a peg leg, as well as a homage to the well-spread cow level rumour in the first Diablo.
  • It's believed that originally Blizzard only planned to have one character skin. This is backed up by early screenshots, which not only showed only the warrior skin, but also depicted the warrior skin using magic and ranged weapons. also the early names for the classes were the Fighter, Archer and Mage. you can find more about the early diablo at [3].

Other Blizzard Franchises

• • In StarCraft, the Protoss Arbiter and Observer units are heard to repeat Adria's greeting line, 'I sense a soul in search of answers.'.
  • Also in StarCraft, the observer will play a line of Griswold's, namely the line he speaks as he gets overenthusiastic about the large mushroom.
  • In Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, if players click on Illidan enough times, he will eventually say, "Wings, horns, hoofs... what are we saying, is this Diablo?"
  • In the last Human level of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, one of the hostile units is the Butcher. As he attacks the player's units, he even greets them the same way he greets the player in Diablo: "Ahhh, fresh meat!" If this creature is killed, he drops an item called "Wirt's Other Leg".
  • One of the items that can be found in Blizzard's MMORPG, World of Warcraft, is called Wirt's Third Leg.

Bugs

Many gameplay bugs were fixed by the patches made available by Blizzard. However, two critical bugs were never addressed by these patches. One of these is a bug allowing item duplication, also called the "dupe bug". With practise and timing, a character can duplicate any single item, including stacks of money. However, the existence of trainers and other third-party programs made item duplication far quicker and easier, so few learned to use the duplication bug after the trainers became widely available.

The other critical bug is in the damage routines for the "Mana Shield" spell, a spell which causes damage to its caster to be deducted from Mana rather than Life. "Stunning" is the term for the delay in action of a character when struck forcefully by a monster; during "stun", a character can do nothing but display a recovery animation. If the character is stunned again before recovering, a state called "stunlock" can arise, paralyzing the character. Typically this occurs when surrounded or when facing greatly superior enemies in melee combat. Since stun chance is partially based on the Life of the target, Sorcerers are the most vulnerable to being stunned. However, due to the bug in the Mana Shield coding, a character with extremely low Life (typically less than thirty) with Mana Shield up can never be stunned. This bug is typically exploited by allowing a monster called the "Black Death" to strike oneself; Black Deaths steal one Life point per successful attack, permanently. This reduces the character's life to a low enough level that the bug will take effect. The advantage of exploiting this bug is that it allows a sorcerer to stand in the midst of a swarm of monsters and continue to cast spells, when normally he would be stunlocked and killed.

Other versions

In 1998, a PlayStation version of Diablo was published by Electronic Arts. The game lacked online play, but featured a 2-player cooperative mode. Unfortunately, the game suffered slowdown and framerate issues. However, it did feature an option to learn the story through a narrator without having to find the books in the game. This feature can be found on the main menu under the title 'history'.

See also

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

External links

• Official Site
• Jarulf's Guide to Diablo and Hellfire - According to Blizzard [4], "the definitive in-depth guide to Diablo."
• DiabloII.net - Very thorough Diablo, Hellfire, Diablo II Fansite
• Planet Diablo - Diablo site at Gamespy
• Diablo at MobyGames
• Freshman Diablo - Strategy guides written by players.
• Diablo Evolution - In depth analysis about the history and development of Diablo and Hellfire.