'Diablo': A Classic Game Postmortem

Diablo developer David Brevik returns to the GDC stage to give a classic post-mortem on Blizzard's action RPG hit Diablo in this 2016 talk. Brevik shares key takeaways from the experience and sheds light on how the game went from a single-player, turn-based claymation DOS game to the genre-defining classic it became.
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[@evangould1344]

My guy knew he was gonna do a talk on Diablo and he didn't know so many people were going to be interested in it XD Over 1M views on KZbin and I'm here 7 years later still interested

[@Neocorey11]

Blizzard died to me when they dropped Blizzard North. You and your team were the heart of that company and your absence shows today.

[@pearz420]

The North Remembers.

[@avarilewang3992]

The north remembers

[@d_no_allyn_86]

Most definitely

[@xraymone]

@Terminal Heights haha

[@mrtoothless]

@Terminal Heights Hi, Activision :)

[@phantomspaceman]

"We'd sell expansion packs like Magic the Gathering with 50 items on a disk." That came full circle didn't it?

[@Murzac]

Actually no, it just shows that this kind of mentality and will to do it already existed in the 90s but as he said, logistically it was just not possible. It wasn't until the internet became widespread enough and easily accessible for everyone and fast enough that it actually became possible to do.

[@pancake8133]

Laughs in The Sims

[@Daz86.]

mtx in 96.

[@ChuckstaGaming]

@@Murzac Yeah, thanks to the internet, the world are now gamers! Back then, geeks were the gamers.

[@nonchip]

"but we quickly realized that'd be an issue" i wish publishers nowadays would realize the same...

[@MrThankman360]

It breaks my heart how nervous and humble this guy is. He has been so important to the gaming industry, yet he's so humble and nervous. Quite an amazing guy.

[@funasylumstudio]

Support him now! He's got a new game!

[@ethandaley69]

Empathy overload 😭🥺🧡🧡

[@ethandaley69]

@René Steen Nielsen I think you may be misinterpreting the sentiment. They just mean it's super endearing and sweet to see and they're having an intense emotional response to it.

[@bojcio]

Doesn't seem nervous. He's eloquent, confident and experienced, he doesn't have trouble being in front of an audience. The apparent awkwardness is just an aspect of his persona.

[@enshk79]

Why does that break your heart? Are you in love ?

[@vladimircokorilo8105]

It’s funny how he mentioned Primal Rage during the Claymation story, because one of the two T-rex characters is called Diablo, and the ape is called Blizzard...

[@lucasblouin3322]

Best comment thx

[@Pavl9k]

I always played as a Diablo, great game

[@Patrick.Basedman]

Interesting. Diablo looked like Diablo too, in dino form, haha.

[@stead6157]

Wait, what the hell is this coincidence???

[@VADYCAN]

Wtf

[@bekjanz]

"We got feedback from players, and worked on the changes" Omg what a genius idea, we should contact Blizzard immediately and tell them about this!

[@Aurumai]

This is one of if not the best GDC talk I've ever seen. Absolutely love hearing his enthusiasm for his craft and to hear the insight from an industry veteran. When Blizzard employed mostly people like David, it's no wonder that they set the golden standard for video game quality in their prime.

[@calumryan6328]

Telling a story: "uh, um, so we, uh. Uh. uh." Talking about complex programming: flawless

[@melhorespod]

hahahahaah

[@Gunth0r]

note how the sound is like talking inside a well. some sound guy fucked up or someone sabotaged him. hearing yourself like that would make any speaker nervous

[@Gunth0r]

@@supplebiscuit then we should blame the architect / venue manager? No, seriously, proper sound guys should be able to handle that.

[@Gunth0r]

@@supplebiscuit and that, ladies and gents, is a failure of imagination (and know-how). There's things called: - filters - threshold - soundproofing - a proper lavelier mic that doesn't pick up the echo There's a ton of stuff you can do...

[@Gunth0r]

@@supplebiscuit threshold is a thing, if we're talking in general terms, but gates is what I meant (I'm no expert). And you can soundproof with painted egg boxes for all I care (no need for expensive stuff), it'll attenuate the sound reasonably well in combination with the lavelier. And no, that's not the only thing I said that made sense. I didn't mean to antagonize you, apologies. However, you just admitted there's no need for breaking the laws of physics, basically making our whole discussion moot. And yes, it is about imagination as well as acoustics (I do know enough physics and equipment to know about acoustics which enables me to *imagine* how one could improve the sound in that venue, which was my original intent, to help promote better sound by critiquing). Hyperbole and frustrations on both our parts? /hug

[@neoian94]

Lol'd so hard when he goes " We weren't even paying our taxes, we found out that was a bad idea.."

[@necrojustice]

The mandolin from Diablo 1 might be the best gaming soundtrack I've ever heard.

[@nickwallette6201]

I wrote Blizzard back in 90-something, and asked if they had a soundtrack available. I have to paraphrase the response here, because it's been a minute.... The music dep't answered (see what I mean about it being a long time ago?): "we don't, sorry, but thanks so much for asking - it's quite the compliment."

[@BL00DYME55]

@@nickwallette6201 Aww, back when Blizzard was ran by actual human beings, and not soulless corporate NPCs

[@Dovah21]

3 years later, the original Diablo is re-released on GOG. I am a happy man.

[@skilllmatic]

i just played it through. still kicks ass!

[@Mradevans]

Thank you, Diablo was my introduction to gaming, and now it's time to start my daughter on computers and games

[@ON-nk5of]

@@Mradevans I skipped a heartbeat from excitement. Oh how I love the game's ability to convey atmosphere.

[@Dovah21]

@Interpersonal Communicator Hey man, some things in life are worth paying for. Namely, Classic Diablo.

[@Mauro0]

@Interpersonal Communicator don't be a cheap bastard. If you want something, pay for it or make it yourself.

[@JasonTorpy]

If David Brevik asks you if you want his copy of Diablo. You say YES!!!

[@TAURON85]

IKR. WTH was wrong with that guy?! Lol

[@SalveMonesvol]

I'd have him sign it, sell it for thousands and use that to afford playing diablo for a couple of months, or developping something

[@ankixsounds]

@@SalveMonesvol XD

[@omikronweapon]

Personally, I would have given the game to the guy who paid for his original pirated copy. Get together just after for a photo-op. Sign it. mutual respect. Make a great story for the game press. "guilt-ridden gamer finally gets chance to pay for pirated Diablo 1, is rewarded signed, sealed copy from creator"

[@Alkis05]

He was shaming the guy, because he was trying to bad mouth his former employer. The guy had the good sense of not embarrassing himself anymore than that.

[@ColonelRPG]

This piece is awesome, thank you David Brevik for all the hard work and passion and commitment and the fantastic games and legacy, awesome panel!

[@StephanieLoveful]

10% for an office, David? :) - Im gonna invent telephone calls on internet (Skype)

[@benprendergast9868]

but I already have a phone

[@SpaceTurd69]

One of the things that went very right was the music.

[@Ussurin]

That moment when GDC does better 20th Anniversary for Diablo than Bli$$ard Entertainment.

[@d.l.918]

Blizzard today and Blizzard from the 90s only share the name. After Chris Metzen left, is there even one staff member left who was with the company in the early days?

[@boskee]

Yes

[@Misterzen87]

Donald Trump's huge dingdong Maybe the janitor? :D

[@Dracold77]

Well, Mike Morhaime, Co-founder of the place is actually still the CEO/president ;)

[@Jurgen123445]

Lol Dude you replaced the Zs in the company name with Dollarsigns to indicate that they are only interested in the money nowadays! That's genius! I bet you're the first being in world history who thought of that! LOL!

[@lolmysteries]

I was the directing Manufacturing Engineer at Technicolor at the time, producing one Diablo disc every 7 seconds. Aside from Microsoft 95 and 98, Blizzard was our second largest account at that time. Still have a few prototype Diablo and Diablo II discs in various stages of production, with gorgeous silkscreened artwork in 1 to 6 color prints.

[@MontuOnuphrius]

pics or it didn't happen

[@damsen978]

Pics pls or we won't believe you, it's a simple trust matter because anyone in KZbin can comment stuff like this. Some people even fake being creators of something important.

[@AnonymoStranger]

@@damsen978 Yeah I don't think they have a need to prove anything to you or anyone else online lol

[@damsen978]

@@AnonymoStranger Then what the original comment is clearly fake, you just can't take the word for it, you have to rely on multiple sources to conclude at it, otherwise you all would be misinformed. I can fake being a creator and comment on this section in less than a minute, just as easy.

[@Pan_Z]

Still no pics. Guess it's a fake

[@Siaynoq8]

I remember upgrading our ram fro 8mb to 16mb and suddenly Diablo was running totally smooth for me.

[@UltromanTheTacoman]

That moment when you finally popped in a Voodoo (3Dfx) card, and your game jumped from 25fps to 250fps!

[@akse]

Had similar experience in Diablo 2 when I upgraded from 64Mb to 128Mb :) Suddenly all the HDD lag was gone when loading new areas and such.

[@SoftBreadSoftware]

I bought Diablo and was crushed when I couldn't play it with 4mb memory LOL.

[@xdeathsrk]

I remember "playing" D2 before we upgraded our pc, right around the time we got cable internet. Whenever I broke the last seal in Chaos Sanctuary, I had to wait for literally 25 minutes while Diablo spawned. I spent more time waiting than actually playing the game. 😅 Luckily we upgraded just before LoD hit. 👍

[@Microphunktv-jb3kj]

@@UltromanTheTacoman Lmao yeah.. voodoo 3dfx.. i was about to say my friend had it in crossfire lol :D sick stuff... UT 99 went from lagging in software graphics i think... to fucking something like a game from the far future... my eyes almost popped out of my socket from amazement... these young generations will never experience the shit what we did, tech evolved so fucking fast, that every year u were.. "Wow!" :D i think i havent had any wow effects in gaming for a decade+ already... last time something felt next level to me was dota2 closed beta.. and before that like world of warcraft launch lol... ;> Ur comment suggest u def played unreal tournament loool : ))) i remember also my friend bought entire new pc to play that game where u could slow down time ;D - Max Payne 2: :D damn how shit it looks nowdays haha.. Rumours has it.. max payne 2 drops to 15fps on Xbox... loooooooooooooooooooooooool :D

[@timokampwerth1996]

More post mortems need to be like this. self aware humor, tons of information and a very sympathetic speaker who values passion for his work over public speaking skills. Who cares if he umm-uuh's his way through most of it, he has so much passion for what he created with Diablo!

[@mattmcluhan252]

my mom saw the pentagrams in diablo and made me throw it away. so when i got it again i was careful never to start the game or pause the game in her presence.

[@MsFlamingFlamer]

Matt McLuhan 😂😂😂😂😂

[@JonathanGannSLOOT]

Matt McLuhan I too had this problem as I was raised in a very strict fundamentalist Christian household but I found that if you used the pause/break key instead of esapce to pause, it would just tint the screen red and said paused in the middle.

[@TacDyne]

Funny how different people regard religion. A church we were helping fix up a long time ago had a pastor who played Diablo in his office.

[@googleinc6033]

My mother didnt want me to play age of empire because they had priests.

[@Lobiach]

Same

[@szymonm.5045]

'-Do you want it? -I... I have one. Thank you.' Wait... WHAAAAAAAAAT?!

[@HECKproductions]

gods when he fire up that demo with the menu music and the fat THUMP sound effect that brought up nostalgic memories big time

[@Anonyminded]

Legendary developer of a legendary game, huge respect to David and the Blizzard North team!

[@stephendavenport316]

Definitely feeding off of the energy this guy is giving off! He's nervous as hell but you can tell he's so passionate. Awesome presentation.

[@TheBG077]

Thank you Daivd for all of your hard work and sacrifices in making such a great game! PLEASE come back and do another one of these for Diablo 2!!

[@Inogat]

the end is awesome, when the guy comes in and give the money, that's great !

[@meyakabrown4725]

At 58:41. Ya that was amazing.

[@ripoutyourprejudice]

Kinda cringy, but awesome at the same time.

[@Novous]

I thought it was kind of sweet.

[@andrewsparkes6115]

Should've given HIM that copy of the game! People are allowed to make personal backup 'pirates' so long as they have paid for a copy, so it'd be metaphorically, literally and legally wiping the slate clean.

[@AutodidacticPhd]

Yeah, that is easily one of the most entertaining things I've seen in these talks. I actually knew a band that would take a tip jar with the sign "Pirate Forgiveness Fund" (or something) on it. They swore they got more money in that jar than they actually got selling merch at some shows. I later heard that once they got a contract that their publisher made them take down the sign...

[@petertimowreef9085]

I'm not a very hardcore gamer and I've never even played Diablo, but this enire thing was very interesting. It's just a joy to listen to friendly people who know what they're talking about.

[@PleasestopcallingmeDoctorImath]

Peter Timowreef thats why i listen to full, accurately subtitled hitler speeches

[@petertimowreef9085]

And how would you know the subtitles are accurate? Piss off with your hitler jokes.

[@petertimowreef9085]

***** Did you really think that I thought German was a dead language...? Really..? Point is that when you don't speak German there's not really a way to know if the subtitles are accurate.

[@petertimowreef9085]

***** If that were the case the adjective "accurately subtitled" he used would be redundant. The fact he used it indicates that apparently he believes there also badly translated subtitles available, which he was able to avoid. Why are you defending someone who jokes around about a man who said horrible things?

[@erelane451]

Read this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law, never take someone serious when they bring up Hitler they're more of a statistic than holding an actual argument, and a troll.

[@mikeyoung9810]

Man I loved that game. No sequel or game has matched that feeling I get still to this day when I hear the music and see the game.

[@plume852]

Man, I love these Postmortems, it's so inspiring and fun to see legends retell their zero to hero style stories with so much passion.

[@jhl248]

27:44 Probably one of the most beautiful moments in game development history.

[@tehjamerz]

Actually it's all history

[@edwardingania1983]

I really admire his honesty.

[@dannyglover8217]

Watching these chill ass dudes at gdc makes me hate my job that much more

[@djobnoxious6407]

His dad still plays Diablo 2 after sixteen years of its release. What a wonderful feeling that must be.

[@superduperjew]

They need Blizzard North for the next Diablo game. Look what happened without them.

[@hellinterface6721]

right. What a fucking joke D3 was. But then again has any video game been that decent recently aside from darksouls? The gaming world is a steaming pile of shit now.

[@Sem5626]

yeah thats what happens when you ignore the hard fan base and concentrate on making it more playable by everyone

[@getrekt8365]

40 million or so copies sold of a piece of shit.

[@stratotega]

diablo 3 and thief being the biggest disappointments

[@viking_II]

Diablo 3: 30 million (due to Diablo 2 fame). Reaper of Souls: 3 million (due to Diablo 3 delusion). Do your maths.

[@ArborDaze]

Diablo 1 got me an internet bill of 1800 dollars one month, back when there was an hourly fee for some dial up.

[@Truth_Hurts528]

Arbor Day you or your parents?

[@ArborDaze]

Me.

[@rummy98]

My local phone company used to have something called LOS which was a 40 mile radius for free long distance after the first $15. When the bill would come in they would still tally the full minutes used then show capped at $15. I remember getting $9000 and $11000 bills as I would sometimes leave the connection on overnight. I remember the first big bill we got and my dad's reaction when he misread it lmao.

[@chrisskull7882]

Dude wtf...you have a game addiction I mean I got to level 50 on Diablo 2 in 4 days but dude you got issues...thats didn't cost me any money lol

[@Sebastian_Najmanovich]

rummy98 WHAT??? 10000??

[@jackcristo1628]

I've been playing "Diablo 3: Path of Exile", and I'm enjoying it a lot.

[@ssosso79]

path of exhile was def a better "diablo 3" then diablo 3

[@blackb1rd]

@@ssosso79 I just started POE with a friend (lvl 35 ranger now). Quite a bit more complex than any diablo game though. Any beginner tips?

[@nobodyinterestingyou]

Don't be a jack of all trade. PoE has a really flexible amount of skills configuration that let you be a lot of things.I'm playing the sorceress and the Scion character right now and I specialised them both Into something specific that still fits to my taste; One Is a necromancer and the other an archer all the way.There's a lot of room to experiment with builds and have fun If you don't follow any guides but you gotta have a clear vision still of what you want yours to be. So welcome aboard and have a pleasant stay with us In Wraeclast,exile (Y)!

[@ccgb92]

ROFL best comment

[@fu6817]

I can't live with the leagues "forcing" me to restart the progress every time new league comes out.

[@rum-ham]

I loved this game so much. Still do. Everything about it was mind blowing at the time. Great memories.

[@zeromancer-x]

More developers should do talks like this.

[@CIubDuck]

That hotmail story is absolutely depressing. 280 million... damn.

[@joshuanorris5860]

@Jonny B except there is interest. And things you can do with 40 million to let it grow properly.

[@dunmermage]

You think that's bad? Back in 1990 Bill Gates offered to sell Windows to IBM for $80,000.

[@takcus]

@@joshuanorris5860 yeah, for example their own Diablo expansion, (because of bigger studio and more of workers) Diablo III leaded by him etc.... another hunders of milions of dollars ;p

[@omikronweapon]

@Jonny B probably not gonna spend all of 40M though. (unless you're the "lets go nuts" type, and then you'd burn it back to 0 fairly soon anyway) On the other hand, even if he did just drop it in the bank, 40M is still 40M. You wouldn't refuse that just because it isnt 280M.

[@omikronweapon]

@@dunmermage that's crazy. But it's not quite comparable. Maybe it would've crashed and burned under IBM, managing it badly or something. Pretty big difference from buying a relatively small product and having to develop it into more, compared to getting 40M just for having a dude sit in your empty room.

[@darovi]

Blizzard needs to put Diablo along with Warcraft 1 & 2 on the store.

[@MrCoolibe]

no point, copy right expired i believe

[@NinjaSushi2]

You can download the abandonware.

[@satan915]

Copyright on corporately owned works doesn't expire until 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation, whichever comes first. Still a long ways to go before even those old games would expire.

[@BaDMrFr0zty]

it's called walmart

[@blazindragon296]

lol to bad Walmart doesn't sell D1 and Warcraft 1 and 2

[@hackebeil20]

"battle.net ran on one computer" - dafuuuuuuq!!!!

[@UmbraAtrox_]

Some say it still does.

[@laughingskuls7000]

explains why it always crashes

[@zeromancer-x]

It's the same computer from 1997...

[@XkidXuglyX]

57:15 to relive this hilarious moment

[@ac0rpbg]

Original battle.net was a basic IRC server nothing more nothing less. There were a lot emulated battle.net servers for pirated games. Now such services are a lot more complicated that even host the games for the anti-cheat protection and so on.

[@Helmutlozzi]

I will always hate neo-blizzard for calling Mr. Brevik a loser. RIP Diablo franchise.

[@vOddy75]

What a rude thing to say. When was this?

[@hellishinc]

@@vOddy75 Jay "bitch boy" Wilson. David made a comment saying he didn't think d3 was a good diablo game. Jay responded with "fuck that loser".

[@PauloAM]

@@hellishinc damn! and the loser was right, so joke's on bitch boy

[@gustru2078]

@Terminal Heights Yeah sure, people bought it thinking it would be good because of diablo 2 and pretty much everyone was disappointed. It got high sales but that's it. I played Diablo 2 for many years and still do sometimes. I stopped playing Diablo 3 after less than a year though and didn't bother with the expansion. That's how good D3 is. Regardless of the context of Brevik saying he didn't think D3 was good, he was right.

[@Splatterpunk_OldNewYork]

Diablo 1 will go down in history as the greatest game Beside Doom. Calling this man anything other than Genius is not using his proper title. Peasants always have opinions.

[@zachm705]

The Diablo series needs a reboot in the spirit of the original game. It needs to be small, spooky, intimate, simplified, and challenging.

[@wreagfe]

Thanks David, and all the people that worked on Diablo, for this game. It was so awesome, childhood memories. :))

[@MrInfernoblade10]

giving his copy away is truly the highlight of the entire event because that's just too awesome for a dev to give away their unopened copy to a fan

[@maxwuup2152]

how could the first guy asking a question NOT take the unopened diablo :o

[@alexoelkers2723]

I think he was just kind of on the spot and didn't want to seem like he was asking for it. I am sure he regretted it afterward.

[@_Minecraft_ASMR]

He said he already had a copy, The person who asked for it later sold it, which is highly disrespectful as it was given under the idea that he was going to play it.

[@alexoelkers2723]

Mia S I would of thankfully taken it as a collector's piece even if I had a copy. Really kind of sad that it got sold in the end.

[@DeathBringer769]

If he sold that then he is a scumbag, especially for asking it under pretenses of him needing a copy to play it. Bet he walks around thinking he's a good person too. Dirty liar, if that's true.

[@alexoelkers2723]

Deathbrewer it was you wasn't it?

[@MrRespen]

Just caught this today, was listening for background and had to stop everything I was doing to watch it. So many memories, but to name a few... I played so much that the music was soothing, and I'd leave it on to go to sleep. I remember logging on to battlenet for the first time and seeing players trading weapons by dropping them on the ground, and thinking to myself... this is the future of gaming. I remember contest on... happypuppy games regarding ideas for the sequel that I made a write up for. Nothing has compared, thank you, thank you thank you.

[@robbhays8077]

I remember that DirectX demo CD! I played the heck out of that thing. EDIT: That Dark Forces overlay was great. I forgot how revolutionary that was.

[@dixie_rekd9601]

love this guy , he's funny, well thought out, CLEARLY knows what he's talking about and has a "I was there" bearing.

[@DetectivePoofPoof]

Wow that was probably the most entertaining postmortem I've seen!

[@thewickinator]

Im eating this up Im only at 5 minutes holy shit diablo was the first computer game i played and i think it raised me when my parents wernt around from 7-9 years old

[@riyadali4082]

Words cannot express the respect and admiration I have for this man and his team. Diablo is so dear to my heart, all the memories growing up with that series.

[@karacter3369]

the way he did the convertion of turn based to real time is genius really

[@robertwhitis6132]

This was the best damn postmortem I've ever seen. Rock on David! Absolutely amazing.

[@PixelProphecy]

Just finished Diablo again on Windows 10 x64 Pro. Didn't even need the patch, but with 1.6 it plays a bit better. And seeing good old Tristram in 640*480 stretched up all the way on an UHD screen is quite a sight to behold :)

[@stricker1eagle500]

glad you enjoyed that mobile game :)

[@werdelke]

Damn, those pixels must've been as big as bricks, man.

[@hrvojesincek3888]

@@werdelke HD mod does exist and its good.

[@snuffeldjuret]

@@hrvojesincek3888 Indeed! It is a lot harder though, I got my ass totally wooped first time I played. Just recently managed to kill Mr. D as a normal leveled and equipped warrior :).

[@phadedlife]

Diablo WAS my childhood. I still play D2 even til this day (mostly MedianXL mod). Thank you for doing this David. It's nice to have some knowledge on you, the game, and the team behind it. Thank you for giving me joy in life, where there has been none otherwise. My life has been a complete mess, but I still have Diablo to fall back on. I know this sounds pathetic, but it is what it is. Hope to see new content from you!

[@acidarrow]

Wow, so much gold here for anyone who has spent any significant time on any of the Diablo series. Not to mention the extra insight for those of us who have some kind of programming experience. Fascinating.

[@nicolasroqe]

SO the brain behind one of the most ICONIC games wants to give YOU an unopened copy of the game: 53:07 -Do you want it?. - i have one, thank you. WTF?¿?¿?¿?¿???¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿

[@Whateverworksism]

hahahaha he did not think that through, fuck me I'd frame it and treat it as a treasured piece of art.

[@Kratatch]

@Deventh Apparantly he sold it...

[@omikronweapon]

IMO It should have gone to the guy that paid for his pirated copy. I know he might have turned it down, but that to me was the most deserving person there. He would have cherished the fuck out of it. Though, a little higher up in the comments, a guy is claiming to be the recipient and still having the game. I looked into it a bit, and there's sóme creedence to it. www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/4b3ian/i_got_an_signed_copy_of_diablo_from_david_brevik/ www.benjaminpirkey.com/ (his twitter name is supersulf)

[@terefer3]

34yo here, great game, me and my brother got it with our PC upgrade - finally we had a proper sound card! Both of us completely gone, we SLAINED our mouse, because of the upgrade we have been skint, so we actually opened our mouse, and replaced left mouse button with right one - as right one wasn't as important! xD Still play it from time to time, great game.

[@UnknownGunslinger]

Oh man I remember Primal Rage! I used to love that game so much, why did I forget it?

[@JohnDaniels]

This is one of my top five GDC videos 👍

[@64jcl]

The turnbased engine at first was likely a good choice to have underneath this as it no doubt made the game state more "tidy" when he transitioned it to real time. Seeing how quickly he got it into a realtime state, indicates that the movement/animation of the player and monsters were all smooth for each time transition. A player can almost play Diablo a bit turn based as you can move a tile and trigger motion of a monster that then is in the "aggro range" to deal with them one at a time.

[@DeathBringer769]

I mean even WoW later had similar things with aggro ranges on mobs, even though both games are in real-time. I wouldn't really equate pulling mobs one at a time to "turn based" though, lol.

[@nekrataali]

I really want to know more about this in regards to Diablo 2. For those that don't know, Diablo 2 runs at 25 frames per second for each animation. Having faster cast rate, move speed, increased attack speed, and so on meant the animation for your character skipped frames in the animation. For example, say it takes your character 10 frames to complete an attack animation, but a monster 25 frames, your character will attack 2.5 times per second while the monster will attack once. This stuff isn't that important for playing against monsters, but if you're doing any sort of PvP, you had this shit down to a science. One of the highest skills you could master was how to de-synchronize (or "desynch"). This was when you flooded the server with so many inputs that when it went to skip over the animations, it could glitch, lose packets, and your character would appear invisible on your opponent's screen. A good Amazon, for instance, could desynch her run speed so that she's almost permanently invisible, "teleporting" next to her opponent, and firing off a large salvo of javalins right to her opponent's face. Paladins were probably the easiest to desynch with, while one of the hardest goals would be to achieve desynch'd whirlwinds on barbarians and assassins. The other thing is that duping in Diablo 2 was usually obtained by desynch. You create the conditions that cause the server to lose track of your character (or straight-up crash the server) and try and move items from one place to another (like the stash into the player inventory). The server loses track of your character, thinks an item is being held by another person, then you log back in and the server sees you still have your item, leaving the other person with the dupe(s). There's a lot of methods, but these are the basics behind most of them. However, none of the desynch methods are possible on Classic because players can't get enough cast speed/move speed/etc. to cause a server to crash. As a result, all items on Classic were either duped prior to v1.09 (when Blizzard introduced item numbers) or are legitimate and not dupes. I'd be really curious to hear Brevik talk about all this.

[@naomi-nada]

I could listen to this man talk about developing games all day.

[@bastardtubeuser]

hes a good speaker and a good guy for sharing some of the development and technical processes they went through. another fantastic postmortem

[@BaneTodor]

Thank you, man, for your existence! This was pure gold and you made me laugh for full hour! Off course, I learned a lot.

[@karatechop7289]

One of the best videos I have seen on KZbin. I was glued to my monitor, the whole time he was talking.

[@JoshForeman]

Hm. I started working at Synergistic (The studio that Sierra had do the xpac) right after they finished Hellfire. If it's any consolation, they shut us down within 6 months. Also, I NOW work for Mike O'Brian at ArenaNet, so it fun hearing about his earlier days. I hope Brevik splits that profit he just got with Mike after praising him so much! ;P

[@GamekNightPlays]

Watching this after the announcement of Diablo: Immortal - Game development was so much cooler back in the day... it was all about passion, not money!

[@slow9573]

Dude this presentation is top tier. Internet history.

[@CharlesVanNoland]

"You don't have to worry about this anymore, the card does all this crap for you, so it's... you know........ Kids today..."

[@donov25]

It runs on windows 10! A buddy of mine and I play it all the time.

[@ElGeecho]

Well, now I have to reinstall Diablo.

[@CaveyMoth]

I have it on an HDD somewhere..dang it... Gotta break out my low-res monitor, too.

[@snuffeldjuret]

@@CaveyMoth Should be no need. I had no trouble playing on my modern computer! Although I prefer playing Diablo HD mod, it includes deleted content and Mechanics from Diablo 2.

[@Microphunktv-jb3kj]

d2 lod with median XL... or u will be severly dissapointed : ))))

[@unkeneke]

GDC talks can tend to be tedious and hard to watch but this one flew by so fast, 1 hour was not enough, and I am not even a big Diablo fan. Would loveee to see a continuation with a Diablo 2 postmortem, thank you David Brevik for your amazing work!

[@Stephenson1055]

Amazing talk and great to hear about one of my favorite and most nostalgic games of all time.

[@ac0rpbg]

Games back in the 90s were the best games. They were done with love and passion and that was the driving force. Now it is all about making more money...

[@kusog3]

Sad state of the gaming industry

[@Dousch]

That’s why these talks are so valuable. Keeps me going when I feel like giving up on my own projects.

[@rosurobosu8546]

listening to someone who knows his thing is so satisfying.

[@viking_II]

Diablo 1&2 spirit continues in Torchlight, Path of Exile and Grim Dawn.

[@bhaalgorn]

derpeter, why?

[@sirbattlecat]

Viking II when I describe PoE to people I just say "it feels more like Diablo than Diablo 3".

[@yellowblanka6058]

Ugly, unprovoked attack to an innocent comment...yeah, this is the KZbin comments section.

[@krisbayley9422]

and Torchlight 2 aswell

[@ExileLBL]

thanks a lot youve talked about Matt, I was defined by his unique tones and chords.

[@Tudumanu]

Amazing talk, thx a lot David Brevik! This game was superb for the time and still is today.

[@PrettyGuardian]

That's so funny when he talks about his mom playing Diablo. My mom and I are big Diablo fans!

[@anthonygrenier6509]

This video is simply amazing. Thank you David for all the time, effort and passion you've put in this game with your team.

[@DecibelAlex]

I'm so jealous that one dude got David's diablo copy. He should've asked for his autograph though!

[@ecstaseed89]

I was thinking the same thing. David seems nice enough to do that for him too. Also hey I know you from your first upload, big castlevania fan whatsup

[@DelkorYT]

New game's name: Arreat Objective: Protect Mt. Diablo

[@anon5119]

The story about a warrior, climbing the mountain struck by the demonic meteor ridden by supersatan

[@pearz420]

Working on my first game, in Unity, and I feel like I am fortunate to walk on the shoulders of giants. David Brevik is one such giant.

[@TheGodEmperorOfMankind_]

That blood exchange skill though.

[@Pringlesman]

I love this talk. Sometimes people complain about how game X was only done for the money. And the comeback is always about how game developers are businesses and of course that's their goal. This talk really illustrates that sometimes the goal is to make a quality game first and hope that that turns into a profit after the fact.

[@Youboob99]

And with D1 and D2 it basically did both, haha. And turned out to be a legendary game or two in the process, respect-wise. SOOO tough to achieve that.

[@wildwest1832]

idk in modern times it seems to happen less and less. Maybe more with indie games but not AAA.

[@MetalHorrorGamer]

great video. its a shame it ended. i would have loved to hear him answer more questions

[@pittjunker5422]

The most amazing part was him handing out the copy just like that

[@Drachensingsang]

This is one inspiring talk. It's like looking back through a window. You can be there wihtout having been there. Fantastic!

[@BANANA1TERACOTTA1PIE]

Post mortem my ass, i still play diablo 1, also if anyones looking to get back into the game, look up diablo 1 hd mod, its called belzebub, its a lot more than just a hd upgrade.

[@MisterFoxton]

19 years, 10 months and 21 days old.

[@bechtholdillustrator9378]

Belzebub is truly Awesome !

[@InnuendoXP]

Anyone play Diablo 1 with The Hell mod?

[@aageon]

you mean Hellfire by Sierra or an actual mod?

[@PaulBosMusic]

Post-mortem is a project management term used for reflection and process improvement. Can be done after any milestone including release

[@GacNac]

wonderful video

[@CondensedComments]

48:00 Wow...thank you so much man, you really made an awesome game. Dang and I didn't even hear the baby part until I started writing the comment. Congratulations on the family man, from a Christian who plays the *heck* out of Diablo, if you see this, thank you so much and God bless!

[@ifstatementifstatement2704]

David is great! The best GDC presentation I've ever seen.

[@AoiKaze2000]

Where's the link to the design document?

[@frigidwinter5101]

+AoiKaze2000 Right here: www.graybeardgames.com/download/diablo_pitch.pdf

[@UserRandomized]

I spent hundreds of hours playing this game and after seeing how excited you were to develop this game and the entire process, it was worth it. Also, my heart dropped when he turned down the free copy of the original diablo. I would put it in a gold plated frame and never open it :D

[@adamstryker999]

This is my favorite video, period. Best presentation.

[@chrismorris5241]

Huge part of my child hood. Thanks David Brevik. Seems like a really awesome guy.

[@JonathanGannSLOOT]

Why in the world would anyone dislike this.

[@snynhalt]

Diablo 3 fans? And it proves why Diablo 3 is wrong at all possible levels...

[@harmonyhoney7115]

he talks about crunch being positive

[@karbonista]

One of the most amazing things about Diablo and D2 was the solid running. I know there were bugs that some people dealt with, but d1 was one of the first nearly-flawless game experiences I'd had. Imagine if XCom with that level of solidity. I think one of the reasons that differences of opinion on XCom are *possible*, about whether it's the greatest single gaming experience of all time, is that the buggy and crappy UI put a lot of people off. Diablo set a standard that Bliz held on to for quite a while. (btw, I'm a firm "battlegrounds killed WoW" gamer).

[@vallavalhalla]

A big thank you David Brevik !!

[@Samkiud]

Great, awesome talk. Best postmortem I have watched so far. The question about the possibility to acquire the game legally currently was freaking important.

[@QwertyCharlieFourate]

What a legend, Lovely guy!