Almighty Video Game Designer

Chen Mo made sure that the players couldn’t cruise through the game like Diablo 3 in his previous life.

Although it was a monster with zero difficulty, Zou Zhuo had a sliver of worry within him when a monster was rushing at him.

As he continued on, the Demon Hunter found himself at Tristam after beating the group of undead trying to raid the city. The Demon Hunter then entered the city and gave himself a line of quests.

The guidance was pretty good as there was a minimap on the top right hinting at the next location the player should visit. There was also a quest reminder on the right.

Zou Zhuo continued following the line of quests to go through the story.

Zou Zhuo soon noticed a few obvious upsides in this game.

The game felt smooth and the controls were comfortable. The graphics and sound effects were all really high quality too. It even surpassed many games in first person in many aspects even as a third person game.

It was evident that Chen Mo didn’t make a third person game to ‘hide flaws’, nor was it because he couldn’t’ satisfy the needs of a first person game. He made a conscious choice to keep the game in third person.

Zou Zhuo was taken away by the spooky art style of Diablo as Chen Mo tried his best to recreate the atmosphere of Diablo 2.

As the Demon Hunter walked into the crypts, the area felt like it was sticky from blood.

In some quieter maps where you can hear the crackling of fires, and the footsteps of the character become increasingly evident, any monster that pops up on the screen will be more than enough to give the players a shock as they find themselves on a seemingly endless path.

Combined with this art style as well as an ever changing randomly generated map, the adventure in adventure games was brought out to its fullest.

Moreover, Chen Mo continued the field of view and darkness mechanics from Diablo 2. When the players enter caves, their field of view will be much smaller as most of their screen becomes darkness, only able to see the outline of the terrain as the presence of monsters remains a mystery.

The players could clearly see all the monsters on the screen which took out a lot of the mysteriousness in the game, making it a game that ‘could be seen through’.

With the darkness and field of view restrictions added back into the game, combined with the graphics, sounds effects, and level design. This made Zou Zhuo feel anxious at times, tense at others. However, Zou Zhuo didn’t feel so stressed to want to quit the game, instead he was compelled to play more.

This played completely different from all the overdone formats on the market. This game didn’t look like an amusement park, with knights without a single spec of dust on their armor. The only things in this game were corpses, skeletons, abscess, and endless hopelessness.

The Demon Hunter walked into the Cathedral completely helpless, with silent mercenaries fighting alongside him.

(Chen Mo followed Diablo 2 on this point as well, removing all the lines of mercenaries to allow players to better absorb the horrifying atmosphere.)

Many aspects of the playstyle also surpised Zou Zhuo.

The equipment system was really rich. Zou Zhuo could get decent equipment during his adventure. They also had unique flavour texts so no two pieces of equipment were the same.

There were many different abilities to go with the rich combat system. Different abilities were unlocked as the player leveled up. Combined with talents and skill runes, the players could figure out an optimal build from what they have, and this was a process which Zou Zhuo thoroughly enjoyed.

The most important thing was how satisfying the game was! This was also the biggest difference between Diablo compared to other RPG games.

The world the player exists in other games, especially online games, are really small. Not to mention bosses that take the combined power of many to take down, or the powerful NPC leaders of huge factions. There wasn’t a big differential in power when considering between players either. Many normal players in MMORPGs know that they are just a normal player.

It wasn’t the same in Diablo. You were the only god in the game, the saviour. From an adventure from Tristam at the start of the game, to a hero who saved Caldeum after defeating the Lord of Lies, turning the tides at Bastion Keep, before reaching the High Heavens to defeating Diablo, the embodiment of the seven evils, letting known the name of Nephalem be known from Hell to the High Heavens.

The player could cut through demons like a warm knife through butter when faced with waves of demons, leaving behind corpses and dropped equipment.

Of course, you might die, you might lose some gold, you will also have to retrieve your equipment from your corpse (from Diablo 2),

This was a world filled with danger, a world filled with hopelessness, and the only person you can depend on was yourself.

And it was because of this that the players get to experience a sense of satisfaction better than ever. It was because of a hopeless world that you give the waves upon waves of monsters and demons any mercy. One slash and all the demons will disappear in your wake.

Zou Zhuo was completely absorbed into the game as his field of view was reduced to a small circle when exploring a dark cave.

All of a sudden, a huge wave of monsters appeared in front of him before charging directly at him!

There were some monsters in this group that had a golden hue, leaving behind light in every step.

The players watching around him were shocked, “My goodness! Be Careful! Dodge!”

Zou Zhuo was shocked to see his health fall dramatically before calming his nerves and rolling to a safe distance before laying down traps, setting loose a barrage of bolts!

Waves after wave of groans from the monsters followed the waves of bolts. The weaker monsters started dying, but the huge rare monsters had a lot more health and continued charging towards the demon hunter.

Zou Zhuo skillfully kited as he used all his abilities.

He was exceedingly calm in a situation like this, not making any errors as he was fairly highly ranked in Warcraft.