live today for d2 full playthrough: www.twitch.tv/darthmicrotransaction After fully completing Diablo 2, it is one of the best games ever made. Why do YOU think these level of games aren't continually being pumped out?

D2 back in 2001-2006 you had to fucking be there man

It will never happen again, because D2 was made by a different studio (Blizzard North) and back then games weren't made with "how are we going to keep our players playing our game for years and years on end with Seasonal content". This wasn't a thing..it was just to make a game fun to play..that's it.

Also, these games came out when the internet was still in it's infancy, and content creators/youtube/guides didn't really exist. What this means, is EVERYONE had to play and learn the games themselves. Sadly, people rarely do that anymore.

That`s so much BS from the devs. We don`t ask them to reinvent the wheel. Take D2, make it 2024 graphics (that doesn`t mean 80% grey), take it's rune system, itemization, gem system, crafting system, random map generator, update/fix the skill system etc, add a new world, more bosses and that`s about it. Instant success. Literally copy&paste 90% of it systems/mechanics and update them for today's market. We don`t play old games just for the nostalgia; we play them for fun&relaxation.

Games used to be atmospheric. I don't feel that now. Seems games lost the soul.

I just wish D4 stuck with the D2 itemization. Personally I think the itemization in D2 minus a few OP runewords is the best itemization in any ARPG. PoE does it pretty well too. I absolutely hate smart loot that you can only find items for the class you are playing instead of finding other awesome items for other classes that you can trade or even start up that character so you can use it. I also think that getting rid of magic find would also be a good thing. Maybe develop an algorithm that calculates how difficult an enemy is based off it's affixes or if its a hard boss/ unique mob and calculate it's independent magic find based off the difficulty the game thinks the mob is would be really cool IMO. Edit: Another good thing about itemization that is absent in D4 is item bases. Item bases give individual items reasons to be picked up PoE does item bases very well. Thicket bow higher attack speed, Vaal axe 25% maim on hit etc. why move away from something that was perfected.

Diablo 2's itemization is genius tho. Sure there is plenty of 'useless items, but the way how yellow items can be insanely good, same with crafted items. Blue items can even be bis, like the 40% MF ring. Charms/Jewels add that dopamine effect, there is always something to find and ID even tho 99% of the time it's shit, but it doesnt matter since you might get lucky and find something insanely good. Hell, even fucking white/grey items can be worth alot if you find the right base for your runewords. There is ALWAYS something to look for, so you don't feel like you 'wasting' your time. It's honestly such a shame the Diablo 4 team didn't implement some of the itemization from D2. To this day it's probably the best itemization of any ARPG imo.

D2 is like that iceberg meme, you think you know so much about it, but it's much deeper than that. By far the best Diablo, it's not even close.

Diablo 2 is, in short, you and a slot machine turned into a video game. It's that simple. It's all about the items. There aren't hundreds and hundreds of numbers like Diablo 4. Even the endgame is almost non-existent. You can upgrade numbers to increase the chances of item drops, but little else. All the builds work. They're all great to play. And even if you repeat the same scenario thousands of times, you always want one more run. You keep playing because it's fun. That's it. I've been playing Diablo 2 for over 20 years. Not only my "safe place" when I don't know what to play, but I consider it a perfect game because it's always there whether it's for half-hour sessions, several hours, or not putting it down for weeks. Greetings from Spain

I was lucky enough to be in my early 40's now and got the chance in real time play golden era of Blizzard games when they first came out.

i honestly think the way we consume information about games breaks all expectations. We watch "best Arpgs comming in 2024", then we build hype on something, then there comes trailers, early access, people consume every pixel of the new half-made game in 2 weeks and then move to the next one. It is brutal on game devs as well, not gonna lie. D2 was developed over many years and was released on a completely different era of information consumption. People needed to play over and over to discover things. Now we start a game with a "best starting guide" open on the second monitor. Crazy times

Items felt so important in diablo 2. The fact a 140 defence shako vs a 141 perfect shako is literally 30X the value. It was literally satisfying opening your inventory and knowing and seeing you got a perfect item equipped. Any other rpg ive played, the items felt like little slot cards i could care less if i accidently dropped one. In diablo 2, if you had a griffons, them 4 squares were straight sacred, and made you feel good to have it.

The itemization in Diablo 2 is what sets it apart from 3 and 4. So much loot that actually means something and makes things worth picking up. Whites, blues, and even some crazy yellow items. Poe does a pretty good job overall but it is almost too confusing. Looking forward to POE 2 and starting at ground level before it gets insanely complicated.

People focus a lot about D2 itemization, but the ambiance of Diablo 2 is just second to none. The music, the sound effects, the world, the lighting, the monsters.

I had to have a buddy drive me to Babbages in the local mall on release day because I was just 15. I guess it's time to schedule a colonoscopy.

I love when DM has a score to match the intensity of his speeches

my issue with d4 is that with an infinite budget and dev team they are too scared to take a swing at things, its just reskinned d3. atleast the devs at last epoch are trying things.

d2 itemization is what seperates it from other ARPGs. Something like PD2 which took that itemization even further makes it the best ARPG option you can play. Every ARPG now has cookie cutter builds that will always require the same core items to play it. In D2, I can play the same skill as someone else, with the same synergies fo rthat skill, but a complete different item set based on my goals. MF build, pure damage, survivability, faster block rate, FHR, etc. That is lost in a lot of new ARPGs because everything is made into a guide and you'ret old the exact items you need for every slot. TL;DR everyone should go play PD2 if you're a fan of D2 and not a fan of modern ARPGs. It is the best combination of the best core systems and modern quality of life and end game options.

The whole premise is just wrong though. The genre has not been "figured out" there's so much room for improvement, and some of that improvement IS just returning to what made Diablo 2 such a good game. PoE 2 is bringing a lot of that, and that's why everyone is so damn excited to play it. PoE 2 is making a lot of innovations, and I think it's really safe to say even PoE 2 wont be the final form of the ARPG genre, it will continue to get better from there.

D2 is a timeless classic for various reasons, pivotal being as others have said of focusing on it being a good game over player retention of making money short term for years, but also design in key facets. Sound design and music is S tier, Matt Uelmen not only did the music, he also did SFX like the gold dropping. Division of labor is great, but having someone like him or Marty composing the music of all the Halos helps bring things together for the game's identity due to a singular vision. Imagine if Howard Shore didn't do all three LotR movies with them swapping composers like directors for the sequel Star Wars trilogy. Too many cooks veering from a focused vision of a product-dozens of producers in an episode of TV for instance-not outlining properly wasting development time, and profit before a good game or other visual media has been rampant across the board. Diametrically opposed rationales be butting heads, we've got the budget to employ a gigantic team in all areas, and rush it out the door we'll finish it in post. All of this has lead to gaudy mediocrity in media for a decade now.

Diablo 2 is brutally hard compared to that new crap. You got items so rare that most people playing for years wont even get the whiff of them. Its also extremely simple yet complex. No new games hits that itch anymore. They all look fancy and flashy but the very core elements are dead boring and dreadful.

It definitely feels like for the vast majority of things created in our day and age that it is profit versus passion. I'm not saying PoE is not a profitable company. But it took so much passion and hard work to curate such a beautiful ARPG. Diablo 4's aesthetic was also gorgeous with an incredible eye for detail. But the gameplay only recently became enjoyable and the end game is still blasé. It is about an enjoyable rich endgame that is progression based. As far as the revolutionary itemization system D2 created, that is an original. However much like the Reinassance using the same principals as the ancient Greeks and Romans, the art form can be taken to all new heights. I'm not bashing on newer games or shilling for PoE/ Elden Ring. What I am saying is that art always reveals itself.

they should follow D2 format and allow us to spam boss fights...The whole summoning mats things is REALLY boring gameplay loop...Just lets us ght the bosses over and over like d2 and lower the drop rates..

The depth of the item system of D2 was what made it so great. You had unique thst were good enough for end game, you had rare and crafted items that had the potential to be extremely good but very hard to find because of the probability. You had socketed items which could also spawn ethereal and enhanced, adding another layer of rarity. The aura system on items and combined with both the player and the mercenary added another huge aspect to the late game. Comparing all this to Diablo 4 where it feels like the game just gives you items based on your level with no real deep endgame is much less fun. Do people do holy grail hunts in D4? Plus the fact that trading and the economy was completely in the hands of the player, these are the things people want back.

ARPGs don't really resemble d2 anymore. They are all just build simulators now, with stupid seasons and endless scaling Grift style endgame and craft-to-brick loot. Somehow, the loot system in d2 (especially pre 1.10) is still the best, and the mob design and behavior is also better which is kinda shocking isn't it? Don't get me wrong d2 has a lot of flaws (especially post 1.10) but the fact that newer ARPGs abandoned the best aspects of d2 is what surprises me to this day.

33 Immortals, MMO mixed with roguelike style is very innovative. Played the closed beta and it was so much fun and refreshing aswell. Hope more company's try their vision with this.

I’ll tell you how you can blow everyone’s mind. Make an ARPG where all the power comes from only skill trees. Add items that raise those skills. Add stats that only have minor impact to damage but important synergies to the system. You’re welcome.

You're being super generous with the 5-6% increases. That assumes the games come out and are actually good. Look at D4 when it came out. We did not progress in 5-6%. If anything we backslid by 20%.

I think they could make a good game instead of D4, D2 is a different "breed", only thing you can compare is that they are arpg, D2 dark atmosphere will never be recreated because bli$$ard is fkin garbage and that's it. Even if you/we try to sugarcoat saying that they "fixed" D4, that shit will never be 10% of what D2 was, at least not design wise.

idk, There are a lot of old games that I can completely lose myself in, and there are a lot of new games of the same genre that improved everything but I can't get the same level of engagement. It's not nostalgia either, some of these old games I've never played before. there is some secret game-making sauce that you just don't see these days.

I thought D4 was going to redefine by introducing Dark Souls type play. Meaning the enemies can beat the crap out of you, but you can dodgeroll and use movement spells. They were headed in that direction, then people started bitching. They want to see thousands of things die on their screen in 5 seconds.

The lack of social feature design in D4 is just mind boggling. Diablo 2 with its simple 8 player game setup and game name search somehow worked sooooooo much better. You make a game, name it with an objective, and nearly instantly you have potential friends to start playing with... I log in to D4 and interact with basically no one unless an actual person on my friends list is on. Seeing people at a 'world boss' or helltide boss is the only time it feels like other players exist and It is just sad design.

This is a bad take. For one thing, you keep mentioning "reinvention" of the genre, or basically making changes so huge they can't be considered incremental but you don't realize that at point you've essentially created a NEW genre, kinda like how at the beginning there were just RPGs and then at some point games that focused more on the action of the character rather than the story started being made and those started calling themselves ARPGs. It's also not true that ARPGs have been figured out: POE, out of necessity to monetize itself, generated the sustainable seasonal model for ARPGs that was then adopted by D3 & D4. But more than that, through that model they constantly add layers and layers of content to the game and once in a while completely rejuvenate the endgame map system. Last Epoch has also made an innovation with their excellent crafting system that allow you to take an item with 2-3 good affixes and then craft it to fit your character, but more than that, their Circle of Fortune is a very exciting target farming mechanism and this has been recognized by players and other games alike (which is why D4 adapted a lot of their ideas in S4). I personally think these things are more than "incremental" changes but if you don't agree then what to you might look like changes big enough to "reinvent" the genre I would probably call a new genre altogether. There are very strong arguments to be made that the reason people feel gaming is worse is because it objectively is, as a result of becoming a large industry. Where before you had small teams being agile and running with their most interesting ideas to make mostly single player games now you have corporations that create games with the same logic as making widgets in a factory and then aim to maximize the revenue from them by selling battlepasses and MTX and sometimes having gacha mechanics, etc. Let's compare D4 and D2 for instance. D2 was designed as a single-player game whose only revenue came from the upfront cost of the game. This means that there was no interest in making you come back again and again, season after season to extract money from you through the battlepasses and so that corporate could have strong-looking engagement metrics. Because they didn't sell MTX, all the cool art designs went on items you could get as drops in the game, whereas in D4 the only cool armor sets exist on the MTX shop. In D2 they made bosses challenging but the rewards were of great value so that you felt you accomplished something AND got a good reward for it. In D4 their system makes you farm for mats to farm bosses hundreds of times so that MAYBE you get a good item and thousands of times if you want a good item with greater affixes.

"Over 9,000 Individuals Were Involved In The Development Of Diablo IV". Of course, people expect D2 level of upgrades. But we got D4 now, like WTF

Good video, just a heads up the background diablo music is kinda loud

Thank you for putting my recent thoughts on newer games in to a tangible form. Almost my exact take on games lately.

Only Blizzard NORTH could make great games. Blizzard died when Blizzard NORTH died.

once you get your fill of diablo 2, project diablo 2 is a great extension.

I mostly agree with what you're saying but I do think there still room for ground breaking/re-invention games. The problem is these major publishers aren't willing to take risks and want to have a live service system where they make as much money as possible. What's ironic though is that with all these failed attempts at live service they'd be better off taking some risks and see if something sticks with the player base.

Have you ever Played Grim Dawn? worth trying, especially if you enjoyed D1 and 2

The problem is they release half baked games with dlc on dlc

Been playing d2 on-off since I was a pre-teen, and while I enjoy D3/D4, D2 is still my favorite. What keeps bringing me back: ○ D2 is more replayable than any other hack-n-slash dungeon crawler, because: a) leveling is quick and enjoyable b) the campaign is quick and enjoyable (and fun to speedrun) c) getting gear is quick and enjoyable d) early/mid-game gear feels powerful, and has longevity into the late game e) itemization is highly flexible (+skills > almost everthing) due to above/below, the progression from mid->late game gear doesn't feel like a slog or horrible f) magic finding is FUN; and all items (even rares) can be highly valuable g) runes are abundant (some rare to find), consumable, and make early, mid, and end-game gear; making them the perfect currency to form an in-game economy around h) runeword, rare, unique itemization affix ranges is varied and diverse enough to make it hype af when something rolls great, and like a jackpot when rolls perfect i) the world, monsters, dungeons, and decor feels natural; neither under or overwhelming at any point j) the music f***king slaps, and perfectly fits the setting/zone k) The Cow Mof***king l) "random" unique boss events (uber diablo) -> rewards annihilus m) farmable unique boss event (uber tristram) -> rewards hellfire torches n) Every class (especially after D2r) has multiple builds that are fun and viable on a budget o) The skill tree is direct and straight forward (A, B, C, D skills make each other stronger by x%); there is NO guesswork in whether you are running the best talents, and you don't need a guide p) Gameplay is generally 2-5 spammable buttons at most of extremely or no cd skills (unlike WoW with 15+ buttons and a dozen more with minute+ cds) q) The audio and visuals are solid, clear, without clutter, and neither over or underwhelming (except mosaic assassin; RIP your eyes) r) It takes 1/5th second to know what (if anything) you want to pick up off the ground s) CRAFTING GG gear t) GAMBLING GG gear u) Maps are varied, but most are procedural or follow "rules" that make re-navigating zones easy and fun v) elite/unique monsters are everywhere, and terror zones make every zone end-game farmable w) Calculating damage/mitigation is simple x) Boss Farming is quick, easy, and fun (think penny slots with occasionally ridiculous payouts) y) There are extremely rare (but non-essential) item drops that are incredibly cool to find (I still haven't found every drop in the game) z) The community. People help each other frequently without expecting anything in return; often times giving away exceptional gear they don't need simply because their inventory/mules are full and it's not worth the time trying to hoard/sell every item. Don't get me wrong; it has it's own flaws. But D2 shines due to it's simplicity; and a lot of modern games fail simply because the "fun" factor is gated behind overcomplicated systems, calculations, poor itemization, and extensive time requirements.

Item drops, artistic esthetics, legit challenge, scoring, everything felt earned. D2 team could have built on the genre and likely could have continued innovating the game. Blizzard nuked the entire team because the suits wanted to make it like WoW. We see scattered innovation with PoE and No Rest, but remember these studios are ex-D2 devs. Just imagine how great Diablo could have been if Blizzard just let the team do its thing.

Who picked out the background symphony music? Love those french horns.

D2 itemization is what made it great. d3 the worst game in diablo history but for some reason in their mind because the losers made it, they think it's great but it ruined the diablo franchise. D4s failures all of them are because it's D3

My opinion is the problem with games now is youtube exists. Back in the day we had to figure out everything about the game ourselves or by word of mouth. So the learning curve has drastically changed and thus the overall game experience

I wish a game would come out with repeatable ladder bosses and boss specific loot like RuneScape

Great thinking and commenting. One little detail I would have liked is that the music in the background would have been way less loud. I had to put on captions on times to understand what you were saying. D2 has great music, but i don't want to hear it when someone is tackling the topics you did. Otherwise great vid!

D2 is just so damn good. I can remember the first time seeing and playing it, was blown away as a kid. Been playing it ever since ❤

You said Elden Ring was a good example of something new but Elden Ring is just an amazing and more accessible version of the previous souls games.

You couldn't have said it better ...."people want what they remember". It started for me when I was around 6 years old and I discovered The Legend of Zelda. Way before computers where even around or internet until my teenage years when Diablo 1 came out. Wow I was mind-blown. The constant eagerness to wake up each morning or get home from school and on weekend to stay up all night to play was awesome. Diablo 2 soon after and bnet where we can now tap into our dial-up connection and play with the 'world' and trade with each other and explore all we can with new builds, was just so much fun! What I remember (as some may call nostalgia) is what I miss with all these new regurgitated versions of the masterpiece D2 is. I hope some day I can relive those memories in a new innovative way. Until then I'll enjoy what we do have and my frequent dose of D2R, lol!

diablo 2 was my first online game, played on dial up at 7 yrs old , that game taught me to type, spell. how to make friends and barter. the game taught me a lot, and i feel it will always be apart of me. also, remember having to type your friends name before EVERY WHISPER! haha

Don't agree, just because you can't think of a new innovative way of adding to a genre doesn't mean it can't be done. Perfect example of this is: Kingmakers.

Baldurs Gate 3 is the perfect example of how this can still happen today! it just takes passion and a ton of effort and a company that doesn't cycle through employees every 2 years

I wouldn’t doubt when people want d4 to be like d2 , many of them are referring to the itemization system. The itemization of d2 is a superior system. Stoked to see d4 improving on this. To be fair, there’s also way many more farming strategies that can be done for particular things in d2, which adds some farming-type variety. This will get better in d4 with time I hope

Great video

People don't want another D2 game. People want the impact that D2 brought to the genre.

best thing d2 did back then is to hide the dmg numbers

innovation without imitation is a complete waste of time, and studios aren't even imitating their beloved games.

The problem - every game since has focused on bigger, louder, flashier than the game before them. Been a snowball down the wrong hill for decades. Stupid amounts of money were made along the way. Why climb back up that hill to check out the other side of it? It's pretty simple and tragic.

You've never played D2 until you've played D2 classic.

Can't reinvent the wheel. D2 Is the wheel. Upgrade the zones to be larger upgrade the graphics. That's it.

D2 Loot is what makes it second to none. Every single item has the potential to be great or used for something. Whites, greys, blues, yellows, uniques, set items, crafted items, charms, jewels, runes, and runewords. There is no end to the possibilities. You still see items go for insane amounts of money/forum gold on JSP to this day. And then the whole PvP community looks for completely different things , even making lower level items worth a ton. No other ARPG has come close to D2 besides POE (and that is a great game for way different reasons).

First problem, most of these games are made by AAA developers so the main focus it to make money not to make a good game. It should be clear these days. Another problem is that they're designed to be live service games with microtransactions and so on. The future as always will be indie developers and smaller teams in general because their motivation(hopefully) is to make a good game and less forced into using old IP's they own because they're scared of taking chances. Of course just because you have a small indie developer making a game doesn't mean it'll be a good one but at least they're taking chances. A game doesn't need fancy graphics the gameplay is far more important and that's why sometimes you see quite simple 2D pixel games pop off because they really nailed the gameplay.

Beta tested it back in the days when you had to get an actual invite. Thank you very much.

Literally no one is asking for new ideas. We want the EXACT same itemization Diablo 2 had with the EXACT same act progression, but add in end game like Diablo 3 did, they basically had this with cow level. The issue with D2R is it is built over the top of D2. I want a game built with new engine, new skills, new classes, better UI, but with EXACT itemization and then item farming. Edit: I would prefer pre runewords as well, definitely before enigma and all those came out, it’s like the codex. There is zero excitement in d4. Too many items to sift through with little distinction. Also repeatable easy access farming just feels better, I don’t want to have to collect this and that and other crap to farm something, it’s lame. I just want to be able to switch off and pull the rng lever.

fun thing about D2 and a game like d4 is, that people (including me) say d4 needs to have certain things and a lot of them where not present in d2. d4 needs more Endgame activities! - d2 almost no endgame activities at all - d4 needs balance ! D2 without Gear, Sorc is like miles ahead of everything. D4 Uber uniques are too rare! - D2 played for 20 years never found a zod rune or tyraels might. D4 needs an easy respecc - d2 for the longest time had no respecc at all.... the list goes on. So in the end the important question is - why is d2 still so good today when it has no right to be? - sure some sort of nostalgia is involved. But something about the simplicity in one place and complexity in another works sooooooo well with that game. Something about the items keeps you grinding, without a reason to do so AND without exciting activities to do so - you can run mephisto 1000 times and its kind of exciting and its hard to describe why. And i think thats why it is so hard to at least recreate the experience. POE did a very good job with the core item design to try and give everything a meaning, but they also failed in a way so hard, that you need an external created filter, to sort your loot on the ground because 99% is still trash. D4 did a step in the right direction by making items simpler actually - thats a little bit contrary to the popular believe, that you need to add new systems all the time and add complexity. So the big question is, what is the distillate if you break down d2 to its core. Is its just the click monster to open lootpinata? is difficulty a factor? - is the simplicity mandatory to make it addictive? Does it only work if the game promotes trading? - does it only work if the general lifespan of a character is pretty short and there is big incentive to play multiple characters? - what is the essence of that game that makes it so fun.

This is why I'm so grateful to have had the NES as my first console back in the 80's (minus playing a friends Atari a little). The level of innovation of the tech constantly opened up new and exciting genres and complexities that simply weren't possible before and blew everyone's mind when they released. Today's gaming environment has advantages too particularly in ease of access and cost through platforms like steam, sense of communities with the internet, and simply just how impressive the games and tech is nowadays.

Vampire Survivors breaks your arguement

Final Fantasy 11 Online took my virginity... in 20 + years later there's nothing I can compare it to😢

There is always an underlying motive to making videogames that wasnt there 20 years ago in the form it is now. Every aspect of these games is always designed with this question always in the back of the teams head, "how do keep the player engaged as long as possible" This sounds great at first...but can we all agree that making the game fun first and foremost is the biggest factor in how long you are going to play? Intentionally putting road blocks or something in the way of the fun (slow progression, convoluted crafting systems that lead into more convoluted systems, seasonal expansions, battle passes, etc). I feel this is probably the biggest issues with all games these days, not just diablo. The core of it should be fun, like addicting fun. Everything else should simply be there to aid you into more of that fun and minimize the not so fun/boring/annoying aspects. Why do we gave to be greeted with sales offers and battle passes when launching the games? Lol its so annoying

if you didnt play this in the early 2000's, you could never understand how crazy d2 was.

Your audio levels made the point for me. It's all good when the D2 soundtrack is drowning out your voice because the D2 music and vibes were just as revolutionary as the game play. Blizzard North created a universe I wanted to be in for many thousands of hours. D3's music and style complete missed on that. No amount of end-game or quality of skill tree is ever going to save an ARPG for me if the universe isn't interesting to be in.

DEATHS: 2 Life: 356 / 373

After i saw your D1 playthrough (i never played it) i was blown away by the leaps b/w it and D2 (which i did play). A serious masterpiece for its time.

Watching this while playing Project Diablo 2, which is the live service version of Diablo 2. Been playing this game for 20 years.

I just recently started playing Diablo 2 for the first time and I'm loving it so far, only complaint is the severe lack of carry capacity but it forces you to make tough decisions on what to bring back with you

Do they make any ARPG's that are sci-fi like a starcraft ARPG?

I think the younger generation will not understand what you mean. Switching from 8bit gaming all the way to 128bit consoles and on PC from single player dos games to online gaming late 90s was like a new millennia for us. Games were better often multiple times than the previous instalment/generation. All the games that switched from 2D to 3D are a good example (Zelda, GTA etc)

The day we do get something completely new that re-invents the wheel in any genre, will only happen with VR but only when its advanced enough to make it so good, that everyone will want it. This might take decades. Will see. Apart from that, yeah, absolutely correct, its all the same.

We figured out novels a long time ago, but there are plenty of books you haven't read yet that will blow your mind. Creators, not content creators, but real creators are going to come along and push some boundaries.

I think you’re right, in that a game needs that mind blowing moments and feelings by exceeding expectations. I really really hope that Grinding Gear Games is able to pull off something similar to what Blizzard North did with D2 by truly considering interesting, innovative systems within the ARPG genre that set the bar for what ARPGs are by certain multiplier (more vs increased!). I also know that they are aware how hard it is and are aware that they only have one shot at it . Maybe if they can solve melee vs ranged play in a meaningful way?

Games would have to do some ground-breaking anime style change for these genres to have something change in them. Not even from the Virtual full dive sense either, but the mechanics themselves that are mad wild. Shangri-La Frontier level of madness lol.

Where i can watch the whole gameplay? 😊

Went to try s4 d4 and i just get so many legendaries.... Like cmon its overwhelming.... Why is it so hard to copy paste d2 itemization

Metroidvainia's are my jam. Engaging story, acquire news skills to defeat new enemies or bosses, which allows you to unlock more of the map. Yes its been done over and over again, but there's just something about them that appeals to me. Maybe you're right and its just something I remember from being a kid, doesn't hurt that Castlevania Symphony of the Night was my favorite game. Sprite animations nowadays are really amazing as well, shit definitely didn't look the way it does now when we were kids.

I still have the original box set on CDs. Such a great game.

D2 is like a stick shift for an old muscle car or off roader. Lots of nostalgia value and a core fan base that will cling to it. However, times and values change, and the vast majority of the population do not have the time or desire to learn to drive a stick when an automatic transmission is so much easier and more convenient. When your bottom line is shareholder profit, you’re going to maximize your appeal to the widest audience.

Such a good analysis

I think a big problem with newer ARPG's is that they make the campaign to easy and let you rush trough it to get to so called endgame. The great thing about D2 is that just doing a playthrough itself is a lot of fun and somewhat of a challenge (atleast selffound). The endgame should be there to extend the game for you and make you feel powerfull in the end.

a MMO or ARPG from the bad guys POV and you got to heaven

I agree to an extent on all genres are all figured out, however every once in a while you will get a gem. Baldurs Gate 3 is another game that pushed a genre beyond what we thought could be done. Elden ring as well. It is very rare

The way I heard it, D4 was originally going to be first and third person like skyrim. I'm not sure what happened exactly, but it sounded like it was too far from being a "Diablo" game. So the idea was scrapped. I feel like a Skyrim-Diablo hybrid would be fairly original, but would upset most fans.

I agree 100% with the noltagia part where people expect to have the same wonderful experience they had as a teenager playing Diablo 2 for the first time (or whatever games it was for them). And they’re disappointed, because there’s no way for that to happen. Time and space has changed, and you have changed too.

Also the music in diablo 2 is so good. D3 and D4 is the first Blizzard game where i mute music. I dont know why its so hard to create. Just get help from the heartstone team, they still make nice music

There is still lots of innovation going on in gaming. Roguelite games came out of nowhere and got maxed out, the eay you put it, in like 5 or 10 years. Autobattlers. Suvivor games got maxed out in like 2 years.

Mario Wonder devs talked about wanting to capture that holy shit childhood experience.

Games evolve in two aspects. 1) The gameplay which DM covers a lot in this video. 2) the technology. Most of these classic games were pushing the computer technology at the time to expand at crazy rates which means more and more technology updates to games. Now that AI is such a big thing these days and the graphics fidelity of UR5, I dont doubt there will be games out there soon with 100% dynamic stories where no experience is ever the same

No matter how advanced and amazing a game could get, nothing can take your accumulated experiences away and make something new again.