Chapter 8 finale -- Condor and Blizzard lock horns over Diablo

I would say our style was iterative. A lot of developers say that, but I don't think they mean it to the same degree that we did, which was: Get something on-screen and work on that until it's fun, decide why it's fun, and do more of it; or decide why it's not fun and do less.

It was really about starting with small moments and honing those small moments, and then building a game from that. That style meant we could change things very fast.

- Erich Schaefer

The very first thing we did was Erich made one rough room out of tiles. We had a crude tiling system and sprite cutting tools in place, then our very first animations followed.

Those were the very first objectives: getting something on-screen and then playing with the sizes and perspectives to get the action to look right, as well as making sure the squared tile area was based largely on X-COM as far as the way that game did its tiles.

- David Brevik

Condor looked to X-COM for its grid system.

We fiddled with all sorts of things, but basically it was, "my turn, your turn, my turn, your turn." We were going to have items that boosted speed, and then we said, "Well, if we're going to boost speed, we should probably break this down into points." So we said, "Okay, if moving from here to here costs 10 points, then moving diagonally should cost 14."

We ended up doing this whole point system to try and get you to move, and it started to get pretty complicated.

- David Brevik

Diablo's famous real-time lighting wasn't originally part of the game's design.

While I was working on NFL Quarterback Club, the other artists were just getting started doing some preliminary models and getting characters made. They had the first Warrior player character, and he looked like a big guy in a tin can suit: all chrome, super shiny armor.

At the time it looked amazing, but in hindsight, I think the more Mad Max, one-shoulder-pad, down-to-earth look ended up being a much better direction to go with him.

- Eric Sexton

Everybody did have a say, and everybody wanted everybody's perspective, even mine. They'd say, "Okay, you're not the hardcore gamer who programs or who does art for us, so you have a casual perspective. What do you think of this?" and "What do you think would make the game fun?" They actually wanted my opinion, and that was kind of neat.

We wanted to make a really great game, we wanted it to succeed. Everybody had that common goal, and everybody had the same passion for what was going on. There would be days where we'd meet in the kitchen early in the morning, and someone would bring in donuts. We'd eat donuts and talk about the game, or game ideas, where the game could go.

- Karin Colenzo, office manager, Condor

Our company was saying, "We're going to take on this developer, Condor, and we're going to publish their game. It's called Diablo." And for a couple of months we were working on it not knowing that it was turn-based. When it came out that it was turn-based, we said, "No, that sucks."

We actually took a vote. They said, "Raise your hand if you would buy this game if it were turn-based." I think two people raised their hands. Then they said, "Raise your hand if you would buy this game if it were real-time." Everybody raised their hands. Allen went in and called Dave Brevik and said, "Look, you've got to make this real-time."

- Duane Stinnett, artist, Blizzard Entertainment

I think we had some initial reaction that we didn't want to be told what to do. That was a characteristic of our company: We were fiercely independent. We wanted to sink or swim on our own merits, and we definitely didn't want to like someone else's idea.

- Max Schaefer

Allen Adham used Warcraft as an example of how real-time helped players thrive.

There was this thing we called the velvet hammer. Allen Adham was the guy that would bring out the velvet hammer, and it was this slow tap, tap, tap, because all the changes that needed to happen with Diablo had to be sort of negotiated.

You can't just boss people around and say, "Hey, you're making a game, but we want you to make lots of changes to it," because game developers by and large don't listen to stuff like that. They want to do their own ideas.

-Patrick Wyatt, programmer, Blizzard Entertainment

I remember the bosses having a meeting and saying, "What does everyone think about making this real-time?" At the time, turn-based was still really popular. It was a viable way to go. There's something to be said about being able to sit back, eat a sandwich, and click through the game as you want.

- Eric Sexton

Our open minds were our greatest advantage at that very early phase. The thing to remember is that real-time wasn't even in the picture for the computer RPGs we grew up on, like the roguelikes. So even though we could all recognize real-time as an inevitability, to be told "the future is here" was still a little shocking.

- Matt Uelmen

It was like, "Hold on. We've got to consider what real-time means." It means you're not going to be able to sit there messing with your inventory when you're in the middle of fighting monsters, so we had to think about how it would really impact the game design, what we're trying to do, and what the play experience would be like.

But for every objection that we would come up with, there was a pretty good counter.

- Max Schaefer

There were enough people that were passionate about going real-time because they thought—and rightfully so—that turn-based was old. You could make arguments that there were still turn-based games out there, but in general, it felt old.

So enough people felt strongly enough about going real-time, and so did Blizzard South, which added considerable heft to the decision.

- Rick Seis

Blizzard South suggested we make it real-time after we sent them the first build that was this turn-based version. We argued, "No, we're making this game." But they finally wore us down—it probably only took an hour or so over the phone—to the point where we said, "Okay, we'll give it a try, but it's going to be really hard work to do. It's going to take a lot of time, and we're going to need some more money for the project."

- Erich Schaefer

Dave Brevik tested his real-time Diablo demo by loading a dungeon with a single skeleton.

I can remember the moment like it was yesterday that this happened. I was sitting and I was coding the game, and I had a warrior with a sword, and there was a skeleton on the other side of the screen. I'd been working on all this code to make characters move smoothly, doing a whole bunch of testing, and we'd talked about how the controls would work. We wanted it to be visceral. Click and swing, click and swing. We wanted it to automatically happen: If you clicked on the monster, your character would go over there and swing.

I remember very vividly: I clicked on the monster, the guy walked over, and he smashed this skeleton and it fell apart onto the ground.

The light from heaven shone through the office down onto the keyboard. I said, "Oh my God, this is so amazing!" I knew it was not only the right decision, but that Diablo was just going to be massive. It was really the most defining moment of my career, as well as for that genre of gaming. A new genre was born in that moment, and it was really quite incredible to be the person coding it and creating it. I was just there by myself coding it up. It was pretty incredible.

- David Brevik

David Craddock

Long Reads Editor

David L. Craddock writes fiction, nonfiction, and grocery lists. He is the author of the Stay Awhile and Listen series, and the Gairden Chronicles series of fantasy novels for young adults. Outside of writing, he enjoys playing Mario, Zelda, and Dark Souls games, and will be happy to discuss at length the myriad reasons why Dark Souls 2 is the best in the series. Follow him online at davidlcraddock.com and @davidlcraddock.