Thanks; I enjoyed the interview. Diablo (I and II) and EverQuest are both brilliant games, and David Brevik is probably my favorite game designer of all time, as a person.rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ March 16th, 2024, 21:42No idea why he'd say that then as the itemization in Diablo is nothing like Everquest.Decline wrote: ↑ March 16th, 2024, 21:42rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ March 16th, 2024, 21:37
Neither game has Everquest-like itemization so I'm not sure if he's ever played the game.
I'll even ping @Gregz as he regularly plays both.
There are no RNG stats on EverQuest items. That's an artifact of sales pressure from Verant designed to encourage players to buy the next expansion. It's a vestigial remnant of the sales model that they were exploring at the time. If you remove that, then Diablo and EverQuest itemization are essentially identical. Tremendous loot variety has all kinds of desirable and interesting effects, which both games exhibit hugely, as I'll explain.
An RPG is not much more than accumulating levels and items. So, if that's the constraint your character is working within, then the pieces you're carrying are essentially half of the game. Combining those pieces to optimally support the build you're trying for is, therefore, an interesting problem. Because the math is so outrageous, it's difficult both as a designer and as a player to anticipate all of the different ways to combine equipment and abilities to do novel things in novel ways. Which is where the real art, and fun, of this hobby shines. Having said all of that, both EverQuest and Diablo II grant the player tremendous flexibility through item variety. If that were not the case, then there would be no reason for different classes with different roles to equip the same items, which happens all the time. It's a fantastic system of itemization because there is always something better, and it encourages trading with other players. Whether you need to slay RNG or an end boss to get that next upgrade is irrelevant.
