Diablo & Starcraft

[Hobie-wan]

There were other isometric RPGs before Diablo, but none I can think of offhand that offered crazy amounts of loot with a system of randomized enhancements on the items. Diablo is also more action than standard RPGs in that you control your character directly in battle as opposed to selecting whether you want to attack or cast a spell and then having the outcome purely based on stats and percentage chances. Even if there were some that I'm forgetting, Diablo refined these elements and polished them to a high shine.

[AmishSamurai]

actually torchlight was one of the games I was looking forward to play.

but did Blizzard innovate this type of gameplay, or was there similar games before Diablo?
and what genre is it categorized in?

I'd place the genre as Dungeon Crawler, with an emphasis on action and some RPG elements and in an isometric view.

[isiolia]

actually torchlight was one of the games I was looking forward to play.

but did Blizzard innovate this type of gameplay, or was there similar games before Diablo?
and what genre is it categorized in?

Yes and no. Diablo is an action RPG influenced by the roguelike subgenre. While it wouldn't really be all-new, Diablo's combination of the two genres was unique at the time.

[arnold_the_bartender]

Don't mean to hijack this thread. Does anyone play Diablo II or Starcraft anymore? I still play it them here and there but usually all the time whenever I play with my friends. I host a private battle.net server but don't have anybody to play with at the moment.

[Hobie-wan]

Been a while since I fired up D2.

[arnold_the_bartender]

I use a multi-res addon to play in glorious 1920x1080. It works through one of PlugY's .ini files. Looks like they have an update to work with the latest 1.13! It only worked with 1.12a patch but now it looks like I can still keep my hi-res and not worry about those damn Oblivion Knights' iron maidens with my barb.