History Trivia / Diablo

!!General:
* A bit of history: the {{shareware}} version of ''Diablo'' was a massive download for its time, a whopping 50 megabytes! This is hardly a blip in the new millenium (most HD Youtube videos are bigger when fully streamed), but in the mid 1990's it took ''three hours'' to download on a 33.6k modem, and a fair space commitment on your hard drive.

!!Tropes:
* AscendedFanon: Wild rumors spread, for no apparent reason, of a Secret Cow Level in ''Diablo''. There wasn't one. Blizzard, taking it all in good fun, made "thereisnocowlevel" a cheat code in ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}''... and then put a Secret Cow Level in ''VideoGame/DiabloII''.
* CowboyBebopAtHisComputer: A magazine was trying to establish a link between the shootings at Columbine and video games. They used an interview with a survivor's family, while the survivor was playing the video game ''Diablo''... which was described as "just shooting" and was punctuated by the survivor's character being blown up. The only shooting in ''Diablo'' is with a bow, and most of the time, your weapon is a sword or other melee weapon.
* DisownedAdaptation: The ''Hellfire'' expansion was made by Synergistic Software, not by Blizzard North, and David Brevik [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4bDFgcuH-I still hates it]]. It's worth noting that players have a somewhat better opinion of ''Hellfire'' than the developers themselves: while it has its detractors, there are also fans, who not only like more content being added, but love the new quality-of-life features (the increased town speed, the extra affixes, and most of all, being able to play on a higher difficulty on single-player without having to use LAN). Many fans also feel that Brevik's bad opinion about ''Hellfire'' is hypocritical: ''Diablo 2'' added lots of good stuff, but also lost the atmosphere from ''Diablo 1'' that Brevik laments about being lost in ''Hellfire'' (the Maggot Lair being not so different from the Hive, for example), and much of the ''Hellfire'' content was actually DummiedOut content from the original game that was rescued for the expansion.
* DummiedOut:
** The Butcher had a short cutscene right before you fight him that was removed from the released version of the game. An HD mod for Diablo 1 restores It though.
** The Barbarian class was removed from ''Hellfire'' at the request of Blizzard North, who was working on ''Diablo 2'' and was planning to add a barbarian there and had asked Synergistic Software to refrain from adding a Barbarian to the game. [[https://www.polygon.com/features/2018/6/29/17517376/diablo-hellfire-expansion-behind-the-scenes-trouble According to later reports, the were less than pleased when they found out the class was still accessible via editing a text file]].
** Half of the new monsters introduced in ''Hellfire'' are just things that were dummied out in the original game.
** Like the Barbarian, the Bard class was scrapped from the ''Hellfire'' expansion, though it is still accessible via modding.
* ExecutiveMeddling: ''Diablo: Hellfire'' was mandated by Davidson & Associates, Inc., Blizzard's parent company at the time, over Blizzard's objections.
* ManualMisprint:
** The first game was originally going to have six pages in its spellbook, rather than the four that made it to release. Screenshots of the old six-page spellbook can still be seen in the manual.
** The first game has never been properly translated into French, but a book with French translations of all dialogue and quest text was released separately. It includes lines from a [[DummiedOut removed]] NonPlayerCharacter named Tremayne.

** The Diablo II instance of the secret Cow level was again referenced in one of their most recent April Fool's jokes: an advertisement for their new "Diablo 3 body pillow" featured a disclaimer at the bottom warning users "do not transmute the pillow with Wirt's Leg and a Tome of Town Portal."
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Once hackers were able to work through the ''Diablo I'' game disk to check out the content that never made it into the final product, it became clear that A LOT of stuff was axed. Much of this content has since been included in mods of the game. Some examples include the following:
** The spellbook originally had as many as 6 pages instead of just 4 -- this change happened late enough that [[ManualMisprint screenshots of a six-page spellbook made it into the manual]]. Some of the mentioned spells that didn't make the cut included Blood Boil, Blood Ritual, Doom Serpents, Etherealize, and Sentinel.
** Monsters that never made it into the final product included the Unraveler, the Goat Lord, the Incinerator, the Bone Demon, the Invisible Lord, the Arch Lich Malignus, and the Devil Kin Brute.
** There was once another Tristram character known as Tremain the Priest, who was the character that initiated a quest called "Fleshdoom, Wielder of Shadowfang." This quest would have the player seek out and defeat Fleshdoom within the dungeon, and loot the demon sword, Shadowfang, from its corpse. There was also a time when Tremain was considered to be the one that leads the player to complete "Archbishop Lazarus" rather than it being Deckard Cain that does it in the final product.
** The quests offered by Gillian the Barmaid never made the cut. One included needing to find and defeat Izual the Fallen Angel within the dungeon, which the player would obtain the Azurewrath sword. The other cut Gillian quest included traveling to a unique surface zone to find and defeat Andariel since she's been leading townsfolk away into the wilderness to kill them off. Funny enough, similar versions of these two quests made it into ''[[VideoGame/DiabloII Diablo II]]''.
** Pippin would have offered another quest where he mentions how Gillian had put in a request for someone to clear out a group of "Giant Worms" that have appeared within one of Tristram's house cellars. The player would enter the house that Farnham the Drunk sits next to, and enter into a unique Cave area filled with several dozen Vipers that need to all be killed.
** There was a cut quest related to a "Map of the Stars" item. All other info about this unknown item remains a mystery other than there being a cutscene that would have played had the player ended up failing the quest.
** The encounter with the Butcher would have played out a lot differently compared to the final version where the player just enters his small room on Level 2 and battle it out. The cut version actually required the player to talk to Wirt first where he hints that you got to use Town Portal within the Butcher's Level 2 room, which would open up a red portal. Said portal would then take the player to a unique Catacomb area that acts as the lair for the Butcher, and even includes an axed cutscene that shows off the Butcher cutting up human corpses before he goes after the player.
** ''Diablo'' [[https://web.archive.org/web/20131227043105/http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_48/289-Secret-Sauce-The-Rise-of-Blizzard.3 was originally pitched as a turn-based single-player game on DOS and got changed to a real-time Windows 95 game from Blizzard's urgings.]] The isometric view was inspired by ''VideoGame/{{Xcom}}''. Furthermore, David Brevik had thought over the concept a fair amount throughout high school until college (due to getting hooked on ''VideoGame/{{Moria}}''[=/=]''VideoGame/{{Angband}}'' at the time); as the story goes, he had objections to such a sudden and massive shift, before actually playing his own implementation that night and fully hooked on the idea from then on.
** The BittersweetEnding was actually not what was originally intended; Brevik had meant for the player to EarnYourHappyEnding, but the ending animation team disagreed with this decision and completely altered the outcome, [[WriterRevolt without notifying him of the changes.]] By the time he learned of it, the game was too close to release to redo it, so it had to ship. In the end ''VideoGame/DiabloII'' would opt to take this unintended result and expound upon the idea rather than undo its work.
* ThrowItIn: The original game's cutscenes were made by a different team, whom in the words of David Brevik, creator of the franchise, "basically did whatever they wanted". The bit of the ending cutscene where the main character jams the soulstone in their forehead was not planned by the game's creators, but a random addition of the cutscene team. After some back and forth they decided to keep it in, as it nodded to the idea of constantly replaying the game and fighting Diablo run after run. It would eventually become the entire premise of the sequel.

* TheWikiRule:
** [[http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/ Diablo Wiki]].
** And [[http://diablo.wikia.com/ another one]].

* UrbanLegendOfZelda: The original game had a rumor of a "secret cow level" that the player could access by clicking on a certain cow in the town of Tristram. Although this rumor proved false, in ''Diablo II'' the developers put in an actual cow level in homage to the rumor, with its "secrecy" in ItWasHisSled territory; similarly, a secret Cow quest was added to the third-party expansion ''Hellfire'', although it wasn't a genuine "Cow level". The phrase "There is no cow level" is also a ClassicCheatCode in ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'' and a loading screen tutorial tip in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''. (It's false; there ''is'' a cow level. Thunder Bluff is ''full'' of [[http://www.wowwiki.com/File:Tauren_Dancing.gif Tauren]], 8 foot bipedal cows.)

* ManualMisprint: The first game has never been translated in French, but a manual translating every dialogs and quest texts have been published. It includes lines from a [[DummiedOut removed]] [[NonPlayerCharacter non-player]] named Tremayne.

** The spellbook originally had as many as 6 pages instead of just 4. Some of the mentioned spells that didn't make the cut included Blood Boil, Blood Ritual, Doom Serpents, Etherealize, and Sentinel.

** ''Diablo'' [[https://web.archive.org/web/20131227043105/http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_48/289-Secret-Sauce-The-Rise-of-Blizzard.3 was originally pitched as a turn-based single-player game on DOS and got changed to a real-time Windows 95 game from Blizzard's urgings.]] The isometric view was inspired by ''VideoGame/{{Xcom}}''. Furthermore, Dave Brevik had thought over the concept a fair amount throughout high school until college (due to getting hooked on ''VideoGame/{{Moria}}''[=/=]''VideoGame/{{Angband}}'' at the time); as the story goes, he had objections to such a sudden and massive shift, before actually playing his own implementation that night and fully hooked on the idea from then on.

** The BittersweetEnding that all but states that your main character [[HeWhoFightsMonsters is now possessed by Diablo]] as his new host as they travel to find a more permanent solution was actually not what was originally intended; Brevik had meant for the hero to EarnYourHappyEnding, but the ending animation team disagreed with this decision and completely altered the outcome, [[WriterRevolt without notifying him of the changes.]] By the time he learned of it, the game was too close to release to redo it, so it had to ship. In the end ''VideoGame/DiabloII'' would opt to take this unintended result and expound upon the idea rather than undo its work.

** The BittersweetEnding that all but states that your main character [[spoiler:[[HeWhoFightsMonsters is now possessed by Diablo]] as his new host as they travel to find a more permanent solution]] was actually not what was originally intended; Brevik had meant for the hero to EarnYourHappyEnding, but the ending animation team disagreed with this decision and completely altered the outcome, [[WriterRevolt without notifying him of the changes.]] By the time he learned of it, the game was too close to release to redo it, so it had to ship. In the end ''VideoGame/DiabloII'' would opt to take this unintended result and expound upon it [[spoiler:by turning the Warrior into the Dark Wanderer and making this entire game a ShaggyDogStory]].

** ''Diablo'' [[https://web.archive.org/web/20131227043105/http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_48/289-Secret-Sauce-The-Rise-of-Blizzard.3 was originally pitched as a turn-based single-player game on DOS and got changed to a real-time Windows 95 game from Blizzard's urgings.]] The isometric view was inspired by ''VideoGame/{{Xcom}}''. Furthermore, Dave Brevik had thought over the concept a fair amount throughout high school until college (due to getting hooked on ''VideoGame/{{Moria}}''[=/=]''VideoGame/{{Angband}}'' at the time).

* BannedInChina: Ironically, after all of the pandering towards the Chinese market that alienated their fanbase with ''Diablo Immortal'', said game ended up being banned in China anyway, less because EveryoneHasStandards, even China, but because the Blizzard Weibo account that promoted the game referred to UsefulNotes/XiJinping as a certain bear that was implied to be Winnie the Pooh, and China has been known to ban players that said that in chats. Oopsie?

* ImageSource:
** LighterAndSofter (top)

** The Barbarian class was removed at the request of Blizzard North, who was working on ''Diablo 2'' and was planning to add a barbarian there and had asked Synergistic Software to refrain from adding a Barbarian to the game. [[https://www.polygon.com/features/2018/6/29/17517376/diablo-hellfire-expansion-behind-the-scenes-trouble According to later reports, the were less than pleased when they found out the class was still accessible via editing a text file]].

** The Bard class was scrapped from the expansion, though is still accessible via modding.

** LighterAndSofter

* DummiedOut: The Butcher had a short cutscene right before you fight him that was removed from the released version of the game. An HD mod for Diablo 1 restores It though.

** Pippin would have offered another quest where he mentions how Gillian had put in a request for someone to clear out a group of "Giant Worms" that have appeared within one of Tristram's house cellars. The player would enter the house that Farnham the Drunk sits next two, and enter into a unique Cave area filled with several dozen Vipers that need to all be killed.

** The quests offered by Gillian the Barmaid never made the cut. One included needing to find and defeat Izual the Fallen Angel within the dungeon, which the player would obtain the Azurewrath sword. The other cut Gillian quest included traveling to a unique surface zone to find and defeat Andariel since she's been leading townsfolk away into the wilderness to kill them off.
** Pippin would have offered another quest where he mentions how Gillian had put in a request for someone to clear out a group of "Giant Worms" that have appeared within one of Tristram's house cellars.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Once hackers were able to work through the ''Diablo I'' game disk to check out the content that never made it into the final product, it became clear that A LOT of stuff was axed. Some examples include the following: