Diablo 2 - Alpha Version - Gameplay (June 1998)

fearedbliss

fearedbliss

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This is pretty cool. I don't remember ever seeing this flaming sword thing. Looks amazing.

 
Wow! I am just amazed at the quality of the art, and everything else. That development team was just on another level.

Also, if anyone is wondering, that track is an original Matt Uelmen piece called "Outtake III". It is part of a compilation of Diablo 2 bonus tracks and can be found here:

 

"Outtake III"

A rented mandolin and a Roland space echo do not a soundtrack maketh. This track was on the cusp of making it into the game, but, fortunately, I had the time to do better material in January 2000. Even though this track uses many of the elements which ended up being quite successful in the rest of the first Act, it still had more than enough problems to earn its place in the great musical recycle bin. Though I liked the sound of the mandolin, and ended up using mandolin sounds elsewhere in this Act, this piece suffered from a serious lack of harmonic development.

When you are creating a track which loops, chief among the things to avoid is a lack of harmonic movement. If you stay in the same place for too long, as this piece does with its simple mandolin open chords, you run a big risk of creating deadly monotony. This stasis earned the piece a yellow card that turned into a red card when stacked up with the echoing whisper effects which never quite worked, as they were much too obviously derived from the whispering voices used to such great effect in "Friday the 13th".

– Matt Uelmen
 
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Amazing footage. He just posted this as well which appears to have some screenshots I haven't seen on other Blizz North D3 posts/videos prior -

 
I also found another Diablo II Alpha related video on his channel @Gentle Wookiee. It's from a few months after the earlier alpha.


The Diablo III one you posted looks great. There's a lot of images in there I hadn't seen yet.. I wonder if someone is leaking stuff to Everless. Also for whatever reason I also don't remember the "Winterstone" location from previous leaks. Probably another one I didn't see.
 
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All these videos are nice, but that last one especially as it gives an in depth look at the old UI/items as well as skill charts. I've scoured the internet over the years for beta content and never came across any of this, so this Everless person... they either archived this stuff from many years ago that was lost to time, or they were given it by someone who had access. Although unlikely, it's possible Everless themselves got secret access to such a beta build, and recorded their own footage for it and applied filters to make it look vintage. Would love to be able to play a version of D2 from 1999... there were some things that were better about it that I wished hadn't changed.
 
Ok, I went through the entire channel and there's also one additional video for diablo 2 from 1998-1999, although that one is just screenshots. But more interesting is a video on a previously unknown alpha for diablo 1. This appears to be a few months before the pre-release demo from august 1996, and I believe it's also for DOS as opposed to windows 95.
 
Man, I love Diablo II lol.

The Necro's golem looked different. It reminds me of some of the A3 or even A5 creatures. Although given that LOD development didn't start yet (although they may have had some ideas "for the future"), it was most likely an A3 unit.

@galaxyhaxz let me guess, you are actually Everless?
 
Alright... @369th, you are now officially Everless lol.

The paladin auras back then looked amazing. I also noticed that the might aura glow actually looks like the full set bonus glow introduced in 1.10, so they may have had disabled it all those years and then re-enabled it again. The redemption range circle almost looks like just the final part of Frost Nova.

I'm not sure if it's just my ear, but when the amazon section started playing, the Rogue Encampment pitch sounded a bit different, almost like it was slightly higher. It sounded amazing though, but of course, I'm biased lol.
 
It would be hilarious if Everless was actually Tyler Thompson. We usually mention David Brevik, Max & Erich Schaefer, Peter Hu, and sometimes Bill Roper, but it's time we bring Tyler into the mix and give him a shout out!
 
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Manny said:
We need to get some Blizzard North devs on TMC!
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That would be so cool. On a semi-related note, I've always dreamed of a world where one of them mods the game to implement guild halls or cut content lol. They'd probably get into hot water legally somehow, which is a shame, and would never waste the time doing it for lack of money for their time or just being burnt out after how much time and stress they put into this game by all accounts.
 
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