The One on One series is a collection of comprehensive interviews with people influential in the Diablo I/II community.  This interview's subject is Peter Hu, member of the Diablo II design team and a real fan of the Diablo strategy scene.  As the Stress Test wears on and Diablo II has gone gold, Peter took some time out to answer some questions for Lounge readers.  Disclaimer: Peter is not speaking in any official capacity for Blizzard Entertainment; this is an informal interview.

Bolty:  Hello, Peter. Can you tell us a little about yourself and your position at Blizzard North? What did you do before working there? What is it like working for one of the premier gaming companies today?

I'm currently a programmer on the Diablo 2 team at Blizzard North. Before Blizzard, I worked at another game company that I'll leave unnamed. So far, I've really enjoyed working at a place where all of the employees are avid gamers and the primary development goal is to make fun games. It really is a wonderful working environment.

Bolty:  What games are your all-time favorites? Do you have a favorite genre, i.e. RPG or first person shooters?

That's a very tough question! I like many different genres of games. I do tend to play a lot of RPGs, but I also very much like twitch games (shooters and platform games) in addition to a myriad other games, some of which would be hard to classify into any particular genre.

All I can think to give you is a list of some of the games that I've really enjoyed playing. This is by no means a list of the top games of all time. There are plenty of great games that I somehow missed out on, so if your favorite game isn't on my list it's probably not because I didn't enjoy it, but because I never got a chance to play it. I also made no attempt to order the list.

I'm adding the system that I remember playing the game on (many of the games appeared on multiple systems - I'm just listing the system I remember using).
Also, I'll give a short description/explanation as not everyone will be familiar with the games, especially some of the older ones (Does this date me? I was playing games since I was a weensy brat, so I hope you don't think I'm completely ancient...).

Aztec (Apple II): Great graphics, cool moves, devious traps, Indy style side scroller.
Montezuma's Revenge (Apple II): Platform. More levels than you can shake a stick at.
Load Runner (Apple II/Mac): Platform/Puzzle. Great concept, puzzles, level editor.
Wizardry I-IV (Apple II): RPG. One of my first and very inspirational.
Bard's Tale I-III (Apple II/Amiga): RPG. I can't get enough of this style of game.
Eye of the Beholder I-III (Amiga/PC): RPG.
Ultima Underworld I & II (PC): 3D RPG. Just plain cool.
Ultima VII (PC): Iso RPG. Amazingly detailed world, cool engine.
Dark Sun (PC): Iso RPG. Cool being able to rotate your firewall 360 degrees.
Might & Magic I-VI (Apple/Amiga/PC): RPG.
Karateka (Apple II): Side Scroll Fighting. Hated the hawks, loved the princess.
Prince of Persia (PC): Spiritual sequel to Karateka.
Out of this World (PC): Side Scroll/Adventure, Lovely game, great moves and animation.
Archon (Apple II/C64): Chess, but you have to fight it out, Great piece/board design.
Rogue (PC): Classic dungeon hack, my introduction to one of my favorite genres.
Nethack (PC): Rogue-style. I've frittered away so much time with this game.
Moria (Amiga): Rogue-style.
X-Com (PC): Tactical. There's something to be said for turn-based!
Ancient Art of War/Ancient Art of War at Sea (Apple II/PC): Cool strategy game.
King's Quest (PC): All except that one pixel gem you were supposed to pick up.
Dungeon Explorer II (TurboGfx16): 5-player Gauntlet on steroids with story.
Speed Ball: Brutal Deluxe (PC): Future-sport, character upgrades
Racteur/Eliza: Not strictly a game, "AI" conversationalist - Inspirational.
Conway's Game of Life: First got me into cellular automata, way cool.
Zelda (Nintendo): I actually like Japanese RPGs. (Ys, Lunar, etc).
Lords of Thunder (TurboGfx16): Awesome side-scrolling shooter.
R-Type (TurboGfx16): Side-scroll shooter. I love the shield ball.
R-Type Delta (PSX): Beautiful sequel.
G-Darius (PSX): Perhaps the best side-scroll shooter I've played.
Samurai Shodown (Arcade/NeoGeo): Fighter. Loved the character design.
SoulEdge (PSX): Fighter. Story mode, character design, weapons, intro cinematic.
SoulCalibur (DC): Fighter. Great graphics, I love Ivy.
Super Metroid (SNES): Platform. Samus rocks, cool powers, secrets.
Donkey Kong Country (SNES): Platform. Awesome graphics, super smooth gameplay.
Super Mario (SNES): Platform. Those fake princesses are just too annoying though.
Bloodwitch (Amiga): Party RPG. Two player split screen!
Populous (Amiga): God game. Great concept.
Defender of the Realm (Amiga): Story game. Rescuing the princess again.
Diablo (PC): Hmm.
Warcraft II (PC): RTS. Loved the characters, level-editor.
Bust a Move (PSX): Party Puzzle. Somehow this one just clicked for me.
Tetris (Mac): Puzzle. Everyone knows this one.
Gauntlet (Arcade): Action. I spent an entire summer solely on this one game.
Rolling Thunder (Arcade): Side-scroll. Awesome animation.
Golden Axe (Arcade): Double-Dragon style fantasy hack-fest.
Raiden II/DX (Arcade): Vertical Shooter. Great graphics.
Castlevania: Sympony of Night (PSX): Platform. My favorite PSX game, bar none.
Metal Gear Solid (PSX): Adventure. Talk about interactivity.
NBA Live (PSX): Sports. Getting four or five guys around a single TV is just cool.
House of the Dead (Arcade): Gun.
Virtua Cop (Arcade): Gun.
Abuse (PC): Action. The aliens coming out of the walls were actually frightening.
Doom (PC): FPS.
Quake II (PC): FPS. Deathmatch.
Unreal Tournament (PC): FPS. Gorgeous game.
Elevator Action (Arcade): Platform? How much fun could one have with elevators?
Masters of Magic (PC): Strategy. Great game.
Empire (PC): Strategy. Another really inspirational game.

OK, just looking at my list, I realize that I left out more games than I mentioned, which is no good. This list would better be titled "A Random Selection of Some of the Games that I Really, Really Liked."

Bolty:  Some Diablo 1 questions: were you a part of the Diablo 1 design team? (I didn't see your name on the credits, but you never know...gotta ask.) Have you worked on any other Blizzard products?

I wasn't a part of the Diablo team (I wasn't even in the games industry at the time), but Diablo was certainly one of my favorite games of all time (you'll probably call me a hypocrite when I answer the next question with "I only played Diablo for a couple of weeks", but I'm just full of contradictions). It was the reason I went to Blizzard in the first place, and I was very excited at the opportunity to contribute to its' sequel. Really.

Bolty:  Did you play (were you a fan of) Diablo 1? Ever play a mod, variant, etc? What do you (and Blizzard) think of Diablo mods such as Middle Earth, Dr. Zed's, etc?

Why does this question seem familiar? Well, aside from what I've said above, I've never played a Diablo mod. I'm afraid I stopped playing the original long before any mods were available. I also have to admit that I never even played the single player version of the game, or Hellfire for that matter. What other skeletons can I dig up? I barely experienced the rampant cheating that occurred within a couple of weeks of release...

I can't tell you what "Blizzard" thinks of the mods. Personally, I think it's great that people enjoy a game enough that they spend time and effort to customize and improve upon it. People like V&K and Dr. Zed have done a considerable amount to help bolster the Diablo community. Thanks!

Bolty:  Did you have a hand with the 1.08 patch for Diablo?  Was Blizzard aware that the patch would disable all of the mods out there?  No mods are currently playable over Battle.Net: is this the company's true intent, disabling B.net mod play just half a month before D2's release, or just an offshoot of the patch, unintentional?

I only had a vague idea there was even going to be a patch.  I suppose that it was necessary; for example, the registry key change is there to make it compatible with Win2K.  Also, it needed to be able to support the new chat icon for D2, etc.  The patches are done by a team at Blizzard Irvine.  I seriously doubt that they intentionally disabled mods (I have my doubts as to whether they are even aware that such things as mods exist).  It's my understanding that a similar thing happened with 1.04.  When they make the patches, they don't test against the mods to make sure that it doesn't break them.  That's probably one good reason why there isn't official recognition of mods.  Not only would it place additional burden on QA to test any patches against the mods, it would also generate additional work for Customer Support as well.  A new patch was necessary with the release of Diablo II, and it's only an unfortunate coincidence that the changes broke mods.

I haven't looked very closely at how mods work, but obviously, if they alter the executable, any changes to the executable in a patch are likely to cause them to "break."  Thinking about this some more, I'm actually quite surprised that every patch doesn't break the mods - either most patches alter code that the mods don't touch, or most mods only alter data which is not usually changed with patches (but with 1.08 the data probably did change).  I'm not really familiar with the code/data arrangement of Diablo 1 (even that's an exaggeration - it would be more accurate to say "I don't know anything about"), but if mods expect certain bits of code or data to be in certain places (which seems like a given), then if those bits move, it would most likely break the mod.

The problem with Diablo mods (and the same will probably occur with Diablo 2) is that they don't change the application via "legal" means.  By legal I mean in a way that the application recognizes, via an API, scripting language or some such.  In order for mods to be "safe", we would have to build support for custom user code directly into the engine, which is something that wasn't done for either Diablo or Diablo 2.  Personally, I would like to see support for this sort of thing in our future products, but it's rather too late for Diablo 2 I'm afraid.

At any rate, I'm sorry that people were inconvenienced by the effects of the 1.08 patch, I'm pretty sure it wasn't intentional.

Bolty:  Have you been a reader of the Diablo Strategy Forum? What do you think of the community of hardcore Diablo fans that are based off of that forum?

I've lurked. :-)  As with the mods, I'm very glad that people can maintain interest in a game for such a long period of time. It makes it more challenging to provide them with a worthy successor, but that's the fun part.

Bolty:  Do you have a copy of Jarulf's Guide? What's your opinion on the 170+ page document covering everything Diablo?

Is it 170+ pages now? I've had various versions of his guide at one point or another. Not at the moment however. I'm very impressed by his knowledge of the game, it far exceeds that of anyone at Blizzard North (actually your average DSF visitor's knowledge of Diablo far exceeds that of anyone at Blizzard North).

Bolty:  Yes, version 1.60 is 172 pages. Wow. So much of that has come from digging through the code; I remember him wishing in '98 that he had the D1 source code (like that could ever happen, but you can't help but wish).

I can't speak for D1, but I would be uncomfortable giving out our source. There are portions that are a tad embarrassing.

Bolty:  Who is Ray the Soda Guy? He's in the credits to Diablo 1 and remains a "Blizzard trivia" question topic on Battle.Net ads.

Ray the Soda Guy was the nice man that restocked the soda vending machines for the Blizzard North offices. Now we have Ray the Massage Guy, but it isn't the same guy. That's probably a good thing.

Bolty:  "Was" the man who restocked? Are you saying that Ray the Soda Guy is no longer with the company? (gasp)

Ray was never with the company. I assume he worked for the company that we used to rent the vending machine from. Now, we get "free" soda - which we buy in bulk from the Price Club.

Bolty:  Ray the Massage Guy? Sounds like Blizzard is one of those new-age companies with bunks (for those who can't seem to leave the office), showers, exercise areas, cafés, and all the amenities. Have you ever pulled an all-nighter working on Diablo II?

I've pulled more all-nighters than I care to keep track of. The massages aren't free, but they are on-site so it's convenient if you're into that sort of thing. The building management offers showers and exercise areas but they aren't in our complex so that isn't as convenient. These sorts of amenities are very common in Silicon Valley companies (I can't even think of a single non-trivially small company in this area that doesn't offer these sorts of benefits). It makes sense when you realize that people are typically working in the area of 120 hours a week and aren't getting paid overtime.

Bolty:  Sounds like paradise. Hmm, maybe not. Are you saying Bill Roper is a slave driver?  :-)

Bill Roper is not with Blizzard North. I was also not referring specifically to Blizzard North with respect to the number of hours that people work - that is typical for both our industry and also the companies in this area.

Bolty:  Diablo II: What aspect of the game have you been programming/responsible for?

Stuff mostly. If I admit to any of it, I'd probably be flamed like mad (not that that doesn't happen already), so I think I'll save myself the trouble and be evasive here. I'm not too far away from any of its' constituent parts however, so any answers I have to Diablo II questions are probably no more than 50% wrong.

Bolty:  Being on the design team, could you divide the development into "phases?" What came first, the artwork or the skill system, for instance? That is the single best improvement in Diablo 2 over 1, in my opinion - the skill system, allowing a huge amount of variety and customization for characters of different (and same) classes.

The skill system came very early on. But art constantly comes in throughout the development process - even before there's an engine to display any of it. The way we at Blizzard North design games is best thought of as "organic" or perhaps "evolutionary." We tend to start with a very general, loose design with only a few basic concepts about what the game will be like. Then we build an engine that supports that design - often not much more than a character that can run around the screen and do really basic things. The point is to try to make something that is fun to play as early as possible - after that, everything else is gravy.

The skill system was the subject of much discussion and change throughout the design process. Entire trees were completely replaced more than once, even years after the initial system was "designed." Alternative skill systems were even considered relatively late in the project. I certainly can't think of any skills (or any specific aspects of the game that aren't completely broad such as the concept of random levels or characters that have points in attributes that you can improve) that went unmolested from beginning to end.

So, I would say that there are only a few phases that I would wish to classify development into: 1) initial concept, 2) fun, basic game, 3) features and extra content, 4) testing. Even then, they aren't very distinct and tend to blend together. This is not the way most companies make games, but I believe that it's one of our strengths. Working here, you have to be comfortable throwing away literally months of work and redoing things over and over, but in the end, I think we get a much better product.

Bolty:  Judging from the Diablo, Warcraft, and Starcraft series, I'd say that's a Good Thing. Blizzard has never seemed like a "cookie cutter" mass-production game company, preferring quality over quantity. But that must cut into profit margins rather severely.

Bolty:  How much of Diablo 1 is lurking inside the code of Diablo 2?

Less than 1%.

Bolty:  What led to the choice of the Barbarian class for the Stress Test?

The Barbarian has the cool ability to wield two weapons and is easy to play. Frankly, none of the characters are all that with only their first tier skills, so at least the Barbarian can dual wield.

Bolty:  Ah, and I was thinking there was a simple answer like "because Bill Roper liked him."

No, Bill is a Necromancer player. Dave Brevik is a Barbarian player though, so that probably has something to do with it.

Bolty:  It has to be asked: Amazon, Barbarian, Necromancer, Paladin, and Sorceress. Which class is your favorite and why?

Sorceress. Despite (or perhaps due to) having her skills constantly being nerfed throughout the development process. I think she's the cutest character (by now anyone reading this probably thinks I'm a lech - oh well). I also like being able to teleport.

Bolty:  That's good to hear - the Sorcerer in Diablo 1 was overpowered late in the game, and it was important to keep magic in check to prevent it from happening again. Can you give some details on the nerfing of the Sorceress during development?

Generally, all of the damage rates were toned down several times. We lowered both the damage and the radius of Static Field several times. We also made it line-of-sight. Many of the lightning spells went from doing min-max damage where the range between min-max was rather small to 1-max damage (thereby lowering the average damage considerably). Many of the spells went from hit-per-frame (lightning) to hit-once. Things like Nova went from hit-per-missile (it's actually composed of lots of individual missiles) to hit-once as well. Chain lightning went from increasing the number of arcs per skill level to a constant number of arcs. Spells like Blizzard were also made line-of-sight. The duration of Blizzard was decreased several times as well. Damage for Fire Wall was increased and then decreased again. These are all examples of Sorceress skills getting nerfed at some point after they had been "done". There are very few skills that escaped this sort of tweaking.

Of course, there are the obvious tweaks that were done between Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 as well. Nothing does the sort of damage that the original fireball did. (The new fireball doesn't hit multiple times either). There is no real mana shield, etc.

Bolty:  What about Energy Shield? That sounds like a skill which would have taken a lot of tweaking to avoid it becoming the all-powerful mage spell Mana Shield was in Diablo 1.

Not really. It was pretty obvious which skills in Diablo 1 were broken. There was probably a certain amount of overcompensation to tone them down for the sequel.

Bolty:  What are you up to these days with D2 during the Stress Test period? The stability of the server has been increasing noticeably.

Really? It gives me a warm fuzzy to hear someone actually say it.  :-)

Bolty:  Are you directly working on the server code right now (Stress Test), or on something else in the game?

Yes. :-)  Primarily server code however.

Bolty:  What is the status of Guild Halls? A month or two ago it was stated that they might be included in the final with a patch. Has that status changed; i.e. do they still have a good chance of being included or not?

We haven't reevaluated Guild Halls yet. So their status is the same.

Bolty:  Are you taking a vacation soon with the upcoming final release, or staying on for patch work?  :-)

I will take a vacation after doing some patch work.

Bolty:  I have to ask: what's the chat gem for, and what's with the Druid and Assassin classes rumored for an expansion pack?

You can ask, but I don't think I'm going to answer, at least not with anything specific.

Bolty:  Oh well. :-)  Wouldn't want to get you fired!

I wouldn't get fired. But people would shun me forever if they don't already.

Bolty:  Any chance of implementing server-side town animals (chickens, etc) so that players can have chicken races?  :-)

There is a very, very tiny chance. Jarulf has been on my case about it and I don't like disappointing him (well, usually). If it makes it, it would be a far future patch though.

Bolty:  I smell a petition coming.  Hmm...

Bolty:  How do you (Blizzard) decide on the names of townspeople? Who comes up with Akara, anyway? And, once and for all, does Charsi have anything to do with Charis, author of dozens of Diablo variants and co-site founder of Realms Beyond Diablo?

Mostly, Erich does a large part of that, with contributions by various other people. Charsi and Charis are rather similar aren't they? I bet lots of people wonder if that's just coincidence.

Bolty:  Being vague, huh? Speaking of variants, the design team really surprised and amused the variant community with the announcement of the Hardcore option months ago. The Hardcore option is very similar to DSF regular Pete's Immortal Hero variant for Diablo I. Is there a chance of seeing more Diablo II official "variants" later on, perhaps in patches? Imagine a new variant type every few months - I'm sure the current crew could give the design team plenty of ideas.

The original Diablo was supposed to have been "hardcore". This is typical of the Rogue-like dungeon crawl games. It was decided (correctly, I think) that the majority of people we were hoping to sell the game to would not enjoy it as much if that were the case. Most of the variants don't really need anything programmatic... It is also very unlikely that we would patch that sort of thing.

I think that while there is less need for variants in Diablo 2 (more built-in variation), there is also more opportunity for them, in terms of the number of possibilities and variations that variant players will be able to work with.

Bolty:  Here's a question I see a lot on Battle.Net during the beta period: why do the Diablo 1 chat avatars all look like "naked" (equipmentless) Warriors? Couldn't the character classes of the first game be transmitted to the Diablo II players?

Yes. That was our initial intent. I would still like to see that at some point.

Bolty:  So I gather it's just something Blizzard hasn't gotten around to and will be hopefully patched in later?

Hopefully!

Bolty:  Are we going to see a Jarulf NPC in Diablo II in honor of his work creating Jarulf's Guide?

You'll find out soon, I'm sure. But it could be just a coincidence.

Bolty:  Would you say the Closed Beta and now the Stress Test was/are a success as a bug hunt?

They were (are) very necessary. So, yes, in that they were successful. I was hoping for fewer bugs, but I'm an optimist. That'll teach me.

Bolty:  Could you give an estimate of about how many bugs WERE found? Will Blizzard be producing a list of the top bug reporters?

Not that I know of. The QA guys do the massive job of filtering, collating, and confirming the bug reports, so we never see them directly. Towards the end of a project, when heavy duty testing is occurring, we tend to get hundreds, even thousands of bugs.

Bolty:  So do you have an "in" box a mile high with bugfixes to work on?

We have a web-based bug database that we work with. My bug list is pretty short now; most of the things I'm working on are things that I discover from directly observing the servers rather than things that QA find. If I recall correctly, at one point there were close to 200 open bugs assigned to me though.

Bolty:  I noticed bugs being fixed all the time in the closed beta, including every one I reported. I was amazed at how much could be patched server-side, even bugs that I swore couldn't be fixed on your end, such as sound card and graphical bugs. The game truly runs on the server and it seems like a rock-solid way to stop cheating. Even still, will there be an anti-cheat team at Blizzard waiting to see what comes up? What steps has Blizzard taken to monitor possible cheating with Realm characters?

We will always keep an eye out for cheats. Once the Realms are fully live, we'll be heavily reliant on user reports to key us in to cheats, so if you see anything suspicious, please do report it.

Bolty:  What do you think of people selling characters on Ebay for money? It was a hot topic of debate for other online RPGs like Everquest and Ultima Online, where there were even scandals of GMs using their powers to develop characters for the sole purpose of selling them online. While items aren't as important in Diablo II (since powerful items will be easier to obtain as compared to those games), it's conceivable that high level realm characters could be auctioned for money. Will that violate the EULA (End User License Agreement)?

I'm really not qualified to talk about legal issues. As far as I know, there isn't anything specific in the EULA regarding the sale of characters, but I could easily be mistaken. Personally, I feel that people should be allowed to do that sort of thing if they like, and so long as it doesn't turn out to have a significant detrimental impact on the rest of the game community.

Bolty:  Why a Ladder for Diablo II? I think a Hardcore Ladder is understandable, for a high level Hardcore character is an achievement in skilled and careful play, but a ladder for standard characters seems to be a competition between those who have too much time on their hands. Also, those people buying copies of Diablo II later on will have almost no chance of making the ladder; will there be smaller ladders for "monthly advances" of some kind?

I agree that the ladder for standard characters is a complete waste of time. I believe the argument for it was that people would feel left out... We discussed ideas like limited ladders, but didn't have any acceptable solutions.

Bolty:  Have you had a chance to look at Geoff Frazier's upcoming Diablo II Guide?

Nope, I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. I'm not really sure an "official" guide is a good idea. Obviously, there is still a lot to learn about the game, and many qualitative assessments that have yet to be made. An official guide now would only be of comedic value in the future.

Bolty:  Thank you very much for the interview, Peter!

Thank you for interviewing me Bolty. And thank you also for your contributions to the Diablo community, we appreciate it.