Blizzard games get us hooked on loot and XP. Behind the scenes of the dungeon hunt, perfidious mechanics are at work to make it harder for us to stop.
Whether I don’t even want to analyse the Diablo games in an article, Peter Bathge asks me in conversation about other topics. “Well, sure, why not?”, I think. But how does the series, established in 1996 and now comprising three main parts plus add-ons, actually manage to keep us players hacking and slaying our way through hordes of undead vermin? After giving some thought to such factors as story, immersion, accessibility, motivation, loot as well as reward mechanisms in my brain (and feeling incredibly smart about it), I wanted to play in briefly in the evening to back up my ideas with content.
Then the trouble started.
04:07: The butcher is once again lying in his own undead pool before me, and the body hacked to pieces by my demon huntress dissolves in the searing heat of the uninviting torture pit. By completing the last bounty mission, I can collect my reward in the form of the large Horadric chest. There was only junk in the last 23 chests that evening, but now there is bound to be something useful!
I go to Deckard Cain, the old item forensic, get my reward, open it and lo and behold: inside is the item “Legendary Trash of Trivia” from the set “Soulless Collector”! Now I want the other items too, Paragon level 302 is still expandable, more difficulty levels want to be conquered and besides, the loading screen can still tell me so many times that it doesn’t exist: I’ll find the secret cow level even without Kanai’s cube and bovine bardike!
