It’s indisputable that World of Warcraft took a lot of nods from online Diablo II when it first launched. Sometimes, it almost seems as if the game was mechanically meant to be an online Diablo title. But guess what? In a recent interview on the Pointless Podcast, David Brevik — formerly of Diablo and now of Marvel Heroes — revealed some tidbits about development, including the fact that the original design for Diablo III was to have the game be a straight-up MMO. It was only after he and the other original developers left that it started to become what it is now.
What would that MMO have looked like? A lot like Marvel Heroes, only minus all of the copyrighted Marvel characters. Fascinating stuff. You can check out the whole interview below, or you can just skip directly to the specific portion we’re referencing here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0f4eft0EXI&feature=youtu.be