Diablo II is an action role-playing hack-and-slash video game developed by Blizzard North and published by Blizzard Entertainment in 2000 for Microsoft Windows, Classic Mac OS, and macOS. The game, with its dark fantasy and horror themes, was conceptualized and designed by David Brevik and Erich Schaefer, who, with Max Schaefer, acted as project leads on the game. The producers were Matthew Householder and Bill Roper. The game was developed over a three-year period, with a crunch time of a year and a half.
Video game modding is the process of alteration by players or fans of one or more aspects of a video game, such as how it looks or behaves, and is a sub-discipline of general modding. Mods may range from small changes and tweaks to complete overhauls, and can extend the replay value and interest of the game.
Dungeon Siege is an action role-playing game developed by Gas Powered Games and published by Microsoft in April 2002, for Microsoft Windows, and the following year by Destineer for Mac OS X. Set in the pseudo-medieval kingdom of Ehb, the high fantasy game follows a young farmer and her companions as they journey to defeat an invading force. Initially only seeking to warn the nearby town of the invasion of a race of creatures named the Krug, the farmer and the companions that join her along the way are soon swept up in finding a way to defeat another race called the Seck, resurgent after being trapped for 300 years. Unlike other role-playing video games of the time, the world of Dungeon Siege does not have levels but is a single, continuous area without loading screens that the player journeys through, fighting hordes of enemies. Also, rather than setting character classes and manually controlling all of the characters in the group, the player controls their overall tactics and weapons and magic usage, which direct their character growth.
An action role-playing game is a subgenre of video games that combines core elements from both the action game and role-playing genre.
Mod DB is a website that focuses on general video game modding. It was founded in 2002 by Scott "INtense!" Reismanis. As of September 2015, the Mod DB site has received over 604 million views, has more than 12,500 modifications registered, and has hosted more than 108 million downloads. A spin-off website, Indie DB, was launched in 2010 and focuses on indie games and news.
Fate is a 2005 single-player action role-playing game originally released for the PC by WildTangent. Fate was released for the PC Steam client on December 12, 2013. Three sequels—titled Fate: Undiscovered Realms, Fate: The Traitor Soul and Fate: The Cursed King—were released in 2008, 2009 and 2011 respectively.
Descent: Journeys in the Dark is a two to five player high fantasy dungeon crawl published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2005. Descent was designed and produced by Kevin Wilson. The game is based on an improved version of the mechanics of FFG's licensed Doom: The Boardgame. In Descent, players take the roles of adventurers who delve into underground complexes in search of treasure. One player takes the role of the Overlord, who controls the enemies and plays cards to hinder the hero players. Descent differs from other games in the genre in that the Overlord player's goal is to win by exhausting the other players of victory points, rather than merely to facilitate play. The Overlord's resources are limited by the rules of the game, which require them to hoard and expend "threat" points, which are generated in response to the hero players' actions, in order to hamper the other players and to bring out additional monsters to defeat them. This mechanism is very much reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings when playing with the Sauron optional expansion.
Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate is an expansion pack for the role-playing video game Neverwinter Nights 2. It was developed by Ossian Studios and published by Atari Interactive on April 29, 2009. The player creates a character and controls it, along with a group of three pre-designed companions, journeying through the game world. The gameplay is very similar to that of the base game. Mysteries of Westgate also includes new monsters, music, and other tools, which can be used by players to create their own Neverwinter Nights 2 levels.
Nineteen full expansions for the MMORPG EverQuest II have been released, as well as three Adventure Packs.
World of Warcraft, or WoW, is set in a fictional universe, its primary setting being the planet of Azeroth. The first expansion, The Burning Crusade, introduced a second planet, Outland. Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm expanded upon Azeroth and respectively added Northrend, the frigid northern continent of Azeroth, and drastically changed various other continents by destroying some and unveiling new ones. The next expansion, Mists of Pandaria, added Pandaria, the southern continent previously hidden behind a perennial mist cover. Warlords of Draenor introduced the planet of Draenor, a version of Outland in a different timeline before its partial destruction. The Legion expansion took adventurers to the Broken Isles, an island chain near the Maelstrom in the middle of the Great Sea, and the damaged planet Argus, the headquarters of the Burning Legion. The seventh expansion, Battle for Azeroth, added two new island continents to the center of Azeroth: Kul Tiras and Zandalar. The latest expansion, Shadowlands, introduced the eponymous Shadowlands, a realm composed of five major zones: Bastion, Maldraxxus, Ardenweald, Revendreth, and the Maw.
Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir is an expansion pack for the role-playing video game Neverwinter Nights 2, developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Atari Interactive. It was released in late 2008 in North America, Europe, and Australia. Like previous entries in the Neverwinter Nights series, Storm of Zehir is based on the paper and pencil fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, and uses the game's 3.5 edition ruleset.
Diablo is an action role-playing dungeon crawler video game series developed by Blizzard North and continued by Blizzard Entertainment after the North studio shutdown in 2005. The series is made up of four core games: Diablo, Diablo II, Diablo III, and Diablo IV. Expansions include the third-party published Hellfire, which follows the first game; Lord of Destruction, published by Blizzard and released after the second game; and Reaper of Souls, which follows the third game. Additional content is provided through story elements explored in other media forms.
Diablo is an action role-playing video game developed by Blizzard North and released by Blizzard Entertainment in January 1997, and is the first installment in the video game series of the same name.
Fate: The Traitor Soul is an action role-playing video game developed by WildTangent and released on September 9, 2009, as the second standalone expansion to the 2005 PC game, Fate, with the first one being Fate: Undiscovered Realms released in 2008. It was followed by Fate: The Cursed King in 2011.
Din's Curse is an action role-playing game developed by Soldak Entertainment. It was officially released March 31, 2010, for the Windows and Mac OS X platforms. The retail game was published October 3, 2010, by Masque Publishing. This game evolved from the Depths of Peril game engine and story universe. On August 22, 2012, the game released to Steam for the Windows and Mac OS X, and Linux on April 23, 2014.
Realm of the Mad God is a massively multiplayer online shoot 'em up video game created by Wild Shadow Studios and currently owned and developed by DECA Games. It was in public beta from January 2010 and the browser version launched on June 20, 2011. On February 20, 2012 the game was made available on the digital distribution platform Steam for Microsoft Windows and OS X.
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls is an expansion pack for the action role-playing video game Diablo III. It was revealed at Gamescom 2013. It was released for the PC and Mac versions of Diablo III on March 25, 2014. The expansion pack content was released as part of the Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition version for consoles on August 19 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. That edition expanded the base Diablo III game on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and brought the game for the first time to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Based on Id Software's open stance towards game modifications, their Quake series became a popular subject for player mods beginning with Quake in 1996. Spurred by user-created hacked content on their previous games and the company's desire to encourage the hacker ethic, Id included dedicated modification tools into Quake, including the QuakeC programming language and a level editor. As a game that popularized online first-person shooter multiplayer, early games were team- and strategy-based and led to prominent mods like Team Fortress, whose developers were later hired by Valve to create a dedicated version for the company. Id's openness and modding tools led to a "Quake movie" community, which altered gameplay data to add camera angles in post-production, a practice that became known as machinima.
Skyrimmodding refers to the community-made modifications for the 2011 fantasy role-playing video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. One of the most modded video games of all time, it has nearly 70,000 mod submissions on Nexus Mods and 28,000 in the Steam Workshop. Many of these mods were created for utility reasons, patching numerous bugs left in the game by Bethesda Softworks, while also improving the game's usability and character movement. Other mods add new quests and characters, or update the game's graphics and animations. As the vanilla game has a reputation for outdated mechanics, it is common for players to mod Skyrim even prior to their first playthrough.
The gargoyle is a fantasy and horror monster inspired by the gargoyle architectural element. While they were believed in mythology to frighten away evil spirits, the idea of such statues physically coming to life is a more recent notion. Like golems, they are usually made of magically animated or transformed stone, but have animal or chimera traits and are often guardians of a place such as a cathedral or castle. They can also be depicted as vessels for demonic possession or as a living species resembling statues.
