I have never played any of the Diablo games and Diablo IV is a welcome addition to my gaming catalogue, albeit a late one. This action role-playing game (ARPG) by Blizzard Entertainment lets players choose from 5 different classes: Barbarian, Sorcerer, Rogue, Druid and Necromancer. Diablo IV’s open world, Sanctuary, feels dark and gritty as the Daughter of Hatred, Lilith and the angel Inarius battle it out. A game from Blizzard Entertainment is not complete without a banger cinematic and that one cinematic from the later act is one of the most beautiful game cinematics I have ever seen. The sound design, the animation and the voice acting truly brought the characters of Lilith and Inarius to life.

My Gaming Experience

Having played the first beta as a Rogue, I wanted to try Necromancer as I missed the second beta when it was released. I started off with a Blood Surge build created by YouTuber P4wnyhof. While clearing dungeons, I chanced upon a unique item known as ‘Deathless Visage’ and switched to a bone spear build instead. The bone spear build which I ended up choosing was created by NickTew, who also has a website which details the paragon boards and other aspects. I also cleared the renown for all 5 areas and could clear Nightmare Dungeon Tier 40. As Diablo IV Season of the Malignant looms closer, I decided to take a break and pen this post.

My level 80 Necromancer

Having spent more than 90 hours on the game, I wanted to pay tribute to my first Diablo game by creating a data project. There are many talented developers on the internet who have created Github topics related to Diablo IV, ranging from quality of life tools like interactive maps to complete renown and time events to character stats and damage calculators.

Below are some of my favourites:

diablo_4_armory_fetcher which has a website to track your character stats and gameplay time.
An interactive map showing the locations of everything and anything in Sanctuary which I used to find all Altars of Lilith and Mysterious Chests during Helltide events.
A damage calculator which gives you an idea of how much damage per second (DPS) your character might have. Link to Reddit.

<aside> 😕 Still, I want to create a data project related to Diablo IV. In fact, there were many data projects that I wanted to create. I was unable to do so because of tedious data collection and a current gap in technical skill.

This is why this post will be the first installation of a series: The Vizzes I Couldn’t Make.

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The Vizzes I Couldn’t Make

Apart from tracking Diablo IV’s popularity, I want to focus on user telemetry, a player’s interaction with the game. Game telemetry consitutes any source of data obtained related to game development or game research. There are many game metrics in Diablo IV which I was particularly interested in due to a number of Reddit posts. Working with what I’ve got and know, I came up with 2 project ideas:

How do I track the the popularity of Diablo IV, or a game in general? (an attempt)