In my recent quest for games to play, I noticed a distinct lack of games in the genre/style I love. Thus, I've started thinking about a design for a game that would be (theoretically) simple to make but also fun to play. The obvious idea that comes to mind is procedural content and the most prominent recent game (that I know of) in the proper style was diablo, so I started disecting various parts of the game. As far as the story/plot/setting/etc, it seems that for the most part Diablo was pretty weak here because it doesn't fit the genre/style. However, such things are neccessary because they help guide creation of the game world and the window through which the user sees the mechanics. In Diablo (and far too many other games), the game was set in a fantasy world with hellish demons and devils of all sorts being the enemy, and magic items dropping to fuel the player into deeper and darker dungeons. Seeing as fantasy settings are second only to psuedo-realistic settings, the idea of doing it as science fiction came to mind. Just about all of the elements translate in one manner or another to science fiction without much trouble, and I'd like comments on my translation (below) and comments or suggestions on ways to improve things. To start with, instead of hell in a dungeon, a typical replacement setting for science fiction would be monsters in an underground top-secret weapon labratory. It fits very well, because it could have both vast open spaces (with odd machinery filling and acting as cover / obscurers) and tight, precision-machined spaces full of computers etc. The demons, then, become genetically engineered alien soldiers coming through some kind of Portal Man Was Not Meant To Make (but did anyways). Instead of 'Hell' difficulty, there is the 'Third Wave'. Magic swords and enchanted armor become altered blasters and shield belts. Bascially, I'm thinking that the players will always be inside something like Samus' (star of Metroid) power suit. The weapons become different kinds of blasters, armor becomes various shielding technology, rings/amulets/charms become 'suit enhancement modules', sockets become 'module slots', gems and runes become 'item enhancement modules'. Instead of Cain and Wirt, the military is guarding the exit and you have 'John Doe' and 'Mr Smith' to greet you (and stop you from leaving). Town portals are replaced by teleportation, and most floors are guarded by 'telejammers' that must be disabled before your backup can beam you to the level of your choice. Those levels not guarded are accessable at any time, but the team won't beam you down there until they know you're ready. To facilitate two-way teleportation in blocked areas, you have to activate a beacon to be teleported in/out, but it only has enough juice to work once. Levels become 'suit upgrades', which means that having to return to town after a time would make sense, and doesn't seem too bad an idea. Instead of experience, there is 'Honor' or 'Acomplisments' or the like that shows how much higher ups are noticing you, and instead of 'Level Up', the explantation would be something like "Your performance convinced _ that you're worth the cost of upgrade" or "Your quality work convinced _ that you could actually use a more powerful suit" etc. The modules mentioned above would initially come as ready-to-use items you can equip by sticking right in the inventory slot, but as you progress down to the depths of the lab, they would cease being immediately usable and an engineer from the team above would be required to custom-fit the part-alien technology into your suit (and also to identify it's functionality). Perhaps nanites could perform the same function, since they can 'see' and modify the hardware at a very low level, and an engineer at ground level could be guiding them to the proper actions. Weapons would be similarly unknown, though they could be used without being identified. Perhaps some of the buttons/dials aren't obvious, so only some of the functionality will be available when using an 'unidentified' weapon. Also, maybe there is a chance of incorrectly setting an option and causing a weapon to overload (destroying itself and possibly the user) if it hasn't been properly analyzed by an engineer. The same could work for protection technology. Instead of health and mana, the two stats become shields and energy. In a sci-fi world, things are so deadly that without shields, health is meaningless. The armor-replacement items would act as inertial dameners and energy deflectors, deflecting blows and reducing the amount of damage that gets through to the suit's shields. The only two things I'm not really sure on are spells and skills. Any ideas on what those should be converted to? Thoughts, Comments, Suggestions?

This sounds really cool Extrarius, seems like something not really done before. I remember the Syndicate was something like this but still was a blast. Anyways keep working on this :)

Generally, some sort of [possibly genetically engineered] psionics fits best into a sci-fi setting. I would be highly suprised if there's not a few sci-fi roguelikes floating around to get ideas from (since diablo is just a shiny, popular roguelike).

Well, my difficulty with skills and classes comes from the fact that I was planning on having procedurally generated weapons. Instead of "rocket launcher", you'd be able to find a blaster with "Explosive: 5 Meters" as a kind of 'magic modifier' (think rares in diablo 2). Instead of "ShotGun" you have a modifier "MultiShot: 20 Shots, Arc 10, Grouped" (grouped meaning shotgun, spaced meaning more like a nova kind of effect). Instead of melee weapons, there would be a "Melee" modifier that would only be applied to weapons with area of effect. In essence, a weapon with "melee" would also always have something like "Cone: 5 Meters, Arc 10" meaning it acts kind of like a flamethrower, hurting everything in the specified cone when fired.

These types of modifiers would be in addition to the "+X% Damage" and the like already in diablo, and it would allow for VERY powerful weapons ('rocket shotgun').

Some of the effects I have in mind so far are partially repacements for the elemental damage types, while others are simply effects not found in diablo 1 or 2:
Explosive - Normal damage to target, reduced damage (based on distance) to nearby targets.
Plasmatic - Projectile continues through the primary target, stopping after it's penatrated a certain length of material (doesn't go through as many large targets as small ones, but does more damage to larger foes).
Ionized - Projectile path bends somewhat (specified by a variable) toward nearby targets, and on hit they are periodically stunned (shown as electric arcs over the alien w/ them spasming for a short period).
Melee - The area of effect (all melee items have an AOE) begins immediately at the tip of the blaster instead of where the bullet hits. For ranged attacks, the AOE begins at the impact point (or possibly later for Plasmatic weapons and any similar effects?).
Cone - The area of effect is shaped as a cone and extends a specified distance forward with a specified angle. Everything in the cone takes full damage/effects/etc. With a low angle, this can act as a 'line'
Radius - The area of effect is a circle of the specified radius and everything inthe area takes full damage/effects/etc. If this is combined with 'explosive', the explosive distance starts at the edge of the radius effect, thus having the same falloff rate but a bigger 'inside radius' (normally 0).
Cryogenic - Enemies are slowed by a certain amount based on the damage done to them by a crogenic attack, up to some specified limit. The effect is proportional to the target's maximum health, so it takes more damage to get the full slow effect if an enemy has more health (ie for 'bosses' or 'unique' aliens).
MultiShot - This indicates a weapon fires multiple projectiles per shot, and parameters are the number of projectiles per shot, the amount of distance the projectils area spread over, and how the projectiles are spread over that distance ("Grouped" meaning shotgun-like, "Spread" meaning evenly spaced, maybe more options like "X-Y-X" to indicate 3 groups of shots with each group taking the same space so 2-5-2 acts like a 3-shot spread, but with the left and right shot each being 2 grouped bullets and the middle one being 5 grouped).

Also, I was thinking that each character should always have two weapons, one 'normal' blaster and one that acts kind of like a grenade launcher, so there would be two classes of weapons and each one could be randomized (and a 'grenade launcher' without explosive or AOE would essentially shoot bouncy 'lead' so to speak). This would allow the game to feel a bit more arcade-like and allow some strategy etc. It also fills the 'shield' slot that would exist in diablo and adds a bit of variety.
Alternately, maybe 'Bouncy' should be a modifier and any two weapons could be dual-wielded.

Instead of spells, how about 'energy' is used as ammo, so you can't just keep blasting away forever without thinking about it. However, it should regenerate quite quickly so you can get back into the action without too much wait, and 'batteries' could be lugged around for when you really need to get back into action IMMEDIATELY.
Maybe skills could be used to temporarily add a modifier to a weapon and also make the weapon take a bit more energy (and the skill itself uses a bit of energy also). This way, the weapons can be randomly generated and there can still be skills that do the same thing. It'd be kind of like an arcade-style powerup except that it comes at the push of a button =-)
Also, perhaps one skill could be transfer energy to shields (acting like a healing spell) for use in emergencies. The opposite could also be a lifesaver, getting that last bit of ammo to kill the boss before it kills you.

I figure skills would be Skills. but split up into two sections inherent skills and armor-based skills. example: the player might be a natural with stealth, his armor gives him the skills of super fast computation or defense maneuvers only done with the suit on.

Spells would be, for me, any items which give an effect. examples are: portable shields, sound disrupters, satelite guided lasers, mini tanks that capture enemies and not be detected (or very hard to detect).