According to the WarCraft II- Diablo Preview (which can be found on the original War2 CD), "[Enter the town of Diablo] and if you survive long enough you will discover what killed your family." Originally the Hero from Diablo was brought up in the town of Tristrim, and you [The hero] return to find out why your family was killed, and to extract vengeance against those who killed them. This detailed "role playing environment" was something that was never included in the final Diablo. Originally, according to the preview, one of the central sub plots of the game was finding out who your family were and why they died. It was only after you uncovered the events associated with your family demise, that your ultimate quest to kill Diablo became apparent.

So who were your family in Diablo? Could they have been some of the poor souls lead down and slaughtered by Lazarus and The Butcher? Could you have been a blood relative of King Leoric and Albreicht? This second possibility would tie in a lot of loose threads from Diablo, and would definitely add to the environment of the game. Yet no one but Blizzard knows the answer and all we can do is speculate.

As I have already said, Diablo was meant to place a much greater emphasis on "role playing", as such, this involves you, the player, taking on a particular character and acting in different ways, in different situations, to make your character unique. One of the two things that have always struck me about the opening cinematic scene of Diablo, was the fact that the scene only displayed the Warrior character class, and made a special effort to display him consistently. This opening cinematic scene was created very early on, in Diablo's development. Wasn't it strange that they completely ignored the other two character classes in the cinematic scene and only displayed the warrior?

The possibility that Blizzard originally only planned for one character class, is enhanced after you view the Diablo preview on the WarCraft 2 CD. The CD only features screenshots and images of the warrior character class. Just as importantly the preview talks about acquiring new weapons and magical abilities as your character progresses. In the screenshots you can see the warrior wielding a of variety of magical abilities, bows and normal "warrior" weaponry. It is highly possible that originally your character in Diablo would have been neutral, and as the game progressed would branch off into different fields, thus becoming a Warrior, Mage or Rogue.

The preview talks about acquiring new skills, when building up your character. This is very similar to the way in which you acquire skills in Diablo II. However the Diablo One preview makes special emphasis stating that skills, magic and fighting abilities are different aspects of character development. What constituted as an acquired skill in Diablo? Could some of the fabled Fifth Level Spells such as invisibility have been acquired skills? Or could the entire feature and skill list have been removed from Diablo.

The Unlikely Hero - The Traveler

Although there isn't much information on this, I believe it is important to mention that the hero of Diablo originally wasn't the honor bound, 'natural' hero we believe him to be. The WarCraft II -Diablo Preview, quotes that Diablo is a game "where unlikely heroes, must battle the forces of darkness." I have my own opinions about what this might have meant, and how this might have affected playing Diablo. This time however I will let you think about it, and draw your own conclusions on the unlikely hero, brought up in Tristram.