All games are slightly differant than eachother. I dont like catagoriseing things becaus they are to rigid.

basicly this is what you do. Draw a line. At one end, put games like the old adventure games that are basicly you navigateing through a series of fixed screens and able to pick things up and talk, no combat at all, purley based around dialouge and puzzles. Then at the other end put something like space invaders or some other suitiable game thats basicly about killing the little things that you see as best you can, with maby 2 or 3 lines of text thrown in so you atleast know what your killing and why your killing it "They are trying to take over the world!" and what you are..

Now there i see the 2 extreems of games, mindless kill, and no killing at all with all the puzzles and trapps and basicly just story.

Now you have the measure. What i say is that if you chart diablo and divinity on this, they are both going to be within the middle third of that line, hence i see them as generaly the same type of thing. BG and IWD would be in the upper third, that dosnt mean they are the same, BG would probibly be a bit higher than IWN, but generaly, they are the same.

Dont really mention diablo 2, as i said that game is only of value if you where a big fan of diablo 1... or if you are the simple sort who just like killing things=P The only reason i played d2 was i had played d1 so much and we where all wateing for d2 to come out for all those years and... well... when it came out i just started playing it with out really thikning about it=P

Also remember how im discribeing diablo. Diablo 1 was more of 1 quest, with a few side quests along the way. Divinity is full and full of quests. Diablo 1 would basicly be the catacombs, if they went down for 16 levels.. with a few more slasher like quests thrown in. Thats exacly how i see it, and i break divinity up into many many micro-diablos in my head. I see going through the catacombs as a little diablo, i see killing all the orcs before the first bridge as a mini diablo. I see the whole quest that gets set into motion by that one knight guy when you try to leave, up untill you get your castle invite, as a mini diablo.

basicly what im trying to say is, diablo is a quest with side quests, divinity is a game with a whole lot of quests with side quests. And really, if you could just play one of the quests in divinity, i would see it as nothing more than what diablo was.

So im basicly trying to say that the 2 games are basicly built with the same formula, divinitys just a whole lot bigger, and diablos 1 quest was a little more flashy sence that was really the only quest they had. You need a hoard of monsters in a game somewhere.. Look at the wastelands.. if it wasnt so easy to kill everything *im assumeing it was supposed to be a bit of a challenge there* it would acualy have worked out niceley.. Before the big bad evil guy, you need hundreds and hundreds of evil minions in order to express your charicters greatness and to make the climax even better by showing you, who must be some sort of demi-god by now being able to slaughter whole armys, and the main evil guy of doom, in a massave final confrontation, evenly matched. See its the set up=P if it wasnt for infinite stacking curses, scorpions, and general weakness of things.. i think it would have worked out nicley..

But anyway everyone understands what im saying, so ill just close with.. Xenogears is still the best rpg ever=P