Diablo III Designer Defends New Look and Feel

In response to a fair amount of angry outcry at the new look and feel for Diablo III, designer Jay Wilson has critiqued some fan-altered screenshots and defended the new style. "The key thing to remember here is that this has been Photoshopped. This isn't created by the engine. Though it looks really cool, it's almost impossible to do in a 3D engine because you can't have lighting that smart and run on systems that are reasonable. If we could do that, we probably would in a few of the dungeons."

Comments

Translation:

[bistromath007]

"We are too lazy to make a scalable engine because we know you'll buy whatever we pump out anyway."

Sad fact: they are right. I will buy it. :/

Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[thezig2]

Most of the photoshops I've seen did nothing more than apply filters to darken the scene and raise contrast. Do they really mean to tell us that they're incapable of having their engine uniformly alter the light levels like that?

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[simcop2387]

mostly what he refers to as impossible are some of the more elaborate shadows (e.g. dynamic ones from the enemies off of the spells being cast) and things like that.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[cowscows]

I think it's more likely that they realize that these fan generated graphics are ugly, would probably look even worse in motion than they do in photoshopped screenshots, and wouldn't play very well because they're so muddled. But they're dealing with some obviously hardcore fans, and they're probably thrilled that there are people out there who care enough to go through all this trouble, so they don't really want to come out and call those fans untalented hack artists.

So rather than call their fanbase stupid, they call themselves stupid. At the end of the day, they'll release the game they want to make, and judging from Blizzard's track record it will be a well made game that will sell very well. These people who are spending hours photoshopping screenshots will switch to spending hours playing the game, and everyone will be happy.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue is twofold:

First, usually when you program in some 3-D API you are building a world around some point in layers. This is typically done by your video card and then sent directly to output. There is only one saved world file that doesn't differentiate on which areas are supposed to be lighted near the character or not. In fact, it is really tricky to do fancy lighting. Probably the best theory on how to do it might be something like the 3-D textures that Carmack noted (where the lighting is a dynamically created layer).

Second, as I said, most of the work is done by hardware and then sent to output. In order to do these fancy shadings, you either need to take the computed frame, modify it, and then send it back to output or you need to have your video card support an API that will allow you to code for it after the fact. But even if you do, there is no well defined way to get the correct shadings (unlike with an 3/4 down view). What do you do? Draw a circle around the characters and then drop the contrast everywhere else? The only realistic way is to load the map segment you will use. Determine the character positions. Calculate with vectors which areas will have light. Adjust the contrast of your map with this. And then load your map. To say that this would be computationally expensive is a vast understatement.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats a pretty mean sig you've got there.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the article he makes clear that "impossible" is in reference to "reasonable hardware". Blizzard has always done a spectacular job making sure their fan base doesn't need to upgrade their machines to fully experience the game.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[thepotoo]

Oh, come on, now. The point is that, two days after launch, those same fans who mostly just altered contrast in the pictures, will release a mod that alters your monitor's contrast whenever you launch Diablo 3. It's not rocket science here people.

For the record, I'm not so much concerned about the contrast changes (see previous sentence), it's the cartoonish, WoW-like graphics that may kill this game's lasting appeal for me (see the Barbarian's armor in the 30min gameplay preview. It looks just like Warcraft 3.

I may be in minority here, but one of the best parts of Diablo 2 was the ridiculous, over-the-top violence and the cold, realistic graphics.

Disclaimer: I put 3000+ hours into Diablo 2, and I consider it the greatest game of all time. Diablo 3 will not live up to my expectations no matter what the Dev team does.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Annymouse Cowherd]

It is, however, simple enough to make it so that blue light doesn't come up from the bottom of the bridge for some reason.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Anonymous Coward]

I tend to agree. I'm not opposed to COLOR, and scoff at fanboys who demand twenty shades of brown and forty of rusty red, but I'm thoroughly sick of seeing Blizzard use the same cartoony, improportionate models for all their games since Warcraft III.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Lobster Quadrille]

The photoshop referenced in TFA looks like shit. All they did was run it through 'sharpen' a bunch of times and change the color balance.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe... a 3d ray traced gorgeous chick raped by a barbarian ork orde? (that's how almost every half orc was born... never thought fantasy was a good settings for the children)

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[oneTheory]

I guess it's made to educate all the people that don't hover over a suspect link and check the actual destination in their status bar. Nifty.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Guspaz]

So, graphics are more important to you than gameplay? That's a rather shallow attitude.

I suggest you take a little trip to South Korea, where their national sport is a 10 year old 2D Blizzard game that runs at 640x480.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Anonymous Coward]

and 256 colors.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[icegreentea]

To be fair, graphics build atmosphere and 'feel'. His criticism felt like he found find the new atmosphere and feel disappointing compared to D2. I think that's a fair point. Really, its going to be the same with SC2. Some people are going to be turned off by the new 'feel' to it. Part of that will be gameplay changes, others will be the result of new graphics.

Graphics do more than 'look pretty'. They can effect gameplay, immersion, and feel. All this stuff about 'put gameplay/AI/story/characters before graphics' may be legit, but that doesn't mean that graphics are no longer a fair point of contention.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[thepotoo]

So, graphics are more important to you than gameplay? That's a rather shallow attitude.

Absolutely not! I play the "national sport of South Korea" several times a week, and love it.

What I'm trying to say is that the style of the graphics is what sells the game (to me). It's not about pixel shaders or polygon counts, it's about showing me a monster that just jumped out of Disney, vs. one that came from Alien. The fun is in what you're doing in the game, and if you're trying to be humanity's last hope in a world of chaos and demonic monsters, fighting off hordes of Pixar baddies tends to kill the suspension of disbelief. Simple as that.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[lgw]

You should RTFA. Most of the designers comments were that the fan-a;tered screenshots missed the point of why D2 was fun after so much time. The spell effects in D2, for example, were *very* coloful. Also, either the background or the monsters needs to have vibrant colors: if you used desaturaed colors for both, the monsters don't "pop" out of the background, and the game becomes fatiguing to play (even if it looks better in a screenshot). They changed to what they have now because they discovered this during playtesting.

This is why Blizzard makes good games - they actually make improvements based on playtest feedback.

Also worth remembering: the reason that WoW is more successful than every other MMO put together is precisely because Blizzard ignored the conventional wisdom, and catered to casual players over the loudly-voiced requests of the hardcore fans.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[EveLibertine]

I'm honestly surprised every single one of his posts doesn't get modded down as -1 Troll because of it.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[sexconker]

I bet you can't wait for StarCraft II...

http://www.playthingofthegods.com/DianiusPetsGuide/GuardianFelhunter.jpg
http://www.blizzard.com/blizzcast/_images/episode1/zerg.jpg

Blizzard - do not let any artists work on multiple franchises! Kill off the Warcraft II style now - it's crap.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[saturn_vk]

I tend to think that the hurricane spell of the druid is rather dull and ugly-looking.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[oneTheory]

Well.. This is /. after all. It's certainly mean, but from a geek's perspective it's an obvious fake. Now if it were a brilliant link like this that would be fun and cool.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[erikvcl]

I also consider Diablo 2 one of the greatest games of all time and I can't wait for Diablo III. I hate FPS games and the adventure game genre is dead. I have no interest in MMORGs, so that leaves the Diablo!

As for your comment, wasn't Diablo 2 better than Diablo? Wasn't WC II better than WC? Wasn't StarCraft better than WC II? Why do you think that Blizzard will fail with Diablo III?

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[cthulu_mt]

I always thought the sig was funny. Maybe thats because I was never tricked by it.

I didn't think to connect the bubbles with you though, interesting.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[brkello]

I'm playing D2 again right now. I think you are on crack if you call those cold, realistic graphics. Apparently your rose colored glasses make things look all "hardcore" and "real".

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Slime-dogg]

This is Diablo that we're talking about. The Gameplay is already defined, and extremely simple.

There are few things that distinguish Diablo from D2. One was higher resolutions and more colors. Another was outdoor environments besides the starting town - Diablo was completely underground and D2 was mostly above ground. Other changes were more classes, new abilities, named item sets; things that were not ground-breaking, as far as gameplay goes.

Diablo is a dungeon hack game. The most important thing that will distinguish D3 from D2 and Diablo, is how it looks.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Toandeaf]

That's odd, I wasn't aware that the gradual build up in the number of players pointed to a hardcore blizzard fanbase. I always thought it meant that word of mouth spread as people heard from their friends about how good it was. Huh. Silly me.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Bloodoflethe]

*parry and riposte* Touché!

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[peragrin]

And what do you call those pygmy fetish dudes?

the only reason to fear them is because they outnumber you 20 to 1

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[beckerist]

I hate you so much right now.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Heembo]

Does slashdot do any kind of link validation, possibly rejecting links to malware and the like?

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[palegray.net]

"Comments are owned by the poster."

Any modification of comments would probably open Slashdot to greater liability for their site's content. The moderation system is designed to take care of such problems, without actually removing or modifying the content of posts.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[palegray.net]

Look on the bright side. He's never gonna give you up.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[pragma_x]

I think what you're talking about is making sure that objects occlude light originating from the other side.

This is usually done via radiosity calculations performed on the map in a process akin to compiling a program: all the shadows are painted onto the map before the game even ships. Those details never change through the course of the game, which is a huge win from an efficiency standpoint. This is typically referred to as static lighting.

For everything else, the game engine has to more or less fake a radiosity implementation in some way as to create convincing lighting, shadows occlusions, etc. This is what is under discussion here. Any such solution will never be as good as the static radiosity pass for the map, and will take a huge chunk out of your CPU/GPU/RAM budget in the process. Either you back a simple non-obtrusive hack (a blurry black circle under your avatar that is a 'shadow') or you go the full monty and impose stiff rendering restrictions somehow (cut the poly count for all models in half). Anything in the middle will be dismissed as slipshod craftsmanship (e.g. "shadows" in Quake 2).

So in short: 100% dymamic lighting is not feasible for a game like Diablo since there's too much happening at any given point. You're not going to see 100-monster brawls *and* fully accurate lighting and shading at the same time for years to come. The Diablo fanbois will have to wait until realtime ray-tracing hits the desktop.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[rukcus]

I call the undead ones pipe-bombs. Once they blow up, your character dies from massive fetish bone shrapnel. That's why ice was so important :)

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[morari]

Blizzard may or may not fail with Diablo III. The fact of the matter is however, that all of the main guys behind the Diablo series are gone from Blizzard and have nothing to do with this game. Given their recent track record with garbage such as World of Warcraft, it's hard to tell what will come of this new Diablo. I'm hopeful however, even if I do agree that the art style is a little too "WoW-esque". Titan Quest seems to have looked better, and it's a few years old by now. :P

Also, was Diablo II really better than the first one? The gameplay was certainly deeper, but the story and atmosphere was lacking. Whereas the first game had a very isolated and personal sense of horror (everything happening beneath this one town, deeper and deeper down), the sequel was a globetrotting epic. I'd like to see a better balance.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Ihmhi]

...wow. Just wow. Can't believe they recycled their own art so blatantly.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[lgw]

WoW's player base is far larger than Warcraft's ever was.

the fact that it sold so much is because they dumbed down the gameplay (as most MMO's do) so that any drooling idiot can play it.

That's the real reason: i.e. doesn't require any kind of serious twitch skills.

Yes, that's it *exactly*. For every hardcore gamer who was turned off by that, they gained 100 bored housewives (a huge MMO demographic these days). Sony/Verant took the opposite position for *years*, thinking that was the reason they were so successful with thier 300K player base, and now WoW has 10M.

That also makes it a *better* RPG IMO - the skills are supposed to be your character's, not yours after all. But then I've never appreciated PvP in an MMO - I play CS or something when I want PvP.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[denmarkw00t]

Disclaimer: I put 3000+ hours into Diablo 2, and I consider it the greatest game of all time. Diablo 3 will not live up to my expectations no matter what the Dev team does.

Well, of course it won't.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[sortius_nod]

Agreed that the graphics do set the scene.

I think people are mixing up Graphics Engine with "Look & Feel". Graphics Engines are a dime a dozen these days, so we don't even need to talk about them. The look & feel, gameplay & storyline are what really matters these days.

To me, it's almost single player WoW. I think most of us MMO fans who DID play Diablo I & II, and played WoW are kind of sick of it.

While the graphics are a bit "over the top" in the photoshopped shots, we can see what they are getting at.

Where's the dark almost scary feel to Diablo? Why does it look like Andy Worhol designed to textures? About their only saving grace will be gameplay, and to my knowledge, Blizzard aren't focused on gameplay anymore. Their aim is creation of addiciton - in a way the idea of carrot infront of the donkey is their business model nower days.

I do remember when Blizzard really did focus on gameplay, unfortunately they're ignoring gameplay and reconfiguring a known addicition system (bright flashy colours, continual expansions, ultra-low item drop rates).

Then again, maybe we've all moved past the hack & slash days of Diablo II and Blizzard knows this.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Tatarize]

Why bother with the "reasonable hardware" line. Just program in multiple possible rendering abilities and switch between then to tweak down or up the graphics. If somebody wants they should be able to call up the engine being raytraced and going at a frame a minute.

Just because it's a massive amount of work for little benefit is hardly a reason to not do it. The shadows in question are doable they just aren't easy or hardware cheap.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[UnknownSoldier]

> Sorry, the reason WOW is more successful is because it uses warcraft property
I disagree. You are close, but missed the mark. Warcraft 2 had _atmosphere_. They were able to leverage that. The toon graphics actually worked in Blizzard's favor. Everyone was sick of yet-another-pixel-shader game -- plus the importance of the ability to run on "low end" hardware can't be stressed enough.

> WoW is not god's gift to gaming. All it did was copied the best elements of prior MMO's and put them into one game (mostly), and gave it the warcraft themed graphics and universe.

MMOs and RPGs. From the 3 Talent Trees, the partial set items, the character classes, to loot-whores they basically learnt their lessons from Diablo 2.

But yeah, agree that wow is a shitty game -- but you must remember everything is relative: compared to everything else, it is WAY better. Blizzard is known for evolution, not revolution -- the constant polish of the UI makes this painfully obvious when playing others. Blizzard nailed the BASICS, and that is more important then the rest. UO focused more on breadth, but Wow focused on Depth. (When do we get our Castles, or the ability to craft furniture, damit!) Talents at level 10, new skills every 2 levels -- they slowly keeping feeding you that most people put up with the asinine grind.

> WoW is not god's gift to gaming. All it did was copied the best elements of prior MMO's and put them into one game (mostly), and gave it the warcraft themed graphics and universe.

Totally agreed. I've ranted before that Wow designers don't have a fucking clue about dead time. They SERIOUSLY need to go play some old school D&D and learn about it. Now if only the stupid mods would understand "dead time" is NOT FUN, maybe you wouldn't be downmodded.

> That's the real reason: i.e. doesn't require any kind of serious twitch skills.
That's NOT a bad thing -- you gotta consider the demographic! It's not really feasible to do a MMO FPS. The RPG genre is different. The average wow age is 30+, not some punk kids. For those that DO want that twitch gameplay, CoD is quite nice, but a SLOWER paced game is what the masses want. The former doesn't require manual dexterity, the latter does. You literally are comparing apples and oranges about STYLES of GAMEPLAY. (OK, PVP throws a monkey wrench in this, but we're not talking about that. :-)

I think the real problem with MMOs is, just because you know what you _don't_ want in a game, doesn't imply that you know what you _do_ want in a game. Allmost everyone agrees the grind is ridiculous, but there are no "good" solutions. (D&D "solved" it by limiting the "level grind" to maximum 20.) People think more is better, but it is actually worse. With 10,000 life, 70 levels, you lose the "core" of what leveling up means. Its all about perspective, and the illusion of power.

Nice to see that others aren't inhaling the warcrack though.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[melikamp]

ridiculous, over-the-top violence

Check.

and the cold, realistic graphics.

WHAT are you guys smoking? Just who are these "hardcore fans"? Just like you, I think that DII was the best game of all time, but "cold" is not the word to describe its look and feel, and neither is "realistic". Definitely not realistic. (BTW, I always played with contrast at 0.)

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Taulin]

And maybe they are playing old 2D Blizzard games because the new 3D ones look cartoonish. Ever thought of that?

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[mrchaotica]

So, graphics are more important to you than gameplay? That's a rather shallow attitude.

Graphics are gameplay, at least in this sort of discussion. Imagine if iD had decided to make Doom 3 brightly lit. Would it be the same game? No, of course not! And that's more or less the same thing that's happening here, with Diablo 3.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[mrchaotica]

As for your comment, wasn't Diablo 2 better than Diablo? Wasn't WC II better than WC? Wasn't StarCraft better than WC II? Why do you think that Blizzard will fail with Diablo III?

By that logic, WarCraft 3 would have been better than StarCraft. And it wasn't.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[halfEvilTech]

mine runs at 800x600 tyvm

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Anonymous Coward]

so how's high school going kid? one day when you grow up you'll realise that "a massive amount of work for little benefit" is a great reason to not do it.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[thousandinone]

Case in point here- Command and Conquer Series, Red Alert vs. Red Alert 2.

Certainly, Red Alert 2 had more detailed graphics. However, Red Alert 2 in my opinion also had a much more "cartoony" look.

The original had more of a utilitarian and, well, military feel to it. I personally preferred this to its successor, despite the increased detail and higher resolutions it shipped with..

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[jmo_jon]

How would he be a shallow player if he was ready to move to Korea to play a 10 years old game with crappy graphics?

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Philip Shaw]

It reminds me of one user who used to have "Too many replies beneath your current threshold" as a link with the same target. IIRC he had good Karma, and was a fairly heavy poster. The good ting about this link was that /. never generated such a message, it always specified the number of replies, so even without checking the target you would have to be fairly new to fall for it.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[PalmHair]

>>> I may be in minority here, but one of the best parts of Diablo 2 was the ridiculous, over-the-top violence and the cold, realistic graphics. I know how you feel man. I myself am republican-curious.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[CountBrass]

program in multiple possible rendering abilities and switch between then to tweak down or up the graphics.

So you've just multiplied both the development effort and the testing effort required.

Just because it's a massive amount of work for little benefit is hardly a reason to not do it.

Actually that's an excellent reason not to do it.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Distortions]

Its not the brightness. Its the color and "too clean" look of it.

Top is original, bottom is tweaked.
(colors adjusted and grime added)
http://temp.bhmm.net/fixd3.jpg

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Fred_A]

So, graphics are more important to you than gameplay?

Gameplay ? In Diablo ?

Wander
Bump in monster
Kill monster
Pick loot
Wander
Bump in monster
Kill monster
Pick loot
Wander
Bump in monster
Kill monster
Pick loot
Wander
Bump in monster
Kill monster
Pick loot
Wander
Bump in monster
Kill monster
Pick loot
Wander
Bump in monster
Kill monster
Pick loot
Sell loot
Wander
Bump in monster
Kill monster
Pick loot

*yawn*

No wonder they turned to the graphics for some novelty.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[rtb61]

So the whole fun of one handed mouse gaming when you were a bit bored but still did not want the game to suck up all your attention missed you ie. while you were chatting with someone, watching a dvd or pretending to be working ;D.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Fred_A]

Ah, so it would be a kind of high end Solitaire then ? Well I guess it makes more sense then. :)

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[camazotz]

3000 hours is....125 consecutive days. Oh my.....

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[brkello]

The zerg existed before the Felhunter...maybe the Felhunter was inspired from the original zerg. That being said, you are comparing an in game picture to an artistic interpretation. I don't think it is a big deal.

The one thing I have learned from going back and playing D2 is that Blizzard borrows a lot of things from their other games. Actually, I think WoW is more closely related to Diablo than Warcraft (gameplay-wise). I see nothing wrong with them taking stuff that they did in WoW and applying them to their other games. They seem to do a great job of applying what they learn from one game series to another.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[brkello]

Or maybe because the 3D game isn't the same genre as the 2D game? Ever think of that?

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[sexconker]

No I'm not.
It was simply the best screenshot to show them both.

Look at the SCII videos.
Go play Warcraft 3, or watch videos of WoW (don't play Wow!).

I don't care what came first. Zerglings back in SC didn't look like that shit.

The WC3 style has taken over Blizzard, and it's disgusting.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[brkello]

You don't know what you are talking about. Travel times in WoW are much shorter than pretty much any of its predecessors. And as time has gone by, travel times have become even shorter with all the portals in Shattrath. Mages have the ability to crate town portals. Warlocks have the ability to summon. Instances have stones outside that you can use to summon people there. Have you even played the game?

IP does not make the game, otherwise Final Fantasy 11 would have been just as, if not more, popular.

Comparing WoW to Diablo is ridiculous. It is like comparing counter strike to bejeweled. It is not the same genre.

And WoW does require twitch skills...not for PvE as often, but certainly for PvP. While a lot of it is gear dependent, twitch skills can make a huge difference between two equally geared opponents. Diablo (which I love as well) is about as dumbed down as a game can get. It requires virtually no twitch and is just a mindless click fest. It is completely dependent on build and gear.

I don't care if you like WoW or not...but you should at least have played it so you can know what you are talking about. And if you did, you missed the point completely...because it doesn't seem like we are playing the same game.

The reason WoW did well is that it was released more polished than any MMORPG. It took a hardcore genre and made it accessible to everyone. It made leveling, and yes, travel time less of an issue. You can actually solo all the way to the top level...that was novel compared to most other games of the time. It removed annoying crap like harsh penalties to death. The IP helped them have an initial fan-base. But it was the quality of the game that made it so popular.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Cornflake917]

You could describe the gameplay of any game that involves monsters and loot that way if you're vague enough. The part makes up the meat and potatoes of the gameplay is how you kill the monsters, what kind of items you can get, and how the monsters fight back. Diablo 2 has some very unique player classes that let you dispatch monsters in fun, different, unique methods, the different types of items you can get are almost endless (I really love the rune system), and there are hundreds of unique monsters with different abilities that can be quite a challenge.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Cornflake917]

I think this "WC3" style you are referring to is also known as "3D." Other than that, every game after WC3 has had their own style.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Some_Llama]

You don't have flashblock.. tsk tsk.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Taulin]

Are you saying a 3D Diablo is in a different genre than the 2D ones? No, they are not.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Some_Llama]

"By that logic, WarCraft 3 would have been better than StarCraft. And it wasn't."

WC3 was a completely different direction than SC, as can be seen by the soon to be released of SC2. WC3 was better than WC2 IMHO.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Some_Llama]

which one of the submitted fan retouches was yours? just curious.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Anonymous Coward]

really! build your fearful ork army of up to 20 orks (less if you have heroes)

I never understood games with unit limits. if it's a tactical game, then you need to make having few units enough units, if you leave the desire of the player to build more units and left the player constrained for no apparent reason, then the designers have utterly failed. Fallout tactics allowed for 6 units, but I newer played with more than 4,usually 2/3.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Reapy]

Seriously. I enjoyed both diablos. I never felt "scared" or that I was in the pits of hell. I think the people who had played this had never played a dungeon delving style game before? It's funny but until they announced diablo 3, I never knew there was some magical DARK AND EVIL atmosphere that the game had. It flew right over my head. I was more into clicking on things and killing them in fast numbers, watching cool death animations and watching my character get more and more badass.

I love the art style of the game. The motions and colors are vibrant and CLEAR and I can see everything that is happening on the screen. Moreover, there is an artist's touch and polish to the game I don't really see in many other games out there. The "realistic gritty" stuff usually suffers from uncanny valley syndrome, the hard, sharp, precise "cgi" edges wreck it, and make it look like every game out there. The more 'comic' lines in just the right spots to create the illusion of more detail in your mind, do a MUCH better job of creating a "fun" atmosphere to be in.

Seriously, I bet when you play it, its going to be fun, and you wont even realize why it is fun, and then will fall in love with the graphics all over. Personally I love the direction, and hope nobody changes the look and feel of it due to their ranting and/or petitions.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[geminidomino]

*parry and riposte*

That combo was nerfed in WoW 1.7 actually...

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[omfglearntoplay]

I like all the Blizzard games, but the more cartoonish the quicker I get sick of them. Warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft didn't do the trick in other words... and I didn't buy the expansions for either. Hence, I would LOVE it if at least Diablo3 stayed gritty and dark. Please Blizzard, at least keep one franchise serious for the grown up gamers!

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[omfglearntoplay]

The problem is that Blizzard is edging over into the "Hollywood of Gaming". The more they cater to the masses, the more they lose credibility with the more serious gaming crowd. I'm fine with WoW and even the entire Warcraft series going over the top cartoonish, that's fine. But StarCraft and Diablo3 aren't meant to be that way, from my perspective.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[peragrin]

oh I play on playing D3 and enjoying it.

As a friend of mine likes to say. The family that slays together stays together. because mom can give you a real icy stare, and dad's axe is furious.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[The End Of Days]

So my preferences are somehow less important than your preferences? That's a rather elitist attitude.

I suggest you realize you aren't the only human on earth, and your opinions only count for you.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[pcolaman]

It's called money and time. Welcome to the real world :)

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[pcolaman]

Do you really remember how bad the graphics were in D2? I loved the game, but even for the time the graphics were average at best. And to be quite frank, the armor was as much over the top in D2 as it appears to be in D3, I think your memory is just fuzzy.

Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick.

[Tatarize]

Duh, sarcasm.

*sigh*

I don't see it

[grumpygrodyguy]

At first glance I prefer Blizzard's version.

Re:I don't see it

[philspear]

I can't understand the attraction to underlit gaming environments. Maybe it's supposed to be scarier? I just get annoyed when I can't see s***.

Re:I don't see it

[rob1980]

Yeah, that kind of stuff just pisses me off. I hated that I needed to install the "duct tape" mod for Doom 3 just so I could see what was going on.

Re:I don't see it

[SQLGuru]

If the proposed shots were to be included instead of the existing shots, my screen would still look more like the existing shots because I'd have to crank up the gamma. One of the first things I do in a game is adjust the gamma so that I can see everything. I never played Doom III (more into RPG than FPS), but I would have hated that game because you can't see (I've played I and II). In an RPG, darkness and fog of war and what not are much less important to the game since they are about the story and player advancement. In Doom III, where character level isn't much of an issue, the darkness adds to the gameplay.

Layne

Re:I don't see it

[ByOhTek]

Shame I spent my mod points, or I'd give you a +1 insightful there. I'll just have to say 'I agree'. At least some games give you a nice gamma setting, but even in those cases, it tends to wash things out.

Re:I don't see it

[Goaway]

I think the basic idea is that if you can't see it, you can't see how bad it looks.

Re:I don't see it

[lukas84]

I'm still trying to find my way out of the communications tower, you insensitive clod!

Re:I don't see it

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

In Doom III, where character level isn't much of an issue, the darkness adds to the gameplay.

It adds to the gameplay for about five minutes. Then it gets annoying.

Re:I don't see it

[Hatta]

Agreed. If I were playing a game that looked like the photoshopped screenshots there, I'd bump up the gamma until I could see.

Re:I don't see it

[eln]

To me, darkness and the "fog of war" effect point to laziness more than anything else. Sure, it's probably supposed to produce "atmosphere", but to me it just looks like they were too lazy to draw out the entire scene in detail. I enjoy FPS games, but the really dark areas drive me crazy. I want to see an immersive detailed world, not something I have to get right up next to and point a flashlight at before I can see how detailed it is.

Like a previous poster, I tend to crank up the brightness and contrast when encountered with games that artificially darken things. Those that use heavy fog to produce the same effect just piss me off. Some of the earlier games did this probably because the engine just wasn't capable of rendering that much stuff at once, but these days it's just lazy.

Re:I don't see it

[Aphoxema]

It lasted about two hours for me, but then it just gets painful. I'm confident that if I were sufficiently motivated I could hold a flashlight and a BFG9000 at the same time without duct tape.

Re:I don't see it

[Aphoxema]

Too creepy, right after I hit 'submit' the power at the college went out for a minute and the whole room went dark.

Re:I don't see it

[AndersOSU]

stay away from the ventilation ducts.

Re:I don't see it

[Wildclaw]

Doom 3 is perfect if you played in a completly dark room where your eyes can adjust. In that kind of environment "different shades of black" actually works. Playing it in a light room however is painful unless you turn up gamma, which you can't do in the basic settings, instead requiring you to use the console. And if you do turn up gamma the visual quality of course goes down.

This is the problem when doing any visually dark game. You have to consider how the game plays in a not so dark room.

Re:I don't see it

[Dynedain]

I don't know why you got modded flamebait, but I agree. The altered version just looks like a Photoshop sharpness filter overly applied, and color adjusted to make everything darker (but in a way that will make everything far too dark on CRTs).

Re:I don't see it

[Kingrames]

I can see how both would be cool.

I don't understand what this "us versus them" mentality is all about.

Re:I don't see it

[TJamieson]

It seems these shots are more knee-jerk reaction from die-hard Diablo II fans than anything else. In each shot they've basically done whatever is necessary to make it look like "Diablo II+". I agree with the designers -- they *could* make it look like that, but they choose not to.

I think the biggest thing to remember is Diablo II was 2-D, and Diablo III is 3-D. You're never going to have 1:1 art translation like that.

Re:I don't see it

[Haeleth]

Doom 3 is perfect if you played in a completly dark room where your eyes can adjust

And presumably if you have a CRT screen. Increasingly people these days have LCD screens, which can't do black at all. Playing in a dark room with an LCD -- even a good gaming LCD -- means having an immersion-wrecking glowing rectangle hovering in the air in front of you. It just doesn't work.

Kudos to Blizzard for actually trying to design a game that will look good on real people's PCs, instead of pandering to the crazy obsessions of a tiny minority.

Re:I don't see it

[Creepy]

Even these days it can be because the machine can't handle it - polygon count in games keeps creeping up. In addition, some newer effects can be GPU intensive (realistic smoke and fire, for instance). OTOH, details are starting to be offloaded to the shaders (like steep parallax mapping) allowing simpler scenes and more visual depth, so it could be laziness (or time).

Re:I don't see it

[Hossicle]

Doom 3 - The only game you can play with monitor on or off and it still looks the same!

Re:I don't see it

[Bat Country]

If it becomes necessary to alter my environment, buy a new monitor, and use the developer console to see the game as the designers envisioned, the designers need a new vision.

A visually dark game makes little sense when you happen to be a person with extremely good night vision, because you have an expectation to be able to fucking see what you're doing.

Re:I don't see it

[philspear]

It's been around a lot longer than Doom 3. I remember playing Marathon back when the only other FPS people played was Doom (1).

The first level it was creepy, after that it felt like the level designers just didn't realize that not all of us knew the level inside and out. "Okay, now even though I can't see it, there's a hunter in a nook halfway up that wall who is going to destroy me unless I launch rockets in that general direction."

Fortunately, bungie included tools that allowed you to play with the physics quite a bit, and the problem was solved by adjusting a slider making it so that flashes from the gun never faded. Fire once and most of the level was plainly visible permanently. Downside: all "sleeping" enemies woke up, but at least you could see them.

Re:I don't see it

[DoofusOfDeath]

To me, darkness and the "fog of war" effect point to laziness more than anything else. Sure, it's probably supposed to produce "atmosphere", but to me it just looks like they were too lazy to draw out the entire scene in detail.

I have to disagree. In AvP2, when I was playing as a marine in the single-player mode, and there was a xenomorph somewhere out there in dimly red-lit building, the effect was incredibly spooky. In that particular game, the dim red lighting really made the mood.

Re:I don't see it

[Sun Chi]

I don't think you mean "fog of war." That is a term from real time and turn based strategy games that relates to what area of the map you have explored. I think you are talking about the clipping plane.

Re:I don't see it

[Killjoy_NL]

I quit when I got to the spider level.
I have a mild arachnaphobia, so it wasn't for me.

Re:I don't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially a good gaming LCD.

None of the LCDs with a fast response time (built with the TN+ technology) are black. Don't buy a gaming TFT when you want blackness, buy a graphics or movie TFT. The black LCDs are built with other, slower technologies.

See Wikipedia for a lengthy explantion of the different technologies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TFT_LCD#Types

Re:I don't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny, the power didn't go out here.

Re:I don't see it

[Malekin]

"Gaming" LCDs are optimised for fast pixel response times, not for colour reproduction.

That said, the technology is still improving and the difference between a panel designed for speed and one design for colour is getting smaller.

Re:I don't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is intended to not see everything in this kind of game. And it is scarier, or is there any reason why you need to see everything beside the fear to get killed?

Re:I don't see it

[Fallingcow]

That's a game that did darkness WELL. You could still see what was happening most of the time, but it was still dim and grim. Full darkness was only used occasionally, and to great effect.

IIRC, the last level was the only one that was anywhere near as dark as Doom 3 was in general. I remember running out of some tunnel network in total darkness, following my map, a dozen blips chasing after me, firing whenever I got the tiniest sliver of light and could actually see them. It was frantic and fun. Doom 3's "creep into room with flashlight, see enemy, bring up gun, fire into darkness and hope enemy hasn't moved, bring up flashlight, realize you missed, bring up gun, fire into darkness..." was just frustrating and, eventually, boring, and was not remotely scary.

Re:I don't see it

[NormalVisual]

You'd think the space marines would take a cue from ancient technology and just stick a damn Picatinny rail with a weapon light on the shotgun. They're widely available today, so it totally blows any shred of realism that it wouldn't be available then.

Re:I don't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, I think Blizzard's looks better.
Instead of everyone bitchin', why don't we wait until the actaul game comes out and see how it looks and plays !!! Duh..........

Re:I don't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

Diablo is a third person view, so you're supposed to have a fog of war. It's f'ing dark in a dungeon.

If you want to see more, take items thatincrease your light aura.

Its a tradeoff. Want to see better, hit harder, or hit faster?

Re:I don't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I get it! You're one of them, aren't you?

Re:I don't see it

[Kingrames]

dammit, you caught me.

Re:I don't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

Too creepy, right after I hit 'submit' the power at the college went out for a minute and the whole room went dark.

At least you didn't have your video card literally fry right when the endboss in the expansion pack hit you with a fireball.

That was freaky.

Re:I don't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

Pff. Surely you aren't really bothered by a game that looks better with the lights off--every game and movie does (although they look even better with a bias light). What's wrong with a game that makes the most of it? Here's a news flash: games have system requirements. You're willing to get a nice video card ($$$) to play a few games, but you're not willing to situate your lights properly (free) to make everything on your screen look better? And why did you buy the worst monitor you could find in the first place? Doom 3, in this regard, doesn't ask for anything but easy stuff that a sensible person has anyway. You're exaggerating the requirements just so you have something to whine about. Oh, wow, I have to *turn off my lights* and have a semi-decent monitor! How will I cope?

Blizzard is right on this one; their art style looks very good in motion. But id was similarly right.

Re:I don't see it

[morari]

I think that most people still have CRT monitors, dude. They're better anyway.

Re:I don't see it

[p3on]

that "tiny minority" is over 50000 people, currently

Re:I don't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

For instance I am using a Samsung 22" widescreen LCD with 2ms response and 3000:1 contrast. Tis a beautiful monitor for sure.

Not that I expect everyone to plunk down the $380 bucks a decent monitor costs or anything, but it is a good monitor.

Re:I don't see it

[denmarkw00t]

Doom III came out just in a time when gamers were used to the "dark, dungeon of a bedroom" idea, and indeed I played many of my favorite FPSes of the time (D3 not included, just couldn't get into it with my low-end system - not the game's fault). id was banking on the fact that they're target audience were people who were going to play this game in a dark environment, with surround sound, where you could really get scared by every little thing that moved because, ultimately, it was going to try and kill you.

Re:I don't see it

[RealErmine]

I agree. Most of the altered screen shots look terrible to me. If they had gone with this color scheme Blizzard would have countless people complaining that they just hopped on the under-saturated, over-light-bloomed Gears of War bandwagon of browns and grays. Those developers call it "gritty". There is a lot of room in the gaming world for something different.

It was noted in one of the developer videos on announcement day that Blizzard challenged themselves to add color to D3 and I think it was a bold (pun intended) move. I think we will all see that their choice will make the difference between bland, forgettable environments and scenes that become locked in the players' memories. I am excited to play this game precisely for this reason.

Re:I don't see it

[TriezGamer]

Which, in comparison to Blizzard's standard sales for basically anything they release, is indeed a tiny minority.

Re:I don't see it

[AbRASiON]

Don't whine about perfectly good night vision and then game on an LCD, it makes your post completely and utterly pointless.
I have finally switched to an LCD after years of holding out and I can see the night and day difference from LCD to CRT - it's unmistakable, Doom 3 is quite playable on a CRT in a dark environment, on an LCD it's not - there's only so much id can do about this.

Re:I don't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus H. Christ. "Fog of War" is a term from military theory, and is meant to describe the often vague "information" units have to deal with, as their intelligence is imperfect to start with and the battle scene is constantly changing. Read some Clausewitz -- he introduced the term.

The RT/TB-S games you mentioned use what you're thinking of to simulate the military theory Fog -- if you don't have a unit within visual range of a bit of land, you can't see what's on it, even if you have previously explored it.

Re:I don't see it

[RulerOf]

I tend to crank up the brightness and contrast when encountered with games that artificially darken things.

FWIW, I tend to hit the game's options menu and adjust my display to match the mark against the grayscale gradient those games usually provide.

Just my 2 cents.

Re:I don't see it

[Mike610544]

I don't even think the static screenshots of the "improvements" look better, never mind the game play implications. Also, I'm impressed with the tone of the Blizzard guy defending their choices while also accepting the criticisms. Has there ever been a bad or even mediocre Blizzard game? I think they're one of the few groups who "get it" and know how to make a fun game, and I'm looking forward to playing Diablo III.

Re:I don't see it

[Artuir]

That's specifically why they engineered it with a big focus on light and colors. You can make a scary environment without it being over-dark. If Lord of the Rings looked like Doom 3, it'd be a pretty shitty movie.

So these people doing these fan alterations are idiots. If I were the art director I'd pull a Jay and Silent Bob and go hunt down these little bastards and beat the piss out of them!

Re:I don't see it

[JimboFBX]

I've put these 2 ms response time LCD screens to the test with shutter glasses and found its a complete lie. My 14 ms generic Dell monitor outperforms them in reduction of "ghosting". I literally went in Circuit City and tried out all of their high end monitors with them and found all of them had bad ghosting.

Re:I don't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, f*** minorities, right?

Re:I don't see it

[Rogerborg]

"Your mom" is not "most people", and even if she were, the intersection between "your mom" and "people most likely to purchase games" is the empty set.

Re:I don't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

Re:I don't see it

[brkello]

We aren't talking about military theory, we are talking about video games. In regards to video games, his description isn't perfect, but it is good enough.

Re:I don't see it

[mcvos]

The RT/TB-S games you mentioned use what you're thinking of to simulate the military theory Fog -- if you don't have a unit within visual range of a bit of land, you can't see what's on it, even if you have previously explored it.

I'm currently playing Advanced Tactics: WWII, which handles this in a very interesting way: not only can you see or not see a unit, but if it's only on the edge of what you can see, you can get wrong information about it. Often I know there's an enemy unit but have no idea what it is. I move one unit next to the enemy to get some info, then add another unit and the info on the enemy changes; I just got more detailed info. How accurate is it really? No idea.

That's what fog of war is. It's not seeing a haze, it's knowing a haze.

Re:I don't see it

[mcvos]

It's not seeing a haze, it's knowing a haze.

A much better way of putting this is: It's not hazy vision, it's hazy knowledge.

Re:I don't see it

[vertinox]

If it becomes necessary to alter my environment, buy a new monitor, and use the developer console to see the game as the designers envisioned, the designers need a new vision.

I dunno. I'd rather have a developer try to be unique and have an over idealistic vision about their game instead of just making another sequel.

Sure maybe only a handful of people will "get it", (you know like the Donnie Darko movie) but overall sometimes you have to do something off the wall and take a risk.

Re:I don't see it

[benhattman]

Thank you!

I am so sick of running through unlit halls and getting killed by monsters I cannot even see.

My first action when I start a new game is to go into the settings, and up the brightness (usually about 4/5ths of the way). It means that sunlit areas are washed out, which is disappointing, but at least it makes building/dungeon interiors playable.

Re:I don't see it

[Talgrath]

Some of us have windows in our rooms and even though you can close the curtains you can't block out all light from the sun. If I have to be a pitch black (or nearly so) room to be able to see things then I cannot play the game during the day and that's a pain in the ass.

Re:I don't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

I *played* Doom 3, so I know you're exaggerating. Cutting a bit of sunlight and adding a fill light behind the monitor works great.

Shadows Set the Mood

[eldavojohn]

Diablo III Designer Defends New Look and Feel

I haven't really RTFA'd, just looked at the pictures. I'm a bit torn on this story because I don't even think this designer needs to answer to people putting up screenshots that are entitled "wow gayness" when compared to their preferred screenshots. But as to whether or not he felt they had a valid point or he Blizzard just really cares for their fans, I cannot say.

While the lighting in a few of these looks like definitely done by hand, the only other major difference I see is color and tint. In example #1 the lighting is much better in the fan screenshot but I can definitely see what the designer was talking about with it being 'smart.' My question would be (and I'm a complete idiot with vector graphics) why do they have no problem putting directional shadows behind characters but not the scenery? It seems to me that the candle light in that particular screenshot is being blocked by walls and ridges. Is this difficult with scenery? I'm guessing the levels are dynamically generated like in the first and second (a great aspect of the game, might I add), is this what causes difficulty with shadow play? I think by and large with the fan shots they use borderline too much shadow. I am guessing shadow is crucial in setting the mood but dynamically generated shadow would be difficult ... when would you have too much? For example in #1, the big white blob thing attacking blocks 1/4 the screen ... four of those and you'd be blind. There could be an army behind him and you wouldn't know it. Something to think about.

Now, the rest of this stuff just seems to be color pallette and tint which seems to be artistic preference. I can't say which I like better but I've a feeling I'll appreciate color (and a change of that between levels) if I'm going to be staring at it for hours.

I'll be honest, when I first saw the game play I was very nonplussed, it was exactly Diablo II. But then I realized the great thing about II was that it was Diablo I with more features, levels, classes, monsters, etc. Ironically, I think that all that would make me happy in III is just more multiplayer options, more items, monsters, classes, etc. I can't want to play this one!

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[poetmatt]

All they have to do, take all that green, all that distanced lighting shit, and make it black. Pitch as fuck black.

This was the thing in the first game, you couldn't just see infinitely further ahead, shit was dark in many places. That was half the fun of the 2nd and 3rd dungeons. I like a change, but honestly, this is to be some form of a dark game, this is not hello kitty meets diablo.

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[Jaysyn]

I can't want to play it either!

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[bigstrat2003]

Ew. No. That was by far the worst part of Diablo before. Not being able to see a damn thing around me is not fun at all. At the very least, they need to make the "blackness" optional.

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[eldavojohn]

All they have to do, take all that green, all that distanced lighting shit, and make it black. Pitch as fuck black.

You're one of those monochromatic artists, aren't you?

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[kat_skan]

...this is not hello kitty meets diablo.

I would buy this in a second, if only I could decide whether I'd rather play as Diablo tormenting Hello Kitty, or as Hello Kitty tormenting Diablo.

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[poetmatt]

Okay, I admit. I laughed. I hope you get an extra +mod :D

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[Anonymous Coward]

My question would be (and I'm a complete idiot with vector graphics) why do they have no problem putting directional shadows behind characters but not the scenery? It seems to me that the candle light in that particular screenshot is being blocked by walls and ridges. Is this difficult with scenery? I'm guessing the levels are dynamically generated like in the first and second (a great aspect of the game, might I add), is this what causes difficulty with shadow play?

The reason is because creating dynamic shadows via shadow mapping or shadow volumes (which is what their technique looks like) is extremely expensive to calculate and then to draw (both techniques are often fill-rate limited, meaning the more that's in shadow, the longer it takes). Typically, designers have to define a subset of shadow-casting objects which are included in the calculation, and everything else is left out. Areas that are determined to be in shadow are then drawn dimmer than their surroundings. Scenery such as walls, mountains or hills doesn't usually cast these kinds of shadows because the effect can be reasonably approximated by simpler techniques (attenuation, directional lights, etc). Indeed, you'll often find that only certain lights cast shadows on certain objects, further simplifying the work.

I don't work at Blizzard, but I suspect the lack of universal shadowing has little to do with the random nature of the dungeons, and everything to do with high cost and limiting returns of truly "realistic" shadows.

Thus, the determination of what will cast shadows is typically done by the designers who have to determine what gets the most bang for the processor time.

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[the Atomic Rabbit]

It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[bigtangringo]

The game can be dark, as long as it's easy to see where needed and appropriate.

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[Stormwatch]

What the hell? That article has a screenshot of Doom 3.

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[ProppaT]

I think some of the things that people aren't taking into consideration are:

1) Diablo came out during the CRT games. The game was dark but not quite as dark as you remember, your monitor just sucked.

2) These are the LCD days. All that black is going to make all the 6bit panels that don't show true blacks well choke and show mud.

3) Diablo wasn't built around 8 player multiplayer. Diablo III is being built ground up as a multiplayer game that can also be played single player. You need to be able to see your companions. That's like the point of the game.

4) The physics of Diablo III look beautiful in motion. To do that, add in all sorts of dynamic, intelligent lighting, and have a game that will play terrific on an average system at standard 1280 x 1024 resolution ain't gonna happen. Not when you have 8 players casting spells and 50 enemies on the screen. This is Blizzard, they're not gonna put out a game if it won't run on an average system. That's kind of their thing.

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[Toandeaf]

My god, someone get this man on the phone with Blizzard!

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[Anonymous Coward]

Diablo II had a few dynamically varied levels but most of the dungeons and a fair number of above ground things were static.

It really detracted from the gameplay for me.

IMHO in many ways Diablo II was a regression. Worse spell/skill system (now FUSE the two and you have epic win), worse ambiance, worse music, and too much focus on WoW-like (yes I know it predates it) levelling and less on gameplay.

--Concerned parent

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[poetmatt]

hahahaha, you are probably right. I didn't know much about computers, etc...monitor probably was shitty (and I probably had contrast set at about 150% taking gamma into consideration).

I also agree about them making a game run well...I just would like to see less special lighting and just make it pretty dark, is all. I'm not asking for specular lighting and all that, just not "bright". Even D2 and D1 towns were night happy bright.

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[KiloByte]

Ugh, it's calculating things affected by moveable object what is expensive. Everything that deals with the scenery can be pre-calculated and stored in efficient data structures.

Even for random dungeons, calculating the shadows for fixed scenery needs to be done once. Objects, on the other hand, need to be done every single frame.

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[Chibi Merrow]

That assumes a static light source, which is not the case here. For a moving light source, shadow volumes and/or shadow maps have to be regenerated each time the light moves (which is often each frame). Sure, your sun angle may not move and therefore you can pre-calculate all that, but those shadows aren't what impress--it's the dramatic shadowing cast by big spells, torches, or sparks flying off weapons that get the kiddies going.

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[Anonymous Coward]

We're here to make Diablo... Metal Diablo.
We will make everything metal.
Blacker than the blackest black... times infinity.

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[kenp2002]

I think you are looking for the word: Chiaroscuro

Artist term for Light and Dark, common for people that work with charcoals.

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[RESPAWN]

Actually, I've been replaying Diablo II on my modern computer and 22" LCD monitor and it's, well, still dark. It's hard to see the enemies at the far ends of the screen and it's easy to miss chests if they don't poke far enough into your light radius.

But then, that's kind of the point. Considering they have numerous items that add +whatever to your light radius, I think that they kind of want you to be scared. It's not quite Doom 3 (ridiculous fuckin' game that was), and you can barely make out enemies at the edges of your light radius, but it does make for great atmosphere.

One interesting thing to note, Diablo II, they manage to do a good job with dynamic, moving shadows behind obstructions as you pass them. But then, this was a 2D game that came out at the beginning of the 3D "revolution" and I'm sure the resource cost was pretty nominal for that. Also, I can't get over how jagged and pixelated everything is in the game. It sure has heck looked better in my mind's eye than on my computer screen.

In any respect, I think all of the Diablo fanboys need to go out and get a new fuckin' hobby. I mean, if you've got nothing better to do but photoshop screen shots for a game you know you'll love and play anyway, you need to get out of the house more. I trust Blizzard to make a very engaging game, as they always do, and trust them to know better than the average gaming nerd just what does and does not make a good game.

Oh, and people are actually gaming at 1280x1024? Eww!

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[Anonymous Coward]

All they have to do, take all that green, all that distanced lighting shit, and make it black. Pitch as fuck black. This was the thing in the first game, you couldn't just see infinitely further ahead, shit was dark in many places. That was half the fun of the 2nd and 3rd dungeons. I like a change, but honestly, this is to be some form of a dark game, this is not hello kitty meets diablo.

I think you're taking this 'the game is dark' thing a bit too literally.

Making the screen dark just makes the game harder to play, it doesn't change anything else. Diablo II has plenty of "light" environments, but I would still consider its' theme quite dark.

The monastery got boring fast, especially because you couldn't see anything without manipulating the gamma. Likewise the sewers. The maggot den was fine, mostly because vision was blocked by corners. Palace? Arcane sanctuary? Bright as day.

Most of the complainers haven't played diablo/diablo 2 in years, or else don't understand that a dark game doesn't refer to it's screen brightness.

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[Anonymous Coward]

Protip: "nonplussed" does not mean "not impressed"

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Diablo came out during the CRT games. The game was dark but not quite as dark as you remember, your monitor just sucked.

Poor monitor calibration is PEBCAK, not equipment suckage.

2) These are the LCD days. All that black is going to make all the 6bit panels that don't show true blacks well choke and show mud.

No LCD is capable of true black, unless the monitor is turned off. LCD black = "hide the superbright backlight with crystals." Those LCDs with better blacks than others, including M-VA and S-IPS panels, are high-latency affairs that are no good for fast games due to their far slower response time, even slower than TN already is relative to CRT.

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[ProppaT]

1) Diablo came out during the CRT games. The game was dark but not quite as dark as you remember, your monitor just sucked.

Poor monitor calibration is PEBCAK, not equipment suckage.

2) These are the LCD days. All that black is going to make all the 6bit panels that don't show true blacks well choke and show mud.

No LCD is capable of true black, unless the monitor is turned off. LCD black = "hide the superbright backlight with crystals." Those LCDs with better blacks than others, including M-VA and S-IPS panels, are high-latency affairs that are no good for fast games due to their far slower response time, even slower than TN already is relative to CRT.

No, back when Diablo II came out, bad monitor's were a very large issue. All of the computer manufacturer's were pumping out terrible CRT's dirt cheap and many people had been using their older CRT's for years. The displays started fading, they wouldn't focus like they used to, etc. I'm currently using my pro grade Samsung 900NF prograde monitor that I bought the same week that Diablo II came out. It also brought new life to Diablo. After seeing it in motion on my monitor, I calibrated many friends monitors. Seriously, you could only get some of these old, crappy monitors go good. You're either showing your age or your ignorance. There's a reason pro grade monitors were so expensive. Other CRT's just couldn't produce the right black levels needed for graphic design.

No LCD is capable of true black, but some of them show blacks and greys a hell of a lot better than others. The point was, the gamer monitors aren't good at showing dark scenes in games and the pro monitors that are good at showing dark scenes aren't good at motion. Thanks for unnecessarily exaggerating on the original point I made.

Re:Shadows Set the Mood

[Anonymous Coward]

1. I also have a set of pro-grade Sony and Mitsubishi flat AG CRTs that I cal'd myself. *My* point is that you can't simply assume that everyone's monitors just sucked, when - as with the topic at hand, gamma levels - calibration even on low-end CRTs was/is a trivial but underutilized option.

2. You said nothing about the latency issues of higher-end LCD panels. I did, as an ancillary point.

3. I only offered complementary information. You logged-in posters always make me laugh with your defensiveness, as if being showed up (which was not even my intent, as can be seen if you read my post again without a chip on your shoulder) is the most horrible tragedy in the world. Contemplate my rectum, friend.

Solution to Blizzard's design decisions

[douthat]

Step 1) Turn down your monitor's brightness
Step 2) Stop whining
Step 3) There is no step 3!

Honestly, IMHO, the Blizzard shots are nicer. I have to squint to make out what's going on in the fan-created screenshots.

Re:Solution to Blizzard's design decisions

[philspear]

Where do I profit then?

Re:Solution to Blizzard's design decisions

[4D6963]

It's an iMac ad from 10 years ago reference, you insensitive clod!

Re:Solution to Blizzard's design decisions

[Anonymous Coward]

Step 1) Turn up your monitor's brightness
Step 2) Realize that the game looks better this way.
Step 3) There is no step 3!

Re:Solution to Blizzard's design decisions

[TheDreadedGMan]

Step 1) Turn down your monitor's brightness
Step 2) Stop whining
Step 3) There is no step 3!

Even better:

1. Find row of buttons at/near front of monitor
2. Adjust buttons until brightness is lower... Adjust buttons until saturation is lower (If no saturation or colour controls on monitor, go to graphics driver control panel)
3. ???
4. Profit!

No problem here

[bigstrat2003]

I have always failed to understand what people's problem with Diablo III's graphics. The important thing is the gothic feel here. You don't need a color palette made up of shades of brown, grey, and black to achieve that... there's nothing wrong with having a colorful world, since it doesn't necessarily change the look & feel of the world at all. Hell, I by far prefer the screen shots Blizzard has produced to the "improved" stuff the fans have put out. The people doing that work may be happy with a world full of dreary colors which is hard to see any detail in, but I for one am not.

Re:No problem here

[k_187]

As with any game with a fiercly loyal fan base, nothing blizzard can do other than repackaging Diablo 2 (and probably not even then), will make these people happy.

Re:No problem here

[onecheapgeek]

All the fans did was remove...well...all the SHARPNESS from the graphics. If I want to play a diablo game that looks like shit, I still have a trio 64 laying around somewhere that I will use. To play Diablo (original version).

Re:No problem here

[Chris Burke]

You don't need a color palette made up of shades of brown, grey, and black to achieve that... there's nothing wrong with having a colorful world, since it doesn't necessarily change the look & feel of the world at all.

Exactly. Game developers over the last ten years have been tied to the idea that something can only be spooky if it's dark brown and gray, and is also a sewer. I was getting sick of it eight years ago, and games that have broken that mold have been very refreshing.

Now, come to find out, the reason there was so much gray-on-dark-gray motifs in games was because there were a large number of gamers who actually agreed that this was the only way to go! That actually get pissed when a developer tries to break this old and tired mold, and try to "improve" the art by forcing it back into the mold. Hey guys, 1996 called, and they want Quake's color palette back!

Though even it seems Quake has too many colors for these people. The best example is the last pair of shots. Apparently the "Necromancer's Choice" is the same grey-on-black style I've seen a million times (not that necromancers are known for their interior decorating), and "wow gayness" is exemplified by... the color green? Yeah, how gay. You gotta wonder when not even Quake is mono-chrome enough.

So far, my biggest problem with the D3 art I've seen is that it's too bland and boring, not that it goes too far in using actual colors. But apparently I feel oppositely of some people.

Re:No problem here

[FreonTrip]

Quake was brown because id had to create a realistically lightmapped 3D environment with a VGA color palette. I greatly enjoyed the first Quake and still believe that technical limitations can result in good, interesting design choices, but the fact that a game designed to run on Pentium CPUs and 1 MB graphics cards has continued to profoundly influence game graphics and people's expectations thereof is... well... sad. As for Diablo III, if people want to kick their feet and scream that it's too colorful, then Blizzard just needs to add a post-processing shader option to thump certain color ranges down a bit. See ATI's SmartShader or Far Cry's "graphics filters" for an example.

Re:No problem here

[yammosk]

Game developers over the last ten years have been tied to the idea that something can only be spooky if it's dark brown and gray, and is also a sewer.

Actually in Quake and Quake II's case, the brown color palette was used to hid the limitations of the game engine better. A good way to see this is to look at the original Half-Life which uses more colors. You can certainly see that the seems in the models are much more apparent.

Re:No problem here

[skeeto]

You sounded almost like Bob Ross,

"You can do whatever you want with your world. It's your world. You can put a happy little bush here. Or some happy little clouds. Let's do that. *relaxing paintbrush tapping sounds* You see that? That'll be our little secret."

Re:No problem here

[bigstrat2003]

Well, I do love Bob Ross, so I'll take that as a compliment. :D

Re:No problem here

[Chris Burke]

Yeah, Quake is more than ten years old, and it gets a pass on its palette because it had a literal 256-color palette to work with. The next generation of games, though, that were made with the assumption that you had at least a 16-bit color-capable video card, has no such excuse. Despite the reason behind it, Quake's color choices were rightly seen as not the way to go forward. Except, inexplicably, a huge swath of the gaming industry seemed unable to move beyond Quake. It is indeed very sad.

Re:No problem here

[ShibaInu]

I used to play and love the Marathon series by Bungie because they actually used color. Many of the environments were actually interesting to look at and enhanced the game play and immersion - at least for me. I couldn't really get into the darkness of the id games.

Bungie more or less kept the same use of color in the Halo series I think.

Re:No problem here

[icegreentea]

They did keep use of colour. They got some 'angry emails' from some fans during the development of Halo 3 about the lack of 'realism' (aka, make it look like GoW. subtle shades of brown). Bungie basically told them to suck it, this is the Bungie way, and people are going to like it. I kind of enjoy it. Probably why I hate the Flood so much. Everything becomes shades of brown really quickly.

Re:No problem here

[Anonymous Coward]

dude, bright colors cannot possibly relate the incredible angst, the utter desolation of my soul, the desperation of it all. oh, life is so devoid of brightness, so sad... why should my game be different?

Re:No problem here

[BRSloth]

I think the problem is that people don't understand the story behind Diablo.

Diablo 1 events took very long, from King Leoric fall, the death of Prince Albrecht and the appearance of our hero. Also notice that the story says that several other heroes came to Tristam to find fame and fortune, but never came back from the dungeons. So, the place was completely defiled when you start the game.

Diablo 2 events, which should start some time after Diablo is defeated in the first game, find a kinda nice place, except for Kurast, which has been defiled by Mephisto. Also, you move from far away to Tristam, so the land is not defiled by the evils yet.

Diablo 3, as I could understand by the video, seems to take 20 years after the defeat of all Prime Evils and the game starts just after the fall of the meteor. So I would expect that there was no time to have the land and the dungeons defiled.

Re:No problem here

[saturn_vk]

Well, chasm, which was released just a year after quake, had a lot more variant color palette. Not in a single level, but not all levels were brown.

Re:No problem here

[FreonTrip]

I was sort of hoping that Unreal would lead the way, but the large number of Quake II engine licensees,lingering holdouts for software renderers, and a large population of fairly crappy 3D cards held things back. People also wanted more dark 'n' gritty - this was the '90s, remember what comic books looked like? :)

Re:No problem here

[steveo777]

Bob Ross + Diablo?

Happy little Baal spawn over here. And let's put a little path to the unholy nexus of chaos.

Re:No problem here

[Bloodoflethe]

I think this is intentional, make the flood ugly and horrifyingly so in contrast to the natural orderly life around it.

Re:No problem here

[Anonymous Coward]

It's never that simple. If they did just repackage Diablo 2, they'd get people whining that nothing's improved. If they do improve things, no matter what direction they take on improvements, there are going to be portions of the fanbase unhappy with the direction it's improved in. You can't make all of the people happy all of the time.

Now in my opinion, Blizzard have it right. A dark world made up of dark colours where you can't see much is an okay novelty for five minutes, but an entire game made up of it is boring as fuck and annoying to play. Some may argue that doing it that way adds to realism, but I'll argue that there is such a thing as too much realism in a game.

Re:No problem here

[Chris Burke]

I was sort of hoping that Unreal would lead the way, but the large number of Quake II engine licensees,lingering holdouts for software renderers, and a large population of fairly crappy 3D cards held things back. People also wanted more dark 'n' gritty - this was the '90s, remember what comic books looked like? :)

Bah, the generation I'm talking about is the post-glquake generation when having at least a Voodoo card was assumed if you wanted nice graphics. But that's a great point about the 90s and comics. I'm more than familiar with what the market's take on "edgy" was, and it was drab schlock but with lots of spikes. That bane influence has yet to lose its grip on the game industry, including its fanboys. :P

Re:No problem here

[Artuir]

Yeah, that was one thing that interested me. The demo they showed of the game is likely not from an act farther in. Perhaps shit hasn't hit the proverbial fan yet. Yes monsters are starting to come in or be summoned, but the land hasn't died yet. Who knows.

Maybe later on in the game it does get a lot more twisted. It did in all the others - so I think that people complaining about what the demo showed and the art style exposed thus far need to chill out and suck on a pacifier a bit longer.

You know, get your leet IRC buddies to create a universal shader for use in D3D apps to make it a goth emo game if you're that worried.

Re:No problem here

[Anonymous Coward]

As with any game with a fiercly loyal fan base, nothing blizzard can do including repackaging Diablo 2 (and probably not even then), will make these people happy.

Fixed!

Re:No problem here

[solios]

Diablo has a story?!

Seriously. If I want a story, I'll buy a book. I played Diablo because it was a fun little point-and-kill dungeon crawler with phat lootz. I stopped playing Warcraft III because the game kept shitting its story all over me, forcing me to stop cold and wait... and wait... and wait... for it to get the hell out of the way so I could get on with the action.

It's nice if a game has a well thought out backstory and a story that doesn't get in the way of actually enjoying the game itself.... but when a game's story starts to bloat into the Interactive Fiction realm, then it's time to stop billing the damned thing as a game.

Heck, everyone I've ever talked to about Diablo over the last ten years and it's in a stray slashdot comment that I find the first mention of story.

Crazy.

Re:No problem here

[DoofusOfDeath]

So I would expect that there was no time to have the land and the dungeons defiled.

You don't need meteors or prime evils to have defiled dungeons?

Sorry, I can't decide if I'm attempting dark humor or political commentary.

Re:No problem here

[benhattman]

I think the point about a gothic feel is essential. It's likely that will be accomplished through sound as much as artwork, which is something people tend to ignore. The pictures on the box might not express that feeling completely, but I bet once you put the disk in your drive it'll all "feel right".

Re:No problem here

[crappykong]

Generally I agree with your sentiment; it's very difficult to satisfy the devoted. However, I'm thinking Blizzard could have done a little better than handing this beloved franchise over to the designer of Blood 2. Please prove us wrong, Mr. Wilson.

Re:No problem here

[rtechie]

Game developers over the last ten years have been tied to the idea that something can only be spooky if it's dark brown and gray, and is also a sewer.

It's a basic lack of originality in general. The "space marine" or variant is the protagonist in virtually all FPS. How many warehouses and office buildings have you seen? The weapons are pretty much the same too. As are the enemies. Gears of War, the best FPS I've played recently, follows this pattern to a T. The only saving grace is the improved gameplay, otherwise it's cliche' city.

To dark

[Drakin020]

I think a lot of the user created images are just to dark. Seriously it shouldn't be pitch black 5 feet away from your character. Some of those images were just over done. However I do think the rainbow in that one image in the article is a bit cheesy....

Re:To dark

[pxc]

Why is it cheesy? When it rains, there are rainbows. Also, the imagined homophobic reaction of some gamers is delightful to me.

Re:To dark

[WDot]

In the older Diablos, this was sometimes the case. The dungeon would be pitch black, but there would be a circle of light right around you. You could increase the radius of this circle by equipping certain "radiant" items. I think those screenshots, along with the ones with the noise effect applied, are trying to recapture a retro Diablo feel as closely as possible.

to be honest....

[Premo_Maggot]

I can't really tell any big differences in any of the screenshots by just looking at them.

bgy

[Annymouse Cowherd]

What I don't like is the excessive amount of blue, green, and yellow on what should be plain stone tiles.

Re:bgy

[Anonymous Coward]

Because water is #000FF, grass is #00FF00 and rock is #808080... amirite?

Re:bgy

[Anonymous Coward]

Why "should" it be plain stone tiles? Maybe the stones used to build these locations were one of the thousands of variants of marble or granite that are varying shades of pink, blue, green, yellow, brown etc. But lets not get caught up with facts Blizzard is stupid! Rocks aren't any color but grey!

Re:bgy

[Anonymous Coward]

but is this your world or the world of Diablo? That's the thing with creative license, you can do whatever the hell you want.

I'll be happy with whatever Blizzard wants to give me, they've got talented artists and engineers emotionally and creatively entangled with this world. People just need to relax and let them give us a product *they're* happy with, then everything will be sweet.

Re:bgy

[gregbot9000]

Or the rainbow in the lower left picture. I think most of this is blown out of proportion, but rainbows? The only game ever liked having a rainbow in was Katamari Damacey.

Re:bgy

[Palshife]

Design a video game. Then you can dictate what "should" be.

Re:bgy

[capnchicken]

Thank you for pointing this out. All I've seen so far is people bitching about bitching, senseless talk about shading and lighting, and retard elitists spewing off about "if you can't do it yourself, then don't criticize, durrrr..." like they've never criticized something they couldn't do before.

It's fucking Diablo, not WoW. The colors look like WoW, not Diablo. Can we please have the Diablo feel, the one that made Blizzard an earlier pile of money, before they made a butt fuck pile of money off of WoW.

The biggest changes I saw between the two 'screenshots', were textures and colors. Not what was behind candle light and what wasn't.

More grey, less pastel.

Re:bgy

[LunarCrisis]

What I don't like is the excessive amount of blue, green, and yellow on what should be plain stone tiles.

Haven't you heard? It's because they're made of awesome!

Re:bgy

[Anonymous Coward]

:cough: Blue + yellow = green :cough:

Re:bgy

[drakono]

Maybe that's because colored light sources make other objects looks colored? No, that's far too simple an explanation. D3 is obviously a gay WoW clone! *rolls eyes*

Its Blizzard

[dunezone]

This has to do with Blizzard. Ever since Warcraft 3 they have shifted their graphic design to a more cartoonish or anime style.

Re:Its Blizzard

[techiemikey]

I was unaware that "being able to see" meant cartoony.

Re:Its Blizzard

[Annymouse Cowherd]

You can see in the fan made shots, you just need to not be viewing thumbnails...

Re:Its Blizzard

[PotatoFarmer]

This has to do with Blizzard. Ever since Warcraft 3 they have shifted their graphic design to a more cartoonish or anime style.

I think the cartoonish style is more about a means to an end, rather than an end in and of itself. Blizzard prides itself on producing games that will run well on average hardware, and that means reduced scene complexity, especially in cases where you've got arbitrary amounts of geometry on the screen. Because of this, they're limited to broader artistic strokes to convey meaning.

I look at this a lot like stage theater - actors make exaggerated gestures and wear dramatic makeup on stage because they need to transcend the limitations of the medium. Blizzard uses simple polygons and textures because that's the best way to get a whole bunch of em on the screen at any given time. As long as it doesn't break immersion (and I understand for some people it does, but not for me), then I'm fine with it.

Personally, watching the gameplay video I wasn't thinking "these colors look off" or "this seems too cartoon-like". I was thinking more along the lines of "whoa, wall of zombies" and "that thing just bit that guy in half!"

Re:Its Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

YHBT

Re:Its Blizzard

[Annymouse Cowherd]

Except they could easily make the game look more like what people wanted it to look like by reducing the lighting and desaturating the textures a bit, it wouldn't require more polygons or processing power. The whole thing about shadows is the only thing that they couldn't really do without much higher system requirements.

Re:Its Blizzard

[Millennium]

Awww, is Mr. Winkie feeling a little small?

Seriously; what's wrong with graphics that don't get in the way? Bloom-ridden gray-and-brown gets in the way of gameplay, and comparison shots like these show it better than just about anything else: it becomes too difficult to tell things apart. A little color makes games more fun.

Re:Its Blizzard

[AlpineR]

I'm impressed with Blizzard's attention to detail. Some game designers (and designers in other fields) don't pay enough attention to things like visibility, subtly, utility, and balance in visuals. You might not like the style they chose, but you have to respect that they can justify the decision rather than just say "we like it that way".

Re:Its Blizzard

[PotatoFarmer]

True enough, but couldn't those same users adjust their own monitor/video settings to achieve the level of brightness they desire? I'd rather have the colors start out more vivid with the ability for the user to dial it back, than for things to start out too dark and end up looking washed out when brightness settings are raised.

Re:Its Blizzard

[skeeto]

Ever since Warcraft 3 [...]

I guess you never played the first two Warcrafts? Warcraft games have always been cartoony.

Re:Its Blizzard

[p0tat03]

Wha? Last I checked Starcraft and Warcraft 2 were both plenty cartoony. Even the original Diablo games had *glowing red monsters*... Blizzard has *never* been known for gritty, realistic rendering...

Re:Its Blizzard

[gsn]

It isn't cartoonish or anime - the idea is to create a fantasy world. Diablo didn't have a world - it had a town with a plain boring dungeon that was pretty much exactly the same all the way down. D2 made the first effort where you had some more variety in the character classes and that there were distinct areas each with a different feel but within each you still had dungeons that were essentially the same. From what I can tell with the screenshots for this world they are actually trying to create more of a world this time around, and hopefully give it more of an RPG feel than a pure hack/slash.

Re:Its Blizzard

[tim_darklighter]

There is not enough evidence to make your claim. The two Blizzard games released since D2:LoD were Warcraft games (WC3 and WoW), and WC games have always been cartoony (look at WC1 and WC2). Diablo (I and II) and Starcraft (I and II) have been gothic and anime-ish respectively since their inception. (Note that SC: Ghost may never be released, so I won't count it). Remember that Blizzard North = Diablo and Blizzard = SC and WC. I would say a lot of the art direction stems from that division, although I don't have more evidence than that. I would be personally disappointed if D3 were drawn like WoW, but the initial gameplay trailer dismissed that for me.

Re:Its Blizzard

[UnknowingFool]

It's really a matter of perspective. The difference between what the designers have made and what these fans want are slight. While Diablo III might not be as dark as they want it, it isn't as cartoonish as Super Mario Bros or Sonic the Hedgehog when it comes to color palette. Most people won't really care.

Re:Its Blizzard

[garylian]

It has more to do with Blizzard realizing that having a game that has lower GPU requirements means a greater possibility of getting a sale.

Not everyone out there wants to get a new machine to play a particular game. Heck, when WoW came out, I was running a P4 1.8GHz machine with about 1GB RAM and a pretty darn old graphics card, and the game ran great everywhere but IF. And that was a huge thing, considering that same system could barely run EQ2.

A decent number of folks will leave WoW to try the newest MMO thrown out there, and those are the hardcore players that will buy/build a new system to play a particular game. And then they will find out the new game is mostly crap (Hello, AoC is calling! Is that you, Warhammer?) and come back to WoW. But the majority of folks are liking the fact that WoW runs great on their older system with no extra cash spent on upgrades. That fact, as much as gameplay, is why WoW has 10 million plus subscribers.

So, why would they ruin that model by making some really crazy effort to have uber-graphics to satisfy the less than 5% of gamers that are going to spank their monkey over the newest GPU to come out?

Make the game attractive and fun to play, and people will play it. Lord knows, most games I end up cranking up the gamma right off the bat, since I don't live in a cave.

Re:Its Blizzard

[Annymouse Cowherd]

Seriously; what's wrong with having some atmosphere? Ridiculous colors get in the way of the gloomy atmosphere, and comparison shots like these show it better than just about anything else: it makes everything look cartoony. WoW-style coloration makes games look stupid.

Re:Its Blizzard

[rilister]

I have to assume you never played Warcraft I/II

"I love blowing things up!"

-I always resented the move aware from goofiness to serious fantasy "dungeons and dragons"-style.

"For the KING!"

For heaven's sake: even Diablo II had a secret cow level!

Re:Its Blizzard

[genner]

For heaven's sake: even Diablo II had a secret cow level!

Yes but it was dark secret cow level.
That's how you know it's evil.

Re:Its Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

Never played the first two warcraft games, eh?

Re:Its Blizzard

[thepotoo]

I think that Starcraft was supposed to be more serious, in keeping with the gritty, cold, harsh future it tried to portray. It's a little hard to tell with 2D graphics, though, as so much of the shading and detailed rendering took place in your imagination.

Re:Its Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

Diablo didn't have a world - it had a town with a plain boring dungeon that was pretty much exactly the same all the way down.

Yet another poster in here who talks about the original Diablo but has never actually played it.

Re:Its Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is covered in TFA, specifically why they don't do that.

Re:Its Blizzard

[p0tat03]

I dunno, the whole thing has always been somewhat goofy to me. I mean, they knew that the whole "big suit space marine" thing was cliche, and they poked fun at themselves for it. Nearly all of the unit voices were parodies of classic sci-fi. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I think that Starcraft was always intended a game that's not to be taken TOO seriously.

Re:Its Blizzard

[lgw]

Except most people are tired of desaturated textures. Enough with the emo kids already! If Blizzard knows anything, it's the taste of their target market. Perhaps they're more interested in making a game that 10s of millions will buy than making a few hardcore fans happy?

Re:Its Blizzard

[lgw]

OK, fine, Dialbo had a town with *4* plain boring dungeons that were pretty much the same until you changed to the next one.

Re:Its Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

Awwwwww. Don't cry, emo kid!

Re:Its Blizzard

[oneTheory]

It's possible Blizzard is trying to cash in on the WoW fan base although I really hope that's not true..

Re:Its Blizzard

[gsn]

Not that it proves anything but this was something I posted two years ago.

http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=195474&cid=16020768

Eventually I gave up and picked up the battle chest and did play diablo again and it was boring because the levels were incredibly repetitive. They were procedurally generated - what did anyone expect? That adding lava was suddenly going to make the environment more interesting? It was behind par for the time too mind - several 2D and FPS games had better level design and came out before Diablo. The crusader games comes to mind.

Re:Its Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the four areas (Church, Catacombs, Caves and Hell) were not the same either. Try again.

Re:Its Blizzard

[AaxelB]

Ever since Warcraft 3 [...]

I guess you never played the first two Warcrafts? Warcraft games have always been cartoony.

I dunno, in the original Warcraft your units were about 7 pixels wide and, given that, their proportions and such seemed pretty close to realistic.

Granted, I haven't played it in a long time, I could be mistaken. I should pull it out again... though I recall trying it out once after it had already been gathering dust for years, and being flabbergasted and annoyed that I could neither right-click nor drag to select groups. Maybe I'll go back to Warcraft 2, instead.

Re:Its Blizzard

[qopax]

He means the levels during the different dungeons were the same, until you switched to the next, type, of dungeon (i.e. Church to Catacombs).

I guess I have to agree, having played through it.

Re:Its Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do I get the feeling that most people making this claim are StarCraft fans?

If you'd actually played Warcraft 1 and 2 you wouldn't think 3 was a sudden shift to a cartoonish style...

Besides, colourful art LOOKS BETTER. No amount of pixel or vertex shading and HDR can make a dull, greyish brown game interesting to look at no matter how "Next Gen" it may be.

Re:Its Blizzard

[AP31R0N]

I guess you never played the first two Warcrafts? Warcraft games have always been Warhammery.

FTfY.

Re:Its Blizzard

[mcvos]

This has to do with Blizzard. Ever since Warcraft 3 they have shifted their graphic design to a more cartoonish or anime style.

I think you mean "away from". Warcraft 1 and 2 are cartoonish. These screenshots aren't.

Re:Its Blizzard

[omfglearntoplay]

They had their cartoony bits, but they weren't huge blobs like in War3 or WoW. Seriously, they need to slim and sharpen their units/characters.

Big Props to the Designer

[KnowledgeEngine]

I'm going to have to go ahead and say regardless of anyones personal preference we have to give a lot of credit to the designer for taking the time to comment on their choices. Personally the only user created design change I like better is the last one...wow gayness.

Re:Big Props to the Designer

[Dmala]

Yeah, he has far more patience than I'd have. It takes a lot of nerve to take screenshots of an unfinished, unreleased game, hack them up in Photoshop, and then go "See, *this* is what you should have done." Let Blizzard design the game, and more importantly, let them finish and release it. If you play the finished product and it sucks, then you have a legitimate gripe. It's not like Blizzard doesn't have a track record of making great stuff.

I can't think of a better way to create a complete trainwreck of a game than to let a committee of fanboys design it.

Re:Big Props to the Designer

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if they had legimate gripes but waited until the game comes out before speaking, their input wouldn't take effect until Diablo IV.
However obnoxious you find them, they do represent a segment of the end users. In all software diciplines I've worked in, it's considered critical to get input from your customer at every opportunity, and as early in the design process as possible. I don't see why games would benefit from being designed in a vacuum, and only asking "Well, do you like it?" after the boxes have shipped.

Re:Big Props to the Designer

[melikamp]

I can't think of a better way to create a complete trainwreck of a game than to let a committee of fanboys design it.

Hmmm.... What about designing the game by two committees of fanboys, representing two different schools of thought, where every decision is an outcome of the eternal struggle for power?

Monitors

[Freeside1]

Seems to me that the critics/photoshopppers just want a game that looks like it's constantly nighttime.

If they want a dark, difficult to see game, they can just adjust their monitor (brightness, saturation, etc). Let the rest of us see what we're doing.

Re:Monitors

[AndersOSU]

Diablo 3 now with novelty sunglasses!

There's a marketing opportunity here.

Some of you need to play D2 again

[Anonymous Coward]

People are always complaining about how colorful the current d3 images are. Did any of you ever play Diablo 2? Go join a hell difficulty game. Whenever you see champion/unique/superunique monsters, you almost always see an array of colors. Purples and Reds. Green auras. Even if you're running through the depths of a countess' tower, the screen is contrasted by dark colors and bright colors.

These bright colors make the game easier to play (oh that mob has one red enemy in it, that's the one I want to pop to get the better loot and more exp).

If some of the armchair game critics would go and reinstall d2, they would see that the new style is not all that different from the old! ... And now I'm back to key runs. Need to get a hellfire torch! Later!

Re:Some of you need to play D2 again

[thepotoo]

OK, I just fired up Diablo 2...it's been almost three days since I played it last, and it hasn't changed much.

The big difference I see between D2 and the D3 gameplay video is cartoon models and realistic shadows. Make the shadows darker and soften the edges of them in Diablo 3, and you'll have solved one problem. (I know real world shadows are sharp, but I prefer the look of soft shadows, especially on low-polygon game models). The cartoon models could prove to be a bit more of a challenge. Most of the models in game look straight out of WoW (Look at the "Thousand Pounder" 10 minutes into the gameplay preview). The bosses are the big problem here, but really the whole game needs a re-work. Even with the graphics problems, I'm sure it will be fantastic, just not as good as Diablo 2.

MTV Trolls

[LameAssTheMity]

I don't know about you all, but I hardly consider "MTV" a reputable source of insight.

If the popular culture trolls don't like the way a a sequel to one of best selling PC games looks, who the hell cares? As far as I can tell, people are still playing WoW, which isn't exactly Crysis....

shit brown != realism | atmosphere

[El_Muerte_TDS]

The fan altered images are mostly converted to shit brown.
Games these days or often either shit brown, or totally neon colored. There should be a proper color balance. It's must more interesting.

Diablo 3's color usage isn't that bad, it could do with a little less bloom. But then again, it's not as terrible as Halo 3's bloom.

Game content and theme

[rpillala]

In Diablo I, the player was going down down down and it got darker as you went. This is part of the game, and as such it made sense to get darker.

In Diablo II, there are only a few zones that have a large number of levels, namely the zones leading to bosses. Much of the rest of the game is outdoors and pretty brightly lit. In the expansion, it's a snowscape which is about as bright as you can get. There's no sense of delving down so it didn't get darker. Even the hell portion of the game was itself a large flat landscape. I guess the three prime evils like to be able to see in front of themselves too.

Depending on what this game is about, it may not make sense for every indoor area to be pitch the fuck black. I agree that it's a more challenging game if you don't see infinitely in front of you, and maybe they'll address it. I hope there's some variety in the environments and how you have to navigate them, as it will make a better game. Fans requiring all the locations to be muted and gloomy are thinking short sighted.

"wow gayness"

[BobMcD]

I think that title is VERY telling for Blizzard's future challenges.

WoW is cartoon-y. Its cute. Very soft fantasy.

Diablo is not, and never has been.

Nor has Starcraft, for that matter.

Since WoW is a behemoth now, everything Blizzard ever does will be compared to it. This, to me at least, means they should focus on making things have a very distinct feel. Otherwise, the comparisons will be the killer.

"Yeah, Diablo III was okay, but it just wasn't WoW..." probably isn't something they want to hear.

Re:"wow gayness"

[michaeltoe]

It's almost like Diablo 3 isn't an MMO, and StarCraft 2 isn't an adventure game.

Re:"wow gayness"

[BobMcD]

Very cute.

It's also almost like certain achievements are hard to overcome, and become the only thing certain content producers are ever known for...

Re:"wow gayness"

[icegreentea]

Its hard to say with Starcraft. In game graphics in Starcraft were such that... well, really, you can't tell much. From what you can tell, I -would- say that it was cartoony. Bright colors everywhere, massive shoulderpads, big bright explosions and splatter. The FMV cut scenes on the other hand were somewhat darker, more realistic. But then again, have you seen the announcement trailer for SC2?

Really, when I was watching the gameplay vid, I really didn't notice the Barb being somewhat cartoony. As long as every set of armor doesn't turn into HUGE PAULDRONS and massive boots, then really, its ok.

Re:"wow gayness"

[BobMcD]

That factors into it as well, however.

Consider this, if it isn't well deserved, where is it coming from? And if caused by an indirect effect, can they easily counter it?

Re:"wow gayness"

[NeoSkandranon]

The real problem as I see it is that they're inviting the comparison themselves. From model design to interface to icons they're making design choices that will make people think "oh hey they pulled that out of WoW"

Personally, I don't care for that. Yes WOW was good (IMO) but incorporating lots of elements from it into the next good game just lessens the distinction (stylistically and play-wise) of the new game.

Re:"wow gayness"

[melikamp]

WoW is cartoon-y. Its cute. Very soft fantasy. Diablo is not, and never has been.

Blizzard's games have never been anything but cartoonish. If you got a cold-steel-gothic feel out of Diablo, its is because you were still wearing diapers irl. Now you are older and WoW, which youngsters probably think is ABSOLUTELY EPIC, looks childish to you.

Re:"wow gayness"

[BobMcD]

That's a bunch of revisionist crap.

As I recall, Walmart wouldn't stock the original Diablo due to the theme of the game.

Re:"wow gayness"

[brkello]

Please go back and play D2. I think your imagination and time has made you guys forget what the game actually looks like.

Re:"wow gayness"

[melikamp]

So? It is not PC, but still cartoonish. And I am not sure that the word "revisionist" means what you think it means.

V. short version.

[MRe_nl]

A lot of the D3 fans don't want D3 to look like WOW.
Designer says "Interesting (not), but thanks for the publicity" ; )

I must say i agree with most of the designers points.
It still has to be easy on the eyes and gameplay, artistic perfection
is not the main point.
And, as others have pointed out, if it's too "happy" for you, adjust the gamma, not the game.
Comma coma, must rest...

Re:V. short version.

[gregbot9000]

Ok, but this isn't just happy, it is cartoon-y. In the upper left hand corner of the lower left screen shot, there is a rainbow. A rainbow. Not a hellish rainbow being cast from the saliva of a monster, but the pot-o-gold singing and dancing type. A rainbow in a game about battling the minions of hell. See where the discontent comes from?

Re:V. short version.

[MRe_nl]

As a DM, I oft give my players glimpses of hope and good and beauty in vile surroundings,
if only to have (possibly) nasty things happen to it/them.
(I don't know whether this was intended in this case though.)
At higher level game play (AD&D)it's good fun to shatter their dreams and aspirations.
Just damaging them and draining their stats and levels can get so boring.

As for cartoon-y, I have allways found Diablo somewhat cartoony.
Allthough I've only played D1 completely iarc.
I don't mind either way as long as the game is good, exciting, bug-free.

Hey emo kids, try this!!

[nobodyman]

Here's what you can do:

1. get some transparency paper
2. print out a radial gradient fill that's clear in the middle and black on the edges
3. paste it on your screen

Problem solved. Diablo zealots are happy, blizzard is happy. Emo kids can use this approach for a host of other games too. As for me, I won't do any of that sillyness. My monitor is rectangular for a reason.

Re:Hey emo kids, try this!!

[Annymouse Cowherd]

Err, my complaint was more that you can see behind objects that you shouldn't be able too. Like those trees...

Re:Hey emo kids, try this!!

[JCSoRocks]

The gist of the article is that that's because it's too expensive to do dynamic vis and dynamic lighting everywhere. Anyone that's ever played on some horrible Source map (DOD, CS, TF2) where someone's packed it full of dynamic lights knows what I'm talking about too.

I agree that it'd be awesome to see the lights wrap around objects and cast real shadows... but when you've got 20 zombies running around while you're running around and you've got to calculate the shadows based on the light emanating from both you and the handful of environmental lights - things get interesting.

Blizzard is trying to avoid making Diablo III - Crysis edition... and that's commendable.

I'll give it a try

[Shadow of Eternity]

Honestly my only issue with the blizzard designs are the tf2 style "Hay look we're reusing stuff from 1998" low-res textures and that the armor seems to be less realistic (at least in its physical proportions).

Re:I'll give it a try

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't quite understand cel shading, do you?

Or game art design in general, I suppose.

Re:I'll give it a try

[Shadow of Eternity]

Good thing for me diablo 3 isn't cell shaded then, isn't it?

Better Summary - Diablo III

[Nymz]

A Diablo III representative defended design choices against 'dark & desaturated' versus 'brighter & colored'. While admiting that a single screen shot could look cooler when 'dark & destaurated', they concluded, after much playtesting, that 'brighter & colored' 1) offered greater visual playability when many creatures and players are on the screen, and 2) made the game more intersting because different game areas actually looked different.

Re:Better Summary - Diablo III

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the losers should come outside from mommy and daddy's basement and see what sunlight looks like.

Re:Better Summary - Diablo III

[pdusen]

I agree. This is a better summary.

Re:Better Summary - Diablo III

[gregbot9000]

I don't get the dark vs. bright, because the bright, like they say, is easier to see. It is the content that all the complaints seem to be over. They are making it to be more magical fantasy, ala WoW. I've pointed this out earlier but In the upper left hand corner of the lower left screen shot, there is a rainbow. This isn't about light or dark its about the way the game is presenting itself. If they want an action game about people battling hell this isn't it. This might as well be a Warcraft game about the Burning Legion.

Re:Better Summary - Diablo III

[bill_mcgonigle]

'brighter & colored' 1) offered greater visual playability

I'll second this. I have up on Diablo because I kept getting killed by screen elements I couldn't even see. That wasn't challenging, it was annoying, as there's no defense. I skipped Diablo II because it looked like the SoS.

Maybe third time's a charm.

Re:Better Summary - Diablo III

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't 'spose there's any chance of finding this guy a job writing the summaries at /. is there...?
Spot on my friend, spot on

Re:Better Summary - Diablo III

[a_real_bast...]

Did you RTFA where he said one of the artists put in a rainbow solely to piss people off?
Plus, the rainbow in the screenshot is at the bottom of a waterfall. They do happen, even in the "grittiest" of universes.

You'll crank the gamma anyways.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see the point of arguing "it's too bright and cartoony". 80% of you (made up on the spot based on my pool of D2 playing friends) would just crank the gamma to see things anyways.

And Blizz has had a shoulder pad fetish since WC3 anyways. Even look back at D2 and SC, it was muted back then but you can still see it taking root.

I may be changing my mind

[incripshin]

I never thought the rainbow was that bad. I just don't want to see it all the time. And the image of a rainbow shooting out of a Diablo's corpse is hilarious (Aqua Teen). It reminds me, though, of Lord of the Rings (The Two Towers, I think). In the movie, Frodo and Sam are walking through the gloomy Ithilien. They see some light come down on the head from a statue, and you notice that it has a crown of flowers. It wasn't long at all before the clouds blocked the sun and the mood turned dark again. It was a glimmer of hope in the midst of despair. The same thing will work for Diablo.

Now that I see the reasons for choosing the color schemes that they did, I'm willing to cut them some slack. But I don't want to see all the colors of the rainbow at once, like you do in the outdoor scene in the middle of autumn. That is definitely a Warcraft environment, and it needs to go.

Graphical look

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you want it to look like Diablo 2 anyway?

Diablo 2 looked like shit!! Blurry shit!!

Diablo 1 had the good look. It also had better music; The music made the game...

Re:Graphical look

[Lobster Quadrille]

Am I the only person who turns off the in-game music and listens to his stereo instead?

Even today with their huge budgets, most games don't have that great of music, and even when they do, you get sick of it after a few all-night gaming sessions.

I still play a lot of the classics, but I can't stand the music.

It's not gamma

[bigtangringo]

The altered screenshots have a certain grungy, gloomy richness to them, while the originals have a pale, blown-out look to them.

Oh, and I really only want a D3 for the fucking amazing graphics. The originals look like a top down WoW clone, which looked like a first/third person clone of WC3 with higher resolution models.

Re:It's not gamma

[DigiShaman]

Ya, I agree. Unless it's dark and gloomy, it's not really gothic. The idea is to provide a depressing environment when dealing with *evil*. Oh well, I guess most people prefer a Fantasia/WOW vivid look instead.

To each his own. But having a filter option to choose would be nice. I won't hold my breath though.

Why Bother?...

[whisper_jeff]

While I know the urge to show why these fans' visions simply do not work is strong, I have to ask, why bother? What's to be gained? They won't change their minds. Educating them to the reasons for decisions that are made won't change the fact that they want to bitch and moan about something - ANYTHING. Also, they want to show off. They want to play in Photoshop with the images and have their friends ooh and aah about how much better their versions look when the reality is that a vast, vast, vast majority of people feel that Blizzard makes simply stunning games. I won't even get into the fact that the fan-altered versions look like crap and are way too dark because that's beside the point - I just don't understand why he spent any time or effort responding to this sort of thing. Nothing will change for having done it other than giving the fans versions an extra 15 minutes of fame...

Re:Why Bother?...

[Lobster Quadrille]

Free publicity, more hype.

Re:Why Bother?...

[Anonymous Coward]

While I know the urge to show why these fans' visions simply do not work is strong, I have to ask, why bother? What's to be gained? They won't change their minds.

Since they're planning on selling it, you would think that if there's a big enough outcry against it, and that people wouldn't buy the game because of it, they would, I don't know, listen to their customers?

I got a solution for these hardcore gamers

[ndnspongebob]

Go to Hell! It has everything your looking for.

resolution

[Anonymous Coward]

All I care about as far as graphics go is resolution. If I could get past the 800x600 cap in D2 then I'd still be playing it. But on a 1680x1050 22" lcd its near unplayable without getting a headache.

In short. 1680x1050 resolution + D2 -> we've got a winner with D3 ...well, ok and not have the 3 month expiration on characters =/

Deep dank dark dungeons

[sa1lnr]

are always well lit and brightly coloured. ;)

Personally the moody feel of the original Diablo is still favourite with me.

gamma+

[Anonymous Coward]

I always had to up the gamma anyway

um

[Anonymous Coward]

i fail to see how applying unsharp mask makes it any better

ymmv

Hellgate

[AnalogyShark]

People might remember a game called Hellgate London. A game where they decided that killing zombies in a dark subway would never get old. I think we all know how that wonderful that game turned out to be. The last paragraphs of the linked article, where Wilson talks about Diablo 2, and how it changes every 15 minutes was actually really enlightening on to why that game (Hellgate) was such trash in comparison. You never got anywhere. A person could leave you for an hour, come back, and you'd still be in the same damn subway, doing the same damn thing.

I really wish people would learn from the Blizzard ways of doing thing and learn 2 things. People want a product that functions correctly and simply, and people want a product that is complete. Most people would rather get a sandwich in an hour than get a piece of lettuce and some ketchup right now.

Re:Hellgate

[pcolaman]

Yeah, kind of ironic how the people that were (at least to a degree) more tutored in designing the Diablo games that split off made a game that (seemingly, we won't know for sure until after D3 is out) is far inferior to what Blizzard is doing with Diablo 3. Change isn't always a bad thing, and really, the main thing that has changed is that the environments are more diverse, more realistic, and more interesting. Even Diablo 2 got old after a while. By the time you saw the same general random dungeon near the end of an Act, you were damn glad to move onto the next Act and get a fresh environment. And the palette was not near as powerful in Diablo 2 as it seems to be in Diablo 3, where they can convey more violence by subtleties in the blood gushing, the detail of the models, and the lighting that is light years beyond anything that Blizz was capable of doing with D2.

Re:Hellgate

[nanowired]

Unfortunatly people tend to make insight based on why Hellgate was bad only due to the numbers, and not do to the reality. The problem is, that EA got ahold of it. And when they did, its obvious they made some demands... The world design, the story direction, the gameplay direction, and the voice direction all seemed to be put together by different isolated groups of people who had their own idea about the game. As in, it lacked cohesion. The concept comic that came with the special edition was sooo much better than what the game turned out to be. That, and the "towns" were layered with EA game advertisements.

Back to Lost Vikings

[SeinJunkie]

This has to do with Blizzard. Ever since Warcraft 3 they have shifted their graphic design to a more cartoonish or anime style.

I agree. Lost Vikings had it right, with it's ultra-gritty, gothic realism. Let's see a return to the good old days of Blizzard like that!

Re:Back to Lost Vikings

[mrsalty]

ARGH! Flashback Horror.
I was on the Lost Vikings QA team.
There is no more sure way to make a game unfun than to play the same sequence over and over for 8 hours/day.
Sounds like one of the regular complaints about WOW.

Hello Kitty 40,000

[tepples]

but honestly, this is to be some form of a dark game, this is not hello kitty meets diablo.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

You can't please everyone...

[SpiritMaster]

At the end of the day the phrase 'you can't please everybody' should be the motto of every game developer simply because it is true. The mark of a good game developer is not ether or not they can please everybody, but rather that they take the time to address their fans concerns to make sure their game is one that will be hailed as a major success. Another mark of a good game developer is that they listen to their fans and (where possible) change their system to fix what is proven to been a game crippling mistake. Blizzard has had an excellent game track record, and I have been a fan of EVERY game they have released simply because they understand what it is that their customers want. The fact that they actually took the time to address their fans concerns and presented their arguments in a clear and mature fashion, also speaks volumes to their commitment to gamers, rather than their commitment to money, since surprisingly the two are not mutually inclusive.

That being said no doubt Diablo III will have issues, all games do, but I will happily lay down my money for a game made by a company that addresses their customers directly, and values their concerns, rather than those companies out there who only act when you start petitions. Personally I believe 'modding' is the future of all gaming, X3 being a good example, since it allows those who desire small tweaks to their gaming experience (such as atmosphere darkening), to run wild, and with a small ammount of support from the company can even be supported for online play.

These fanboys

[Vexorian]

If you really think D3 is WoWish, you either:

• Just happened to have taken a look at a single screenshot and have totally missed the gameplay video, hence you are clueless about the real look of d3.
• Would think D2 was also WoWish, since color means 'WoW gayness'.
• You are just plain dumb.

Re:These fanboys

[morari]

Well... It is hard to take anyone like that seriously, isn't it? I mean, really, "Gayness"? These guys need to grow up. The internet seems to be little more than racists and homophobes when it comes to popular video games.

Re:These fanboys

[MAbans]

I'm tired about hearing how cartoony it is, when Diablo II has a Cow level, so please, shush with the whole "it's too cartoony" argument please. Yeah colors are silly but The cow level where everyone goes to grind isn't, the logic these idiots use is mind boggling..

Hardcore fans.

[MaWeiTao]

I think screenshot with the pseudo graffiti font that reads, "wow gayness" pretty much reflects the stupidity and immaturity motivating these guys. I guess in their minds everything needs to be "hardcore".

All I have to say is thank goodness the fans aren't designing the game. I much prefer Blizzard's more colorful, softer feel.

The last thing I need is every little gritty detail being so prominent preventing important details like enemies, items and my own character from standing out. I also don't want Diablo 3 turning into yet another drab, monotone game like most other games out there.

Those fan-altered images look like every screenshot developers release for PS3 games desperate to impress everyone with graphics when they often don't have much else to go on.

I'm surprised that with the popularity of WoW and the Wii that so many gamers apparently are still clamoring for more gritty, realistic, and in my opinion, boring and uninspired, art. No wonder most developers keep churning out crap.

Re:Hardcore fans.

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>I think screenshot with the pseudo graffiti font that reads, "wow gayness" pretty much reflects the stupidity and immaturity motivating these guys. I guess in their minds everything needs to be "hardcore".

These are the folks with the brown on black web pages blaring lo-fi "heavy" metal.

Re:I have made it with a woman.

[Anonymous Coward]

Leela: Look, last night was a mistake.
Anonymous Coward: A sexy mistake.
Leela: No, just a regular mistake.

Or Tetris

[tepples]

I suggest you take a little trip to South Korea, where their national sport is a 10 year old 2D Blizzard game that runs at 640x480.

What about Hawaii, where the state sport runs fine in only 16x24 huge, chunky pixels?

Like

[qazwer00]

Is it just me or the guy really likes to use "like" all the time he's going like "we where like...", like all the time..

Obligatory Family Guy quote

[Yvan256]

"Alright. We're going to use a fan brush here, and, uh, I want you to take some hunter green and we're gonna put a happy little bush right down over here, in the corner there. And that'll be just our little secret....... And if you tell anyone, that that bush is there. I will come to your house and I will cut you!"

New versions are better.

[despawnerer]

No, really. The fan ones look better. Much better. More realistic and I love the colors. If you "can't see" something in the new version, maybe you should get your eyes checked or your monitor properly configured, they're as clear as the original ones, just a little darker and tinted to create atmosphere. And they definitely look less 'cartoonish'.

It IS kinda colorful

[CaptSaltyJack]

It's like Tim Burton did Diablo I and II, and fucking Joel Schumacher took over for Diablo III. Kinda. I'm reserving judgment until I actually play the game, though.

Screenshots don't do it justice

[pcolaman]

One thing that is often overlooked or forgotten is that these still shots don't do the game justice, because a game running at 24+ fps will always look better than a still frame from said game (reason why in many cases, still shots from games are usually doctored to smooth out the jaggies) and anyone who watches the D3 Demo and think the game looks "kiddie" and "Wowish" and isn't in good spirit of the original Diablo games either hasn't played them recent enough or needs to have their eyes checked. The game looks amazing, and plenty sinister without looking like Isometric Doom 3.

Forget the colors

[Yvan256]

All I want to know is if there's gonna be a secret cow level?

Although I'm getting tired of slaying evil walking cows... Make a deal with Fox and make a secret chicken level.

Of course, we'd need to have a chicken NPC give us a bad coupon to be able to enter the secret chicken level, but I'm sure Blizzard could squeeze that somewhere in the story.

Re:Forget the colors

[Anonymous Coward]

Any secret chicken level needs as its boss - Robot Chicken!

Welcome to 4chan!

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of these screenshots were made by people on 4chan's videogame board just after Diablo 3 was revealed. More than a few of the pictures are just plain trolling - I remember one complaining about how unrealistic a rainbow seen in a screenshot was; complete with math and trigonometry. Of course this also spawned a bunch of "Rainbows, in MY Diablo 3?" comments, and generally a lot of bitching. [Which is typical of 4chan.]

Something I find amusing is that up until Diablo 3 was announced and revealed, everyone in /v/ complained about how the gaming industry kept making things brown and grimndark. They, the gamers, wanted more colour and variation. Then along comes Blizzard, gives them just that, and they start complaining about how it's too colourful, and how the game isn't grim and dark enough.

The lesson to be learned here is that sometimes, you just need to ignore the vocal minority when you're doing something. Whether Diablo 3 is too colourful or too dark won't matter to 90% of the people who buy it, and personally, I think it's a good sign that the trolls are whining about the atmosphere, rather than the gameplay.

D24EVR

[IdeaMan]

Try playing Median and Kingdom of Tenaii.

I gorged on D2 also back in the day. Still can't forgive them for DMCA'ing BNetD and deleting all my characters though.

Diablo 3 graphics

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't we wait UNTIL the game comes out to actually see the finished product before some more idiots start bitchin" !!!!!

I'm an old gamer, but geez folks, don't get your panties in wad over graphics until the game comes out in another year or two !!!!

Re:Diablo 3 graphics

[Yvan256]

until the game comes out in another year or two!!!!

Optimistic, are you?

Repackage D2?

[IdeaMan]

Hmm, I'd say they should let us repackage D2/3.

That's the difference between D2, WC3, and HL
In the first, it's a total pain in the neck "we'll litigate you to death if you touch it" to mod it.
In the second, limitations on the map creation tools limited its usefulness.
On the last, there are huge amount of power available, but it's nearly as bad as writing your own game from scratch.

I say give us a D3 engine with 32 player multiplayer support, several levels of moddability (NWN style DM support - wc3ish type map/character/scripting - source module additions/changes), and an official launcher that mixes the best of BNetD and Steam that allows customs mods.
The community can take it from there just like we did with Half-Life.

Evil

[IdeaMan]

You know it's evil when the sound they make is some guy going "MOOO".

... And now for my human call...

But I don't understand, it looks great!

[hairykrishna]

The gameplay movie looked awesome! These guys were just hoping to be able to say 'see I told you it was going to suck'. Now the gameplay video looks awesome they have to bitch that it's 'too cartoony'. Fuck those guys. I can't wait until it comes out - I loved diablo 2 and I have a feeling I'm going to love this.

The Real News

[ProfessionalCookie]

The big deal here is actually that Blizzards development process includes fan feedback. Have you read the volumes of Q & A on SC2? There's few things better than responsive developers.

Not enough...

[Puffy Director Pants]

fluffy and cuddly kitties in Diablo III. I think somebody should show Blizzard how to add cute little kitties to the game. It would be so much better.

Re:Not enough...

[Yvan256]

How about a "OMG!!! PONIES!!!" edition?

Blizzard took a trick from FF1

[CorporateSuit]

From: TFA
Re: Changing blue-glowy bricks to grey bricks

When you pull all the color out of the environment and you make it too homogeneous across the game, essentially what you're doing is you're pulling away the player's reward of feeling like they've progressed because the area they're in now looks like the area they were in 30 to 45 minutes ago.

Ah yes... nothing gives a player a genuine sense of accomplishment like a pallette swap.

On Rainbows

[joNDoty]

OK, this is probably going to get modded -1 homosexual, but what's wrong with putting a rainbows in Diablo III? Would you really enjoy a game that was entirely dark and creepy? I think something as beautiful as a rainbow would give you a nice contrast for when the game gets darker.

I distinctly remember one scene in Diablo II where you clear out a den of vile creatures and suddenly the room lights up and sparkles. I see nothing wrong with a video game taking your breath away with beauty, even rainbow beauty.

Re:On Rainbows

[jack2000]

I could forgive Rainbows only if they are in the beginning and something cruel happens just after that, you know... for the shocking goodness.

Re:On Rainbows

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not supposed to enjoy it. You're supposed to feel the pain, suffering and depression of others, portrayed in the most graphic of ways.
The rainbow better be dying. Bleeding.

Anyone else think it's viral marketing ?

[renam00]

Seriously, this "look at the new Diablo III screenshots" contreversy has all the apparences of viral marketing to me... imho of course...

Re:Anyone else think it's viral marketing ?

[Yvan256]

Maybe even a disguised "public poll", erm, poll?

I don't dislike Blizzards shots,

[AbRASiON]

Blizzards shots looks quite fine but you have to admit the photoshops do look really cool

Re:I don't dislike Blizzards shots,

[mcvos]

Blizzards shots looks quite fine but you have to admit the photoshops do look really cool

They look cool as a picture, but I can imagine it'd be really annoying to play in that look continously for a long time.

I love darkness as much as the next guy. I have trouble distinguishing between all my black T-shirts in my black-brown wardrobe in my dark purple bedroom. Don't tell me about dark. But when playing a game, I'd like to be able to see what's going on.

Re:To all the people who support the dev:

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Any other savagely retarded assumptions you want to make, loser?

I don't get the darkness

[greymond]

Every now and again I can go for some dark moddy gothic artwork, but in a game that type of style is really hard to pull off well because if you can't tell the difference between an exploding monster and a bashing monster and your friend's toon, then gameplay wise it just doesn't work.

Just because something may look nice as a still, doesn't mean it will look or function well as an animation.

Game Music can be done well

[Anonymous Coward]

Game Music can be done well, go play bioshock for the best example I know of.

Does anyone remember how Diablo II actually looked

[Anonymous Coward]

Diablo II

That's plenty colorful. It seems people are complaining about the pastel and washed out colors more than anything.

Contrast != indistinct darkness.

Blizzard learned one important lesson from WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

Dark = hardcore
Colorful = mainstream

Blizzard is a company that wants to target a larger, mainstream audience, thus get used to colorful for D3. The hardcore audience needs to latch onto a fringe company that is looking to fill a niche, aka. hardcore gamers.

Palette choice

[Exitar]

While I don't like games with low illumination (so D3 will be an improvement over its predecessors), it seems that the screenshoots have way too much green and blue in them. Why?

They must be Quake fans

[Phantasmagoria]

I agree that the photoshopped images look better. I also agree with the developers that it would hurt gameplay. We all remember complaining about Quake's dark palette of brown and grey. Yet all those screenshots did JUST THAT.

Diablo 2 had a contrast and gamma option.

[morikahnx]

All those fan shots are nothing more gamma, contrast, and saturation alterations. The original Diablo 2 has 2 of those options - Blizzard just needs to add saturation video options to Diablo 3. I was able to replicate the fan shots in photoshop in about 30 seconds using just those 3 settings. BTW, I completely agree with the Blizzard Design team on the new look. I hated playing Diablo 2 cause of the limited pallete selection. Everything looked the god damn same.

Screw the ventilation ducts

[patio11]

Just moonwalk into every room so you can shoot the monster who pops up as soon as you get in, and you'll be perfectly fine.

Am I the only one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who kinda got sick of playing D2 with the map constantly up and alt continuously down while in dungeons? Loot was impossible to see in the total dark environmments, and I've already fought the damn monsters for the loot, I don't want to have to fight the darkness too. And when you're walking in black, with black in front of you and behind you, and the walls are represented by, well, black..

I'm not a total D2 noob. I knew how to play it. I'm just saying, seeing things could be actually enjoyable.

And who the hell found D2 scary? Half Life 2 was scarier..

Re:Am I the only one?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is with people on slashdot who comment on Diablo 1/2, but have never actually played it.
Hint moron: The alt key brings up all items dropped on the ground. And you can change that to whatever.

I love Blizzards music and sound

[Technopaladin]

for the first few months then I switch to something else.

Still my favorite game music ever was Kingdom Under Fire.

graphics fads and fashions

[Fallen Andy]

See for instance the difference between Heroes of Might and Magic III and IV. The graphics styling on IV make it really hard to find anything.

TFA's designer comments re change in environments was interesting too - and anyone wanting to see exactly how dull things can get with limited graphics props ought to checkout the game "Nightstone" (no not darkstone) which on the surface is diablo like, but manages somehow to completely miss the point...

Andy

Darker != Better

[ClientNine]

If you want dark, crank your gamma accordingly. Some of us like to actually see the game we're playing.

Re:Darker != Better

[X0563511]

Brighter != More color
Brighter != Cartoonish
Brighter != Cleaner

Some of us like that real gritty feel. But that doesn't mean we like dark.

Graphics the real issue?

[Bert_monster]

I personally think that the nit-picking on graphics for this game have more to do with an underlying worry fans have about the tone of the game. With the general idea being that D1 and D2 were fun because of the creepy tone the game gave you while playing. I play WoW and D2. When a monster comes at me in WoW, my basic reaction is, âoeGotâ(TM)a kill another oneâ or, *sigh* âoetime to run.â In D2 you actually get some, âoeOH F@#$!!!â moments when floods of things come at you and the darkness seems to press in on you. My thought is if the developers take shortcuts on the graphics by making it brighter, will the tone of the game change to match. Will I get my heart racing? Or with this be just another grind, level, grind, level, grind, gearâ¦game. If that is the case no one will play because WoW has that market locked up.

I mean really

[Chiisu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL1lfSzgcAw

Protesters = retards, in this case

[Anonymous Coward]

The official Blizzard screens are beautiful. They remind me of Titan Quest, which is, bar none and unarguably, the best-looking game in this genre to date (I challenge anyone to provide the title of a better looking hack-n-slash).

The shitty fan-modified ones are grainy and dark and less detailed. Yeah, they remind me of Diablo 2. HELLO THAT IS NOT A FUCKING VIRTUE! D2 is 13 years old. We have better hardware now, you nostalgic fucktwats.

Re:Protesters = retards, in this case

[Anonymous Coward]

D2 is 13 years old.

Diablo 2 was made two years before Diablo 1?

Re:Protesters = retards, in this case

[Krakhan]

Another brilliant poster who doesn't know anything about the Diablo series.
Diablo 2 was released 2000. The expansion came out in 2001.

Honestly, if you don't know what you're trying to comment on, just do us a favour and shut up.

How it looks like?

[Duositex]

And how it should look like? What brand of the English language is this? What's wrong with, "What it looks like," and, "What it should look like"? Or even better: "How it looks:" and "How it should look:".

You want to sock it to 'em?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't like it, don't buy the game. Or don't buy any of their games.

Lets get this straight...

[nanowired]

Diablo : Gritty fantasy setting.

Diablo 2: Gritty Fantasy Setting.

Diablo 3: Clean Fantasy setting that happens in clean crypts with bright colors, and over-the-top-silly-armor with huge shoulderpads.

 

Peril Sensitive Sunglasses?

[HoppQ]

Maybe some Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses?

It's Christmas in Hell

[Emperor Zombie]

Maybe if the levels aren't so dark Blizzard won't have to make all the skeletons bright green or red in order to make them stand out from the background.

The levels in Diablo I and II may have been dark and gritty, but most of the enemies certainly weren't.

Mountains out of molehills.

[FazzMunkle]

This is typical of a bunch of undisciplined fans who want something to make a big deal out of trying to be designers and simply applying cheap Photoshop filters to prove their "point".

The fan alterations looked like s***. And I remember Diablo I & II not being so dark. The frustrated fans who had to wait so long for a sequel had to have something to throw a fit over even if they made that reason up.

I don't even think Blizzard should have addressed the inane complaints. It only makes both sides push back harder towards the other and promotes irrational over-the-top conclusions only for emphasis and not for true critique.

/facepalm

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Watch kick ass new gameplay

2.Bitch about lighting and contrast

3. Ignore the fact there will be a mod for it within a week after it's release

4.???

5. Profit!

I love how fanboys are like Terminators

[MAbans]

Cue joke: Listen. And understand. That fan-boy is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you give him what he wants.

Pathetic.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still going to play it,
because it looks like they're keeping the gameplay true to the series,
but the Sing-song style of art that blizzard has been force-feeding us since Warcraft 3 needs to stop.
Just because the cookie-cut art style of WoW appeals to teeming masses of idiots who gladly pay 15 bucks a month for the same boring MMO gameplay rehashed every patch does NOT mean it appeals to fans of the original Diablo series.

I don't want to see cutesy-looking characters and bright color schemes while I'm fighting back the hounds of hell.

I loved Diablo and Diablo 2's art because it was fucking creepy.

Remember your light radius?
You could get tagged and murdered by a fucking frostbolt out of nowhere because you didn't see that gang-rape crew of Champion skeletal mages waiting in the darkness.

The in game text looked like a manuscript used for a fucking Satanic Mass.

Every boss they came up with looked fucking terrifying.
Remember fighting Mephisto for the first time?
Tell me you didn't go
"What the fuck is THAT? Jesus buttfucking Christ, I'm already dead, but at least I don't have to look at it anymore."
Can they accomplish the sickly slender, emaciated look that some of the creepier denizens of Hell had in the first 2 with this new art style?
I think not.
If I wanted to watch an orc dance like MC Hammer, the art style would be perfect,
but I really don't.

I want to murder waves of demons in a dark-looking world out of a Poe or Lovecraft story.
That's why I still play Diablo 2.

I hope the gameplay makes up for their shitty choice in art styles.

For the love of grey...

[Drakkenmensch]

It seems to me that most of the debate comes down to the color palette. The criticism rises from the fact that since computers are more powerful now than they were in 2000, Blizzard intends to use that power and show more colors onscreen at once. I have just one thing to say to those who complain that Diablo 3 should be grey and dingy: when you set up the game preferences, set up your resolution to 640x480 and turn down all graphics to minimum. Personally, I'm looking forward to a little more color in my Diablo experience...

Go Blizzard. Down with spoiled gamers and modders

[Anonymous Coward]

I strongly back Blizzard's use of color in Diablo3 and it looks gorgeous, I would have no objections if that look and feel made the final cut. I also feel that criticizing Blizzard's choice of art, ever, leaves you pretty vunerable to a significant counter-critque, which I will now express into the thin air via a rather poorly-written rant. And here goes..

It is ridiculous that after all Blizzard has accomplished that a few gamers with specific tastes (regarding the amount of color in a scene of all things) think they can dictate to Blizzard how to make a great game.

I recognized this kind of behavior instantly, it is the arrogant belief that something must become what you have built it up to be in your mind, rather than what it is. We as gamers would have never even known the countless hours of joy playing Diablo and Diablo2 had it not been for Blizzard, yet we feel that the experience of merely playing the games and messing with them a bit now makes us more capable than Blizzard to build the next one. I don't think so. And calling WoW or its art direction "gay" is a pretty bold statement in itself, it also shows a general disrespect for Blizzard's hard work so I'm not sure why anyone who calls a Blizzard product "gay" would be acknowledged by Blizzard anyways.

It is far too easy to sit on a pedestal and criticize when you are in no real position to do so. Speaking from personal experience, we see this behavior in our IT environments all time on projects. Blizzard listens because they believe it will sell more games, but the truth is there are far more ill-informed ideas out there amongst the "community" (which largely consists of pirates, meaning they take no financial (real) risk when criticizing) versus ideas that will actually fly. These arrogant critics also need to recognize that without all the work Blizzard has done so far, they would not even have something to look at upon which to critique. Modders of the more arrogant kind need to recognize this as well. Without the game engines the mod community would not exist, this does not mean the mod community now has complete dominion over how to build engines, or games. I hate when development of a new game is announced and the first thing people ask, before even acknowledging the game is: "Will i be able to mod it??". That kind of spoiled-kid "I am only interested in making my own version of reality and will accept nobody else's, even if you are a professional successful games developer and I'm not" attitude is just disrespectful in my opinion, it is also indicative of a very spoiled and immature person, because it is a very spoiled and immature reaction.

The mod community.. how I laugh at the crap they typically produce, but here is the key: then these groups of modders and mod gamers hide their heads in the sand and convince themselves that based on a couple features in their mod that they happen to like, their mod is therefore 'better' than even the original game and technology which made it possible. Like a karate student who after 100 hours of training manages to land one lucky punch, so now he believes he is superior to the instructor. Like Portal having portals, because somebody likes portals better than any other feature in the Orange Box, therefore Portal is the best game in the box. To provide one more analogy, it is like listening to one song on a great album, not bothering to get into the rest of the album, and then trying to tell the band that the one song is the best and the rest of the album sucks. My ultimate point here is that this is the kind of behavior we are encouraging in this mass-consumerism society, where nothing is ever good enough for us. That is why people actually feel justified in challenging Blizzard on art design... have you ever seen their CG video work? What they accomplish is simply impossible, how dare you even say the word "Art" to them, seriously.

So in conclusion, the arrogant gamers and modders out there (probably most of them too young to even have a job or pay their own way yet) who convenient

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