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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."
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.
What I don't like is the excessive amount of blue, green, and yellow on what should be plain stone tiles.
It's an iMac ad from 10 years ago reference, you insensitive clod!
You just got troll'd!
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.
Thats a pretty mean sig you've got there.
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.
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.
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...
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.
Yes, I am a smart ass; it's better than the alternative.
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.
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.
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.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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
"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.
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.
> 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.