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

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.

bgy

[Annymouse Cowherd]

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

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: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: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.