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Diablo III Designer Defends New Look and Feel

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the all-things-in-perspective dept.

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."

4 of 371 comments (clear)

  1. I don't see it by grumpygrodyguy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    At first glance I prefer Blizzard's version.

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    The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
  2. No problem here by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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    "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
  3. Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick. by thepotoo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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    Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
  4. Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick. by thepotoo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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    Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase