Slashdot Mirror
New Diablo 3 Images; Design Wins Over Darkness
KingofGnG writes "The new Diablo III screenshots highlight the strong chromatic variations existing between the dungeons and the various stages ... It appears obvious, however, that all those details enriching the scenes, the crumbling parapets of the paths within the dungeons, the plants and the ragged drapes lightened by candles, would lose the best part of their raison d'etre if put in monochrome palettes inclined to black."
Diablo III Designer Defends New Look and Feel http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/04/1858250 Personally, after spending way too much time on Diablo 2, I must say I now prefer darkness --accompanied with sleeping
Crafty little site... who went to take some pictures and artworks from the official site, added his watermark on it, submitted a news item and got slashdotted. Bravissimo! It's grand to see Arthur from Ghouls'N Ghosts announcing Diablo III.
'It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.' -This is Spinal Tap
Depends on whether the color is used right, though. Some of the original screenshots did look a bit weird - one dungeon appears to have blue ambient light, even though there are no blue light sources. For some reason it really did look like World of Warcraft. In those cases it might be a good idea to tone down the ambient light's chroma a bit. Of course if they put blue torches everywhere things look a bit different.
What I don't get is the outcry over the magic effects being too cartoonish. Diablo always had magic effects in all the colors (and with the gravitas) of a well-stocked candy store and a poison attack wouldn't be a proper poison attack if it didn't have a bright green glow and preferably an inexplicable skull somewhere.
Of course, Blizzard could easily appease the color-hostile fans by adding a graphics option that reduces chroma by 90% and brightness by 50% everywhere but the HUD. And maybe changes all spoken text to goth poetry.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
I don't need no more diablo images in my head, if you insist, I'll just wear tinfoil and the cross. Now go away, let me ponder that female elf. Thank you, thank you, don't let your horns damage my door. Thank you, bye.
- Arwen, I'm your father, Agent Smith.
- Well, you're just Smith, but my father is Aerosmith!
Besides, since when is trying to make a game feel realistic considered overrated?
Yeah, I hate when a game feels unrealistic as I cast chain lightning on a bunch of frog demons.
Haida Manga
I want my Duke Nukem Forever!
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Looks good to me, the foreboding blackness of the text ('Error establishing a database connection') contrasting relentlessly with the bleak and brilliant white background.
Magic.
Actually, my last paragraph was firmly tongue in cheek; I thought the bit with the goth poetry made that clear. It's their game and they get to decide how it looks. Even if they decided to turn hell into a giant 70s disco and put Diablo into a leisure suit and platform shoes - it's their game. It'd also be kind of awesome, but that's beside the point.
Also, I think an "ugly mode" would actually serve to piss off the yammering fans rather than make them happy. I can really see it - the option would have the name "Ugly Mode" and the tooltip "How the game should have looked. Not WoW gay at all." And the game would have a TTS engine just for this mode so every goth poetry line (why, of course they'd implement that idea, too) could be randomly generated and they wouldn't actually have to record all that stuff.
Yup, that would be one of the most awesome insults in video game history.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)