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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."
I am all about games having dark and brooding atmospheres, and maybe even a bit scary. But I am more about a game being a damn fun and well designed one because the developers had a vision and weren't playing appease-the-fanboys during the development process. Plus the gritty, dark, angsty look has been done to death. I like color.
It's absurd such a small outcry has gotten this much press already.
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
I'm glad Blizzard is sticking to their guns.
I first found out about this when that video was released a week or two ago in which a fan tweaked the official video to show what the game "should" look like instead of the "colorful" look that Blizzard is going with.
I watched the video and thought only one thing: it was ugly. Look, I understand this game is supposed to take place in dungeons and such, but you are allowed to have SOME color. It really pointed out that argument I've seen a few times over the last few years about the recent consoles. They are so powerful and push so many polygons, but they only seem to work when you disable any non-yellow, brown, or grey color.
I've got to say, I really like the look of the Diablo III video and screens Blizzard has made. There are colors. You can tell what's going on. Enemies stand out, the art stands out. It all looks quite good. But at the same time, they didn't go overboard making it look too cartoony. I mean, it doesn't look happy.
I'm glad Blizzard is sticking to their guns despite what some group of hardcore fans says. I'm actually interested in Diablo III. I've never played the previous games, but I'd like to give it a try.
But if it had been that nearly black-and-white mockup a fan made, I'd avoid it. I don't have such a nice computer so I can only view dimly lit colorless environments with very little visible detail.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
The game shouldn't be so dark its hard to see. It should be slightly shadowy in some areas, but otherwise alright as far as seeing goes. Torches/lights should overbright the area a little, rather than making it normally lit. If it were real, you'd be pretty used to the dark, but torches would damn ear blind you.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Here Here. How about a Mod redirect the link to a functioning server that's not just reposting official materials.
This is nothing more than an extremely thinly vailed attempt at getting some ad hits.
The current art style give it that weird World of Warcraft cartoonish look. Doesn't quite suit what I am used to from the other Diablo games and not really what I expected. But overall I don't care as long as it comes out soon.
I quit gaming a few years ago because I was tired of pour my life energy into the bottomless pit of interactive illusions, but it hasn't stopped me from appreciating a nice bit of design.
--I really like the isometric approach; it allows the design team to use artwork generated by actual painters and illustrators rather than 3D engine-workers. It'll be a neat day when you can create in 3D the same kind of evocative visual character in a tree stump or a bit of masonry as an artist can do with a pencil and few tubes of gauche, but that day hasn't arrived yet. And so, Diablo III is going to look oh-so-much prettier than any 3D game can at the moment.
-FL
The elephant in the room is that the Blizzard guys probably would have preferred staying true to the dark and brooding atmosphere, but it's no longer possible with todays technology. On panels black is really gray... often not even a dark gray, and then there's the trade-off most panels make in giving up a few bits per colour channel for speed. "Dark and brooding" looks pretty awful on your average modern rig.
Far Cry's "rendering modes" were just hsv/gamma shifts, it was all a single postprocessing multiplier applied to every pixel. But, you make a good point - better to have the game in viewable colours with a slider for the deep, brooding, dark-wanting people than to make the game in brown-on-black and leave those who like to see with a washed-out palette.
Maybe the way the game looks isn't a matter of personal preference, and they don't want players making their own little adjustments to the carefully constructed visuals.
It's about the art direction overall. Diablo was gritty and realistic. They could make the whole game black and white, but you've still got characters running around in cutscenes and combat that look like they came from Warcraft.
This http://www.diii.net/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=871&size=big&cat=563 and this http://www.diii.net/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=703&cat=565 are much more in the style of Warcraft, which aside from the bright and happy palette is the primary reason a lot of folks were surprised when D3 was unveiled.
I know I personally also wanted contrast to Blizzards other work, because that existed before now. Blizzard has amazing artists and they're going to make an amazing looking game, but when all your franchises start looking the same, they become kind of redundant from one another. I think most Diablo fans wanted something hellish, and dark, and corrupt. Gritty and realistic. While the game will look, and most likely play, just fine, the atmosphere is what will be different due to the changes in the look.
I dunno... Something like this http://www.worldart.com.au/images/kris-kuksi-sculpture-surreal-deadly-sins1.jpg
Right now the game looks like it was Disney's take on Diablo, rather than Geiger's.
Well there was a bit more to it in Far Cry, as there were differences beyond just color tweaks. For example, Cartoon mode had exaggerated outlines and a subtle cel feel to it, while Paradise had super-bright blooms, more translucent water/leaves and more progressive shadowing. These were pixel shader effects that did much more than simple gamma adjustment.
The same thing could be added to D3, as they almost certainly have some sort of shader-based postprocessing already in place. It would be nice to have different shader programs to choose from, or even offer some relatively simple way for a modders to replace the shader scripts - let them design it to their liking, if they're willing to learn HLSL
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I think the game is resembling Warcraft simply because Blizzard designers are learning a lot from the game mechanics specifically behind World of Warcraft.
They're expanding the color palette most likely to assist with the pacing of the game, and that constantly shifting contrast ("first you're in a really bright desert, then you're inside a really dark pyramid") propel that sense of progress that players have as they move through the game.
It's one thing to have that gritty, dirty visual style in a dungeon instance that's supposed to last for an hour or two, it's another to have that exact same gritty visual style for the entire several hundred hours that you'll be playing the game.
One of the ways that playability is enhanced, and monotony is prevented is by having that really extreme sense of contrast, as well as the bright color palette.
Furthermore, I understand that most Diablo players don't want a color palette that looks like it was extracted from a Night Elf starting zone, but by the same token I feel like Blizzard wants to reach out to the millions of folks in the WoW contingency that might want to start playing Diablo for the first time if it looks and feels like something they are already very familiar with.
I can see it now: Blizzard thinks the new feel is great, and will delay diablo III another 6 months in order to implement it. In other unrelated news the inspirer of said change has gone into hiding for reasons unrelated to the angry torch-and-pitchfork wielding mob outside his house.
Or, you know, just adjust your monitor's color balance.
Eventually, you'll run out of Chapters in D3 and you'll level a character and then you'll start a new character or you'll restart on a different difficulty, and the world will reset. It is not persistent beyond your play session.
The only event(singular) that I recall from WoW that changed the game world was the opening of the Gates of (Insert faux Middle East name here). And as far as events go, that was pretty weak. You get to run around and grind resources and whoever grinds the most resources first... gets nothing. The gates will open for everyone when they grind enough resources (and then eventually for everyone else who doesn't want the carrot).
But I really can't blame Blizzard for what they're doing. I would propose that writing an interesting world that actually has 10,000,000 people running around in it and making some kind of difference is pretty much impossible at this point.
"Don't feel bad for me child; I'm the monster that hides under your bed."