Diablo 3

[Assault]

Diablo 3 is exciting, though I know what it's like to hype yourself for any Blizzard game. You end up finding yourself in the future before the game is out.

[Glamador]

Well, the head art director for Diablo 3 has left Blizzard to persue non-gaming related pursuits.  But before he left he left us with a VERY definite mantra on exactly why the artstyle will be staying the way it is.  He commented directly on some of the fan-created "this is what it should look like" photoshops.  His major complaint was that it would be difficult to see enemies in the dark and desaturated environment.  I think that's bullshit.  We were able to see plenty well in Diablo 1 and 2's desaturated environments.  He's asuming he knows what fans will want (before any major playtesting I might add) and I think that's very presumptuous of him.

[KillerFrogs]

      Here's a question for you guys:  Did you make the series?  If not, then stop complaining. you can always just make a mod that changes the art style, that way everyone gets what they want.

[Quemaqua]

Oh, so now I have to be the creator of a series before I can disagree with a decision?  Wow.  So by your logic, I guess if I have any opinion on a major problem with my society or government I have to be the President in order to say anything.  It's all beginning to make sense.

[Glamador]

I don't understand people who get so annoyed at people voicing their complaints.  It's not as if we're even being un-constructive.  We're not just making base-less arguements and pleasing the fan-base is important when you're trying to sell a product.  Wouldn't it be better to hear feedback from the fans and make adjustments where necessary in order to sell more product?

YOU don't have to READ our complaints even.  You're not a developer, so why even pay attention?  Oh oh oh, by the way, THEY DIDN'T MAKE THE SERIES EITHER.  Many of the original Diablo team went off to make Hellgate London so WHOA!  They have no more right to make it flowery and rainbow-filled than we have to complain about it even by your logic!

Oh yea, plus you can't make mods and still play online.

[Crizzle]

People need to chill out. If you're a true fan of the series then embrace the creativity of the developer and allow them to create a game that they feel is a worthy sequel.

Personally I think the new visual style is fine.

[Glamador]

What's that supposed to mean?  I'm a fan of the Gundam series but I still despise G Gundam.  I love Zelda but I still hate Wind Waker.  I'm a fan of Metroid but Metroid Prime 2 still grinds my gears.  A fan doesn't have to love every game.  But a fan does tolerate the mistakes in favor of the improvements.  That's what I intend to do.  There has to be trust in place for me to blindly accept what the developers do.  But as I said before, this is a different team than the one that made the first 2 titles and they are changing a lot about the game.  SOME of the improvements look terrific.  More armor slots means more loot drops which means more replay value.  Health orbs means faster paced combat with less focus on potions.  Focus on multiple skills used in conjunction means more varied combat that won't require me to make a whole new character just to have some variety.

BUT, rainbows, saturated colors, lack of ambiance, and GIANT shoulders destroy the aesthetic that was carefully maintained throughout the entirety of the first 2 titles (and their expansions).  Graphical style =/= aesthetic.  You can change things, use more color if you want, make the enemies wierd, show some more varied locales.  But there are some things that detract from the atmosphere.  Diablo 1 and 2 were claustrophobic, scary, and dangerous adventures with a light radius limiting your vision and enemies waiting at every turn.

But as I said before, I'm not going to boycott the game just because I don't like the artstyle.  The gameplay and characters follow Diablo lore perfectly and the cutscenes looks amazing.  I was hoping we'd see more Diablo footage at Liepzig so I could make some better judgements, but I havn't seen any yet.

[Quemaqua]

What he said.  I'm sure I'm going to thoroughly enjoy the gameplay for what it is, and it's hard to blame Blizzard for wanting to drag in more people by making the game look more like WoW.  That's one of the most popular games in history, not to mention one of the biggest cash cows, so it's a sound business decision to try and create some brand continuity.  As a creative decision, however, I hate it.  I have absolutely nothing against color... my big beef is the fact that the characters are cartoons.  I'm tired of playing cartoons, and that's a giant step away from what the other games had established.  Sure, it's Blizzard's right to change it and do whatever the hell they want to it, but that doesn't mean long-time fans aren't going to be annoyed when something as fundamental as graphical presentation is changed in a series they've long loved.  Look at the past games and tell me that going "cartoon" was a logical evolution for the franchise.  It isn't.  It has no place there.  Some people may totally love it, and that's fine, but it still can't be considered a logical evolution.  The game may take that route anyway, and may turn into a kickass, really fun, long and deep hack n' slash action RPG that simply happens to look a little more like WoW, and that isn't the end of the world by any means, but it'll still be disappointing to anybody who enjoyed what the games used to be (and what, in our eyes, they *should* be).

[Alec]

I'd rather see more games that use color, than games where everything is grey or grey-brown.

Also I'm one of the few people that didn't really like Diablo before, but now I'm kind of intrigued... 3 looks super polished, and the graphics seem to have variety between areas.

[Danger Mouse]

I'm definitely on the same page as you on this one Alec. I wasn't a big fan of diablo. Not knocking it's play mechanics, but more of the macabre style that just didn't please me visually. I think it was a bit drab, and lacking in a lot of artistic ways. Yes, it may have been what they were going for, but that isn't the only way of trying to make a game scary. I do like the fact that you can't see much into the distance, that's all fine, but the way it is greyed and muted in colors just doesn't draw me into the game graphically. I haven't even looked at diablo 3 for lack of interest in the series, but I might check it out. I was more pleased with Baulders gate, however I did think it was missing on a lot of things, and was rather short. But visually I think they pulled off what I think diablo could have included to make it better.

[Glamador]

Baldur's Gate was short?  That game took me like a month to finish...well unless you're talking about #1.  Never played that one.  But Baldur's Gate 2 + Expansion took me a hell of a long time.

And the very fact that two non-diablo-fans are now showing interest merely serves to strengthen my point that the series has strayed from it's previous installments.

[Quemaqua]

See, that's exactly my problem: everyone wants to make it look like other games.  I liked it because it *didn't* look like other games.  Most fantasy games have lots of color and are heavily saturated, but Diablo was bleak and I *liked* that because it was different.  Wilderness felt like wilderness, not like a park where you expect to see a lightpost and a bench around every turn as you walk over the pathways strewn with fallen leaves.  You know what I mean?  I don't mean to imply that I don't enjoy great use of color when it comes to games in general (and like I said, the color isn't even my beef with Diablo 3, it's the cartoony look that irks me), it was just nice that Diablo looked as suitably bleak as the stories of other games made you think their worlds should look if there was any marriage between story and art.  Morrowind definitely got it right, but that was one of the few.

Anyway, again, it isn't that I thought anything shown on Diablo 3 actively looked bad.  It looked fantastic.  Blizzard's art is always going to be top-notch... I just felt it was a disappointing direction in light of what the previous games in the series had established.  It was a shame to watch them abandon that wholesale.

[PHeMoX]

People need to chill out. If you're a true fan of the series then embrace the creativity of the developer and allow them to create a game that they feel is a worthy sequel.

Personally I think the new visual style is fine.

I like Diablo , but I do agree with the complaints. It makes no sense to also make it as colorful as WoW (which I totally hated, I might have played that game if it had more 'mature' graphics).

Diablo is not supposed to be a kids game and to some extent the happy graphics just don't fit very well in my opinion. Having said all that though, I'd still buy the game as I'm hyped enough about playing a new Diablo game. Same goes for Starcraft II by the way, those graphics are rather colorful also... which I don't like either. Sure Starcraft 1 was colorful, but that's mainly a result of when it was released and so on...

[Glamador]

Well don't forget we still havn't seen any more footage.  We've been told that's very early in the game and they intend to make the environments more and more disheveled as the game goes on.  Once I see a newer build with some hanging bodies and stages from later in the game I'll have a better idea of what's been changed permanently.

[Glamador]

W00T!  New Diablo 3 class revealed!  Check out the Wizard at http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3

A few weeks ago some PR guy said people who played a similar class in D2 would hate the new class the same way Necromancer players feel betrayed by the Witch Doctor's inclusion.  But I feel quite the opposite, I was a sorceress player before and the female Wizard keeps the same general look as my old flame and brings with it some new flames to boot!  Disintegrate, Meteor Shower, good old Teleport.

But what's more exciting is the concept of new skill modifying runes!  You place them in slots and they change the abilities of spells!  For instance, a striking rune placed on the teleport skill will cause a shockwave at your destination!  Fantastic news really from the Blizzcon floor!