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Diablo III Designer Defends New Look and Feel
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Aug 04, 2008 03:12 PM
from the all-things-in-perspective dept.
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."
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I don't see it (Score:5, Interesting)
At first glance I prefer Blizzard's version.
Re:I don't see it (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't understand the attraction to underlit gaming environments. Maybe it's supposed to be scarier? I just get annoyed when I can't see s***.
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Re:I don't see it (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:I don't see it (Score:5, Insightful)
Doom 3 is perfect if you played in a completly dark room where your eyes can adjust. In that kind of environment "different shades of black" actually works. Playing it in a light room however is painful unless you turn up gamma, which you can't do in the basic settings, instead requiring you to use the console. And if you do turn up gamma the visual quality of course goes down.
This is the problem when doing any visually dark game. You have to consider how the game plays in a not so dark room.
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Re:I don't see it (Score:5, Insightful)
And presumably if you have a CRT screen. Increasingly people these days have LCD screens, which can't do black at all. Playing in a dark room with an LCD -- even a good gaming LCD -- means having an immersion-wrecking glowing rectangle hovering in the air in front of you. It just doesn't work.
Kudos to Blizzard for actually trying to design a game that will look good on real people's PCs, instead of pandering to the crazy obsessions of a tiny minority.
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Re:I don't see it (Score:5, Funny)
Too creepy, right after I hit 'submit' the power at the college went out for a minute and the whole room went dark.
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Re:I don't see it (Score:5, Funny)
stay away from the ventilation ducts.
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Shadows Set the Mood (Score:5, Interesting)
Diablo III Designer Defends New Look and Feel
I haven't really RTFA'd, just looked at the pictures. I'm a bit torn on this story because I don't even think this designer needs to answer to people putting up screenshots that are entitled "wow gayness" when compared to their preferred screenshots. But as to whether or not he felt they had a valid point or he Blizzard just really cares for their fans, I cannot say.
... when would you have too much? For example in #1, the big white blob thing attacking blocks 1/4 the screen ... four of those and you'd be blind. There could be an army behind him and you wouldn't know it. Something to think about.
While the lighting in a few of these looks like definitely done by hand, the only other major difference I see is color and tint. In example #1 the lighting is much better in the fan screenshot but I can definitely see what the designer was talking about with it being 'smart.' My question would be (and I'm a complete idiot with vector graphics) why do they have no problem putting directional shadows behind characters but not the scenery? It seems to me that the candle light in that particular screenshot is being blocked by walls and ridges. Is this difficult with scenery? I'm guessing the levels are dynamically generated like in the first and second (a great aspect of the game, might I add), is this what causes difficulty with shadow play? I think by and large with the fan shots they use borderline too much shadow. I am guessing shadow is crucial in setting the mood but dynamically generated shadow would be difficult
Now, the rest of this stuff just seems to be color pallette and tint which seems to be artistic preference. I can't say which I like better but I've a feeling I'll appreciate color (and a change of that between levels) if I'm going to be staring at it for hours.
I'll be honest, when I first saw the game play I was very nonplussed, it was exactly Diablo II. But then I realized the great thing about II was that it was Diablo I with more features, levels, classes, monsters, etc. Ironically, I think that all that would make me happy in III is just more multiplayer options, more items, monsters, classes, etc. I can't want to play this one!
Re:Shadows Set the Mood (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Shadows Set the Mood (Score:5, Funny)
All they have to do, take all that green, all that distanced lighting shit, and make it black. Pitch as fuck black.
You're one of those monochromatic artists [wikipedia.org], aren't you?
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Re:Shadows Set the Mood (Score:5, Funny)
I would buy this in a second, if only I could decide whether I'd rather play as Diablo tormenting Hello Kitty, or as Hello Kitty tormenting Diablo.
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Hey emo kids, try this!! (Score:5, Funny)
Here's what you can do:
Problem solved. Diablo zealots are happy, blizzard is happy. Emo kids can use this approach for a host of other games too. As for me, I won't do any of that sillyness. My monitor is rectangular for a reason.
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Re:Shadows Set the Mood (Score:5, Funny)
It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.
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Solution to Blizzard's design decisions (Score:5, Funny)
Step 1) Turn down your monitor's brightness
Step 2) Stop whining
Step 3) There is no step 3!
Honestly, IMHO, the Blizzard shots are nicer. I have to squint to make out what's going on in the fan-created screenshots.
No problem here (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No problem here (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:No problem here (Score:5, Insightful)
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bgy (Score:5, Informative)
What I don't like is the excessive amount of blue, green, and yellow on what should be plain stone tiles.
V. short version. (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of the D3 fans don't want D3 to look like WOW.
Designer says "Interesting (not), but thanks for the publicity" ; )
I must say i agree with most of the designers points.
It still has to be easy on the eyes and gameplay, artistic perfection
is not the main point.
And, as others have pointed out, if it's too "happy" for you, adjust the gamma, not the game.
Comma coma, must rest...
Better Summary - Diablo III (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's more likely that they realize that these fan generated graphics are ugly, would probably look even worse in motion than they do in photoshopped screenshots, and wouldn't play very well because they're so muddled. But they're dealing with some obviously hardcore fans, and they're probably thrilled that there are people out there who care enough to go through all this trouble, so they don't really want to come out and call those fans untalented hack artists.
So rather than call their fanbase stupid, they call themselves stupid. At the end of the day, they'll release the game they want to make, and judging from Blizzard's track record it will be a well made game that will sell very well. These people who are spending hours photoshopping screenshots will switch to spending hours playing the game, and everyone will be happy.
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Re:Impossible? That's laying it on a bit thick. (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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Re:Its Blizzard (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the cartoonish style is more about a means to an end, rather than an end in and of itself. Blizzard prides itself on producing games that will run well on average hardware, and that means reduced scene complexity, especially in cases where you've got arbitrary amounts of geometry on the screen. Because of this, they're limited to broader artistic strokes to convey meaning.
I look at this a lot like stage theater - actors make exaggerated gestures and wear dramatic makeup on stage because they need to transcend the limitations of the medium. Blizzard uses simple polygons and textures because that's the best way to get a whole bunch of em on the screen at any given time. As long as it doesn't break immersion (and I understand for some people it does, but not for me), then I'm fine with it.
Personally, watching the gameplay video I wasn't thinking "these colors look off" or "this seems too cartoon-like". I was thinking more along the lines of "whoa, wall of zombies" and "that thing just bit that guy in half!"
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Re:Its Blizzard (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever since Warcraft 3 [...]
I guess you never played the first two Warcrafts? Warcraft games have always been cartoony.
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