First off, I know much of this has been said already, and there are those who agree and those who disagree, but I feel that if everyone posts what they’d like, then hopefully the majority (which I am hopefully a part of) will get its way. [ While I don't necessarily have a problem with Diablo 3's current exterior environments, I do think its interior environments, as well as character models, could use some work (solely based on what I have witnessed in the 20 minute game-play clip, which I am assuming isn't much). The Diablo cinematic clips on the other hand were a different story, succeeding in invoking the creepy nostalgia of Diablo 1 and 2, (especially Diablo 1).
Unfortunately Diablo 3’s game-play clips reminded me of the response I had when playing games, games such as Titan Quest and Fable. Similar to most hack’n slash RPGS, there was little sense of urgency or fear.
While I don't believe color should be Diablo 3's enemy. I do think the shades of those colors could be chosen more wisely, namely darker... Dungeonous environments need to be less vibrant, have smaller visual ranges, more “gothic-esque”, sacrilegious, have more gargoyles, desecrated crosses, nudity, less clean edges and more crumbling walls and staircases, more dirt, grime and cob-webs, blood spatters, mutilated body parts, blood pools, impaled bodies. There should be heinously slaughtered corpses of men, women, and children, acts so atrocious that they could have only been perpetrated by the Lord of Terror and his companions. (How about a village slaughtered… and their bodies and entrails are sewn together to fashion some diabolic symbol…be creepily creative.) People want to be frightened have that sense of urgency that these acts are going to continue if you don’t hurry up and get to hell and destroy the evil.
If you’re going to have a mature rating, you might as well use it to your advantage.
In game events need to convey this same horror. I remember quests that were really creepy from Diablo 1, whose elements I would like to have reappear in Diablo 3.
The Butcher: who was menacing, extremely fast and powerful, and who would like nothing more than to feast on your flesh. Elements that make this creepy: He was tough to escape and aroused the element of cannibalism.
Lazarus: the corrupt arch-bishop who kidnapped some child for whatever reason. Elements that make this creepy: If you couldn’t trust a man of God who could you trust, also the slaying of a child.
I think the addition of any of the aforementioned elements (If not in the game already and simply not yet displayed) would be a positive step to the creation of Diablo 3.
One other visual element of Diablo 3 that has been bothering me regards the avatar (primarily the barbarian) and monster models. I agree that they do have a cartoonish style that I hope does not make its way into the Diablo universe. Models should be more proportionate and not as brightly colored. I could really do without bright skin colors, and oversized shoulder pads, hands, feet, or axe-heads. I hope that blizzard takes on a more realistic/ + creepy element. Anyhow, there’s my two cents.
I voted undecided on the poll. The only thing I can say is that the dungeon showed needs to be a bit darker like in those comparison pics and has to look old. The outside forest is fine, hopefully it will be more sinister at night. The best idea that I can agree with is contrasts between areas.
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There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
There really isn't much I desire to be improved. I just want the textures to be a little less blurry, more shadows, and the removal of the awful green tinge seen in the dungeon:
> Does not make any sense whatsoever, wether or not said fans are socalled mindless and immature acording to this idiot is irrelevant.
> Contradicts his statements that there is no change in art, plus makes no sense, again.
> Clueless. Immature/impolite/rude to voice your opinion about a dislike for a change in artstyle? LOL
> Never even heard of Diablo 1.
> Oblivious to the fact Diablo already had its own character and personality. Argument about grey/brown whatever he came up with is a nonargument for the fact that it doesn't argument anything whatsoever, you could just aswell use anything instead of brown or grey or whatever and make asmuch as a retarded nonpoint.
> Nonargument, clueless to the fact Diablo 1 and 2 weren't in black and white and infact made WAY better and smarter use of colors/lightning/contrast, just the fact that not everything bathed in the same pastelcolors says enough he doesn't have the slightest bit of artistical feel or knowledge whatsoever.
> Same as the above, he seems to be completely oblivious to the fact D1 and 2 weren't in black and white, oh wait, apart from his later upped gamma D2 screenshot. Doh. Trying to teach a person like this that colors CAN be used in various ways and it isn't a matter of "color or no color" is a waste of time.
> Nonargument, none has stated there won't be darker locations in the game.
> ROFLMAO
> "If Diablo 3 is cartoony then real-life is loony toons"? Seriously, there isn't a facepalm big enough. Oblivious to what Blizzard stated themselves.
> Did anyone ask for Diablo to become a nature simulator? Nature should be fucking devoured by unspeakable evil, THIS - GUY - IS - CLUELESS.
> Retarded. Who in the fuck cares rainbows are a natural phenomena? Does this dude purposely ignores the meaning of ART DESIGN?
> Oh my lord, is this guy serious?
> So? ART DESIGN, fucken learn the meaning.
> No one said it was you dumbshit retarded moron, meh, if you start throwing out insults for no reason, then i might aswell throw them back with a reason. "Get a life", yea, going about telling people to get a life for no reason whatsoever equates someone with a life. Why not just end your life? Its pathetic.
Pfft, i won't even bother to further quote moronity.
Good logical rebuttal dopple. Wolf is just a troll.
Really, who are you kidding, how more serious do you want them to look like, the are detailed, dark, gritty, and the WD have bones piercings all over his body, his looks look exactly like how a witch doctor would look like in real life ( if not slightly stylized, because you know what, it is a game, i hope you are not surprised by this revelation )
Is that how serious you want then to look like ( this is the 3D model that the in-game sprite is taken from ), this guy has plastic skin and looks funny as hell, i hope you are not serious about that cause it ain't funny :rolleyes:
Anyone can clearly see which one is more Realistic and Gritty, your argument is just funny.
If only those who keep whining would just leave their fanaticism for few seconds and use their minds and eyes to see the fantastic work being made in D3 i'm sure we wouldn't have any whining problems at all.
I don't really see any skin but the plastic affect is there because it was rendered using "poor" shading techniques (top of the line ten years ago?). It's not hard to see that they were aiming for a realistic figure, which can be concluded from the high polygon count.
The characters in D3, on the other hand, have low size textures (but this doesn't really matter), along with a Warcraftish style and, well, polygon size (but this doesn't really matter again).
So we are down to the STYLE. It can't really be pointed out in the characters you picked. You have to go down to the environment to see striking similarities between D3 and WoW (or W3).
Yeah, you all may want to shy away from Doppel. No matter what, he's right. Plus, he adds a bunch of unneeded, childish insults to make himself sound tough and support his claims.
Aka, the typical arrogant e-tough guy.
He's more intelligent and awesome than any of us are, so we should all just bow down, kiss his ass, and accept all of his views.
I voted 'It needs more work.' I tend to agree that some of the environments are too bright and just not fitting of the Diablo style. I mean, do you guys remember Pandemonium Fortress? An outpost of Heaven, and it still maintained a gothic dark feel while promoting the idea of safety and security just a stones throw away from Hell. In any case, I don't have a problem with a few sunny daytime environments, but they should not have rainbows and bunny rabbits hopping around because that just doesn't fit at all in my opinion.
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You must find the courage to step through this gate...
Yeah, you all may want to shy away from Doppel. No matter what, he's right. Plus, he adds a bunch of unneeded, childish insults to make himself sound tough.
Typical e-tough guy.
He's more intelligent and awesome than any of us are, so we should all just bow down and kiss his ass.
I truly believe you people are making mountains out of mole hills. My belief is that there will be enough diversity in the level design to insure that you get a nice contrast of good and evil, light and dark. If there was no light the dark wouldn't seem so dark and vice-versa. You get what I'm saying? Are you people trying to set the release date back?
I hate to think it but it seems like they are trying to tailor their style to a broader market which may be turned off by the dark and evil environs of the Diablo franchise. Unfortunately, they may forget that it was exactly that style which set Diablo apart from the rest of the brightly lit Everquest clones.
I truly believe you people are making mountains out of mole hills. My belief is that there will be enough diversity in the level design to insure that you get a nice contrast of good and evil, light and dark. If there was no light the dark wouldn't seem so dark and vice-versa. You get what I'm saying? Are you people trying to set the release date back?
I'm just registering for this I guess. I'd like to see my critiques get through.
Overall, I don't see much wrong with the art style- it does look rather cartoonish and overtly WOW-like in a number of areas, but there's not much to make a fuss over. So I'd just like to see it moderately "darker". The WOW look doesn't come so much from the sort of colors and lighting used, but the models in general.
And that's where my biggest complaints come in- the technical aspects. D3 honestly looks VERY dated in a number of areas. Outside of a stylistic perspective, the game looks like a moderately updated version of WOW. Many of the models are blocky, flat, and clay-like, without any actual texturization. These are among the worst offenders IMO:
The steps, walls, railings, the floors, so much in this image look incredibly soft and lifeless. There's no real textures on them to match the cracks, the signs of wear, the dirt, anything else- they just had skins slapped on them. And worst of all are the gargoyles- there's no depth or cohesion at all to the models. They look completely thrown-together.
The same problems hold true of the environment here, and there's another aspect to look at- the furniture. Again, there's no real textures at all. Even the skin resolutions look dated. Many of the objects look overtly blocky, especially the candles, and there's absolutely no shadows at all on most of the objects. Also note how the carpet looks completely unseperate from the floor, there's even clippings in the carpet skin in the upper left. That large crease also looks completely out of place.
The problems with the textures and depth of the models are most evident in the out door environments. Again, there's pretty much no real textures on the hills, the plains, the trees etc. It looks like the skins were just planted over some generic hill models with little else done. And the cartoonish factor really shows here too- the grass, the stones, the trees all have a water-color look to them- they remind of me the art-style of Tales of Vesperia for the 360:
It's honest to god one of the best looking games I've ever seen- but the environmental art style fits perfectly for this game. The textures fit perfectly as well. That's because Vesperia is out to look like an actual anime, but it's completely out of place in a game like D3.
The foliage, especially for the trees, looks very poor- I know there's few games out there that don't have much of a cardboard element to the foliage, but D3 doesn't really even look like it's trying here. The branches and leaves of the trees completely blend in with the surrounding environment due to the thrown-together watercolor look.
There's also some other technical issues I noticed- such as that one bloated demon, where every part of it's body completely dissapears when it explodes, and leaves a huge mass of lamprey-like creatures with a cardboard effect that quickly dissapear afterwards. Hell, it would be great if corpses in general in D3 didn't dissapear so quickly.
That's all I have to say. I know this isn't the final product at all for D3, but it really concerns me when so much of the game looks this dated for something made in 08. I see not much wrong with the gameplay, just hoping there's more than 5 classes.
You say that the dark areas will look darker? Well, that was a dungeon, and from what I could tell, was supposed to be dark. It didn't look that dark...
The feeling of the world of Sanctuary is supposed to be that the world is gripped by the dark forces of Evil and the hero must free the world from this attack.
Tell me, who lit all the torches in these dungeons? Did someone come through and light them for you so that your adventure may be less gloomy?
Doesn't anyone remember entering the catacombs or Liorics tomb in Diablo? Now that was dark.
You say that the dark areas will look darker? Well, that was a dungeon, and from what I could tell, was supposed to be dark. It didn't look that dark...
The feeling of the world of Sanctuary is supposed to be that the world is gripped by the dark forces of Evil and the hero must free the world from this attack.
Tell me, who lit all the torches in these dungeons? Did someone come through and light them for you so that your adventure may be less gloomy?
Doesn't anyone remember entering the catacombs or Liorics tomb in Diablo? Now that was dark.
Obviously the dark cultists lit the torches because they needed to be able to see their enemies.
I hate to think it but it seems like they are trying to tailor their style to a broader market which may be turned off by the dark and evil environs of the Diablo franchise.
I don't understand why they might feel they have to do this with the enormous market they have in World of WarCraft already. You'd think they would want to not compromise that particularly lucrative audience by appealing to their tastes with a non-subscription-based game.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
‘I'M NOT LEAVING UNTIL WE ALL HAVE AIDS!’—The importance of calling them ‘mercenaries.’
[
While I don't necessarily have a problem with Diablo 3's current exterior environments, I do think its interior environments, as well as character models, could use some work (solely based on what I have witnessed in the 20 minute game-play clip, which I am assuming isn't much). The Diablo cinematic clips on the other hand were a different story, succeeding in invoking the creepy nostalgia of Diablo 1 and 2, (especially Diablo 1).
Unfortunately Diablo 3’s game-play clips reminded me of the response I had when playing games, games such as Titan Quest and Fable. Similar to most hack’n slash RPGS, there was little sense of urgency or fear.
While I don't believe color should be Diablo 3's enemy. I do think the shades of those colors could be chosen more wisely, namely darker... Dungeonous environments need to be less vibrant, have smaller visual ranges, more “gothic-esque”, sacrilegious, have more gargoyles, desecrated crosses, nudity, less clean edges and more crumbling walls and staircases, more dirt, grime and cob-webs, blood spatters, mutilated body parts, blood pools, impaled bodies. There should be heinously slaughtered corpses of men, women, and children, acts so atrocious that they could have only been perpetrated by the Lord of Terror and his companions. (How about a village slaughtered… and their bodies and entrails are sewn together to fashion some diabolic symbol…be creepily creative.) People want to be frightened have that sense of urgency that these acts are going to continue if you don’t hurry up and get to hell and destroy the evil.
If you’re going to have a mature rating, you might as well use it to your advantage.
In game events need to convey this same horror. I remember quests that were really creepy from Diablo 1, whose elements I would like to have reappear in Diablo 3.
The Butcher: who was menacing, extremely fast and powerful, and who would like nothing more than to feast on your flesh. Elements that make this creepy: He was tough to escape and aroused the element of cannibalism.
Lazarus: the corrupt arch-bishop who kidnapped some child for whatever reason. Elements that make this creepy: If you couldn’t trust a man of God who could you trust, also the slaying of a child.
I think the addition of any of the aforementioned elements (If not in the game already and simply not yet displayed) would be a positive step to the creation of Diablo 3.
One other visual element of Diablo 3 that has been bothering me regards the avatar (primarily the barbarian) and monster models. I agree that they do have a cartoonish style that I hope does not make its way into the Diablo universe. Models should be more proportionate and not as brightly colored. I could really do without bright skin colors, and oversized shoulder pads, hands, feet, or axe-heads. I hope that blizzard takes on a more realistic/ + creepy element. Anyhow, there’s my two cents.
Sure, he does. The Necromancer had a bit less fat and a bit more muscle. I think it's quite appropriate.
‘I'M NOT LEAVING UNTIL WE ALL HAVE AIDS!’—The importance of calling them ‘mercenaries.’
Good logical rebuttal dopple. Wolf is just a troll.
I don't really see any skin but the plastic affect is there because it was rendered using "poor" shading techniques (top of the line ten years ago?). It's not hard to see that they were aiming for a realistic figure, which can be concluded from the high polygon count.
The characters in D3, on the other hand, have low size textures (but this doesn't really matter), along with a Warcraftish style and, well, polygon size (but this doesn't really matter again).
So we are down to the STYLE. It can't really be pointed out in the characters you picked. You have to go down to the environment to see striking similarities between D3 and WoW (or W3).
Aka, the typical arrogant e-tough guy.
He's more intelligent and awesome than any of us are, so we should all just bow down, kiss his ass, and accept all of his views.
CyberPunk RP Nexus
Fuck you, I'm a dragon.
I hate to think it but it seems like they are trying to tailor their style to a broader market which may be turned off by the dark and evil environs of the Diablo franchise. Unfortunately, they may forget that it was exactly that style which set Diablo apart from the rest of the brightly lit Everquest clones.
║ www.Vintenar.Net ║
╞╬╡Who Seeks the Waning Moon?╞╬╡
╨ ⊕░░░▒▒▓▓▓▓▒▒░░░⊕ ╨
Fuck you, I'm a dragon.
Overall, I don't see much wrong with the art style- it does look rather cartoonish and overtly WOW-like in a number of areas, but there's not much to make a fuss over. So I'd just like to see it moderately "darker". The WOW look doesn't come so much from the sort of colors and lighting used, but the models in general.
And that's where my biggest complaints come in- the technical aspects. D3 honestly looks VERY dated in a number of areas. Outside of a stylistic perspective, the game looks like a moderately updated version of WOW. Many of the models are blocky, flat, and clay-like, without any actual texturization. These are among the worst offenders IMO:
http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/346/93065920080630screen023ko5.jpg
The steps, walls, railings, the floors, so much in this image look incredibly soft and lifeless. There's no real textures on them to match the cracks, the signs of wear, the dirt, anything else- they just had skins slapped on them. And worst of all are the gargoyles- there's no depth or cohesion at all to the models. They look completely thrown-together.
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2008/179/930659_20080628_screen003.jpg
The same problems hold true of the environment here, and there's another aspect to look at- the furniture. Again, there's no real textures at all. Even the skin resolutions look dated. Many of the objects look overtly blocky, especially the candles, and there's absolutely no shadows at all on most of the objects. Also note how the carpet looks completely unseperate from the floor, there's even clippings in the carpet skin in the upper left. That large crease also looks completely out of place.
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2008/181/930659_20080630_screen013.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2008/181/930659_20080630_screen014.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2008/181/930659_20080630_screen025.jpg
The problems with the textures and depth of the models are most evident in the out door environments. Again, there's pretty much no real textures on the hills, the plains, the trees etc. It looks like the skins were just planted over some generic hill models with little else done. And the cartoonish factor really shows here too- the grass, the stones, the trees all have a water-color look to them- they remind of me the art-style of Tales of Vesperia for the 360:
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2008/176/945075_20080625_screen006.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2008/176/945075_20080625_screen007.jpg
It's honest to god one of the best looking games I've ever seen- but the environmental art style fits perfectly for this game. The textures fit perfectly as well. That's because Vesperia is out to look like an actual anime, but it's completely out of place in a game like D3.
The foliage, especially for the trees, looks very poor- I know there's few games out there that don't have much of a cardboard element to the foliage, but D3 doesn't really even look like it's trying here. The branches and leaves of the trees completely blend in with the surrounding environment due to the thrown-together watercolor look.
There's also some other technical issues I noticed- such as that one bloated demon, where every part of it's body completely dissapears when it explodes, and leaves a huge mass of lamprey-like creatures with a cardboard effect that quickly dissapear afterwards. Hell, it would be great if corpses in general in D3 didn't dissapear so quickly.
That's all I have to say. I know this isn't the final product at all for D3, but it really concerns me when so much of the game looks this dated for something made in 08. I see not much wrong with the gameplay, just hoping there's more than 5 classes.
The feeling of the world of Sanctuary is supposed to be that the world is gripped by the dark forces of Evil and the hero must free the world from this attack.
Tell me, who lit all the torches in these dungeons? Did someone come through and light them for you so that your adventure may be less gloomy?
Doesn't anyone remember entering the catacombs or Liorics tomb in Diablo? Now that was dark.
║ www.Vintenar.Net ║
╞╬╡Who Seeks the Waning Moon?╞╬╡
╨ ⊕░░░▒▒▓▓▓▓▒▒░░░⊕ ╨
Online petitions are the adult version of kids writing letters to Santa.
Fuck you, I'm a dragon.
:]
Good point. Simple - yet it totally destroyed his logic.
‘I'M NOT LEAVING UNTIL WE ALL HAVE AIDS!’—The importance of calling them ‘mercenaries.’
edit: lol, a mod was faster than me and deleted the post i was comenting on