I think you can say for certain though that there's no telling what the finished product would have been like if it was made by these guys. These could be such early screens and they might not even have been happy with a lot of concepts shown here and been totally willing to scrap many of them and rework many others.
I'm just saying is all, that it might seem a tad unfair to say you'd rather play D3 as it is now than what this game would've been based solely on those screens. Now granted, I'm willing to bet that had the original North team been at this game longer we still might not have been that impressed by what we were seeing.
For me these pictures just do more for the imagination than my conclusion. I am definitely relieved at how D3 is currently progressing and how the game looks and feels. But at the same time I'll always wonder just what this other game might have been like in it's finished form. I wish there was more information about those screens too.
I think they had decided to have the camera unlocked, that's why it looks so awkward and bad.
What i don't like isn't the polygon count it's the color palette, really. I also prefer the locked isometric camera view.
This art style fits Diablo better then the new one hands down. The new one plays and looks great while playing tho so I can't complain about that. However I would prefer the sharper Diablo style over the popping watercolor of the new style. It's like comparing Marvel vs Capcom 2 to Marvel vs Capcom 3, where they should of used High res sprites in 3 they went with a poppy 3d look. It works but you always gotten wonder would it of been better with the other style.
Now no doubt the new D3 team changed ALOT about Diablo and majority of those changes are good changes and will make it a lot more interesting to play and replay, that is something I don't think the old team would of done back in the day. Again tho I feel there isn't anything wrong with that, D1 was amazing and D2 is still good to this day even after all those "problems" with it. I think they would of kept the spirit and essence of Diablo alive and we would probably have PK and potions and everything we had in D1-2.
I dunno, I don't like the old style as much. I guess it's because I'm so accustomed to the new one.
The new style, in my opinion, is a lot more gritty. Now, I know Heaven isn't supposed to be "gritty", but there is a certain feel to the new style that makes it feel a lot more tempered and a lot less grandeur (which is my initial complaint of the old style).
And the lack of the isometric view (from a top-down perspective) really makes the old rendition of the game feel alien. I don't want to look at my characters like they're across a long hallway, I want a good tactical viewpoint so I can easily transverse, all that good stuff.
I just don't like it. I definitely prefer the new art style to the "old" one. Maybe if Blizzard North wasn't dissolved and I was still 12, I would have thought differently, but this is something that I would never be able to enjoy playing.
Edit: Oh yeah, I look at the images and think... is there supposed to be a lack of originality? I mean, I don't feel like the D3 back then would do justice to the overall feel of the series. But I digress. That is probably only one act in the grand scheme of the game, but I don't feel like that act alone wouldn't do the series justice (unless it was saved by a great plot line, which I won't deny).
If you like it, cool beans, I just can't "dig it" though.
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I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
This is one of those threads where opinion is the foundation, so making points will get no where :wallbash:.
We'll never know how it would've ended up, to me it looked bad. I'm happy things are the way they are :thanks: Jay. I enjoy color, and the artistic expressions of the trees, grass, and rocks in the current D3. No way North would have went with that style. To each his/her own though B).
“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” - Albert Einstein
It looks like Blizzard North was trying to re-invent the Diablo series. Looks like they tried to go away from the isometric view and go with something completely 3D with an adjustable camera view. Despite the criticism, the work was undoubtedly fresh and unfinished, so you can't really judge how Diablo III was going to be by these early screenshots.
I'm just glad that Blizzard South took Diablo to where it is today. They have a talented and creative development team, excellent game mechanics (old and new), and they really have a goal to make Diablo III as awesome as we could ever expect it to be.
I just can't wait until it ships. It's gonna be a whole lotta fun!
I will respect your opinion and just say I STRONGLY disagree. I'm sure we'd have all played the game, but I'd bet my soul on the fact that they wouldn't of fixed most of the problems which plagued Diabo 2 as well as Jay and his team are doing now. Plus the color scheme is more like a gray scale than a color palate, my opinion. It would have been Diablo 2.5. The fact that the current team has had so long to plan out the game so perfectly is the reason it will be so amazing.
Well people already stated it, there's a big gap in years between what could've been Diablo 3 and what is Diablo 3 right now. For 2004 those screenshots looked pretty decent and as I said before the only thing that gripes me is the camera angle.
So yeah I'd rather have Blizzard North make Diablo 3, I kind of feel bad for them and like everyone here I loved Diablo 2 and it would feel more comfortable (to me) if it were in the hand of Blizzard North.
Understandable. Sometimes a game needs to be changed up though you know? Diablo 1 and 2 were to similar to me. I guess I like the new style so much because I like how WoW looks color wise, just for the vibrant colors. I think it'll give energy to the game, and make for more interesting environments. I mean they had to choose it for a reason, I'm sure it wasn't a flip of a coin. Still in the end it comes down to preference.
“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” - Albert Einstein
It doesn't look particularly "bad", just absolutely non-Diablo-y. It's more of a cheap Prince of Persia thing, really. It also looks like they almost completely abandoned the isometric POV with character detail being nearly nonexistent.
secondly what i really like about those shots, is the detail of the textures, i think it is more diabloIsh, the new diablo III, has some low resolution textures and some very low poly count models, on those screenshots, you can see more detailed environments and remember that those were taken like 6 - 8 years ago back then those graphics were great.
Low textures + high character graphics (and vice versa) = neutral to negative impact on game performance (on a PC)
High Textures + high character graphics = negative impact on game performance
Low textures + low character graphics = positive impact on game performance
I mean, you can't have it all. In my opinion, the current environmental graphics get the job done and I would rather have great character effects and detail than the vice versa option. We're in isometric view anyway, so it's not like we're going to be seeing a lot of the area; by that, I mean that D3 isn't like Fallout or Oblivion where it's a first-person perspective and you're within a world. Diablo is a game where you're looking at a world.
But that's not to say that lots of detail won't come occasionally.
It's no question that the new D3 team is taking a completely new approach to the graphics, but it works for what they're going for; a fast-paced action game. They don't plan on having players actually take a minute and smell the flowers, run their fingers through demon blood, any other analogy you want to use. They expect players to continue through the game, but they're not trying to cheat you out of a good experience. The experience of any Diablo game is to get good loot and kill monsters with a kickass character (add in a good plot and unique environments / mood and you have the Diablo formula); how is the new team not achieving that? If anything, they are going above and beyond the general formula.
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I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
1. This would be North's first real 3D game.
2. How far along were they in iteration?
I think both of these considerations can give them a lot of leeway. Personally, I like this more in some ways than the new Diablo III. It feels closer to the original. Given some time and feedback, and perhaps based on location, I'm sure that version would have turned out much grittier. Or perhaps we, as fans, are wrongfully picturing Diablo II and Diablo I as more gritty than the developers ever meant, because of graphical limitations and the relative lackluster array of colors at their disposal with limited sprites and such.
Those screens are sort of lousy in terms of detail on stuff. Is this 2D or 3D? 3D on 2D? The characters/monsters look awful. A bit confused here. It looks a lot more like DII than DIII does, though, just because of the lighting manner. The current lighting manner is the WCIII/WoW lighting manner, with all the random coloration and the like. This one was actually realistic. There are no extra colors and lights anywhere.
The fact that it's some heavenly place kinda throws me off, too..
You can, it's called 2D vs good optimization. Blizzard historically sucks at optimization and they really should hire some people lol.
If you can't make 3D look good (Diablo III is struggling. And textures are THE most important thing in how a 3D game looks for me personally), don't do it. If DIII comes out looking like it came from the crapper nobody would care why it looks like it came from the crapper.
I do think they're going to improve later on, because that's what happened with SCII. Your argument holds no water. The graphics currently in DIII are very bad graphics and, I assure you, those are not the final graphics, which means performance has nothing to do with it.
They don't plan on having players actually take a minute and smell the flowers, run their fingers through demon blood, any other analogy you want to use. They expect players to continue through the game, but they're not trying to cheat you out of a good experience.
That sounds like they're trying to tell their players how to play. Which_I_hate. And I'm not the only one. If I want to play a lousy-looking fast-paced piece of crap, that's what arcades are for. That's what TQ is for, if we're at it, and TQ currently looks better than DIII.
The experience of any Diablo game is to get good loot and kill monsters with a kickass character (add in a good plot and unique environments / mood and you have the Diablo formula); how is the new team not achieving that? If anything, they are going above and beyond the general formula.
If your character looks lousy, all that is actually lost very, very fast.
Diablo series are not true RPG's in general. But that phrase does make it sound more arcadish, while Diablo I and partially 2 was about careful planning and building your character and stuff.
Rogue and Ultima I-IV - two different grandparents from the same small village. The D series looks more like Rogue (and Uncle Gauntlet), but they're all in the family tree.
People who thinks Diablo is an RPG doesn't know what the **** they're talking about. The Diablo series ss an action adventure game with an izometric view. Even the developpers themselve said so. Besides the attributes that you can give to your character and choose what skills/spells you use, Diablo has nothing to compare to an rpg.
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I'm just saying is all, that it might seem a tad unfair to say you'd rather play D3 as it is now than what this game would've been based solely on those screens. Now granted, I'm willing to bet that had the original North team been at this game longer we still might not have been that impressed by what we were seeing.
For me these pictures just do more for the imagination than my conclusion. I am definitely relieved at how D3 is currently progressing and how the game looks and feels. But at the same time I'll always wonder just what this other game might have been like in it's finished form. I wish there was more information about those screens too.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
What i don't like isn't the polygon count it's the color palette, really. I also prefer the locked isometric camera view.
Now no doubt the new D3 team changed ALOT about Diablo and majority of those changes are good changes and will make it a lot more interesting to play and replay, that is something I don't think the old team would of done back in the day. Again tho I feel there isn't anything wrong with that, D1 was amazing and D2 is still good to this day even after all those "problems" with it. I think they would of kept the spirit and essence of Diablo alive and we would probably have PK and potions and everything we had in D1-2.
The new style, in my opinion, is a lot more gritty. Now, I know Heaven isn't supposed to be "gritty", but there is a certain feel to the new style that makes it feel a lot more tempered and a lot less grandeur (which is my initial complaint of the old style).
And the lack of the isometric view (from a top-down perspective) really makes the old rendition of the game feel alien. I don't want to look at my characters like they're across a long hallway, I want a good tactical viewpoint so I can easily transverse, all that good stuff.
I just don't like it. I definitely prefer the new art style to the "old" one. Maybe if Blizzard North wasn't dissolved and I was still 12, I would have thought differently, but this is something that I would never be able to enjoy playing.
Edit: Oh yeah, I look at the images and think... is there supposed to be a lack of originality? I mean, I don't feel like the D3 back then would do justice to the overall feel of the series. But I digress. That is probably only one act in the grand scheme of the game, but I don't feel like that act alone wouldn't do the series justice (unless it was saved by a great plot line, which I won't deny).
If you like it, cool beans, I just can't "dig it" though.
I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
We'll never know how it would've ended up, to me it looked bad. I'm happy things are the way they are :thanks: Jay. I enjoy color, and the artistic expressions of the trees, grass, and rocks in the current D3. No way North would have went with that style. To each his/her own though B).
I'm just glad that Blizzard South took Diablo to where it is today. They have a talented and creative development team, excellent game mechanics (old and new), and they really have a goal to make Diablo III as awesome as we could ever expect it to be.
I just can't wait until it ships. It's gonna be a whole lotta fun!
Well people already stated it, there's a big gap in years between what could've been Diablo 3 and what is Diablo 3 right now. For 2004 those screenshots looked pretty decent and as I said before the only thing that gripes me is the camera angle.
So yeah I'd rather have Blizzard North make Diablo 3, I kind of feel bad for them and like everyone here I loved Diablo 2 and it would feel more comfortable (to me) if it were in the hand of Blizzard North.
Rise and rise again, until lambs become lions
i looks actually kinda horrible xD
horrible as in when you change nothing from diablo 2 and just add different areas
the game is gonna end up outdated before it even is released xD
Be my Buddy =^.^=
Low textures + high character graphics (and vice versa) = neutral to negative impact on game performance (on a PC)
High Textures + high character graphics = negative impact on game performance
Low textures + low character graphics = positive impact on game performance
I mean, you can't have it all. In my opinion, the current environmental graphics get the job done and I would rather have great character effects and detail than the vice versa option. We're in isometric view anyway, so it's not like we're going to be seeing a lot of the area; by that, I mean that D3 isn't like Fallout or Oblivion where it's a first-person perspective and you're within a world. Diablo is a game where you're looking at a world.
But that's not to say that lots of detail won't come occasionally.
It's no question that the new D3 team is taking a completely new approach to the graphics, but it works for what they're going for; a fast-paced action game. They don't plan on having players actually take a minute and smell the flowers, run their fingers through demon blood, any other analogy you want to use. They expect players to continue through the game, but they're not trying to cheat you out of a good experience. The experience of any Diablo game is to get good loot and kill monsters with a kickass character (add in a good plot and unique environments / mood and you have the Diablo formula); how is the new team not achieving that? If anything, they are going above and beyond the general formula.
I hate the way you cling to ignorance and pass it off as innocence
1. This would be North's first real 3D game.
2. How far along were they in iteration?
I think both of these considerations can give them a lot of leeway. Personally, I like this more in some ways than the new Diablo III. It feels closer to the original. Given some time and feedback, and perhaps based on location, I'm sure that version would have turned out much grittier. Or perhaps we, as fans, are wrongfully picturing Diablo II and Diablo I as more gritty than the developers ever meant, because of graphical limitations and the relative lackluster array of colors at their disposal with limited sprites and such.
The fact that it's some heavenly place kinda throws me off, too..
You can, it's called 2D vs good optimization. Blizzard historically sucks at optimization and they really should hire some people lol.
If you can't make 3D look good (Diablo III is struggling. And textures are THE most important thing in how a 3D game looks for me personally), don't do it. If DIII comes out looking like it came from the crapper nobody would care why it looks like it came from the crapper.
I do think they're going to improve later on, because that's what happened with SCII. Your argument holds no water. The graphics currently in DIII are very bad graphics and, I assure you, those are not the final graphics, which means performance has nothing to do with it.
That sounds like they're trying to tell their players how to play. Which_I_hate. And I'm not the only one. If I want to play a lousy-looking fast-paced piece of crap, that's what arcades are for. That's what TQ is for, if we're at it, and TQ currently looks better than DIII.
If your character looks lousy, all that is actually lost very, very fast.
That's literally one of the worst opinions I've ever heard.
-Thomas Jefferson
Have you literally lost your mind?
-Thomas Jefferson