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Quote from Kuryozum

It's a pity, how promising sketch can be transfered into that POKEMON . I seem that artist left computer operator alone for too long.

Quote from Equinox

Quote from Yngvar

Also, an increased level of detail in the environment like you see on that screenshot means less monsters and action on screen at once.

Really? You're heavily overestimating how taxing that actually is.
SII has significantly heavier graphics than DIII (designed for a closer, sometimes even upfront, camera), SII can support hordes of monsters on the screen (20+ or so, DII hardly had more) pretty well, and SII is made by German developers who don't know how to optimize - it still runs fine on my kinda meh laptop, on max settings (yes, there are some issues. See German developers). It's also fully 3D vs what DIII is going to be (one camera angle), and you're telling me Blizzard can't add sharper textures considering they have less stuff to draw, they have low poly models, low-level texture management (no special mapping techniques and stuff), and much better programmers + much more time??? The only potentially heavy thing they have in there is physics and textures are fundamental to that.

Don't give me that shit. It's really not as heavy as you and everybody else seem to think it is. How about you let developers worry about how taxing it is?
Games have been developed for ages yet people were able to make them look good despite limited graphical resources. It's not our problem. If it looks bad (or not as good as it could be), it looks bad.

Problem is, textures are not exactly a performance problem, either. I've seen some old games with crisp textures, it's the manner in which they draw them. Currently, DIII textures are made in WoW's style which is blurry (not because of quality, it's just blurry by itself), as opposed to basically gritty where the edges are sharper and colors slightly less saturated and balanced.

Compare:
WoW: http://www.stuffwelike.com/stuffwelike/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/world-of-warcraft-a.jpg
DSII: http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/641/641300/dungeon-siege-ii-20050811071804606_640w.jpg
DSI: http://games.softpedia.com/screenshots/The-Dungeon-Siege-Legends-of-Aranna_4.jpg

Note the brown-yellow wall brick texture in WoW and how it's drawn. Then note the black-gray floor brick texture in DSII/DSI and how it's drawn. DSII (let alone DSI) probably has lower system requirements than WoW does for all I know. Their texture is low-rez. The WoW texture is high rez. Please note how much softer/blurrier the WoW texture looks, regardless. That's what DIII has right now. http://img374.imageshack.us/i/diablo3screengy4.jpg/
Their management of models has the same after effect, as well.
Lighting certainly doesn't help but right now it looks a lot like TL and I played that game long enough to know those graphics are not bad (nor are DIII's graphics), but I don't necessarily like the mood those kinds of graphics create, and TL didn't even have the lighting problem.

I'm not bringing up this to say DSII looks better than either of the two games or something but I want to make it clear that DIII is currently carrying WoW's texture (and model) management and it's not a performance issue. It's a "we do it the same way for all our 3D games" issue. I don't know if DIII actually has any WoW 3D modelers/texturers but it sure feels like it, same goes for SCII tbh, which is released for all of us to see it hasn't changed.

Quote from Kuryozum

pretty good stuff! despite the headgear... what's that? that block of steel looks like straight from starcraft, or from some manga books for 10-year old japanese kids. I know that classes have to differ, but: can't we be more subtle?

Quote from LinkX

Next, let's take your route real quick. Noblility. In Midevial Europe, which you are obviously using as a refrence considering there is no proof that Camelot ever existed, bows were considered to be dishonorable for Knights. There were no "Noble Archers".

Quote from Lt. Venom

So... everybody wants to play as Batman or an evil knight.

Quote from Frostbite5

This is what I've been saying about the last class ever since the monk was announced. They're missing a knightly character, a Camelot factor. In its origin, all of Diablo's characters were like that: the knightly warrior, the skillful archer and the mage (Merlin). The three core characters of medieval fantasy. In D2 the only such character was the Paladin, but at lease he was there. Also many items still had a knightly feel to them (like the full plates etc, all sorts of heavy armor and shields which thematically didn't go very well with the other classes).

Quote from ScyberDragon

My main concern that we will never see a knight is that a knight is in essence a Holy warrior. The Monk is already filling this role. I just don't know how they could differentiate between two Holy fighters enough to include one.