DiabloFans

I suspect that I will like it too. Especially from the functional side of things. I suppose it's also really premature to be judging this solely on select screen-caps off of a monitor.

Also, is there a reason why most (if not all) of the new screenshots that are being released don't have a user interface visible? I love seeing the juxtaposition of the static, but complex UI against the gameplay animations.

It seems like pandering to the lowest-common-denominator. They might've said "Hey! WC3 and WoW were hugely popular with this style - and they are our biggest sellers, so we should use it everywhere." - who knows. It's the idea of taking their franchises to a much broader demographic. It's not overbearing by any means, and would never prevent me from playing, but I don't see how someone decided "well, that old style didnt work, so lets just ditch it." I would argue the exact opposite. I think people would embrace a revival of that awesomeness and respect Blizzard even more for being able to dabble in something so unlike Warcraft.

I totally agree on the practicality of it. Form follows function and all. But I think they could've found a better compromise between the old and new. It looks sloppy, ESPECIALLY with so many glowing items on that one screenshot. But it's also the renderings of the items themselves. They've gone from cool, gritty "semi-realistic" illustrations, to cartoons. Cartoons and vibrant colors (i know this has been debated endlessly in the past) are the antithesis of the Diablo art style.

It's just a weird and inappropriate design decision to try and make all of your unique franchises - each with similar, but very distinct stylistic differences bend towards a more dumbed-down, company-wide branding. It's like bands that build their careers on a classic, unique sound, and then deviate to pop crap and dismiss and discourage the sound that made them popular.

I signed up today just to get this discussion started:

Does anyone else think the item & weapon graphics for the inventory look awful compared to the gritty, "realistic," brutal graphics used in past Diablo games? I know the graphic style is becoming more colorful in general, and more akin to WoW's sensibilities - but I mean, that's a pretty radical departure from something that really sold the brutality and grimness of the universe.

Remember getting the Butcher's cleaver for the first time? By attaching glowing colors to the item graphic ON TOP of the in-game equipped style just seems like more than a little much.

Also, the items now being relegated to these boxes, all seemingly having the same uniform size I think diminishes the feeling of an "inventory," or the feeling that you're finding pieces of this shattered world. It's instead these really "software-referential" graphics that just tie to stats, as opposed to the collection of interesting artifacts from around this unique world.

I'm an artist who was heavily influenced by Metzen and Samwise as well as the general art style of "early" Blizzard (read: PRE-WoW) games, so obviously I'm being super-critical here, where most people might dismiss these things entirely (and embrace them).