I guess it's not too surprising that Roper wouldn't have the most complimentary things to say about the upcoming game, and I definitely disagree with his thoughts on it not really "ringing with Diablo". Having played the game at BlizzCon, I can say that it doesn't just ring Diablo... it screams it. It's the Diablo I was hoping for all these years, and the whole idea of starting in a somewhat lighter area and descending into darkness rather than just having the game begin in the depths of hell (ie: where do you go from there?) seems perfect to me. We've only seen a tiny bit of Diablo 3 so far, and sometimes it's easy for people to lose sight of that."Roper, ex-vice president of Blizzard North, the now defunct Blizzard satellite studio that was responsible for the Diablo games, told VideoGamer.com in an interview to be published later this week, that while he "didn't look at it (the released Diablo III gameplay footage) and go, oh my God that's horrible", "as a player it just didn't really ring with Diablo".
He said: "One of the things I always enjoyed about that separation between Blizzard and Blizzard North was that the Diablo games had a very distinct art style. They had different art directors, they had different people working on it, they had a different sensibility about them. Diablo was I think grittier and darker and a little more leaning towards the photo realistic. Whereas the Craft games that were being built down in Irvine were bigger and broader in scope, brighter colours, just different pallets and different presentation. Both of those were very strong from that visual standpoint, for example.
"But it makes complete sense to me where they went because they basically took the Diablo universe and then approached it from the Blizzard Ivine stance for the visuals. That's the way they approach things. It wasn't that I looked at it and went, oh my God that looks terrible. I was like, that looks like Blizzard. The guys in Irvine. That's what it looks like to me. Their interpretation of it."
When asked if he was disappointed or pleased with Diablo's new art style, Roper, who is now design director and executive producer of Atari-owned Cryptic Studios, and in charge of Champions Online, a superhero MMO due out on PC this spring, said: "You know, I liked the darker grittier. I liked the differences in art style, to be honest. So, I think I would personally from a player standpoint prefer that."
"I think that one of the things that we always tried to get across was that Diablo was Gothic fantasy and I think there was just a need that was put in there from the visuals that I didn't necessarily get. I got it from the architecture and to a degree from the character design but not the feeling of the world. I can't say that I dislike it. I didn't look at it and go, oh my God that's horrible. But I looked at it and went, it's not really... to me as a player it just didn't really ring with Diablo.""
So what are your thoughts on the interview with Roper?
Yeah it will be great game, but it won't ring with Diablo like Bill Roper said.
This is my opininon.
I want to hear something. What did Jay Wilson do before? Did he designed a successful game?
It wasn't corny in D1, and it ain't corny in D3.
I lost a lot of respect for Bill Roper when he let Hellgate sink, since I bought it. That's just a personal feeling of mine, has nothing to do with D3.
I do still feel like he acted a little jilted about D3. Bringing up the art direction after ALL this time.
It just reopened a unnecessary can of worms.
In any event I never mentioned the art debate or direction in my post. I just got the feeling he seemed a little sour about it all.
<shrugs>
It's not that exact quote.
In D1 it was "The warmth of life has entered my tomb. Prepare yourself, mortal, to serve my Master for eternity!"
And FUCK the graphics. It's all about gameplay.
Are you seriously comparing the time of release of D1 to now? Back then, whatever you said could have been embraced since it was all fashionably new. Now it's..silly.
Lol, yeah that is very different.
Both phrases are canon to the game and thus are still appropriate.
I would imagine that things will start clicking together in the relative future for us Diablo fans as more information is given to us at GDC, E3, WWI, and Blizzcon.
Exactly, so when the community grows, we hear more about it. Perhaps that wasn't worded right :cute:.