Gamasutra has just posted an excellent interview with two of Diablo 3's lead developers - lead technical artist Julian Love and lead content designer Kevin Martens. The object of the interview was to help give fans a better sense of how the design process of Diablo 3 really works. Here's what the pair had to say:
"Diablo III was announced last year; it's been playable twice at Blizzcon now. Mike Morhaime suggested it probably won't be out until 2011. Does it feel like the development time has been extended to a surprising degree? Do you ever think, "Oh God, this really will be a while longer now?"
Kevin Martens: Here's the secret to Blizzard games, and this is a secret that won't help any of our competitors: endless iteration. We'll take something, we'll put it in the game. Maybe we'll like it when we put it in, maybe we won't. We'll leave it in there for a while, we'll let it percolate. We'll play it and play it and play it, and then we'll come back. We might throw it all out, or we'll throw half of that out and redo it.
It can be a long time, but it is fun to work on as well. That's the thing that keeps you going. Multiplayer always works, and the builds are always playable. We've played them constantly, and it's fun. You actually look forward to the weekly play session even though the game is still in progress. That's what keeps us going, and that's also why it takes so long. We'll do it over and over again until it's just right.
With Diablo, and StarCraft moreso, it will have been a decade since there's been a game in the series out. Blizzard North as an entity no longer exists. How do you determine what needs to be retained from something a decade old, and what needs to be modernized?
Julian Love: Well, as an ex-Blizzard North employee, I never got the sense that we were a standalone entity. We were always in contact with Blizzard South folks. They were always coming up. I think I saw it as we were one big company.
That said, [as far as] the real question in terms of how much we're going to take forward, we want to bring back all of the stuff that was great, that was fun. We certainly want to tap into what was great in the first two games and make sure all of that stuff is coming back, and pile in all the cool stuff we can to bring it over the top and make it the definitive version of the series.
On the topic of Blizzard North and Blizzard Entertainment though, I do feel there was a difference in style between the Blizzard North and South games. The Diablo titles had a more baroque, intricate look, more tilework and stonework "along the grid." Diablo III is more of a blend of that style with the current Blizzard South style. How long did it take you to settle on the look for Diablo III?
Julian Love: Well, it took a while for us to settle on the actual style, but I don't think it was due any kind of difference between Blizzard North and Blizzard South philosophy. It had more to do with the fact that we were moving the game from a two-dimensional technology platform to a three-dimensional technology platform.
Issues like lighting and separation between the characters and the backgrounds are handled in entirely different ways -- ironing out how to get what we felt was a Diablo vibe while still managing to get the characters to pop.
Looking at D2,for instance, those characters are super bright, super colorful. They pop out of the backgrounds. So, we had to try to bring that forward, but at the same time we don't want to just rest on that art style and do the exact same game.
We want to elevate that. We've got to look at the other games that Blizzard does, learn from the things that they've done that make those games better, and really progress. I think what you're seeing in the art style is our idea of the actual progression of the Diablo universe.
I loaded up Diablo II last night, because I realized I still had it on my laptop and I figured, "Why not?" One thing that struck me was the character select screen -- all those characters arrayed there are proportioned in a very straightforward way. They basically just look like normal humans with crazy armor and weapons.
And I was at Blizzard office recently, and there's a plaque on the wall with the official artistic principles of Blizzard: "Bigger is always better. Less if never more," which evokes the WarCraft look with its much more heroically exaggerated characters. It does strike me as two different philosophies, at least to some extent. How much of that do you think about?
Julian Love: Well, obviously, there were two very largely different groups of artists. Some of the artists from D2 are still working on the game today.
I think what you're seeing there is a Blizzard philosophy that may have been there but may have not been disseminated across the entire company, which is, "You find the line by crossing it."
I think we've gotten really good at that now, allowing ourselves to push things to a point where they go too far, and then you look at them and you say, "Oh, okay. Now we know where the line is." But if you're trying to just edge up to the line, you might never find it.
That's the goal here, to push things as far as they can possibly go. So you're seeing things that are progressing maybe a little bit beyond where D2 was.
But definitely, I would say that our proportional sense for Diablo III is far, far less than let's say what happens in a game like WoW, where armor doesn't even look like it could function. We still put a lot of effort in to try and make sure the armor looks a lot more functional, that it doesn't look like it's just insane and total high fantasy.
In the case of StarCraft, there are plenty of RTS games each year. With World of Warcraft, there are a million MMOs every year. There aren't actually that top-down action RPGs. Torchlight is coming out, for one, but there are not as many examples. What's it like working in a genre like that where there aren't a lot of yardsticks?
Kevin Martens: Well, frankly, Diablo II is still on the PC sales charts every week. Over and over again, you have a big Christmas rush, and it bumps off, but then it's back on in early January again.
I think Diablo II is the standard for this kind of game, so largely what we're thinking about is making sure that we do the series justice -- which we feel that we are -- and making sure we're trying to expand the market. Personally speaking, I hunger for a game like this, one that's going to last for a long time -- something we can play for ten years, like Diablo II.
I think there's a massive market for it, but I also know the games are kind of hard to make and, really, it's hard to beat Diablo II. So that's the tricky part, and that's one of the reasons that there are not that many games out there. There's still a definitive one that's on the charts every week. That's the one that we have to beat. Luckily, we know a lot about it.
And more broadly than that genre, there is of course always widely-publicized pessimism about the PC platform, and has been for a long time. Does that concern you ever, either in a long-term sense for Blizzard as a company that is so devoted to the PC, or otherwise?
Kevin Martens: It has never affected us yet. The death knell of PC has risen and fallen over the years, and we keep releasing PC games, and they keep doing incredibly well. I think that there is a market out there for PC games. The latest consoles are great; it's easy to get the game running and all that. They're useful.
But everyone has a PC, and we try to keep our system requirements down as low as possible. That's one of the ways that we can make sure to appeal to enough people. Some of the really cutting edge games that come out for PC require a brand new video card and probably more RAM at least, if not a new CPU as well. That's really rare with Blizzard games. I think that's one of the reasons we still keep doing well.
Kevin Martens: If I could add to that -- the best evidence that the PC market is not actually dying is the 20,000 people that showed up this year at Blizzcon, and the fact that those tickets sold out in one minute flat. That doesn't seem to me that it's really good evidence of a platform with a problem.
We're heard a lot about some of what Battle.net is doing for StarCraft II -- a deeper league system, a mod community, and so on. Can you speak at all about how Diablo III will take advantage of the new Battle.net in gameplay terms?
Kevin Martens: We're definitely using it. A lot of the things that StarCraft is doing, we're paying really close attention to. We've got coders from the Diablo development team working on Battle.net to make sure that they're laying the groundwork for the things we want to do.
Primarily at this point, we're interested in trying to make the co-op game as fast and as easy for players to get into as we can.
More co-op support is our primary interest, and the rest of the Battle.net stuff, we'll develop as StarCraftII develops it. We're watching that process, and we definitely like what we see.
I notice you significantly redesigned parts of the Barbarian again after his previous unveiling. It's interesting to see the character undergo those changes from outside the studio. As far as that general iterative process you described earlier, does it feel in practical terms that you essentially have an indefinite amount of time to spend on any particular game? At what point do you say, "Well, we do need to ship this game"?
Kevin Martens: I would say when all of the elements are at an equal level of not just quality -- not just how polished and balanced it is -- but also an equal level of awesome. One of the reasons we keep retooling the Barbarian stuff -- some of the Barbarian skills were done a long time ago -- is because as we added a new class or added higher level skills in, we did something else that was more awesome. And part of the Blizzard design is that if something is too awesome, we generally try to make everything else as awesome as opposed to pulling that one back.
That's one of the reasons that the iteration takes a while, but it's also one of the reasons why everything is over the top. The example about art -- you find the line by crossing it -- applies to the design as well. You make things way cool, smashy, explodey -- everything. Then you pull it back a little bit, for balance reasons more than anything.
Julian Love: There is another thing I could mention to round that out. There is kind of a sign we look for internally, which is when we can't get any more work done on the game because everybody's busy playing it. That's when we know it's ready to go. I've had that experience within the company. It's just like, "Okay, nobody's working. Everybody's playing. Maybe it's time to go."
That sounds like Blizzard is fairly flat-structured from a design standpoint in many ways, where someone can just decide, "This thing needs to be improved, let's improve it."
Kevin Martens: Yeah. It definitely is. It doesn't even have to be within your area of expertise. If I have an idea for a spell effect, I can go right to Julian and say, "Hey, what if the guy did this and ice went out his spine and blah blah blah?" and vice versa. Anyone. QA guys come in and offer brand new class ideas. It's very open-ended. It's the good ideas that come to the top. It doesn't really matter where they come from.
Julian Love: Even in QA, we have a core value that says every voice matters. Literally, every voice. Anybody, even sometimes outside the company -- you listen to what they've got to say and consider it, which is exactly how we got to a new form of [the Barbarian's skill] Whirlwind. Even though it wasn't the message we wanted to hear, there's something to it.
Kevin Martens: We feel privileged that our other games are popular enough that we can take the time to do it. We know not every developer gets the chance to do that. So, we want to make sure that we use that wisely and make better games as a result"
It's particularly nice to hear that they're setting out to make this the "definitive" game of the series and that they allow themselves to "cross the line" artistically so they are able to find a creative balance. Same goes for the details about how they want things such as armor in the game to be realistic, so players could actually believe in their functionality rather than having outfits that are nothing but flash. What are your thoughts on what the two had to say?
OK, i'll `hop on the artstyle bandwagon' once more.
Be it design philosophy differences, artist team differences, technical issues, what ever; there's an undeniable difference in the very general feeling of D3, in comparison to D2 and D1. (In my opinion D2 is somewhere in between 1-3; but that's a bit too detailed and will depend on opinions too much...)
Say whatever you want but, with the general graphical structure of D3, which utilizes especially very bright and colerful skills (including Barbarian (physical) skills), and the general big=strong=epic=GOOD and mature=gore=BLOOD philosophy (i admit that i am exaggerating; bias is inevitable; concentrate on my actual point please), it would be very hard to bring back that specific feel of D1.
HOWEVER, i am NOT saying that that's something negative. Diablo III will very likely have the highest quality gameplay out of the three, and the `feeling of D1' i am talking about is merely one part of what made the series what they are, plus it is subjective. So once again, i am NOT trying to say that D3 is `not Diablo anymore' or that it will be bad in any way. Some of the older fans will simply miss some specific aspects that have made a part of the previous series.
My point on this topic is that they should accept the above (For a third time: It's NOT something negative.), instead of continuously making up things like whatever he tried to say this time. (Seriously, they come up with something new each time. =P)
i totally think like you. Really i would sleep with a peace in mind if they said
"yeah, we are going for a more cartoony art, but not too much, we think it will be great."
Then it just looks like they really settle up, and we can live further than that discussion.
I Wouldn't mind, just admit the damn thing.
It looks kinda they wan't to say it, but don't use the words, coz people will just "OMG HE SAID CARTOON LETS KILL HIM" and get mad, but no point at all to fear that, we will all buy d3 anyway.
We will probably pay in advance and download it from Blizz store, like those Pre-downloads, just waiting for our cd-keys to play.
And I would sleep with a peace in mind if every single interview with Blizzard wouldn't turn into a 'D3 is too cartoonish' or 'D3 is too WoWish' debate.
You see, not everyone can have peace in mind, eh?
Anyway, good read, keep on working on it to make a great game, and stop playing, so we can play faster!
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If you can't amaze people with your intelligence, confuse them with your bullshit.
I really believe that they brought up the specific issue that was on every body's mind; Time.
There's people that think games are just spat out like it was off a mass production line. Others that have an all around negative opinion of Blizzard, having misconception about them being so filthy rich that they could hire an army of designers to finish the game in record times.
Worst of them all are the ones that just go and compare Blizzard to other gaming companies. You can't do that. How many companies have ALL their games played for a time span exceeding 10 years?
Not many right?
They take time because they make products that not only last over a decade, but also break the barriers of gaming dogma. Everything good in life is worth waiting for...
I think the good folks working on Diablo are doing an excellent job, and although we might not agree with every decision they make, I believe that in the end it really comes down to "they know what the hell they're doing"
cause it's their game. Some of the staff has been working on it since Diablo 1, that's what, 15 years.
I'm not worrying. :cool:
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[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]Diablo 3, Hottest shit to happen to 21st Century Entertainment since Georges "Rush" St-Pierre.______________ --------~~Mattheo's Quote of the day~~---------
----------Brought to you by Diablofans.com Forums -------- Originally Posted by mattheo_majik
I LOVE being a SEX TON!!!
They have said it now a second time that they ARE aimint to make objects physically, or shape-wise realistical, so i believe that after polishing, the game will be simply more flashy than the previous ones, and more with `epic' stuff you know, but not cartoony or un-serious in a WoW-like or any other way...
for me that's what cartoony means. Like on my drawing classes, or Art History Class, or my Sculpture Class.
If it's not following the real proportions and anatomy, then, it's cartoony.
Of course, we could get in a big art discussion here, talking about expressionism, cubism, and whatever. But i think is a valid label to determine a characteristic of an Art style.
but anyway, like i said, i don't care. just tell : "hey we think really big swords, are awesome, so we are going for it, ok?"
As long as they don't make giant shoulder pads i'm ok.
Like it is said on the post, from d1 to d3, there is d2, that seems to be in "the middle", which i think is ok, to have this progression. and i totally understand, that would be really hard to do a very realistic game, without requiring everybody to buy new computers. (You know, more detail, more polygons, more mapping, higher textures...)
(But i'm still pissed with sc2, but that is not the topic's subject)
Quote from name="The_Infamous 1" »
Every piece of info i read about this game it makes me want to play the game more and more. I bet everyone fells the same tho.
know what i feel?
"oh lord, please help them go trough it, jesus, help those, because i'm dying a little more inside every time i read about Diablo 3, but i remember i'm still at least a whole year away from it, probably 2."
Well, it's really just the unreasonable-in-general people that turn the debate into flamewars or whatnot. This kind of attitude is independent from the subject, or what side is `right'; it's about people in general.
(And if you look at it from a statistical point of view, you'll realize that it's fairly normal to see more stupid people on the complaining side of the debate in comparison to those who oppose the complainers (those who don't argue at all don't count). The reason is extremely simple actually: Under the people who argue, there's more complainers, in general. Like: 15 out of 20 complainers are stupid and 3 out of 4 of the against-complainers are stupid. Difference of 12 in numbers, difference of 0 in ratio. The numbers-vs-ratio issue causes lots of misconceptions in daily life.)
I like that they actually play the game a lot to see how it feels. I wish I could play a game like this for work.
Good Interview. I AM getting tired of seeing basically the same interview over and over again with no real news coming from it. *sigh*...2011.. I will probably have children by then and might even be getting ready to go to Graduate school..how will I find time to play both my PS3 AND D3? if only there was a time machine...
Make sure your children doesn't play World of Warcraft.
LMAO!! soo true.. That thing would have been the death of me If I Had not quit. It's like smoking, only not bad for your lungs just your social life. sorry went :offtopic:.
I agree with everything they said. Its hardwork, afterall. Reiteration is what I do to all my artworks. I never stop polishing it until I cannot polish it anymore. This is why all of blizzard's games have longevity. No matter how small a detail is it can always be better.
2011 is a really really long time...that means we'll have diablo 3 for a year then the world will end haha! I can picture many of us on our comps. then BANG!! worlds over and aliens will know us by our awesome Pc games! Thanks Blizzard. :P:cool:
Really good read. Even if there is no new info, nice to get an inside look into how they develop the game. It's comforting to know that they are not afraid to "push the envelope" and then have enough sense to step back when it's too much. I think, if anything, this should quell a lot of fears about art direction. I think that's awesome too that they involve all people, even those outside of the company, in the design and suggestion process. That's the type of thinking that has made Blizz the powerhouse that it is today.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]"The lord of murder shall perish, but in his death he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny. Chaos shall be sown in their footsteps"
-So sayeth the wise Alaundo
OK, i'll `hop on the artstyle bandwagon' once more.
Say whatever you want but, with the general graphical structure of D3, which utilizes especially very bright and colerful skills (including Barbarian (physical) skills), and the general big=strong=epic=GOOD and mature=gore=BLOOD philosophy (i admit that i am exaggerating; bias is inevitable; concentrate on my actual point please), it would be very hard to bring back that specific feel of D1.
I think it's important to mention that not all of the atmosphere of the first two Diablos was visual, not that you're saying it is, the music of D1 in Tristram was the bleakest sound I'd ever heard, and probably still is. I hope they'll keep the sound track simple and depressively dark and evil like that. No huge Lord of the Ringsish symphonies WoW style.
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It's particularly nice to hear that they're setting out to make this the "definitive" game of the series and that they allow themselves to "cross the line" artistically so they are able to find a creative balance. Same goes for the details about how they want things such as armor in the game to be realistic, so players could actually believe in their functionality rather than having outfits that are nothing but flash. What are your thoughts on what the two had to say?
Warhammer Online: Mystics - R40/RR41 Goblin Shaman
i totally think like you. Really i would sleep with a peace in mind if they said
"yeah, we are going for a more cartoony art, but not too much, we think it will be great."
Then it just looks like they really settle up, and we can live further than that discussion.
I Wouldn't mind, just admit the damn thing.
It looks kinda they wan't to say it, but don't use the words, coz people will just "OMG HE SAID CARTOON LETS KILL HIM" and get mad, but no point at all to fear that, we will all buy d3 anyway.
We will probably pay in advance and download it from Blizz store, like those Pre-downloads, just waiting for our cd-keys to play.
Find any Diablo news? Contact me or anyone else on the News team
You see, not everyone can have peace in mind, eh?
Anyway, good read, keep on working on it to make a great game, and stop playing, so we can play faster!
I really believe that they brought up the specific issue that was on every body's mind; Time.
There's people that think games are just spat out like it was off a mass production line. Others that have an all around negative opinion of Blizzard, having misconception about them being so filthy rich that they could hire an army of designers to finish the game in record times.
Worst of them all are the ones that just go and compare Blizzard to other gaming companies. You can't do that. How many companies have ALL their games played for a time span exceeding 10 years?
Not many right?
They take time because they make products that not only last over a decade, but also break the barriers of gaming dogma. Everything good in life is worth waiting for...
I think the good folks working on Diablo are doing an excellent job, and although we might not agree with every decision they make, I believe that in the end it really comes down to "they know what the hell they're doing"
cause it's their game. Some of the staff has been working on it since Diablo 1, that's what, 15 years.
I'm not worrying. :cool:
--------~~Mattheo's Quote of the day~~---------
----------Brought to you by Diablofans.com Forums --------
Originally Posted by mattheo_majik
I LOVE being a SEX TON!!!
If it's not following the real proportions and anatomy, then, it's cartoony.
Of course, we could get in a big art discussion here, talking about expressionism, cubism, and whatever. But i think is a valid label to determine a characteristic of an Art style.
but anyway, like i said, i don't care. just tell : "hey we think really big swords, are awesome, so we are going for it, ok?"
As long as they don't make giant shoulder pads i'm ok.
Like it is said on the post, from d1 to d3, there is d2, that seems to be in "the middle", which i think is ok, to have this progression. and i totally understand, that would be really hard to do a very realistic game, without requiring everybody to buy new computers. (You know, more detail, more polygons, more mapping, higher textures...)
(But i'm still pissed with sc2, but that is not the topic's subject)
know what i feel?
"oh lord, please help them go trough it, jesus, help those, because i'm dying a little more inside every time i read about Diablo 3, but i remember i'm still at least a whole year away from it, probably 2."
i can only think how the waiting is killing me.
I like that they actually play the game a lot to see how it feels. I wish I could play a game like this for work.
LMAO!! soo true.. That thing would have been the death of me If I Had not quit. It's like smoking, only not bad for your lungs just your social life. sorry went :offtopic:.
I wish more interviews were like this.
:P:cool:
-So sayeth the wise Alaundo
I think it's important to mention that not all of the atmosphere of the first two Diablos was visual, not that you're saying it is, the music of D1 in Tristram was the bleakest sound I'd ever heard, and probably still is. I hope they'll keep the sound track simple and depressively dark and evil like that. No huge Lord of the Ringsish symphonies WoW style.