Reading this part of his post, something dawned on me...one reason most are arguing about the graphics is that THEY ARE DIABLO FANS and HAVE PLAYED DIABLO. Look at it from another perspective:
As hard as it may be to believe, there are a while slew of gamers (thousands, tens or hundreds of thousands?) that have never played the game. A fair percentage have never even seen it. As an example, I polled my 9, 14, 19 year old sons, and my wife. My wife could care less, but said if she were to play either game based on looks alone, it would be Diablo 3.
My 19 year old has seen me play Diablo 2, but never played it himself. He plays war games and flight sims. He absolutely had a fit when he saw Diablo 3 trailer. " OMG dad, that is so AWESOME, when does it come out...I gotta have that!"
The two younger sons have never seen D2, but they freaked when they saw Diablo 3 and were not even impressed with D2.
And I have to admit, I played through both the early games about 5 times a piece. I haven't played either in about 3 or 4 years. I loaded up D2 when I stumbled across this site when the countdown started back in April. After the games I have been playing (and WoW ain't one of 'em, hate it) like Witcher, DDO, Oblivion and AoC, quite frankly I couldn't play it through.
Because of the graphics mainly. They just seemed...dated and old fashioned. And I consider myself a FAN of the series. I was truly psyched when there was even an inkling a new, updated version of the game was coming out.
I guess my point is this...Blizzard is trying to stay true to the franchise, as much as they can. They want to keep as many Diablo fans as they can. But there is a whole new generation or demographic of gamer they are trying to bring in to the game as well. People that are accustomed to a...for lack of a better phrase...more modern and up to date look. It is a business after all. For every hardcore Diablo fan they lose, and I hope they don'y lose any, there will be three to take their place. Like it or not, Blizzard knows what they are doing or rather, what they want to do. They aren't as successful as they are for nothing.
This is a very sensible post, and I agree with everything you have just said. I for one have played both Diablo1 and Diablo2 and am very excited about Diablo3, I think it looks amazing.
I've already made my post, but I thought I'd add something I just remembered.
They need to get rid of the corpses despawning. If they are gonna despawn make them do it a couple minutes after you kill them not 10 seconds after. I want to stand in the piles of gore I've created.
I feel the same way about this actually.
Quote from "Eyez" »
i hate this new WoW version of D3
please make Diablo 3 dark and sinister the way a game called Diablo is supposed to be.
please
Don't worry... it won't look like WoW, but it also won't look like Diablo2. It will look like it looks.
I'll just say quickly that I think those reworked screenshots look very nice - as a proper successor to Diablo II set in 3D.
One or two of them may be a bit too brown/gray/dark however, but generally, they look better that the originals.
Those screen shots are not too bad but I hate how they desaturated all the color. To me, personally I would like to see the game as is, if they do adjust the color I hope it is slight, but not as drastic as those screen shots.
It doesn't to me either, but surely brightly colored watercolor autumn forests with added rainbows are not a very good choice in the world of Diablo when compared to Dark forests/jungles/desert wastelands/snowy mountain sides/wintery leafless forests etc, there must be hundreds of better choices. Even the Autumn forest could look pretty good if it didn't look like it was pulled straight out of Fable or Oblivion's "the painted world" mission.
Hahaha I remember that mission in Oblivion. Well that is again your opinion, and I have no problem here with blizzards choice. That rainbow is just light reflected/refracted of the water below anyhow, who cares, well you do of course, but I think its fine and acceptible. I would like to see more contrast in this part of the world and if possible tone down that bloom effect which seems to be making everything smooth. Those are my two biggest problems, the leaves, the color, the saturation, the everything else looks good to me.
Even if they upgraded the graphics twofold from what we were shown It would most probably run fine on any modern budget PC.
Lets say I had an Intel E7200 - £80
Abit P35 Pro - £100
ATI 4850 - £120
2GB 800Mhz DDR2 - £40
Antec 300 Gamer Case - £30
HD & Optical Drive - £50
=====================
Total = £420
Now... The above PC could probably play Crysis at pretty good speeds at a resolution under 1680.
It could max out CoD4 - easily.
I believe Blizzard is going to assume that a lot of people will be playing with older hardware and are not/can not build or update their machine to play this game. That is a nice setup though. But you have to think about all the people with low end systems that blizzard specs their games for. I'm talking about much lower than what you just posted.
However I do think that it would be a good idea if Blizzard would include a grpahics system that can easily scale to higher end PC's so we could run more shaders, textures, and other various effects. I think this would be a good solution while still having the game run and play well on older machines.
Why dont they just come out and say what they are doing, kinda sad really.
what the hell are you comparing here? that both games are done in 3D and have color? or that one of the Death Knights new spells is to gorge himself to obesity so he can dual wield giant flanges.
It surely is, and I see so many people saying it looks fine and the gameplay is what matters. Oh how I would love to see them all get given a version of the game with fluffy bunnies and teletubbies to kill. Sadly they would probably be ok with it seeing as they are probably the same people who only play the game to get the "best" loot and not to actually enjoy it.
No believe me, I care to much about this game to not enjoy it. However I do like the style of the game the way it is, and I've been playing Diablo games since 1997 with Diablo1.
I know what you mean about Blizzard not always being on the cutting edge. But this looks too dated even for them. What we've seen in D3 would be considered high quality roughly 3 years ago.
I explained why it looks sloppy, and I don't see how you can't agree somewhat on it. Look at how so much of the environments lack any actual textures or even have decent skins.
Again, I don't see much wrong with the artsyle, but alot of D3 has a watercolor look that simply doesn't work for it. The swarms of pale, decaying zombies don't match well with the pastel hillsides and forests.
Alright one by one.
1. Systems people will be using to play this are going to be 3 years old.
2. I think the textures look amazing. Unfortunately there is no bump or normal mapping which makes them look flat, because well they are. With shaders, bump mapping, and normal mapping you can add a lot of intricate detail to the base textures (the painted textures we see in the game now). These kinds of textures add depth and individuality to the materials in the game, whether it be armor, skin, stone, grass etc. Saddly because blizzard is going to keep the requirments low we may never see any of these things in game, but you never know. The textures themselves are incredible detailed and will painted though. I would hardly call these textures sloppy.
3. I don't really mind the contrast between the dead, and the bright colorful out-doors. I think its actually an interesting twist, but this is also my own opinion.
The dungeon in Tristram descended into hell it's self. Hmm... -_^
yeah in Diablo1, but I'm am going to make a wild assumption that this is simply not the case in this game. I'm also going to make the wild assumption that there will be areas far more sinister than what we were shown.
that being the very dated and sloppy look of so much of the game.
Dated? tell me... since when has blizzard made a game that was a graphics powerhouse? This is because they want to make sure a wide range of PC's can run the game. This has always been their philosophy for pretty much ever. That being said the game looks current gen, and I am more than happy with that since I know it will be an amazing experience.
Sloppy? I did not see any art that looked "sloppy" it looks like they have an art direction that is cohesive and well thought out. However you may feel about the art and graphics does not make them "sloppy." It just makes the fact that you don't like the graphics your opinion.
Also I do not agree with your opinion of the games current art direction and therefore have formed my own opinion. My opinion is that I happen to enjoy the color, and the out door environments we saw in the game play trailer. I do think though that the game could use more contrast than what we have seen so far. However this might be due to the compression of the video and or the screen settings the game was captured on.
One more thing. The fact that people seem to be demanding dramatic changes to the style this early on seems ridiculous to me. Why? because we really haven't seen anything yet except a damn gameplay trailer! Has anyone else looked at some of the concept art for the game? I bet we see more stuff like that soon from blizzard in game.
The argument that other areas might be darker than the few shown make no sense.
THAT IS THE TRISTRAM DUNGEON!. Should any other area be darker than that? It looked pretty damned dark in Diablo 1 but I guess someone when in there and did a make over of the place...
I imagine hell would be darker than that. I doubt they are going to make Tristram dungeon the most horrific and dark part of the game, since, I'm pretty sure it's going to be near the beginning. That said, I would like for people to show some restraint with these comments until we see more dungeons and areas of the game later on.
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This is a very sensible post, and I agree with everything you have just said. I for one have played both Diablo1 and Diablo2 and am very excited about Diablo3, I think it looks amazing.
Well there you go folks... straight from the horses mouth.
I feel the same way about this actually.
Don't worry... it won't look like WoW, but it also won't look like Diablo2. It will look like it looks.
Those screen shots are not too bad but I hate how they desaturated all the color. To me, personally I would like to see the game as is, if they do adjust the color I hope it is slight, but not as drastic as those screen shots.
Hahaha I remember that mission in Oblivion. Well that is again your opinion, and I have no problem here with blizzards choice. That rainbow is just light reflected/refracted of the water below anyhow, who cares, well you do of course, but I think its fine and acceptible. I would like to see more contrast in this part of the world and if possible tone down that bloom effect which seems to be making everything smooth. Those are my two biggest problems, the leaves, the color, the saturation, the everything else looks good to me.
I believe Blizzard is going to assume that a lot of people will be playing with older hardware and are not/can not build or update their machine to play this game. That is a nice setup though. But you have to think about all the people with low end systems that blizzard specs their games for. I'm talking about much lower than what you just posted.
However I do think that it would be a good idea if Blizzard would include a grpahics system that can easily scale to higher end PC's so we could run more shaders, textures, and other various effects. I think this would be a good solution while still having the game run and play well on older machines.
what the hell are you comparing here? that both games are done in 3D and have color? or that one of the Death Knights new spells is to gorge himself to obesity so he can dual wield giant flanges.
No believe me, I care to much about this game to not enjoy it. However I do like the style of the game the way it is, and I've been playing Diablo games since 1997 with Diablo1.
Yes in a way it is. However having the same mood conveyed through out the entire game does not seem appealing to me
Alright one by one.
1. Systems people will be using to play this are going to be 3 years old.
2. I think the textures look amazing. Unfortunately there is no bump or normal mapping which makes them look flat, because well they are. With shaders, bump mapping, and normal mapping you can add a lot of intricate detail to the base textures (the painted textures we see in the game now). These kinds of textures add depth and individuality to the materials in the game, whether it be armor, skin, stone, grass etc. Saddly because blizzard is going to keep the requirments low we may never see any of these things in game, but you never know. The textures themselves are incredible detailed and will painted though. I would hardly call these textures sloppy.
3. I don't really mind the contrast between the dead, and the bright colorful out-doors. I think its actually an interesting twist, but this is also my own opinion.
yeah in Diablo1, but I'm am going to make a wild assumption that this is simply not the case in this game. I'm also going to make the wild assumption that there will be areas far more sinister than what we were shown.
This was a game play demo meant to show the game play.
Dated? tell me... since when has blizzard made a game that was a graphics powerhouse? This is because they want to make sure a wide range of PC's can run the game. This has always been their philosophy for pretty much ever. That being said the game looks current gen, and I am more than happy with that since I know it will be an amazing experience.
Sloppy? I did not see any art that looked "sloppy" it looks like they have an art direction that is cohesive and well thought out. However you may feel about the art and graphics does not make them "sloppy." It just makes the fact that you don't like the graphics your opinion.
Also I do not agree with your opinion of the games current art direction and therefore have formed my own opinion. My opinion is that I happen to enjoy the color, and the out door environments we saw in the game play trailer. I do think though that the game could use more contrast than what we have seen so far. However this might be due to the compression of the video and or the screen settings the game was captured on.
I imagine hell would be darker than that. I doubt they are going to make Tristram dungeon the most horrific and dark part of the game, since, I'm pretty sure it's going to be near the beginning. That said, I would like for people to show some restraint with these comments until we see more dungeons and areas of the game later on.