I know many of you are paying a lot of attention to the way the environment is a little brighter and more colourful than necessary, not setting the correct mood. But have you checked out some of the character design?
In particular I am concerned about the SHAPE, COLOUR, TEXTURE, SIZE, and DETAIL of the armor.
If you take a close look at the "gothic plate" that drops from the chest for the barbarian during the gameplay video, (or this, http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c238/ShroudOfEscape/lawl.jpg ) it doesn't look anything like gothic plate... or any kind of plate for that matter.
-The colour: It's green... what?
-The shape/size: A little too large. A little too "chunky".. remeniscent of WoW-style.
-The detail: It's overdone. There are already spikes, there's no need for multiple ridges surrounded by poorly drawn/blurry details around it. The armor just looks crowded.
-The TEXTURE: This is the biggest one for me. MAKE METAL SHINE A BIT. You can't even tell what kind of material he is wearing because there is absolutely no reflection. He could be wearing cloth over cardboard, painted wood, plastic, or even playdough for all you know.
As another small example, take a look at the Dark Cultist page here.
( http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/bestiary/darkcultists.xml )
Compare the concept art pictures, which is quite good in my opinion, to the actual in game design. He looks vastly different in-game, and it's not for the better. It's not even for the sake of cutting down on detail or work.
Concept art: The cultist is wearing faded purple robes with some gray parts. There is some dull silver/whitish metal(?) hanging down the center and back. Little bit of white accent here and there.
In-game art: The cultist is wearing faded purple robes as above. The robes also have large parts of dark and light green, dark and light yellow, and sky blue stripes on his left arm. On his right arm, he has some kind of oversized, overdetailed, colourful gauntlet with things protruding from it. What the hell is this? I could swear to God that I was looking at a WoW undead warlock. He looks more like a painted EASTER EGG than a Dark Cultist.
I REALLY hope the artists stray from this ridiculous looking WoW art and go back to the basics we had in Diablo and Diablo II, with updated graphics. UPDATE things, do not radically change them into something else. They have enough time that they could make some changes to this stuff, so don't give up on it. They also have the talent to make this game look awesome, I believe. We just have to let them know what we like, and what we don't. Hopefully they'll take it into consideration.
In WoW, everything looks like garbage. Everyone knows it's oversized and and mismatched colour-wise. I'm not sure how many people notice this, but there's also a huge problem of there being almost no reflection on most metal items in that game. You cannot tell the difference between leather and plate aside from shape of most items.
I want smooth, reflective plates of metal, at least in some places. I want chainmail that has at least a slight sparkle to it when you're in the light. I want armor that is SLIGHTLY realistic and cool looking. I want armor that doesn't look crowded and overdetailed. I want armor that isn't TOO COLOURFUL. I want to be able to know what I'm wearing in more ways than just by hovering over the item and seeing the name "gothic plate"
Please, don't let this turn into WoW2 where art is concerned. It can be improved; Blizzard has the tools and the talent.
Matt Uelmann pleeeeeeeeease. Diablo / Diablo II had such amazing music. I'm really SICK of all the other games with such boring ambient short sampled music. It makes a huge difference with the feel of the game.
When watching alot of these picture remakes... i really have to say this community has lost it totaly. People that dont have a clue about art is judging like veterans, this is my opnion tho but ithink you guys dont have a clue! In fact this reaction from this community scares me even more..... :/
People don't have to "have a clue about art" to express what they like and what they dislike. What we like is what matters most when it comes to creating something for a customer rather than for the sake of art itself.
Blizzard should fire these wow-art workers~~~what these guys have done to my diablo :[
I agree...
My biggest issue is with the characters themselves rather than the world art(though darker would be better). SERIOUSLY, I hope they fix this quickly before it snowballs out of control like it did in WoW and we all start running around in 12 foot tall flaming playdough shoulderpads. D2 even with its terrible resolution looked better than this just by art. You saw white bone or smooth plates of metal, or robes that actually looked decent.
I've nothing against the GLOW. It's the way the armor is OVER DETAILED AND COLOURFUL and does not match even itself. Go back to the basics please.
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In particular I am concerned about the SHAPE, COLOUR, TEXTURE, SIZE, and DETAIL of the armor.
If you take a close look at the "gothic plate" that drops from the chest for the barbarian during the gameplay video, (or this, http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c238/ShroudOfEscape/lawl.jpg ) it doesn't look anything like gothic plate... or any kind of plate for that matter.
-The colour: It's green... what?
-The shape/size: A little too large. A little too "chunky".. remeniscent of WoW-style.
-The detail: It's overdone. There are already spikes, there's no need for multiple ridges surrounded by poorly drawn/blurry details around it. The armor just looks crowded.
-The TEXTURE: This is the biggest one for me. MAKE METAL SHINE A BIT. You can't even tell what kind of material he is wearing because there is absolutely no reflection. He could be wearing cloth over cardboard, painted wood, plastic, or even playdough for all you know.
As another small example, take a look at the Dark Cultist page here.
( http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/bestiary/darkcultists.xml )
Compare the concept art pictures, which is quite good in my opinion, to the actual in game design. He looks vastly different in-game, and it's not for the better. It's not even for the sake of cutting down on detail or work.
Concept art: The cultist is wearing faded purple robes with some gray parts. There is some dull silver/whitish metal(?) hanging down the center and back. Little bit of white accent here and there.
In-game art: The cultist is wearing faded purple robes as above. The robes also have large parts of dark and light green, dark and light yellow, and sky blue stripes on his left arm. On his right arm, he has some kind of oversized, overdetailed, colourful gauntlet with things protruding from it. What the hell is this? I could swear to God that I was looking at a WoW undead warlock. He looks more like a painted EASTER EGG than a Dark Cultist.
I REALLY hope the artists stray from this ridiculous looking WoW art and go back to the basics we had in Diablo and Diablo II, with updated graphics. UPDATE things, do not radically change them into something else. They have enough time that they could make some changes to this stuff, so don't give up on it. They also have the talent to make this game look awesome, I believe. We just have to let them know what we like, and what we don't. Hopefully they'll take it into consideration.
In WoW, everything looks like garbage. Everyone knows it's oversized and and mismatched colour-wise. I'm not sure how many people notice this, but there's also a huge problem of there being almost no reflection on most metal items in that game. You cannot tell the difference between leather and plate aside from shape of most items.
I want smooth, reflective plates of metal, at least in some places. I want chainmail that has at least a slight sparkle to it when you're in the light. I want armor that is SLIGHTLY realistic and cool looking. I want armor that doesn't look crowded and overdetailed. I want armor that isn't TOO COLOURFUL. I want to be able to know what I'm wearing in more ways than just by hovering over the item and seeing the name "gothic plate"
Please, don't let this turn into WoW2 where art is concerned. It can be improved; Blizzard has the tools and the talent.
Thank you.
edit: I fail at links. How do I make those work?
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People don't have to "have a clue about art" to express what they like and what they dislike. What we like is what matters most when it comes to creating something for a customer rather than for the sake of art itself.
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I agree...
My biggest issue is with the characters themselves rather than the world art(though darker would be better). SERIOUSLY, I hope they fix this quickly before it snowballs out of control like it did in WoW and we all start running around in 12 foot tall flaming playdough shoulderpads. D2 even with its terrible resolution looked better than this just by art. You saw white bone or smooth plates of metal, or robes that actually looked decent.
I've nothing against the GLOW. It's the way the armor is OVER DETAILED AND COLOURFUL and does not match even itself. Go back to the basics please.