DiabloFans

My gut feeling for a release date would sit at around Nov 2009 - March 2010 tbh

I can understand that a lot of people might find this a miniscule detail to look at, but as a graphic designer who is very much interested in ui design, especially in games - this plays a bigger role to us. Remember thread is addressing graphical components specifically - gameplay itself is looking awesome at this stage.

I voiced my opinion mainly because Blizzard is generally one of the best game developers as far as graphic design goes - and web 2.0 buttons is a design solution that even myself (a design student who hasn't even graduated yet) could probably improve upon - in other words, for an experienced artistic director or graphic designer in the industry imo this is an incredibly poor design solution for a graphic UI for a gothic medievil action RPG.

Does rounded, bubble-shaped buttons really say "dark", "gothic", "medievil", or "action" to you?

So I've been looking at the graphic design of the interface in the following screenshots - http://www.joystiq.com/photos/blizzcon-2008-diablo-iii-in-depth-hands-on/1092166/full/ - and thought I might voice the response of myself and a number of my fellow Diablo fans, who are also all graphic designers.


From a purely graphic design standpoint, I felt that the design of some of the buttons stuck out to me, and didn't really unify with the design of the rest of the interface. Particularly the shape of the item icons and the skill icons - which take on a cliche "web 2.0" design style, ie: they have a subtle background colour gradient and a glassy/plastic texture, which makes them look very smooth and bubble shaped.

This didn't sit very well with me, and feels like a fairly lazy design solution to me (generally frowned upon as a common and un-innovative graphic design solution in the industry afaik). I also thought that it also somewhat detracts from the artwork of the items themselves, rather than support and enhance it. I much prefered the grungy, textural icons we saw in DI and DII, as this fitted the bloody, dark, action-packed atmosphere much closer.

I am being a bit picky, but I usually recognise and respect the very high standard of graphic design Blizzard puts out, and thought they might like some feedback from fellow designers. Just something the graphic artists may like to consider.

Did anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Dude, go play diablo 2 again. Play a barbarian, spec him with shout, BO, cencentrate, Iron skin and give him the IK set - there you have a tank.

Spec him with Shout, BO, Frenzy, give him two one handed swords and you have dps.

Theres always been huge variation avaliable in skills and gear dude, and I'm sure it will stay this way, though diablo first and foremost is an actionRPG which means big dps no matter how you spec. If that doesnt suit you well this might not be the right game for you.

Anyone know if it is possible to run this on a mac? Pretty sure the version shown wont work, anyone know if they have released a mac version?

In D2, more often than not, my mercs survivability and dps was better than my own. Usually took the Act 2 guy with the +defense aura which gave him buttloads of armour

I reckon the female barbarian looks sweet. Certainly a good idea for someone like me who leveled several different barbarians with different specs. Gives a bit of variety there, love the idea!

tbh while I think the models look slightly too blocky and cartoony, its not that big a deal really, and its almost certainly not going to change because Blizz won't go and redo it all. I'm just being realistic. It is a shame though because those railings look totally uninspired, doen't look like they researched it at all. I've certainly never seen a railing like that, and I sure as hell wouldn't expect to see such a lumpy, blocky railing in a cathedral - which usually have the most intricate and stunning architecture I have ever seen.

Like the OP states, the brightness of the scene is what is amiss. The fact that in the underground dungeon there is a huge amount of random green light that seemingly comes from all directions, leaving us without any dark corners at all, just doen't sit right. Not a big deal outside though to be honest, it actually looks dark and moody when the rain etc kicks in, im betting it will be even better at night time.

Sure as hell hope that night time looks decntly dark though, not like in WoW where I could hardly tell the difference except for a very slight blue cast because of the moon...

While I do not expect it untill the middle of next year at least, it does seem a bit strange that all these sites are pinning it as late 2008

in all honesty, if I had to choose whether I wanted to play the game with kids of with some elitist adults who want to kick people out based on age, I would easily choose the kids, as they would have a much more easy going, and less tight arse attitude. I mean seriously... all you wanting to kick out kids, you just sound like epic wankers and not the type of person tht i want in the community at all...

Those ones from D1 were pretty damn creepy...

Yeah all the new effects look amazing, as well as the physics engine.

Really do think the light radius needs to return with some more emphasis put on creating that suspenseful horror feel - thats what the light radius was good for, I think it would have a good effect in the dungeons and at night time outdoor areas.

Being bright in the outdoor areas during daytime sits fine with me, heck, when it starts to get stormy and rain at the end of the gameplay vid it really does start to look quite gloomy and horror-ish, looks great!

I'm really loving the classes they have included - stoked at the barbarian, he was a defining class for D2 and my favourite. The witch doctor looks pretty cool too.

Hoping to see perhaps 2 new classes joining us, and one more returning class tbh. Can see them including a pure caster archetype for sure, which leaves room for one more melee class and one hybrid caster/melee I guess?

I quite liked the paladin too, so I hope he is returning!

iirc Blizzard really does like to hear the feedback from the community in order to further refine their product to suit their target market. Look what happened to SC2 because the community spoke out about the art.

Personally I do think that the artwork looks a whole lot less dark and brooding than the previous games, which was a defining feature of the series. Leaving this in the game does not halt the evolution at all, it stops the lore from losing its identity. imo it would benefit from a bit more darkening up. The more badass the better, helps to distance it from the disney effect it has going right now.

Other than that I really think it looks great. To everyone QQing about the necro, get over it, you really do sound like you wanted them to keep all the classes and simply add a 3D engine to the game. The witch doctor, with his summoning, poison and curses is clearly an evolution of the necro. D3 looks massive so far, hope they can take some constructive comments from the community and make it stand out even further.

I give it one year minimum, 2 years maximun tbh.