This is a Diablo III fansite, so I am gonna try to stick to that. Below you have a couple of quotes from the interview. You can read other comments made by Bill Roper concerning the Diablo III art direction through page four and five. His opinion on Diablo III is very valuable. Personally, myself and all the crew (and fans) wish Bill Roper the best in the immediate present and future. I know these are very hard times. I held one of the first, if not the first, Hellgate: London fan site interviews with Bill Roper on August 27, 2005. And, prior to that, was surprised to get emailed by him for other personal matters. I have always been a fan of him and his work. As such, it pains me as much and as close as it would a brother.
GFW: Have you thought about how you would feel if they get some team together and actually somehow cobble it into a game? Are you going to have mixed feelings -- like you're glad that somebody was finally able to put this baby out -- or do you wish that it just got killed with you guys?
BR: I think what I would really want to see is that there was some way where Travis [Baldree] and his guys were able to finish their game. It's pretty different from, for example, how I feel about the Diablo III stuff. I'm excited to see Diablo III, because it's a whole new thing. They've got a whole new direction on it. They have a few of the guys that worked at Blizzard North still around, but there's a whole new team on it, and it's like, OK, it's their license, and they're trying to really move the bar and do something different with the Diablo license. Yeah, I'm excited when I see what they're coming up with.
GFW: What was your own gut reaction to the art direction?
BR: I just thought it was different. I think the thing I always liked about the Blizzard North and Blizzard HQ constructs is the fact that they were two very distinct groups. At Irvine, we had a way that we approached things -- game development, art style, from color to character shapes, everything -- that was very distinct from the guys at Blizzard North. I think that it made it pretty compelling when you bought the Diablo titles. You got something that was markedly different from what you got out of a WarCraft or StarCraft. I think now, because everything's down there, you're seeing the Irvine take on the Diablo universe. So it's just the direction they're going with the people they have and the mindset there. I always liked the fact that Diablo was very dark and Gothic and gritty and edgy, but I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with the direction they've gone. They just chose to go a different way.
I think the core Diablo fans are saying, "We really like the dark, edgy, gritty look of that game!" We had people impaled on spikes, for god's sake. And now it's kind of bright and airy and doesn't quite feel the same. But I dunno. I look at it, and it's got high production quality, and it looks like it's going to be really fun to play. I think that wall of zombies is the coolest concept for a spell maybe ever. It's not any different in terms of gameplay mechanics, but it's so cleverly thought-out. I'm gonna raise a wall of undead! Oh my god, why didn't we ever think of that! It's genius! So I look forward to that. Again, it's a take on something, even if it's different. With Mythos, it's a thing where...it's mostly done, and you want the guys who were working on it, pouring their vision into it, their heart and soul into it, to be the ones who complete it. Short of somebody else being involved with the project, I don't really see that happening.
Yet Chris Metzen's poems are all throughout the D2 manual.
LOL, I guess the team that did 100% of the character art, background art, soundtrack, in-game programming and design doesn't constitute "those who worked on the actual games" when compared with the writer, executive producer, voice actors and back-end battle.net guys who were 400 miles away.
Fanboy historical revisionism knows no bounds. Seriously, Dime, to you care to refute any single factual thing I've mentioned? Have you considered working for Kim Jong Il, by the way? Your skills could come in handy in his media department.
Yes, Chris did a ton of great story/lore work on both Diablo and Diablo II. Many people in Irvine (like Bill Roper, who gave great feedback and did voice work) did great stuff for both games. That doesn't change the fact that he never worked in the Bay Area with the main team.
If you hate D3 and Blizzard so much, why the hell are you here? I haven't heard one thing good about Blizzard from you since your first post. Just endless complaining on a FANsite.
Many old-school fans like me are frustrated that Blizzard seems to be stuck in this strange endless loop of self-repetition, which is encouraged by the endless treadmill that is WoW, we really wish that Blizzard would give us a steady stream of great new games like back in the day.
Hopefully some of my posts will help the community cut through some of the reality-distortion-field created by the rabid noob fanboys who unfortunately don't help the process of giving Blizzard the feedback it needs to return to greatness.
The problem with the current situation is that the fanboys perpetuate a state where every turd is called a golden nugget, such that when Blizzard management snaps out of it in a year or so, they may just end up doing what they always do when a title seems stuck in a rut - cancellation.
I have no problem with you expressing your opinion. Just up until now it was nothing but Blizzard bashing.
Maybe the announcement of D3/SC2 is the dawn of a new age of consistent releases once again who knows.
The problem is that when the main focus of the company is on encouraging people to pay $100 bucks to line up to toss salad instead of on making new IP, it doesn't help. The rabid fanboys here are part of that problem. Getting a shiny 3d version of a game (with yet-more-rendered yet still irrelevant to the game cinematics) I played ten years ago is kind of cool, but it doesn't touch the old-school experience of getting a genuinely new game every year.
I wish I knew some way to encourage them to get back to that mindset.
Oh so you want a whole new game? I doubt that'll happen, they'll milk current franchises for all they're worth.
Read up hellgate was released prematurely, their hands were forced by handbisoft, to get the game out by a certain date for sales purposes, hundreds of patches would had of been needed to finish it, and not only that the idea of forced instances is what really made hellgate fail, they wanted something different to wow, they got it but no one picked up on yet alone liked the idea of forced instances insted of open planed lvling/pvp/ questing/ instances, why, because of WOW.
i liked it besides these facts.
I hate the art direction of D3 looks to much like a pastel drawn picture with a 3d rendered character.
Ill prob sitll buy the damn thing only because ive loved Diablo since it first came out and im hoping the game play is the same/ and or simular.
Ghost from memory was being made by north wasnt it?, it got scraped cause activision didnt want a console game let alone making starcraft into a shooter would prob ruin starcrafts great rts reputation and hinder Sc2s hype.