Diablo III is for real

[[wcip]Angel]

Nice to see the new announcement has brought so many like-minded back to the fold.:)

As to the game, I'm cautiously pessimistic. I do look forward to the new installment of the greatest RPG-series the PC has ever seen, but I'm also a bit 'meh' when it comes to the graphics. My gripe is not so much of the "good graphics vs bad graphics"-type, but rather cartoony vs gritty. One of the reasons D1 almost made me pee my pants, was the dark, gritty, grainy and downright menacing graphics of the surroundings and the enemies. I've lamented these last couple of years after having stood idly by and seen WarCraft leaning more and more towards the cartoonish rather than my fond memory of those blood-stained cathedral walls of Tristram. Graphics take a backseat to gameplay, but for the game to really shine, it needs to be a lot darker in my book.

But we'll see. I'm not going to judge the game by its trailer. D3 will be good. But whether it'll be great or not remains to be seen.

[smithy]

Angel' date='Jun 28 2008, 07:59 PM' post='149963']
Nice to see the new announcement has brought so many like-minded back to the fold.:)

As to the game, I'm cautiously pessimistic. I do look forward to the new installment of the greatest RPG-series the PC has ever seen, but I'm also a bit 'meh' when it comes to the graphics. My gripe is not so much of the "good graphics vs bad graphics"-type, but rather cartoony vs gritty. One of the reasons D1 almost made me pee my pants, was the dark, gritty, grainy and downright menacing graphics of the surroundings and the enemies. I've lamented these last couple of years after having stood idly by and seen WarCraft leaning more and more towards the cartoonish rather than my fond memory of those blood-stained cathedral walls of Tristram. Graphics take a backseat to gameplay, but for the game to really shine, it needs to be a lot darker in my book.

But we'll see. I'm not going to judge the game by its trailer. D3 will be good. But whether it'll be great or not remains to be seen.

Did you watch the gameplay video? If you go to Blizzard's D3 site, they have a cinematic video and a gameplay video. There's a lot of blood being splattered around in the video with realistic physics effects (i.e. monster go flying when you stomp them).

[[wcip]Angel]

It's not about mature content but rather the stylistic choice Blizzard's made. I've watched the gameplay-footage, and it's very clear when the barbarian first meets up with Deckard Cain. The characters seem (to me anyway) very cartoonish and look very similar to the style used in WoW.

[smithy]

Angel' date='Jun 28 2008, 08:35 PM' post='149965']
It's not about mature content but rather the stylistic choice Blizzard's made. I've watched the gameplay-footage, and it's very clear when the barbarian first meets up with Deckard Cain. The characters seem (to me anyway) very cartoonish and look very similar to the style used in WoW.

Ahh I understand you better now. I agree about the cartoony look but Blizzard has always had a bit of that. Even the zerglings were kinda cute! :)

[Mithrandir]

Between the cash juggernaut that is WoW and the impending release of SC2 and D3 I think the governments of the world should just give up and cede the rights to Blizzard to just go ahead and print money.

[Treesh]

Angel' date='Jun 28 2008, 06:59 PM' post='149963']
My gripe is not so much of the "good graphics vs bad graphics"-type, but rather cartoony vs gritty. One of the reasons D1 almost made me pee my pants, was the dark, gritty, grainy and downright menacing graphics of the surroundings and the enemies.

Goatboys and fallen were menacing looking? The sluts weren't cartoony as they threw their red spikey balls at you? Honestly, the graphics of D1 weren't all that gritty and dark. At least I didn't think so. Maybe I just read too many horror books growing up or something. *shrugs* What made the game feel dark, gritty and menacing was the fact if you went too far around a corner you could get splatted instantly. Load up D1 and D2 both again and take a good hard non-nostalgic (which can be tricky) look at the graphics again. They really weren't earthshakingly good or caused a lot of horror themselves. They were good for the time, but not really any more or less menacing than other similar games.

[FoxBat]

Ahh I understand you better now. I agree about the cartoony look but Blizzard has always had a bit of that. Even the zerglings were kinda cute! :)

No, Diablo 1 really didn't have it. Then again, much of that game was made without Blizzard.

I too was slightly disappointed that they have continued with the II-ish graphic feel. The dark, gothic aesthetics of the first remain unsurpassed. At least the sound is full of heavy thumps and hits, another place where the sequel fell flat on its face compared to the original. But even if they continue the desecration of the first game's excellent lore and feel, the gameplay looks very good, and that's what matters most in the end.

[Kevin]

No, Diablo 1 really didn't have it. Then again, much of that game was made without Blizzard.

I too was slightly disappointed that they have continued with the II-ish graphic feel. The dark, gothic aesthetics of the first remain unsurpassed. At least the sound is full of heavy thumps and hits, another place where the sequel fell flat on its face compared to the original. But even if they continue the desecration of the first game's excellent lore and feel, the gameplay looks very good, and that's what matters most in the end.

I agree very much with the sound. The sound much more than the graphics helped with the darker atmosphere.

I agree II's graphics were more cartoonish, but D1 still had elements like that too. Treesh mentioned several of them. Snotspill is another example. The mobs with the horns on their head that would charge you didn't really look all that menacing and felt pretty cartoonish to me as well. But the sounds helped reign it in. The fact that you were always underground had a lot to do with the D1 feel as well in my book. But you take some of the best tomb levels of D2, take away the out door environments use darker heavier sounds like in D1 and D2 suddenly becomes a much grittier darker game. There was so much more in D2 than in D1 that it was pretty much not possible to hold the feel the whole way through.

But I do agree that II was not as good about as the original. But that was mostly a few of the character models (the barbarian the zon mostly) but the paladin, necro and sorc really wern't all that different from the D1 warrior, sorc and rogue as far as graphical feel.

I also agree with Treesh in that D1 was much less of an AoE fest. The one class that was really good at AoE, the sorc with the fireballs of doom and the other tricks, was also the toon that if you played it through made D1 feel the least immersive. And D2 played way more like D1 with a sorc than D1 with a warrior or rogue as well. D2 gameplay was mostly AoE the heck out of everything get loot move on. D1 had a lot more to do with, move cautiously around this corner, pull back one or two mobs, kill them, pull one or 2 more kill them.

That extra caution that you normally had to employ made the game feel more tense and scary as well.


Now from the little we saw in the trailer, the graphics and sound feel closer to D1 than D2, the game play looks to be heavy AoE like D2 but there appeared to be more strat needed like D1. If got a feeling the overal product will likely be closer to II than the original but I think they did learn some lessons are are bringing things back. Of course the world is likely to have some places that just won't, or even shouldn't based on the lore, be dark environments, but I don't think that is all bad. I'm hoping they do have some deeper dungeons set up though, something like a full Act of D2 that is set up as most a pure dungeon crawl with that heavier sound and darker feel the whole act since the lore called for it. We'll see if it's more about shopping the strategy or not. D2 really was more about shopping for items than anything else in the end. D1 didn't really feel nearly as item heavy so hopefully we get some more of the D1 on that end too.

[FoxBat]

Now from the little we saw in the trailer, the graphics and sound feel closer to D1 than D2

Arg.

Forget the movie, go look at the detailed screenshots.

The terrain is a sharp mess of paint. Aka cel-reminiscient cartoons. It's vastly more cartoon-WoW than 2 was. I need to vomit.

Albeit a nice looking cartoons in some parts... but dammit this isn't Diablo!:(

[Quark]

Arg.

Forget the movie, go look at the detailed screenshots.

I'm not seeing what you're seeing. There's nothing even remotely close to cel-shading.

[TheDragoon]

Goatboys and fallen were menacing looking? The sluts weren't cartoony as they threw their red spikey balls at you? Honestly, the graphics of D1 weren't all that gritty and dark. At least I didn't think so. Maybe I just read too many horror books growing up or something. *shrugs* What made the game feel dark, gritty and menacing was the fact if you went too far around a corner you could get splatted instantly. Load up D1 and D2 both again and take a good hard non-nostalgic (which can be tricky) look at the graphics again. They really weren't earthshakingly good or caused a lot of horror themselves. They were good for the time, but not really any more or less menacing than other similar games.

I would tend to agree with what Treesh is saying. There were certainly locations of the game that I thought had a fantastic dark, horrific atmosphere (such as parts of the cathedral and all of the catacombs). However, there were also places that were not nearly as dark or scary (the magma caves and hell). Similarly, there were some monsters in the game that also showed the darkness (blood knights, bats) and others that were very cartoony (fallen, goatmen). So you have kind of a mixed bag there, too.

Looking at Diablo III, I can see them going for a very wide range of feels which I, personally, think will be fantastic. If it's just dark all of the time, then the less dark parts just get boring. With some variety thrown in there, you can expect to have more contrast to the game. Thus, when you descend deep into the crypt/cave/catacombs/tombs/etc you will have a real appreciation for how different that is than the outside world.

I also think that the general detail and artwork of all of the areas that we have seen, so far, is awesome. The outside world isn't just some boring all green area with fences around it. It is a detailed world with trees, patches of grass, bushes and stones. The color work is bright and vibrant, providing a deep contrast to the indoor and underground areas. Even the ground, itself, is varied and captures a wide range of colors and textures. That's a huge improvement over the boring green areas of Act 1 in Diablo II. I know I, at least, will not get nearly as bored with those areas as I did in Diablo II. :)

[FoxBat]

I'm not seeing what you're seeing. There's nothing even remotely close to cel-shading.

I'm overstating the case, but the terrain is simplified and smoothed out, with large blobs of solid color. Has a very pastel-ish look. It's very reminiscient of WoW/Dungeon Runners. Even the grittiness level of D2 is gone. This (lack of) detail wasn't evident to me from the gameplay movie, but it's quite clear in the screenshots.

Blizzard knows this is a departure, this is from Rob: "Initially the game's visual design was closer to the older games than what we saw in the gameplay demonstration. We probably did three revisions on the visual direction until we got to this and now we're really happy with it."

If you've been through all the screenshots and aren't distraught, then it's not a problem for you. (This is a WoW site:P) But for me, this is barely Diablo anymore. :( At least the gameplay panel sounded good, I guess...

[TheDragoon]

I think the gameplay of Diablo III looks like it will be a blast. I'm guessing that there will be more of a focus on providing everyone with effective AoE skills than there was in Diablo II. Things like leap attack and charge were designed with AoE effects in mind rather than just single target effects, as in D2. In addition, at the start of the trailer the Barbarian seemed to be using an attack that was hitting multiple monsters in an arc in front of him. That sort of addition to the arsenal will certainly promise a fast-paced action game that looked like a blast to play.

As far as the Barbarian, I thought that its gameplay looked pretty addictive. It seems much more frenetic than was seen in Diablo 2 since the Barbarian seems to be loaded up with movement-based skills that allow it to easy slide from place to place in the battleground. I noted that he seems to have inherited the charge skill from D2's Paladin as well as a quasi-zeal sort of the skill (the frontal arc attack skill). I wonder if this means that we'll be seeing a lot of hybrid character type design in D3 where they take some aspects of one class and add them to another class, adding depth and other options to the final class design.

I was a little disappointed to see that the Witch Doctor's skill set likely means that there won't be a Necromancer in the game. I always really liked the feel of the Necromancer, so seeing the crazed savage sort of look of the Witch Doctor takes away some of that. However, I DO like that they have come up with a good way to handle corpse (or minion!) explosion without the need for corpses to start from. That should be an entertaining skill to use! It seems like they took the pet design and fire attacks of the druid and matched it with the poison, bone and fear attacks of the necromancer in making the Witch Doctor. I will look forward to seeing how that works out.

It should be interesting to see what sort of a skill system gets put into the game. D1 was totally different from D2, so I wouldn't necessarily think that D3 will follow the design of D2's skills. Personally, I'd like to see a limited base skill set for each class with some additional skills and enhancements provided via some sort of skill/talent tree. If they made it sort of a hybrid of D2 and WoW (that is, a few base skills compared with the 0 of D2 and tons of WoW), then I think it will keep things interesting. In the demos, it looked like each character had a ton of different skills to choose from, so maybe it won't be so limited as it was in D2 where it felt like you used one or two skills exclusively.

Finally, I really liked all of the little details that were put into the skills. The way things get stomped into the ground with leap attack is pretty awesome, as is the fire elemental that explodes out of the Witch Doctor's fire bomb attack or the visage that floats in the air over the Witch Doctor when it uses its fear attack. Those sorts of details should add some flash and finish to the game that will keep things interesting. :)

[Quark]

It's very reminiscient of WoW/Dungeon Runners.

This is what's getting me. It doesn't look anything like Warcraft to me at all. When I think of Warcraft I think bright, blocky, exaggerated - not smooth. None of those screenshots say the same thing to me. Two or three of the shots I can look at and think "maybe this looks like Scholomance." But it's still not quite the same, and Scholomance was the darkest location in all the Warcraft universe.

The outside shots don't particularly say dark or bright to me. It looks like Arreat Plateau (I'm sorry, Arreat Crater?) in the fall instead of winter. So that's not completely dark. I distinctly remember many people complaining about how singular Hellgate: London's art design was.

Overall it may be brighter than you want, but I see nothing particularly bright, and nothing cartoony. Try looking at Rogue Galaxy and then call this bright.

[Xbizkitl]

This is what's getting me. It doesn't look anything like Warcraft to me at all. When I think of Warcraft I think bright, blocky, exaggerated - not smooth. None of those screenshots say the same thing to me. Two or three of the shots I can look at and think "maybe this looks like Scholomance." But it's still not quite the same, and Scholomance was the darkest location in all the Warcraft universe.

The outside shots don't particularly say dark or bright to me. It looks like Arreat Plateau (I'm sorry, Arreat Crater?) in the fall instead of winter. So that's not completely dark. I distinctly remember many people complaining about how singular Hellgate: London's art design was.

Overall it may be brighter than you want, but I see nothing particularly bright, and nothing cartoony. Try looking at Rogue Galaxy and then call this bright.

Meh, I agree with FoxBat. One of the things that impressed itself upon about Diablo II, looking back from my noobish days, was the weightiness of the mood the game imperceptibly set. Even now, there are still some places I don't like to solo - most of Kurast, the Prince's palace in Lut Gholein, the Catacombs. Can this game, as it is graphically, deliver that mood? It seems to me as a pantomime of the horror fantasy genre, not the archetype of that mood.

The gameplay does look amazing though, I am really looking forward to that. But in DII there was an initial hesitance to move further, to actually unveil the Demonic monsters because of the atmosphere. Now I can fully logically analyze them as mobs, fully cognizant that I am playing a game...and not living a story.

BTW: The lead artist designer for the DIII was intimately involved with WoW (I got this from the WWI interview, but I can't scrounge up anything through Google to be more precise).

[Xiuhcoatl]

Yay, D3! Now I must survive some more years. Maybe I should start exercising now to make up for my too-much-computer-time in the future??

-Van

ps. Hiya Xi!

Hi Van, nice to see you're still around. I mostly lurk but I still visit regularly. I'll let you know in advance, however, that I was not impressed with the D3 cinematic or game-play videos (unless the other classes are more inspiring I probably won't play the game at all). I was not a fan of WoW either and barely played to the end of my subscription....

[FoxBat]

Overall it may be brighter than you want, but I see nothing particularly bright, and nothing cartoony.

It's not about bright or dark.


http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/_images/sc.../ss29-hires.jpg

Look at the gnarled tree on the far right. It's pure watercolor. The zombies aren't left white and red like say Doom, they had to add that blue-green sheen made popular in WC3. The trees remind me of Bill Waterson's (amazing) Calvin and Hobbes. The dungeon outlines are bold and blocky like the Warcraft universe.

http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/_images/sc.../ss10-hires.jpg

Here's a close up so you can see it's not just a texture resolution issue. The dungeon blocks may be full of dents, but the surface is clean, smooth, shiny. Blue and green dominates and earthier reds are absent. You can see a characteristically oversized and blocky fire pot on the bottom left. The two small pyrmaid-like points have their edges smoothed over with light shading.

http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/_images/sc...s/ss9-hires.jpg

The lion statues....nuff said. But check out the oversized shoulder pads and bold armor outlines while we're here.

It is all very beautiful, but like or not it's a significant departure from Diablo. They call it a "hand-painted, epic" look instead of cartoon, but whatever it is, it doesn't communicate terror to me.

[TheKingofKewl]

I was a little disappointed to see that the Witch Doctor's skill set likely means that there won't be a Necromancer in the game. I always really liked the feel of the Necromancer, so seeing the crazed savage sort of look of the Witch Doctor takes away some of that. However, I DO like that they have come up with a good way to handle corpse (or minion!) explosion without the need for corpses to start from. That should be an entertaining skill to use! It seems like they took the pet design and fire attacks of the druid and matched it with the poison, bone and fear attacks of the necromancer in making the Witch Doctor. I will look forward to seeing how that works out.



The Witch Doctor looks to combine a bit of the Necromancer and Druid skills and the mind controlling skill of the Assassin. I'm wondering what the other classes will be like like, should be interesting.

[LavCat]

It is all very beautiful, but like or not it's a significant departure from Diablo. They call it a "hand-painted, epic" look instead of cartoon, but whatever it is, it doesn't communicate terror to me.

The screenshots look like cartoons to me, and I agree the artwork does not communicate terror the way (much of) the artwork of DI and DII does. I liked the trees of the Arreat Summit, because to me they looked like real trees. I thought they were beautiful, even in low resolution.

As much as I like WoW, nothing in WoW that I have seen is able to impart DI like terror. Frustration, satisfaction, maybe, but not terror. (The closest is two rogues and a druid unstealthing at a lonely flag that one is guarding.)

[BotMolesti]

Hearing the news today I installed Diablo and Diablo II & Expansion, and I realized I shouldn't have bought all those games, those two are still above all, at least when it comes to pure fun - and isn't that what computer gaming is all about? Now I'll happyily play my new necro in D2 until the game is released.


What I do hope for the new game is for a great community like back in the days when Jarulf and the strategy forum analyzed Diablo, and Woody played his BNM and Pig asked for civerbs cudgles and Bolty, and Da Ototh, and mallutrs spamming and Pete flaming, and all the others I remember fondly.

Of course here's the first place to look.