Diablo III is for real

[Kevin]

People here didn't bitch this much about the evolution of WC2 to WC3 for crying out loud! Why this? Why now?! Because you CAN? Come on.

There are few reasons for this. One this site was never nearly as big for WC/SC as it was for Diablo / Diablo 2. And I think some of the lounge not being active was around WC3 time. But there was bitching about War3, there still is bitching about War3. The hero concept really turned some people off compared to War 2 and there were some complaints about the graphics as well. But for WC/SC it doesn't matter as much. The graphics and music didn't set as much of a tone because it was a different type of game. They weren't trying to great as much tone. So making the environment better looking (though again there were some gripes about the cartoonification) and allowing some other fun things to be done is not as big of deal.

I'm quite excited about the environmental updates in SC2 because it's adding to the game without really pulling it away from it's roots. The hero classes in War3 many say pulled the game from it's roots and there was a HUGE uproar (maybe not on these boards but on the bigger warcraft boards) when Blizzard initally announced the game and it was planned as you had a hero and depending on the level / number of heroes you had it would determine how many units you could control. People were pissed because that was a complete and total gameplay change. So Blizzard backed off on it and just made heroes be super units with the more traditional supplies for the other units. But there were unhappy people.

The difference with Diablo and why people are getting nit picky about art (other than the fact that picking nits is a long standing tradition at the lounge) is because one of the things people loved about D1 was the atmosphere it had because that was important to the game. These people complained about that loss when D2 came out and they are worried about it for D3 as well. The gameplay changes between 1 and 2 were significant as well and turned people off and they griped about that too. I think that is part of the reason that Blizzard is trying to make SC2 have gameplay very similar to SC but with a few updates here and there and a new graphical look. They learned from the gripes with War 3 and D2. However since D2 sold way more than D1, I've got a feeling D3 will be closer to D2. Does that mean it's a departure from the series? No, not really. It means that Blizzard decided they'll make more money with a game that resembles D2 more closely than it resembles D1.

I've expressed my opinions on it already. I think they are doing some blending, my hope is the sound has a quality and feel closer to D1, especially in the more dungeon crawly type levels. But I'm OK with the graphics. Glossy can still be sinister if things are done right. A really messed up corpse in an otherwise clean and polished church can work really well if the point is that the church was recently desecrated. Churches are expected to be clean and polished. But a mangled body or some zombies coming up from the cellars aren't.

I seem to recall some environments in System Shock that seemed to be pretty clean and alive but were spooky as heck because of the sounds and the unexpected psycho monkeys. But other areas were just a mess. I haven't played Bioshock but from some of what I've seen, they seem to do some of that too. There are some polished clean graphic buts then there is something that looks really out of place and it gets you to be a little creeped out.

Dunno. I'm looking forward to it. But I fully understand the concerns and worries some have and I even hope that they do some things a bit different from what I saw. Nothing wrong with a polished glossy environment if it is supposed to be, but if the minions of Hell have been there for awhile, make it look like it and feel like it please. Give me some "Ah, fresh meat!" but without the loading lag so that I have a chance against it. :) Make some deep dungeon crawls. Heck, put all of D1 in there as an act, make me go through all those levels again for nostalgia and to kill some big baddy who popped up there again. But since it's been 20 years, well some of that stuff could have been fixed up again. :) But I have no problem with that being a weak spot and some act end (using the D2 style of story progression which I'm hoping becomes more seemless in D3) type boss is down there after 16 levels. :)

I made a found a few other NWN Diablo mods that recreated some of that stuff with the NWN engine and it was fun. It's a simple setting but it works well. :)