You’d have thought “sequel to beloved game announced after eight year silence” would be good news for Diablo fans. And to most, it was. Not everyone felt the same way though – an undercurrent of disappointed muttering had it that the game looked too bright and cartoonish compared to its darker predecessors. Most of us will doubtless wait to see what the game’s actually like before passing judgement based on its appearance alone, but slighted naysayers have banded together for one of those e-petition thingies, determined to talk Blizzard into changing the game’s art style after just four years of development. Can’t fail, surely.
“What we ask Blizzard is to find a way of pleasing the fans of the Diablo universe by giving us a true sequel to Diablo 2 that is graphically coherent with the Diablo universe it belongs to.” Inevitably, they also bitch that they think it looks like “a remake” of WoW. Never forget, folks – A Bit More Colourful and Exactly Like World of Warcraft are in fact one and the same, no matter what the logical part of your brain might be telling you.
There are currently 9352 signatures on the petition, which, while a fair old chunk of disgruntlement, will probably need at least a couple more zeros on the end before Blizzard even read it. So, y’know, good luck with that.
Here’s one of the Photoshopped screenshots they’re using to state their case (original here). My, what elegant captioning:
Joining the ranks of Angries, albeit in rather more restrained fashion, is Fallout 3 producer Ashley Chen [Source]. “I must say I am disappointed that Blizzard has stayed on the conservative side in terms of design with their updates to Diablo and Starcraft”, he notes in a recent blog post, carefully sugar-coating the barb with comments about Blizzard’s knack for fun and polish.
Which is an interesting/brave statement for a rival RPG developer to make in public. While I believe there’s much we’ve yet to see – most especially in terms of co-op/multiplayer – I’m inclined to agree a little at this stage. That D3 is so hugely similar to its eight-year-old predecessor in its play style seems a greater cause for potential concern than that it’s using a few more primary colours. I do hope there are some meaty surprises to come.
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I’m actually replaying Diablo 2 right now. Well, not RIGHT now but currently and I’m enjoying the hell out of it. I may have gone a bit overboard with the skeletons though because I rarely have to do much except walk into a room and my undead legions (plus golem) take care of buisness more or less on thier own. Anywho, if I was going to complain about one thing it would be how dark the graphics are I’m slightly undergeared at the moment because I refuse to throw away any item with ” 1 to light range” on it and I’m STILL annoyed that I have to walk into the corner of every room to see if there’re XP bloated demon’s hiding in the corners of the room. So, roll on the bright and shinys I guess.
After looking at a few of their before and afters I tend to agree. It does look a little WoWish and there is just too much coloured lighting.
Evidenced by the above screen shot (post above this), these guys are actually right, the game does look too bright and colourful. It’s as if coloured lighting was just invented and these guys decided to go mad. Incidentally if you read any guide on level designing for FPS’s they will tend to warn against the over use of coloured lighting, specifically the use of primary colours. In summary they definitely have a point.
I would sign the petition but I actually don’t care.
@Robin:
I hated WC3’s art style and felt WoW’s was tolerable at best, but I have to say I quite like the look of Diablo 3. It’s more atmospheric and less goofy.
Agreed on all counts.
Eff them, those who think that “DARK INDUSTRIAL GOTHIC GRITTY” must be in EVERY DAMN GAME. I find the colour pallete very good thank you very much. Also, check out the artwork for Old/New Tristam. There is one screen which portrays the dark cathedral. Isn’t it dark enough?
That being said, I agree with the playstyle comment. Checking the barb slashing away with the same repeating moves made me worry a little, because come on, eight years of technologic development has surely allowed devs to put some variety in the combat… Add it Blizz!
Steven, once you get some AoE’s you’ll tend to find everything offscreen is dead long before you can see it.
over 4000 people think that photoshop filtered screenshots look better than Blizzards trained and talented team of artists. Now that is a depressing thought. I wonder how many of those people even saw the first Warcraft games and how much of a departure in terms of art WC3 was. There just seems to be a lack of understanding that the reason the games looked like they did then was that was all the technology could do. I have a feeling that if Blizzard had the tech they do now back when D1 & 2 were made, they would look pretty close to what we’ve seen of D3 so far.
As an actual arguement for the palettes used it does bring some pre-established and ideas of contextual colour, and Blizzard have been using this for a while now. The bright primary colours of the PC’s and things is about the only thing I can attribute to looking anything like WoW. I think it works because they’re there to make it easier on the eye when in the middle of a battle to tell whose character is whose, and they are easier to be identified for what their role in battle is by colour. It’s clever artistic design that really nails the feeling of a well constructed game, with well thought out and meaningful game design. Even looking back at Diablo 1, when compared to a lot of things around at the time, it still stood out artistically different from everything else, despite limited tech and the fact the whole game was about going deeper and deeper underground. I think with D3 there’s definitely something to be proved in terms of trying to look different from all the other “gritty, dark and realistic” games. Although it seems Blizzard has still got further to go to prove that if anyone can pull it off, they can.
People complain too much, look at the bright side at least Blizzard cares enough to hear what everyone thinks instead of keeping it a total secret until it’s released. Then all those people would have nothing to complain about…
Wow…I a lot of you are smoking crack. I think this new Diablo looks fantastic and I can’t wait for it to come out. I’ve been playing the Diablo series since 95′ and even got into the beta for Diablo 2 and I must say I love where they took the game. I will definitely be purchasing the colletors edition, because you know they will have one….they always do! See you in Sanctuary!
Omg! People on the internet didn’t like something! How dare they!
Another question that I find particularly interesting: Why do so many people suddenly think that the WoW and (apparantly) warcraft 3 art styles are bad? I’ve not really heard that complaint before but a couple of minutes trolling around the net and it seems like there’s been some kind of secret “I hate wow’s art” underground movement the whole time.
I think sometimes people forget that the greatest game of all time (Ape Escape) was all about the bright primary colours.
@Hutton
I can only speak for myself, but I’ve always disliked the WC3 style. Oversized and slightly goofy I don’t mind, so I think WoW got it right in that regard. But that super sharp angled look that everything had in WC3 just hurt the game, for me. I’d have rather had 2d units/building thrown on top of WC3’s mechanics.
I’d just like the ingame design to match the artworks.
http://eu.blizzard.com/diablo3/_images/artwork/ss24-hires.jpg
4000 really isn’t that many people compared to the…Oh…Hundreds of thousands to millions that are watching this stuff and freaking out with excitement. There’s ALWAYS a vocal minority complaining and bitching.
Let them.
I think the graphics could be more grim, dark, and Diablo-ish. But for christs sake, we should be thankful we’re even getting another Diablo game.
“I do hope there are some meaty surprises to come”
Didn’t you guys notice, D3 being 3D-accelerated!
Now that surely counts for something, ey?
I dont see why the giant fat monster needs to be 1 color with shades of black..and shiny. It just doesn’t fit the diablo art theme.
http://img180.imageshack.us/my.php?image=makeluvnotwarcraftzs3.jpg
Necromancer’s look better because they pulled out the black from the screenshot, defining the shadows more. The original screenshot, you almost ignore all the small details..because they kind of get blurred out. I think this is what people are complaining about…its not too ‘bright’, theres just very little shadows…..and a shiny fat guy who’s face looks like it belongs in a pixar movie or something. Lighting and shading is where its at.
Keep the colors, make stuff that shouldn’t be shiny..not shiny and add more lighting and shading. This would affect performance issues, but thats why there’s options to turn it down.
I don’t really care that much, but looking at that comparison pic tks posted I’d definitely prefer the darker version
Embarrassing.
And here’s the rebuttal to Bethesda:
Diablo 3 vs Fallout 3: How to make a proper Sequel
Personally, half the reason I didn’t like Warcraft 3 was the primitive 3D conversion. It looked awful next to SC. This looks fine though, and Boyarsky’s yet to fail.
I’d say people should take a deep breath, relax and ponder what’s wrong with their heads if they can’t enjoy the action in an action game because the colours are the wrong shade or too vibrant or they can see 3 inches further of what’s on the screen than they’d like.
Personally, I appreciate the art style, but then again I found most of the art and atmosphere rather dreary and boring in D2.
You know this is a new Diablo so there is going to be changes I don’t know why people bother complaining so much, voice your opinion and be civil about it – don’t cry in a forum because it’s not exactly what Diablo 2 was… It’s called Diablo III not Diablo 2 3/4ths- so what the hell…
the difference between the darker and lighter versions is rather slight.
but such is the nature of fandom.
If it’s colourful, doesn’t that mean it’s not ‘next-gen’? Whoa there, brutha…
Frank: I think that article is missing the difference between a sequel and a remake. Making a “proper sequel” does NOT involve just making the same game over again in a nearly indistinguishable format but with one or two new bits. That’s what you put in expansion packs. If someone’s going to make a sequel to a game years and years after it came out, they’d BEST be trying to use the new level of technology to it’s fullest to try and trump the limitations that hampered the original game.
Because when you do things “Old school” just because “That’s how good games were made,” you get shit like Lost Odyssey. There’s no excuse for Lost Odyssey, purely because it didn’t have a ten-year-old prequel to sell it on unadultered nostalgia value for a time when good-looking sprites meant something was state-of-the-art.
Also, I’m with TKS on this: it’s not that it needs to be brown, it just needs to have contrast. You can do contrast with colors besides gray and brown, you just can’t have the sort of mid-range phantom ambient light that seems to suffuse every inch of underground complexes and render it all comfortably well-lit.
The reason people flock to dirt-brown color schemes isn’t because they hate color. It’s because in something that’s mostly monochrome, instances of color and light pop out so much more. “Realistic” is a misnomer for this, because in the real world our eyes tend to adjust pretty quickly to the color of ambient light, so different colors in our view tend to appear much more saturated. But monochromatic palettes call attention to the color of the light source and make people FEEL more like they’re looking at something real.
By the same argument that people raised, where you need the brightly colored outside to make the dungeons properly gloomy, you also need some dark brown and gray about to make the bloody trail you leave behind you show up as gloriously as it should.
The fact that this has been reduced to an argument of “Omg looks like WoW wicked gay, but this BROWN one’s cool and awesome” is simply an unfortunate side effect of masses of people not having the proper vocabulary to analyze something they’re looking at.
@Ci2e:
For the most part people have been pretty civil about it. People criticizing the graphics have gone out of their to provide detailed screenshot comparison and mock up to support their position. Only to be met with a lot of animosity. The story title at the top isn’t exactly neutral.
I like the look of World of Warcraft, I think it’s awesome looking. But when I look at the screenshots of Diablo 3, especially of the blue green dungeon, it looks more in the style of WOW then the style of the older Diablo games. I’d prefer the franchises keep their own visually distinct look. Ultimately, I give Blizzard the benefit of a doubt, because they have a long history of excellence.
I didn’t mean to endorse that blogger’s post…though for the most part I do. Noc says:
I think Bethesda had BEST be clear on what, if anything, was hampering Fallout before they go trump thumping. And what is their trump card, anyway? Judging by Oblivion, it’s the cheap trick of auto-generating 90% of their content.
EDIT: Though it looks like you’re more set on attacking Diablo 3 than defending Fallout 3.
Obviously they should have used my suggestion of having it all in the style of a Gustave Doré etching. But, I haven’t seen WoW, so it’s all new to me. Hurrah!
I believe that, no matter what would be done, there’s ALWAYS some group of people who is ALWAYS dissappointed. Maybe their tin foil hats are too tight, or their parents forced them to eat their spinach.
Jokes aside, I can’t see anything in Diablo3 that looks similar to WoW. Since when colors equals cartoonish? I hated dungeons so dark, that even with shiny hat, shiny staff, armor & pants I couldn’t see end of my own boobs. I always played D2 with brightness turned on to max, and my eyes still hurts from that.
Ignore those always disappointed cranky morons, and support Blizzard. I believe they do a good job.
Flashbacks to the incessant whining that accompanied the first TF2 screens. “Why is the game so colorful!?” “These cartoon graphics suck!” “What right does a FPS have to abandon camo, fatigues, and military bases!?”
Is there a gaming organization that patrols the internet, bitching about every game that uses colors besides black, brown, and gray?
Diablo III, WoW, and TF2 all have distinct art styles preciously because of the colors and stylization. They stand out from the pack! You instantly recognize TF2 in a screenshot. But to someone’s who not a hardcore FPS player, Counter-Strike, Rainbow Six and everything else blends together.
WoW has one of the best art directions of any game. Besides being scalable to a wide range of systems, it’s distinctive and full of character. You know WoW when you see it.
Frank: I’m not attacking Diablo 3 as much as I am framing the objections to it’s art style in a way that makes more sense. I don’t, personally, mind that D3 isn’t innovating as much as it could: coming up with new ideas isn’t really Blizzard’s thing. And complaining about THAT is like complaining about Square-Enix not putting out any good FPSs. (I don’t know why JRPGs are creeping into all my metaphors today. I haven’t even played one in forever.)
What I was mostly attacking was the blog post’s comparison between the two sequels. For the reasons mentioned above.
Also, Oblivion didn’t have auto-generated content. They SAID it would, but it didn’t. The “Radiant AI” isn’t even IN the game: NPCs, instead of going about their business dynamically according to intelligent AI, run on schedules you input manually. Granted, this doesn’t speak in Bethesda’s favor either, but my point about them attempting innovation stands. The Infinity Engine wasn’t made for gunfights, and as a result the combat system was, if I can say it, pretty boring. You had your FPSs at the time, but THOSE engines weren’t really built for the level of art design and character interaction that Fallout was about, either. Yes, I know they made it work with Deus Ex two years later . . . but Deus Ex is a perfect example of how a good idea can be stilted by unready technology. So Bethesda, making a game when the technology has finally caught up with the vision, is trying to expand the vision to fit today’s technology.
Will they do it well? I don’t know. But they’re trying. And I approve of that.
Meh. MEH I say!
You’re switching over from a sprite based pseudo-3d to a true, polygon&texture based true 3d. OF COURSE it’s going to look more like WC3 and WoW than D2!
Honestly, the Graphics don’t bother me. At all. The WoWish instance that bothers me is this retarded Witchdoctor class. Gee, Blizzard, you certainly haven’t done the demented pseudo-voodoo, every bad stereotype about Caribbean people EVER thing befor- OH WAIT.
If you haven’t gotten too far into designing any serious environments based off this character, do us all a favor and trash him so we can have the Necromancer back. It’s not funny anymore, and it stopped being unique and/or interesting with the fifth Troll instance of WoW. Since when did Blizzard become so hideously obsessed with Rastafarians?
Leave the bad mojo to the WarCraft Trolls and give us a REAL Diablo class, thanks.
Agreed, actually, Michael. That is the one frown I had about what was otherwise a brilliant reveal.
MOAR DARKAR PLX!!
People should stop whining about other people whining. If you can’t do it on the internet, where can you do it..
The internet swings both ways. Blizzard isn’t afraid to turn to the internet to get a big, sloppy load of hype going, so here’s a tiny bit of anti-hype. It’ll get drowned out by the sound of Diablo-fans fainting at every new tidbit of info that is dropped anyway. Let the whiners do their whiney thing.
To hell with people whining about the graphics. It could be bright pink for all I care.
The only thing that matters is that it plays like Diablo should.
Honestly, i’m pretty sure this game is nowhere near complete. It wouldn’t surprise me if the lighting system hasn’t been implemented yet. It also wouldn’t surprise me if they let you to enable it and disable it along with other graphic settings that will be in the game.
I don’t think the graphics are bad enough to really cause an uproar, but these are just things they can improve on.
I really don’t believe anyone is going to play D3 zoomed all the way up screaming bloody murder over a statue with 1 color and a diffuse map dropped on it. When that fat guy in the screenshot above is trying to kill me, I wont pause the game, and judge him like a painting on a wall…really the art isn’t bad enough to get upset about.
Cartoony? Not to me. I think the art style looks sick and darker than Diablo 2. I mean I’m no art expert here of course.
But to say that it looks like WoW? No WoW has human male characters with those god awful “Chester Molester” staches.
Diablo III so far seems fleshy.
/shrugs
At least these people are giving the Blizzard art department a good giggle.
Yeah, they should totally make it look like shit. Limiting their sales really would be worth appealing to fuckwad fanboys. They’re a business, they don’t give a fuck what some splinter sized faction of the gaming community wants and nor should they.
Oh, let’s just admit it. We want sprites! None of this fancy schmancy 3D animation junk!
I guess some people still prefer generic darkness, blood and gore for their demony-horrorish games.
I for one, hope that this more-colorful (yet still muted, and a bit surreally at that) route leads to a more deep, complicated atmoshere than OMG evil and shit that jumps out of the dark at you in overtly grim and blandly-colored, though very detailed, surroundings.
After all, tainted beauty can be pretty damn disturbing… with more colors than black, slate-gray, random earth tones, poop-brown, puke-green, blood-red and a small bit of gradient in between, to boot.
I’m just happy it’s not going to be limited to 800×600 and they kept the isometric view. I’m going to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt – and hope the dungeons are more open like in Diablo 2, and I never played the Original. Still loved Diablo 2 and still like what I see for the most part in Diablo 3 and I really do hate World of Warcraft primarily because it’s pay to play…
I have to say I like the photoshopped versions a lot more. It says Grimdark Conan crushes his enemies, sees them driven before him and hears the lamentations of their women. The pre photoshop ones look more like Pretty Legolas saves the day from those horrid orcs who don’t floss their teeth.
I’m not going to pretend the whole RAAAGH BLOODDEATH is more mature than oversaturated happyland, but it does make clicking on pixels so much more enjoyable. And thats what this is all about.
@ The Pope
LOL I so didn’t understand one bit you were tryin to say. Maybe its because everything you mentioned you used games I’ve never played before to support your opinion, so I’m lost…
I was talking about the effect the color scheme has on the emotional state of the player. The entire hack&slash genre is based around the adolescent fantasy of being an invincible macho man, so the color scheme should compliment that. Saturday morning cartoon colors do not.
Ah okay I see what your saying – but when you comment on the colors are you looking at everything as a whole? It looked pretty dark to me I guess I’m just not that picky about the color scheme, the only thing I do agree is the out door areas looked to be a little colorful compared to Diablo 2 but have you thought about the fact that 8 years have gone by and maybe Blizzard put that into account in the Diablo timeline?
Maybe after the Lord of Destruction, Earth had time to green up and maybe it’s colorful because they were showing what it looks like far from the evil. Or maybe it was all made to show everyone what Diablo 3 is capable of…
This article could use more brown. The white reminds me of Microsoft Word.
LMAO I think they need a quote system in this opinion posting thingamajig… You can never please everyone when you reach a large audience…
http://bulk.destructoid.com/ul/user/2/23985-92764-diablo20jpg-468x.jpg
No bright colors there I reckon.
I think D3 is suffering from the same sort of thing Fallout 3 is (with regards to art) – people remember the game rather differently from how it actually looked, and get upset when the new game doesn’t look like their idealized imagined memory of the original game. D2 had quite a lot of saturated primary colors; I think the real difference isn’t in the color saturation but the palette breadth – D3 isn’t that much brighter, but it does seem to use a broader variety of colors.
Some tone-mapping postprocessing to increase value contrast would be nice though, and considering how shader-heavy D3 already is, I’ll bet we’ll see it in some form eventually.
There’s a new petition going on to actually KEEP the current art style and it looks like the Blizzard Guru site that spotted Ashley’s blog is leading the charge.
They’ve just thrown a petition up: http://www.petitiononline.com/d3color/petition.html