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[ManaByte]

http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=53440

'Diablo III' Fans Unhappy with Artistic Direction, Start Petition
Posted on Tuesday, July 01 @ 05:41:28 PDT
Diablo III is an action RPG where you create a hero from one of five distinct classes, each equipped with an array of spells and abilities, and adventure through rich and varied settings, unraveling an epic storyline and engaging in combat with hordes of monsters and challenging bosses. Scores of Diablo fans have started a petition as a way to express their disappointment about Diablo III's artistic direction.

Note: Imageshack frogs edited out of whiny petition.

This petition is being made as a way to express the disappointment of us, the Diablo fans, about the way Diablo III artistic direction is being done.

There's a long discussion about this matter happening in http://www.diablofans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9283 , there's thousands of comments in there so if you have any comment or suggestion feel free to do it there.


The main objective of this petition is to show Blizzard that there's a significant number of players that dont agree with the current art style of the game, with this petition we hope to make Blizzard ear our voices, our opinions and our suggestions and we seriously want some changes in the artistic direction of the game so it could be more coherent and familiar with the Diablo universe.

It is our opinion that the graphic elements that characterize the Diablo universe are not fully present in this sequel, Diablo universe is made of:

- Gothic and obscure scenarios, cryptic, dark and shadowy dungeons

- Graphically realistic world with realistic, dirty and muddy textures

- Realistic armory and weaponry without over-sized and exaggerated proportions like big shoulder guards

- A macabre, dark and realistic art style

- Light radius, as all of you can remember, Diablo dungeons were characterized by the combination of a light radius system with shadows, everything that resides outside of the character vision sight is shadowed.



What we got in Diablo III:

- Cartoon'ish art direction, obviously influenced by the Warcraft universe, Diablo isnt Warcraft.

- Hand made, pastel looking textures with bold lines, defined contours, smooth colors and clean shapes.

- Dungeons with a blue/green environment lighting, technique used in cartoons to depict a dark, creepy and scary feeling but once again, this is Diablo, a mature game, dungeons should have a dark aura with the occasional lights from candles, just like we got in the previews Diablo's.

- Character models defined by cartoon characteristics like over-sized and exaggerated parts, vivid colors and unrealistic elements, almost directly taken away from World of Warcraft and pasted to Diablo.

- Outside scenarios with vivid colors, beautiful forests with colorful vegetation, shinny and beautiful waterfalls where even rainbows take place.

- Cartoon'ish and unrealistic weaponry and armory, over-sized and stylish armors, over-sized weapons, items that look pasted directly from World of Warcraft.

- Blocky, cartoon'ish graphic elements like big, over-sized fire braziers in dungeons, heavily influenced by the World of Warcraft art style, over-sized and cartoon'ish scenario decorations like smiling statues, Warcraft styled architecture and decorations.



What we want:

- A darker, gothic, cryptic and creepier environment.

- A more realistic artistic direction, more independent from the Warcraft universe art direction.

- Darker dungeons without a blue/green environment, Diablo dungeons are dark and shadowy.

- The return of the light radius / shadow system from Diablo 1 and 2, a concept modified picture made by me roughly shows and suggests how the shadow system should work on Diablo 3: http://i31.tinypic.com/2zta5o7.jpg

- Slightly less colorful and less vivid outside scenarios, they are too heavily influenced by the World of Warcraft ones.

- Darker and less colorful landscapes, Tristam never was colorful and beautiful: here's how it looked in Diablo 1 (before the evil was released across the lands):

- And most importantly: An independent and renewed artistic direction, not a recycled art direction taken from the Warcraft world, Diablo never was meant to be as cartoon'ish as Warcraft, they shall have independent and distinct styles, this isnt happening in Diablo 3, at first sight it looks like a remake of World of Warcraft, graphically and artistically speaking.

- Example of the heavy influence from World of Warcraft that we dont think it fits the Diablo universe: and http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/_images/screenshots/ss9-hires.jpg



Common arguments:

Q: The game is still under development, it's on pre alpha stage, we only saw the first act, much can change.

A: True, the game is still under development but the artistic direction isnt since it's one of the first steps in the development of a game, until you have a fully developed artistic direction and concept you cant easily move on with the development of the game, the artistic direction will tell the artists (modelers, texture artists, etc) how the game elements shall look and feel. Since this artistic direction is already fully and happily developed (words from Blizzard) this cartoon'ish and colorful style will be present in the whole game.



Q: Being less cartoon'ish and more realistic would make the game heavier on computers

A: False, there's a lot of techniques like bump mapping that help developers give a realistic look to textures, any recent graphic card with less than 8 years support bump mapping, there's a lot more techniques that can help giving that realistic look, being 3D doesnt mean it should look cartoon'ish.



Q: Diablo 3 happens 20 years after Diablo 2, the world is peaceful and the evil is gone, that's why the scenarios are colorful and vivid.

A: That doesnt mean forgotten dungeons should be clean and shinny, looking like a team of house keeping maidens spent hours there cleaning and making everything clean and shinny, without any trace of dirt, dungeons are supposed to be creepy and scary.

Diablo 1 Tristam also looked evil and scary before the evil was unleashed, check this picture of Diablo 1 Tristam and compare it to Diablo 3 Tristam: find the differences.



And lastly here's a few concept pictures of how fans want Diablo 3 to be, they might be inaccurate and exaggerated but remember, they're just concept pictures, suggestions of how the game could look, Blizzard can find a balanced term:



The light radius from Diablo 2 in Diablo 3:

http://i31.tinypic.com/2zta5o7.jpg



Environment suggestions:

http://i32.tinypic.com/2zqr9yx.jpg

http://i27.tinypic.com/2jexp1x.jpg

http://i27.tinypic.com/vep6ix.jpg


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.



Thanks

Sincerely,

 

[Barakov]

Well this was bound to happen sooner or later.

 

[Cdammen]

They're all a bunch of babies.

 

[zoukka]

I lolled. Looked at the suggestion screens.

And lolled even harder :lol

 

[Crescendo170]

Seems as though Fallout-fans has got some serious competition.

 

[Artadius]

 

[Somnid]

We need need some facepalm gifs STAT.

 

[Raging Spaniard]

Diablo 3 not looking like Diablo 2 is a GOOD THING.

Clearly the art directors at Blizzard don't know shit about Diablo and are stupid and talentless.

 

[snitsky]

How are dirty, muddy textures realistic? I'm looking out the window and it doesn't look dirty and muddy.

 

[X26]

I think it looks great, but it's hard to deny the WoW influence

 

[Proelite]

I can't see shit in their "touched up" pictures.

 

[Iaido Sword]

Light Radius... LOL!

Why do people seriously think it looks cartoonish? I think it's exactly what Diablo 2 would look like if it weren't so pixelated and in 3D. Have they seen the Diablo 2 cinematics for crying out loud?

 

[Yaweee]

Dumbest fucking petition ever. The game generally looks fantastic, and is a completely appropriate upgrade to the original design; the pseudo-3D lighting of D2 wouldn't work well in a fully 3D game.

And, I'm pretty damn sure there's a lot of crypts still to be seen. "Oh no! A goddamn forest! The color green! I want eeeeeeeeeeeeeeedgy!"

 

[syllogism]

Who gives a shit

 

[Teknoman]

Good lord..you've got to be kidding. I mean someone seriously started a petition to change the graphics in an already great looking and still true to the series game?

NeoGAF Fox Unit, Assemble! FP formation!

EDIT: Does cartoonish even need an apostrophe?

 

[Zombie James]

I can see where they're coming from, I like the recolored screenshots better.

 

[Crescendo170]

http://i27.tinypic.com/2jexp1x.jpg

So their solution is to remove all colors from the game... genius!

 

[Teknoman]

Im just glad net petitions usually dont work. That and Blizzard tells everyone else to piss off because they always know what they are doing. Also,

 

[victreeb3l]

Okay, wow, I never realized how amazing Diablo III really looked I sort of prefer the style it is currently, but wouldn't mind it getting all grittier.

Had to :lol all those blood that was shopped in. Oh, you guys.

 

[zaccheus]

thought it looked good :/

 

[Mugen]

They're right about D3 not being dark and gothic enough though.

 

[Death_Born]

http://i27.tinypic.com/2jexp1x.jpg

So their solution is to remove all colors from the game... genius!

Bleargh

 

[burgerdog]

Failure, their suggested screens look like utter shit. They're so dark that they lose a ton of detail.

 

[KHarvey16]

They're right about D3 not being dark and gothic enough though.

D3 not being dark and gothic enough, or the selection of screens we know of currently not being dark and gothic enough?

 

[Princess Skittles]

This is really, really sad. Even for internet standards.

 

[Metalmurphy]

Thread title fails.

These are the people that supported Diablo and Blizzard throughout the years, they have a right to be pissed at the clear change in art styles that "coincidently" match WoW...

 

[Teknoman]

They're right about D3 not being dark and gothic enough though.

Not really. Like we've all stated in the DIII official topic from our recent DII battlenet playthroughs, the game starts off pretty clean and normal looking (aside from demons running around, but you get the idea) and as you decend to the final section of most of the dungeons or the final quest of the Act, things get all horrific.

Look at the harem in DII Act 2. Its all clean and normal looking, but by the time you decend it starts to get darker.

And it doesnt match WoW in the least bit. A WoW fan already did comparison shots in the other topic.

 

[Minsc]

They're right about D3 not being dark and gothic enough though.

You've played the entire game?

 

[Teknoman]

Sweet! Thanks


Just felt like doing one of these:

I get all the points of D3 being closer to WoW and all, but as a WoW gamer, this is still something way different than WoW to me

My god, I cant tell the difference!

>_>

 

[Nose Master]

Can we go back to being happy about D3? Please?

 

[Prime crotch]

The game does not look like fucking WoW! Blizz shouldn't have released that one ugly pic, then people wouldn't do shit like this.

 

[Teknoman]

The game does not look like fucking WoW! Blizz shouldn't have released that one ugly pic, then people wouldn't do shit like this.

You mean that close up on the Female barb?

 

[Prime crotch]

You mean that close up on the Female barb?

Yeah, with the big shoulderpads. I even thought they were using some WoW assets there as placeholders. It's just one awful pic but it was enough to people nitpick the rest.

 

[Won]

Lets start a petition against this petition!

 

[ZeMMiK]

I'm happy about D3 and the new artstyle!!!
Blizzard...pls keep it.

 

[radios shipping overview]

Shinny?

 

[WrikaWrek]

It looks great don't change it Blizzard!

 

[Mamesj]

Thread title fails.

These are the people that supported Diablo and Blizzard throughout the years, they have a right to be pissed at the clear change in art styles that "coincidently" match WoW...

Their support is nice, but that doesn't mean their impatient and immature reaction to petition after they've seen all of 10 minutes of a game should get paid any attention.

 

[ZeMMiK]

Lets start a petition against this petition!

good idea!!

 

[Count of Monte Sawed-Off]

Talk about ungrateful. People beg for Diablo 3 for years and now that they finally have it they say, "This is now what we want. Do it how we want." Some whiny children on that forum.

I think the game looks alright, but I've never liked the Diablo series and probably won't get D3.

 

[Teknoman]

Yeah, with the big shoulderpads. I even thought they were using some WoW assets there as placeholders. It's just one awful pic but it was enough to people nitpick the rest.

I just dont understand how they zero in on that, but completely by pass the HQ 20 minute gameplay video.

 

[Darklord]

To the whiny people: Go and get fucked.

Honestly, what do they want? For them to remake the whole game? It looks great, sure it isn't as dark and gritty looking as before but we've seen 2 AREAS!

Lets wait until we see Hell and a few other places.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

You know what's funny? The guy who started the petition would be the first one to buy the game regardless of the art design.

 

[tha_con]

Thread title fails.

These are the people that supported Diablo and Blizzard throughout the years, they have a right to be pissed at the clear change in art styles that "coincidently" match WoW...

But the art style doesn't match. At all.

if anything, it seems the engines for the two games may have some similarities, and they may use some tech from WoW to make the engine as scalable as possible, but in no way does the art direction look similar.

 

[emerge]

To be honest, I have to agree

This:

is not true to

and neither is

true to

If wanting Blizzard to retain the nightmarish look of Diablo I and Diablo II is whining, count me in the whiners camp.

How are dirty, muddy textures realistic? I'm looking out the window and it doesn't look dirty and muddy.

It's not supposed to look realistic, it's supposed to look like a shitty world where noone has fun and lives in constant fear of dying. Dirt and mud fit that theme well.

 

[Minsc]

The game does not look like fucking WoW! Blizz shouldn't have released that one ugly pic, then people wouldn't do shit like this.

Yea, clearly the angle is not your typical gameplay angle, and Blizzard is normally much, much better at releasing screenshots. All the close up shots from Starcraft 2 were picked much more carefully than that one. I'm sure whoever that shot slipped by is regretting it now.

 

[Prime crotch]

I just dont understand how they zero in on that, but completely by pass the HQ 20 minute gameplay video.

I think some fans are still hurt by Blizzard doing an MMO out of WC, the problem is that WoW is actually good and most haters probably did play it and enjoyed it so they resent Blizz even more.

 

[KHarvey16]

You know what's funny? The guy who started the petition would be the first one to buy the game regardless of the art design.

And that's why I think people who summarily make judgments and then demands based on very early information should be forced to follow through on their initial feelings and be banned from purchasing the game unless their requests were fulfilled.

 

[Dupy]

Hardcore gamers have the biggest sense of entitlement I've ever seen. To say they know better than BLIZZARD about what direction to take the Diablo universe in is ridiculous.

 

[ethic]

The game is still (probably) years away from release. WoW didn't look nearly as good as it did when it was first shown. It's ridiculous to think that the art won't change in the time they have left.