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Why isn't anybody...
...talking about Diablo 3's art? I've got my opinions about the gameplay - of which a fair amount are certainly negative. But I have nothing but extravagent praise for the rich, smooth, cohesive, and gorgeous animations, visuals, and sounds. Without comparing it to games fighting for the 'most realistic graphics' title (see: all popular first person shooters), find me a game that can far outshine the unbelievable size and scope portrayed by the layered and intricate backgrounds (The Hidden Camp, or all of angel central), or has such a seemless but effective use of simple 2d visuals (most trees, some rocks and stairs, etc.), or uses such vibrant color schemes to create vastly different feels in each act (and within each act - The Dalghur Oasis, anybody?).
Not that there aren't games just as awesome looking - I just don't understand why all of Diablo 3's artists aren't getting MAJOR attention. Sure, it pulls in aspects of World of Warcraft's art, and Starcraft 2's. But what do you expect? They want to appeal to even those who haven't played Diablo 2. Regardless, Diablo 3 absolutely demolishes all of Blizzard's previous games - even WITH their self-imposed limit of catering to a wider fan base. Of course, everybody has a different opinion, and I totally understand if you were, to say, prefer Warcraft 2's somewhat simpler 2d graphics. Maybe that vibe just resonates with you more. But if you remove the desire to have this game look exactly like Diablo 2, and if you remove the bias against art that might share some tendencies with World of Warcraft, Diablo 3's extensive and in-depth asthetics are mind-blowing!
What I'd really love is for this to be a simple thread of appreciation. Maybe we could share some awesome screenshots? Cool armor combinations and dye colors - Neat views that you've found - freeze frames of intense combat - etc. What other aspects of the art direction do you find captivating? And, though less important to me, I would enjoy hearing about gameplay elements that people actually like, or are fond of. And if something gets brought up in a negative way, I'll probably just laugh at it (Throwing giant urns that break and reveal several HUGE spiders that serve you and then promptly die??? Over and over again??? BAHAHAHAHAHA).
What's good?
Comments
I love my barb's undyable pink set helm. its awesome.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
It's undyable? So it's not that every Barbarian player just likes the color? Well shoot, I've had the players' personalities all wrong!! :P
While I love the graphics of the cut scenes, gorgeous and movie worthy, the rest of the game is average to mediocre at best.
All the mobs and characters can hardly display any high quality graphics as you have little oppurtunity to see them. If you could scroll in, the zoom is ok but leads to sudden death too easily, and alter the camera angle you could maybe appreciate the char models and the item dyes in use. instead you get an inch high figure held at arms length, hardly anything there to appreciate.
Honestly, and sadly, many many other games have more and better, even older games.
Though I'd love to see comparison videos or screenshots in order to see if I agree with your statements, I'm much more interested in keeping things here about what we do like. I definitely think it's a good argument to discuss how small everything is on the screen, but to me it's perfectly fine. Though I might not be able to see every single detail on my first pass as I kill evil and ignore the scenery, Diablo does a good job of having you playthrough the game MANY times. And I find it quite enjoyable to revisit places in order to soak in their aesthetic detail on lower difficulties - thus being able to zoom in safely. If they allowed different camera angles it would make their 2d background layers impossible, which are some of my favorite art in the entire game! Not that I don't TOTALLY get if you're not fond of the art. I'm not arguing against an opinion! I'd just rather keep this discussion about the things we like.
Thanks!
The art is over estimate by Blizzard themselves and no one else. It is indeed a kindergarten cartoon graphic from wow and for a cert 18 over-hypes mini game base on repetitive values is nothing but a joke and a slap on PC gamers face.
Admitedly an opinion and taste based issue, so we could well both be right. I prefer a more detail oriented style, scroll in and see the leaves on a bush, rivets on the armor, dimples on the cheeks. To me D3 is rather like those cardboard cutouts on straws used in shadowbox plays.
Once the cut scenes are done, to me it might as well be black and white.
Now, if they were to make a movie the quality of the inter chapter cut scenes I would be first in line for tickets.