Dark and Gritty VS Cartoony. Diablo 3's aesthetic. Thoughts?

[Stabinbac]

My personal issue with the graphics isn't that it's more "stylized". The issue is that it's in the 3D warcraft style. Blizzard North was closed in 2005, and now it's being done by the same people behind the WC styling. It lacks the bumpy, gritty, worn down look of the first 2.

D3 feels like a Diablo mod made in a Warcraft game using many of the Warcraft assets. So bland clean, and pretty.

It lacks it's own identity.



I've disliked the art direction Blizzard has gone in since the shift to 3D in Warcraft 3. SC2 was... fine, but a little disappointing. WoW's graphics are depressing, but decent for an MMO.

I think I'm done with Blizzard games for now . I'll probably finish the SC2 trilogy since I've already completed the first, but I don't feel like Blizzard's target audience anymore.

 

[VladG]

Not buying the gameplay argument. Are you implying you couldn't tell what you were fighting when you played Diablo 2? No? Then you don't have a case to build there.

Very big difference between 2d and 3d. And yes, Diablo 2 easily devolves into a clusterfuck where you can barely tell what's going on.

If you don't buy my argument compare TF2 character design to Brink for example. Or LoL to HoN. It makes what I've said very clear.

 

[VladG]

My personal issue with the graphics isn't that it's more "stylized". The issue is that it's in the 3D warcraft style. Blizzard North was closed in 2005, and now it's being done by the same people behind the WC styling. It lacks the bumpy, gritty, worn down look of the first 2.

D3 feels like a Diablo mod made in a Warcraft game using many of the Warcraft assets. So bland clean, and pretty.

It lacks it's own identity.



I've disliked the art direction Blizzard has gone in since the shift to 3D in Warcraft 3. SC2 was... fine, but a little disappointing. WoW's graphics are depressing, but decent for an MMO.

I think I'm done with Blizzard games for now . I'll probably finish the SC2 trilogy since I've already completed the first, but I don't feel like Blizzard's target audience anymore.

Same people that founded Blizzard North worked on WC3. Blizzard is continuing their style.

 

[VladG]

Not buying the gameplay argument. Are you implying you couldn't tell what you were fighting when you played Diablo 2? No? Then you don't have a case to build there.

Very big difference between 2d and 3d. And yes, Diablo 2 easily devolves into a clusterfuck where you can barely tell what's going on.

If you don't buy my argument compare TF2 character design to Brink for example. Or LoL to HoN. It makes what I've said very clear.

I would agree with you if we weren't talking about a fairly well established franchise, but even then only slightly. Every model in D2 was easily recognisable, and, on top of that, all of it was drawn in quasi-3d. Saying the same wouldn't work in actual 3-d is implying something is wrong with your vision.

The difference is not as big as you make it out to be, and this is certainly not important enough to sacrifice all the visual edge the franchise ever had.

Compare my examples against each other and you will see the difference IS that big.
And don't get me wrong... I never claimed that Diablo 2 had bad visual design, quite the contrary, it was great for it's time. But that doesn't mean there wasn't room for improvement.

 

[VladG]

Oh my god

They changed something about THEIR GAME

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGHHH

WHY

WHY

OH GOD HELP ME

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Which they have to market to people who are not themselves.
I'm guessing business isn't your strong point.

Not familiar with sarcasm eh?... don't worry, most kids pick it up by the time they turn 6

 

[OpiateChicken]

I really don't like the shift. I'll pay for good gameplay but honestly, the atmosphere, the story, and the way those are presented are huge to me. On the escapist there are screenshots of what Diablo III used to look like before Blizzard scrapped it in like 2006. I wish they had kept those sort of graphics.

Fuck the cartoony shit. I mean, I'll probably still buy it, but it will be harder for me to get into for sure. It's really too bad IMO that they abandoned Diablo 2's feel, which I thought was perfect.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I can't stand the art design of Diablo 3, it looks way to much like WoW, another game whose art design I absolutely abhor. While I am fine with stylized versus ultra realistic graphics, that doesn't give you an excuse to just throw together a bunch of cartoony graphics that look and animate like shit, and like they came out 8 years ago.
There is a lot that can be done with art design while retaining a slick and stylized art design, Diablo 3 is not that. I also feel that Diablo benefited greatly from a more dark and gritty art style. I preferred the art design in the first game to the second game. However its been getting away from the Gothic horror look for something else entirely.
I really try not to let nostalgia get in my way when it comes to appreciating later games in a series I grew up with. If it were just art design, I'd probably let it go but Diablo 3 has a lot of other issues that put me off from it as well, not for this thread.