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The D2 Team Comments on D3

 

Diii.net: Did you pay attention to the D3 announcement, or is Diablo in the past and you're concentrating fully on your future gaming projects?

 

Ben Boos: Oh heck yes, I paid attention. It was huge on several levels. Keeping a secret this big wears thin, for one! So to finally have the cat out of the bag is great. It was a milestone event to me. There are tons of strong emotions all wrapped into this franchise since the Diablo games were more than a mere hobby; they were my life for nearly 8 years.

 

Also, I'll be honest: What really made me sit up and pay attention to the announcement was to see how beautiful D3 had become! I remember back at Blizzard North when Jason Regier was first designing a rough game engine, and how it was always so exciting to see the new features added, day by day. So imagine how I felt to see this stunning demo. Ive been quietly writing and illustrating a book for the last few years since taking leave of Blizzard North (sometime back in 2004), and I haven't seen the game in AGES. It's come a loooong way since then, to say the least. Its an entirely different beast! I mean, holy smokes, destructible environments for instance! I love it! By the way, after laboring on the environments for d2, and d2x, I would have LOVED to smash those up. It would have been cathartic.

 

Seriously though, the game looks great, and I not only paid close attention I wound up corresponding with old Blizzard friends throughout the day and into the night after that announcement. It had a huge impact on me.

 

What a rush of memories!

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

‘Diablo III’ Color Controversy Update: Game Used To Be Darker, Dev Says ‘There’s No Going Back Now’

Posted by Tracey John on 7/31/08 at 3:14 pm.

 

Don’t like “Diablo III“’s colorful art direction? Too bad. We were told today that it’s not going anywhere.

 

Lead “Diablo III” designer Jay Wilson told me that even though 52,000 “Diablo” fans have signed a petition asking Blizzard to return to the darker, more gothic look of the old “Diablo” games, the new, vibrant art style is here to stay.

 

This is how he put it:

 

“There’s no going back now,” he said during an interview in a Manhattan hotel where Blizzard was showcasing their newest games. “We’re very happy with how the art style is. The art team’s happy. The company’s happy. We really like this art style, and we’re not changing it.”

 

"The first and second iterations of the art direction had a “modern, gritty look” but made it difficult to distinguish enemies from the environment."

 

But fans take note: The decision to add color to the macabre world of “Diablo” didn’t come lightly. “It’s actually the thing we struggled with the most,” Wilson said. When Wilson joined the project two and-a-half years ago, the game was similar-looking to what fans of the old games might expect — darker, desaturated and a lot of brown and gray tones. However, translating the game from 2D to 3D with a dark color palette didn’t make for the best gameplay experience. The first and second iterations of the art direction had a “modern, gritty look” but made it difficult to distinguish enemies from the environment. “When you have 30 creatures on screen — and four or five different types — target prioritization is a factor,” he said. “You need to be able to tell those things apart fast, and you can’t do that when your world is gray and your creatures are gray.”

 

After much debate within the team itself, they finally agreed on the third, more colorful (and “final-ish”) rendition we see today. Wilson and his team also wanted to make the game stand out from all the other dark games, citing “Gears of War” an example.

 

" We didn’t want you to look at ‘Diablo III’ and go, ‘Oh, that looks like ‘Gears of War.’”

 

“It’s not that we don’t like games like that,” Wilson explained, “but they tend to be shorter games, like first-person shooters that are five or six hours long. You’ll be playing ‘Diablo III’ for potentially hundreds of hours, and being in one type of environment with one type of look… it really became boring very quickly. There’s a lot of gray-and-brown games out there, and there’s lots of photo-realism out there. If you want that, there’s no end of games for you to play. We didn’t want you to look at ‘Diablo III’ and go, ‘Oh, that looks like ‘Gears of War.’”

 

Wilson also addressed a few of the concerns that critics of the new art direction had. Many blamed “World of Warcraft” for the change and the influence. But Wilson didn’t see that as a bad thing. “I think it’s impossible for us to not be influenced by our other creations,” he said. “There’s a lot of back and forth between the two games, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. We look at ‘World of Warcraft’ and the art style there is more cartoony than we wanted, but in terms of target identification and having a world that feels like you can move through it and spend lots of time in it, there’s a lot of elements to the art style that really work. We wanted an art style that really feels like Blizzard. And we pull new influences from a lot of areas. I think people over-emphasize the ‘World of Warcraft’ comparison. But are we influenced by ‘World of Warcraft’? Of course. As I think anyone who makes games nowadays, they have to be.”

 

"I think people over-emphasize the ‘World of Warcraft’ comparison."

 

Another part of the game that some hardcore fans missed was having a light radius follow the player’s character. Because some of the areas of past “Diablo” games were so dark, the player had a circle of light following them around to help them navigate the depths of dungeons. Wilson said the team tried to make use of the light radius, but it just didn’t work with a 3D engine. “It looked really bad,” he admitted. “If you took an environment and you basically lit the whole thing up with just a flashlight, it works way better in a 2D game… we’ve really found that you needed other light sources to be able to make the game look good.” However, that doesn’t mean the beloved light radius won’t show up in “Diablo III.” “Not in all dungeons, but there might be in some,” he revealed. “I think people really remembered it in like one or two places where it was prevalent in ‘Diablo II,’ but forget that it almost didn’t exist in the other 90 percent of the game.But if we can find one dungeon where it’s really good to use it, and we can create a lot of gameplay out of it and make it look cool, then yeah, we’ll do it. And it’s not like within the team there’s a lack of desire to do that, it’s just that we don’t want to do it if it’s not going to play well or it doesn’t look good.”

 

Overall, Wilson and his team are completely satisfied with the look of the game. He knows that they can’t please everyone. “I don’t know that we can convince people who don’t like the art direction that they’re ever going to like it,” he said. “In terms of tone, they will find the game as dark as any of the previous ones and in some ways darker. And I think that’s probably, hopefully, enough to satisfy them. I think the vast majority of our fans like the new art style and when they play it and they actually see the influence it has on gameplay, I think a lot of people who don’t like it will turn around. Not all of them, and that’s fine. We know that we can’t satisfy everybody.”

 

Wilson also assured me that the environments will get darker as the game progresses (what’s out now are early stages of the game), and the team is still in the process of “smattering the world with dead bodies and horrific skeletons and things like that” along the way.

 

And like all Blizzard titles, “Diablo III” will come out “when it’s done.”

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‘Diablo III’ Designer Turns Tables, Judges Fans’ Screenshots

Posted by Tracey John on 8/4/08 at 10:37 am.

 

For some die-hard “Diablo” fans, signing a petition protesting “Diablo III“’s decidedly new and colorful art direction wasn’t enough; they went ahead and made their own mock-ups for how they think the game should look.

 

When I sat down with lead “Diablo III” designer Jay Wilson last week we talked about why the team chose to go with the new, brighter color palette versus the older games’ dark, desaturated look.

 

Then I showed him some fan-altered screenshots that had all been posted on the petition to see what he thought.

 

So to the “Diablo” fans who aren’t sold on the colorful art style of the new game, read on to see what Blizzard thinks, pros and cons, of your suggested screenshots…

 

#1 - Light Radius on Witch Doctor in Dungeon (Blizzard shot followed by fan-altered shot)

diablo-fan-01.jpg

 

Jay Wilson, Designer of “Diablo III”: The key thing to remember here is that this has been Photoshopped. This isn’t created by the engine. Though it looks really cool, it’s almost impossible to do in a 3D engine because you can’t have lighting that smart and run on systems that are reasonable. If we could do that, we probably would in a few of the dungeons.

 

Now in terms of the actual texturing, this texturing, where they grayed out everything and it’s very flat and the monsters are all kind of a similar tone — that does not play well. It’s very boring to run through more than a couple of times, and it’s very difficult to tell creatures apart and pop them out of the environment. So those things don’t really work for us. A lot of the lighting stuff I think is very cool, but it’s also not very doable for us.

 

#2 — Witch Doctor in Dungeon (Blizzard shot followed by fan-altered shot)

diablo-fan-02.jpg

 

Wilson: It becomes really hard to see all the profiles. Look at the tables and see how hard it is to see the profiles of those.

 

And one of the things that I actually would argue about something like this is that it’s completely against “Diablo II.” If you look at the spell effects in “Diablo II,” they’re very over-the-top. To gray out the actual spell effects, to me it’s pulling out all the vibrancy and interest out of them and really going against a lot of “Diablo II” philosophy.

 

#3 — Barbarian in Outside Environment Fighting Skeletons (Blizzard shot followed by fan-altered shot)

diablo-fan-03.jpg

 

Wilson: I will say I wouldn’t be surprised if we had areas in the game that had this kind of texturing in the background. They’ll probably be later in the game because they’ll be darker, but again, the biggest problem here is that the silhouettes don’t stand out enough.

 

And it’s easier [to see] in this shot because you’ve only got skeletons, but if there are three other types of creatures in there — which is not uncommon — and give them all that same desaturated tone, you won’t be able to play the game very well.

 

#4 – Barbarian on the Bridge… And Rainbows (Blizzard shot followed by fan-altered shot)

diablo-fan-04.jpg

 

Wilson: More rain? It’s funny because if watch later on in the [debut gameplay] video, we have more rain. It is much stronger than that. I’m sure they got rid of the rainbow. Yeah, rainbow — gone. I think our artist just put [the rainbow] in there because they knew that’d be controversial. And I’m sure they were like, “Well we’ll see how far we can push it.”

 

MTV Multiplayer: Just to be clear, are we going to see a lot more rainbows during the game?

 

Wilson: [laughs] After the announcement, one of our environment artists went to the darkest area in Act One and put a giant rainbow across the whole area. No, you’re probably not going to see a ton of rainbows. But we don’t think the one that’s in there is that big a deal. You know it’s like, it’s a waterfall. My favorite [criticism] is the one that analyzed the light refraction angle, and told us why from that angle seeing a rainbow would actually be impossible. Oh yeah, and it was upside down because the colors were reversed. And we’re like, “This is a whole different world than ours! Who’s to say that light refracts the same in the Diablo world?” [laughs]

 

We don’t think it’s that big a deal; we just think it adds a lot of interest to that scene. We don’t have specific plans to fill “Diablo” with rainbows. It’s not like we restarted the project and were like “Diablo III — now with rainbows!” Although I will say the pitch that I originally did, once we decided what we were going to do, said “Diablo III — now with pants.” Because we added a pants slot.

 

#5 – “How It Should Look Like” (Blizzard shots followed by fan-altered shots)

diablo-fan-05.jpg

 

Wilson: A lot of this change is adding noise to the screen. If [the characters] weren’t centered on the screen — like find the witch doctor. Especially think about him as a friend [in co-op play]. Standing over there, you can’t even tell the difference between him and the zombie. And that’s another player, and when you can’t tell the player apart from the creature, that’s horrible.

 

You’ve got to think that there’s potentially up to seven other people in addition to yourself, and several dozen monsters. All that noise just translates into unplayable, especially when this starts moving. This texturing was actually very similar to one of our previous art styles. But when you started moving and the whole screen just kind of shimmers, you can’t really tell anything that’s going on.

 

MTV Multiplayer: So you ultimately decided to change the art direction only after play-testing the game?

 

Wilson: Yes. Because this is how we remember what “Diablo II” was like as well. This is what we were thinking what “Diablo II” looks like. And then we played through, and we were like this isn’t very fun. And then we started going, “Why was ‘Diablo II’ so much more fun?” And some of the Blizzard North guys [the team that made 'Diablo I' and 'II'] knew why right away. They were like, “Well, because we didn’t make all the areas like this.” And if you think about even the areas they did, the creatures were really bright. Like in the gray and dark dungeons, those are the places that you run into the ghosts who were almost like glowing brightness, and that was so that they would stand out from the backgrounds.

 

#6 – “Necromancer’s Choice and WoW Gayness” (Fan-altered shot followed by Blizzard shot)

diablo-fan-06.jpg

 

Wilson: I think one of the things that these lack is if you stuck every one of these re-done shots right next to each other you would not be able to tell that they’re in different areas. One of the things that’s key to “Diablo II” — and I’ve gone through and done timing on it — it changes environments every 15 minutes, and every 45 minutes they give you an environment that looks completely different than one you’ve ever seen before. And when they change environments, the contrast is huge. It’s like I’m in green lush fields, and now I’m in the darkest dungeon you’ve ever seen. I’m in a bright sandy desert, and now I’m in a completely dim mummy tomb. There are these vast shifts in look, and it’s one of the things that keeps people interested in playing the game.

 

It’s a very simple game, and [you need to ] constantly vary what you throw at the player — big look changes in the environment, creature changes with different behavior. And not just behavior; we spent a lot of time trying to make creatures show up and die more interestingly. Because those are all the things that keep you going. Each one of those things is a reward. When you pull all the color out of the environment and you make it too homogeneous across the game, essentially what you’re doing is you’re pulling away the player’s reward of feeling like they’ve progressed because the area they’re in now looks like the area they were in 30 to 45 minutes ago.

 

So that’s one of the reasons why we really felt we had to do this. We had to move to an art style that had a lot more variety in it and was capable of a lot more.

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Blizzard Looking for New Diablo III Art Director

About a week after Blizzard sat down to talk about Diablo III's art direction and tear apart some fan's concept art showing how it could be improved, Blizzard is listing a job opening for Diablo III Art Director.

 

Art Director

Blizzard Entertainment is currently looking for a talented, motivated, and experienced art director to lead the Diablo III art team. For this position, you must be highly organized with outstanding communication skills and proven experience in management. We're looking for a proven track record of shipping AAA products in an art director role. Experience modeling and texturing assets for a diverse visual range of environments and a solid grasp of form, color, and light for both 2D and 3D art assets are also essential. You must be experienced at mentoring a team, able to work well in an environment of artists who are passionate about making great games, skilled in another art task (illustration, modeling, texturing, animation, or concept drawing), and well-versed in related tools (Maya, Photoshop, etc.).

 

The fact that the position, which hit the site on Tuesday, is specifically Art Director and that it spells out that the person will be leading and mentoring the Diablo III art team leads me to believe that perhaps something's up with Brian Morrisroe, who last we heard was the game's art director. Of course it could be that he just lay the ground work for the game and they want to bring someone else in to wrap things up. It could also mean that they're taking a new direction, but given how adamant Blizzard's been about not changing the game's look, that seems like a pretty slim bet.

 

We've contacted Blizzard to see if Morrisroe is still the art director for Diablo III and whether he is still at Blizzard. We're also trying to nail down whether this new job listing means the game's art direction is undergoing a change. I'll be sure to update once we hear back.

 

 

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:roflroll2: :roflroll2: :roflroll2: :roflroll2: :roflroll2: :roflroll2: :roflroll2:

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Well - looks like the old one quit to start a startup :eyebrow2:

 

Diablo III Art Director Quits, Game Remains The Same

 

A Blizzard representative responding to our inquiry about the recently posted job posting for an Art Director for Diablo III has confirmed that Brian Morrisroe, the game's previous Art Director, has indeed left the company, though his leaving had nothing to do with annoying fans or his reactions to them.

 

Regarding Brian, he recently resigned to form a startup company "outside the game industry", which is why we posted about the open position. That change won't impact the game...we're really pleased with the look and feel that Brian helped create for Diablo III, and the new person we bring aboard will work with other artists on the team to maintain the art style moving forward.

 

So don't worry - Diablo III isn't going to go all goth on us.

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Blizzard is the last dev I would have expected to face these issues.

 

I think, they took a look at the success of WoW for inspiration on how to make Diablo 3 popular and went,

 

"hmmmm.. I know why WoW makes us a cr*pload of money...

 

Look at all the purty colorzzzzz"

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The expanded colour palette started with WC3. SC2 is staying true to the old one.

Also, one important item - 3D does not allow the kind of palette configuration which 2D allowed. There's just so much going on in the screen in a Diablo game it would cripple the framerate, or it would require hardware. And we all know Blizzard does not want that - they want their games to be played on old PCs. Else how will they make use of the money counting machines?

My surprise is more from the fact that Blizzard traditionally has been very very close in disclosing their inner workings - this is shocking.

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Screw the colors.... as long as both games play the same way the original games did (which I bet they will) - I'm a happy gamer!

 

My Fav Game is gng to come back. :jumpy: :dance: . :) to Blizzard. I have been thinking how come they forgot to make the third version. Finally Diablo 3 is cmng bak.

 

But only sad news is they are not planning for consoles anytime soon :angry:

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I remember my diablo 2 LOD days.. i went insane playing it.. trained a Bard upto level 57.... then one day i wondered how long is this gonna go... i was literally spenting all my days at my PC... so in a fit i threw away my diablo disc and uninstalled the game.... later i went to get the disc... but couldnt find it... i swear.. this actually happened.

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I remember my diablo 2 LOD days.. i went insane playing it.. trained a Bard upto level 57.... then one day i wondered how long is this gonna go... i was literally spenting all my days at my PC... so in a fit i threw away my diablo disc and uninstalled the game.... later i went to get the disc... but couldnt find it... i swear.. this actually happened.

 

I hope you mean BARB

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Propabaly the only game im looking foward to on the PC. Ive played diablo ,Diablo2 and Lord of destruction, there were rumors that BAAL will return in this game. Ive been waiting for this game for 5 years. Besides having co-op there is also a new "WITCH DOCTOR " character .A must buy for any Diablo fan or PC gamer.

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