All good demons go to... um... sequel? - Diablo 3 Announced.

[Mordrak]

Like you and everyone else, I've seen it in high res and in motion, of course. I'm not sure what about it looks particularly WoW-like to you, aside from the fact that, like WoW, it seems to feature some of the best animation in the industry.

I have no qualms with the animation. It's the similarities in how the environments are contsructed. Saying they aren't alike would be like saying you can't see the similarities between Disney's films, even though some films use different palletes. It's not like there aren't differences (the layout is much tighter, camera, etc), but it's when you see it in motion and how the textures interact with the light (or lack of interaction) that is the problem.

I chose those two sets of screenshots specifically because they do compare. They show very similar environments under similar lighting. The first set are outdoor scenes in daylight with green grass, white stone steps, water, and autumnal trees. The second set are dungeon scenes with stonework and pillars, fire, and a cold, magical light source. Because they show such similar subject matter, they let you compare apples to apples and really see how similar WoW and Diablo III are. Answer: not so much. They also let you see how much more detailed D3 is over WoW (considerably).

If I was still subscribed to WoW, I'd show you what I mean. But I'll try to dig up screenshots.

As I said above, I think those shots show that you are quantifiably wrong about that. But I'll grant you that the game is relatively low-poly by today's standards. One thing that I think Blizzard really understands is that if you want to make a game that looks good and that will hold up over time, you need to focus on the art rather than the tech.

I'm not saying the game is ugly.

The tech is going to be outdated in a year no matter how close you push it to the bleeding edge. Pushing it to the bleeding edge just reduces the number of people who can play your game. That may not be a big deal with a shooter that was only ever going to sell to a limited demographic of hardcore players anyway, but it's a very big deal for anything that Blizzard puts out.

It doesn't matter that the tech is just outdated. Correcting some of the lighting issues would go a long way to making it feel like Diablo too. But it's the fact that we have cheap lighting and texture effects today that don't require a beefy machine to be able to play that'd be more in line with D2's style. Even though D2 is grainy, you see materials reacting better to light. That's because it was pre-rendered in, rather than just painted on to a texture.

Diablo I and II were also aimed at low end machines, BTW. In fact, most people would argue that II undershot the mark; nobody played games at 640x480 any more when it came out--or in 2D, for that matter--and it took some heat for looking so dated.

Actually, Diablo I wasn't aimed at low end machines when it came out. I certainly didn't have the machine that could handle it. Diablo II ran better on older machines just because it was released 5 years late. It was after Diablo II that they realized the kind of audience they could get by aiming at the low end.

And for what it's worth, the textures in D3 are considerably more detailed than the textures in D2, and the architecture, for all its low-poly-ness, is also more detailed (and more similar in style to the old Diablos than you think). I think this may be a matter of your mind filling in details around D2's low-res presentation.

I never claimed that there wasn't more detail in D3 than in D2. It doesn't matter how much detail I put in a painting. If the plane of the painting is skewed at an angle, it looks flat and unnatural because it's not going to react correctly under light sources. I'll grant that they have toned down some of their exaggerated modeling (but not entirely). I think camera perspectives a being a bit deceptive as well as the fact that WoW is a persistent online world that requires simpler and more spread out environments to accommodate the players. I really think that accounts for much of the stylistic differences you claim exists.

Here's some alternate examples from WoW (though from its most recent expansion).

Dark Interior

Outdoor Areas 1 2 3.

Barbarian-ish Character

[RepoMan]

Two words:

Bump maps.

OK, seven words:

Where the fuck are the bump maps?

I mean, everyone is all in a snit about how flat it looks relative to Diablo. Some good bump mapping on the surfaces -- so directional lights would give some etched-stonework quality to what is indeed a pretty flat and painted-on look, relative to Diablo -- would work wonders here.

It probably doesn't fit in their rendering budget for the ultra-low-end they're trying to scale down to, but damn, it would definitely add a lot of roughness and grit to the environments, which I agree they are profoundly lacking right now.

[Mordrak]

Two words:

Bump maps.

OK, seven words:

Where the fuck are the bump maps?

I mean, everyone is all in a snit about how flat it looks relative to Diablo. Some good bump mapping on the surfaces -- so directional lights would give some etched-stonework quality to what is indeed a pretty flat and painted-on look, relative to Diablo -- would work wonders here. However, Ben's point about hard lighting and long shadows is a very good one.

It probably doesn't fit in their rendering budget for the ultra-low-end they're trying to scale down to, but damn, it would definitely add a lot of roughness and grit to the environments, which I agree they are profoundly lacking right now.

Are they called Normal Maps now? I'm not sure, that's why I didn't want to start throwing around terms. However, it's not only environments, but also characters. Still, what they have now looks good, and I think just slapping bump maps on what they've done wouldn't look good. They'd have to rework the art direction almost from the ground up.

One thing I would have liked is if they had gone with a Dynasty Warriors style 3rd person setup. It'd allow for some awesome cinematic moments where the top down view makes it look tiny. As we've seen from SC2, that would be too much of a departure for Blizzard's sensibility, but I can dream.

[RobotPants]

It doesn't look flat in videos at all to me. Screenshots probably look a little flat, but the game looks pretty fantastic in motion. It's like a stylized Titan Quest with better animation.

[Equisilus]

Someone mention Titan Quest...in a Diablo 3 thread....? I'm drooling. Must play....

[frank austin]

New UI Screenies today.

I'm impressed, looking good to me. Much better than the Starcraft ones, I think.

[Fugitive]

Yay, no more Inventory Tetris!

[Equisilus]

Yay, no more Inventory Tetris!

Seriously, that's going to be one huge difference. I'm going to miss it; it'll probably speed up the game substantially.

[Anaxagoras]

Seriously, that's going to be one huge difference. I'm going to miss it; it'll probably speed up the game substantially.

I think I will too. On the other hand, it seems like every time Blizzard makes one of these UI modifications, it turns out that it truly is a further refinement of their digital crack. Makes the drug go down faster & smoother.


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[Telefrog]

New UI Screenies today.

I'm impressed, looking good to me. Much better than the Starcraft ones, I think.

Blizzard also commented about some of the decisions that went into the new UI in their Blizzcast.

In an attempt to further streamline the inventory system, DIII will also include expandable bags. "You’ll get bags and they will expand, you know kind of like in WoW, except you’re not going to open up separate windows," Nicholson explained. "You’ll start off your inventory with say…you know, eight slots, right, and then you’ll get a new bag and that has ten, so two more slots will open up within that tab, but you’ll never have multiple tabs. Like you won’t have two or three 'large' tabs."

[Pogo]

Who gives a shit. Square grids fucking suck and that's that. Stop making us pickup loads of shit just to sell it.

[Ben Sones]

In an attempt to further streamline the inventory system, DIII will also include expandable bags. "You’ll get bags and they will expand, you know kind of like in WoW, except you’re not going to open up separate windows," Nicholson explained. "You’ll start off your inventory with say…you know, eight slots, right, and then you’ll get a new bag and that has ten, so two more slots will open up within that tab, but you’ll never have multiple tabs. Like you won’t have two or three 'large' tabs."

Sounds good to me. I wish they'd patch something like this into WoW.

[Creole Ned]

I liked the way bags worked in TQ -- it was a fixed space with tabs for the extra bags and the expansion added an auto-sort button to deal with the Tetris problem.

[WarrenM]

Who gives a shit. Square grids fucking suck and that's that. Stop making us pickup loads of shit just to sell it.

See, you're not realizing who the target audience is here. My wife LOVES picking up loot and going back to town to turn it into gold. That's 90% of her enjoyment.

[Creole Ned]

Yeah, I doubt Blizzard is going to drop the "shower the player with tons of loot" thing. As long as it's easy to filter out the good stuff and sell the junk, I'm fine with it (and TQ also improved on that by giving you what was essentially a permanent Scroll of Town Portal for selling).

[Ergo]

Who gives a shit. Square grids fucking suck and that's that. Stop making us pickup loads of shit just to sell it.

SO ANGRY.

[Gendal]

See, you're not realizing who the target audience is here. My wife LOVES picking up loot and going back to town to turn it into gold. That's 90% of her enjoyment.

Why do they do that? Does yours buy anything with the gold? Mind doesn't. She just likes watching the numbers go up. Suggestions about buying new equipment or gambling are met with the evil eye.

[WarrenM]

Why do they do that? Does yours buy anything with the gold? Mind doesn't. She just likes watching the numbers go up.

Haha, same here. She likes to hoard gold and then gets annoyed that the counter won't go any higher. Not sure what the deal is there.

[Rock8man]

Why do they do that? Does yours buy anything with the gold? Mind doesn't. She just likes watching the numbers go up. Suggestions about buying new equipment or gambling are met with the evil eye.

No gambling? That's..... bizarre. Gambling is one of the most compelling reasons Diablo 2 came up with for spending money. And you get good stuff from gambling quite often, so it never feels like wasted money.

[Kael]

The UI looks great!

Who gives a shit. Square grids fucking suck and that's that. Stop making us pickup loads of shit just to sell it.

Diablo has an internal difficulty system. Its so elegant that most players (though not those that frequent this board) don't realize it exists.

The control is that you set the difficulty you play as you play. If you push quickly through the areas you get less xp and you will face harder monsters. The game gets harder. If you move slowly through the areas and fight everything you get more xp and will be better suited for future battles. The difficulty goes down.

The same system goes for gold. If you go back and forth to the city to sell items you will make more, which translates to being able to buy better equipment, life gets easier, etc. If you dont then you makes less gold and the game is harder.

Drop rates are difficult to balance because they have to work on both sides of this equation. What become junk drops to a player who methodically goes through and area may be usable to someone rushing through. Even more importantly junk drops allows a player who prefers a lower difficulty to gain extra gold by making more frequent trips back and forth, which the pushing player skips.

If Blizzard just gave gold instead of drops you lose that balance aspect. If they allowed infinite item storage the same thing happens.

So though I appreciate the pain some players experience when they feel like they "have to" pick up and sell all their loot, or that they "have to" explore every corner of the map. There is no game requirement for that, and they may be happier if they map their progress against the games difficulty than a sense of completeness.

[Telefrog]

What's going on in the lower right of the Barbarian's interface? Instead of the blue mana orb, there's a weird radial sun design with three empty sockets. Does the Barbarian no longer use mana at all?

[Kael]

What's going on in the lower right of the Barbarian's interface? Instead of the blue mana orb, there's a weird radial sun design with three empty sockets. Does the Barbarian no longer use mana at all?

Thats an interesting question. The screenshot of the threatening shout skill doesnt show an energy cost.

[Telefrog]

Thats an interesting question. The screenshot of the threatening shout skill doesnt show an energy cost.

I'm surprised that none of the big sites have jumped all over this little revelation. I think it means that the Barbarian, at least, no longer uses mana to fuel his abilities.

Edit: Whoops! I guess this has been known by some for a little while. The Barbarian uses Fury instead of Mana.

[AndrewM]

Edit: Whoops! I guess this has been known by some for a little while. The Barbarian uses Fury instead of Mana.

Is that like Rage?

[Staff Sergeant]

I was writing a post to say that the barbarian uses rage or something like that ("fury" as you say), but you got the edit in as I was writing this and I just saw it because I refresh the page I'm posting to right before I post.

EDIT: Damnit people slow down and stop pre-empting my posts!

[Telefrog]

Is that like Rage?

From the descriptions I can find it works like an evolution of WoW Rage and the D2 Assassin's melee charged attacks.

[peacedog]

Diablo has an internal difficulty system. Its so elegant that most players (though not those that frequent this board) don't realize it exists.

The control is that you set the difficulty you play as you play. If you push quickly through the areas you get less xp and you will face harder monsters. The game gets harder. If you move slowly through the areas and fight everything you get more xp and will be better suited for future battles. The difficulty goes down.

Wow. That's like every rogue like and every "open-world" RPG I've ever played (Bethesda games excepted, maybe).

[Kael]

Wow. That's like every rogue like and every "open-world" RPG I've ever played (Bethesda games excepted, maybe).

I didnt say it was unique, blizzard rarely is. But it is elegant.

Personally I think unique is overrated and I cringe whenever comments that a feature is just like some other game. No one tastes a chocolate cake and comments that they stole the idea of chocolate from pudding.

[peacedog]

never mind.

[Jason Cross]

Diablo has an internal difficulty system. Its so elegant that most players (though not those that frequent this board) don't realize it exists.

The control is that you set the difficulty you play as you play. ...

...etc.

The same auto-balancing feature is evident in lots of games. I'm not sure that makes it "elegant" or not. Japanese RPGs are frequently riddled with the kind of little side-jaunts, optional mini-games, and optional areas of dungeons that makes the game take a lot longer, and makes you a lot higher level than the bad guys by the time you get deep into the game. Or you could ignore most of that and be 20 levels lower by the time you get to the end, and it's harder.

CarPGs (Forza, Gran Turismo, etc) have this same feature. Better drivers will win more races, and progress to harder races faster. Once there, they'll have less money to make an ubercar with, and the races will be harder. Or, you can spend more time doing all the events in a certain tier, maybe coming in 2nd or 3rd and getting less money before re-doing a race, and have a lot more money by the time you get to harder races to buy the parts necessary to make a winning car.