It can be criticized. But he’s saying it doesn’t belong, when it clearly does because Blizzard put it in. It is their game after all.
Saying it doesn’t belong is a perfectly fair criticism, because they’re saying it doesn’t fit with the tone of the rest of the game.
That the developers intended it isn’t all that relevant to the point they’re making.
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I really don’t care if if fits the tone. Blizzard took an insane amount if unfair criticism over color and a rainbow. They said hild may beer and made fun of those people. They had every right. It’s telling how upset they get over something optional. Insecurity at it worst.
That’s just falling back into trying to explain why they did it.
We all know why Blizzard did it. Hell I even think it was an amusing bit of trolling but it not fitting the tone of the rest of the game IS fair criticism, even if you don’t care.
It should also be obvious but not everybody criticizing it is legitimately upset over it. The topic has just come up again because the forums decided that this weekend’s topic was going to be the artstyle of Diablo 4 which got us talking about the artstyles of Diablo 2 and 3.
and it’s a fair criticism of Diablo 3’s art style. Again, even if other people don’t care or think it’s somehow justified because the internet people were mean to Blizzard.
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Definitely. We can all like or dislike the art styles for various reasons.
Blizzard probably also has some intend with D4s graphics (apparently trying to replicate some dream of a faded renaissance painting). Doesn’t make the result any better though.
It is also not a requirement that the art or mood is coherent. Some might like if a game has serious tonal shifts between acts for example.
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Well, have you read the Sin War trilogy? There are an infinite amount of dimensional planes. So frankly it fits.
So if the tone and the use of colors is making the game look and feel more into something like this:
… then it is unfair criticism?
Of course the example is overly exaggerated, but it is a spectrum of darkness, with flimsy and colorful on the one end, and mature, dark, serious and psychologically terrifying on the other end.
That is why the D4 devs are now tracking back from what you called “unfair criticism”.
Imo they are overcompensating for the lack of darkness, maturity and psychological horror in D3, by now going into an art direction that has a large greyscale and does not just involve dark horror, but also much more of what I have referred to a “depressing” in this thread and this thread is about how we players feel about this shift in tone and art.
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That’s a miss.
Yeah, lol.
It feels exactly like playing a happy tree friends cartoon, that was mentioned in this thread multiple times. I wonder, if those cartoons were the actual inspiration for the devs.
You’re talking about DIV here? Do I understand correctly?
This is not what I’m saying. I’m saying, that people/players, who thought that D3 was too cartoonish and colorful, only had their opinions reinforced. Instead of making a joke level, that will force people to understand, that “hey look, there is some blood and corpses all over D3”, it has cemented the perception of D3 not being a real Diablo game. When that joke of a level was added to the game it was over for D3 as a Diablo game. Rightfully so, but that’s another topic.
I actually don’t care about that myself, because I judge the videogames, primarily based on the gameplay. This is why, imo, PoE is bad, but that is beside the point.
Thank you!
Well, Blizzard is already in the process of learning, that you don’t preach at your customers. And you don’t double down on something, that your customers don’t like. That being said, however, its not even about that. Its about the lack of minimal respect for the IP somebody else created, just because you as a designer have some artistic vision, that you feel the need to express right here and right now. This is not the job of a hired/contracted designer. The actual job is to do what they were hired for, in this case, an actual Diablo game. And D3 is a solid ARPG, thanks to the programmers and general evolution of the genre, just not a Diablo game.
Yes, ofc. And the shift of tone has to occur in a Diablo game too. But, the gradient to use goes from the grim real world to the hell itself. Not rainbows and ponies.
Comic relief? Artistic expression? Something different added to the game? Yeah, would be cool. If the actual game was dark, and grim, and nightmarish, and hopeless, and ended up in a hell itself, like a Diablo game should have…
Taking a sweet pie and pouring more sugar on it is not a good recipe.
I have heard of the Diablo. It is a videogame. All the lore is in the videogame itself. Esp 1 and 2. Which are the only canon. And not some fanfic story or the awful writing in D3. Even though, the events in D3, are, sort of canon too. Except, at least one thing: the Deckard Cain is still alive.
It wouldn’t matter to me because, 1 it’s just a game. 2, it’s a portal to another place not within Sanctuary. 3, I read the novels before D3 came out and thought that the goblins were porting to another dimension, so the whimsical stuff made sense, at the same time know it was a jike at the expense of the edglords complaining about a rainbow.
Totally disagree with the black of maturity bit.
Yeah I’m talking about Diablo 4. My biggest issue is a desaturation of the colours, which if they give me the right graphical settings in the options then I can actually just fix it myself.
It honestly doesn’t fit with the overall aesthetic of Diablo.
If they conjured up some reason for it in lore that’s not super relevant since that’s not a criticism of immersion or lore. It’s a criticism of the tone of the aesthetic of the game being inconsistent in a way that doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Sure it was funny to see them troll people, but if anything that just reinforces that it doesn’t fit there. It’s literally just there to be a middle finger to the people who complained, not because anybody on the team actually thought it was fitting to have in a Diablo game.
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Do you feel the same way about D2 cow level? Obviously it didn’t change aesthetics, but it changed the “serious”/dark tone. of the game.
Not sure how much of a fix that is. Sure, you can increase saturation, but it increases across the board. So if most of the game world is too desaturated, but spells, UI and what not might be more “appropriately” saturated, or even oversaturated, you are just creating problems elsewhere.
It doesn’t fit that well but it’s better than Diablo 3 since the aesthetic wasn’t changed.
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Time stamp - 1:10
FF14 from this:
MAJOR SPOILER - Character death
To this:
Again, hate against Whimsyshire ties into my commentary about using a cathedral as a point of reference or not. You may not like the decision, and that’s okay. Pushing that the choice is actually not theirs to make because your perception of what Diablo “is” conflicts with their output is not how this form of artistry works (Basically, don’t confuse this for commission work where you’d been working hand-in-hand with the artist(s) from the start). It is their world to build however they see fit, including immersion taxing dimensional shenanigans. I can just as easily point to the Chucky movies as a point of reference for kiddy imagery taking a turn toward the macabre, so it’s not like the concept isn’t without precedent. Even linking low budget toonboom cartoons does that despite the bad faith implication that it is/was Blizzard’s goal so we gotta protest now and forever, I guess…?
Of course, part of my ongoing protest against chasing this nebulous “darkness” concept is that I don’t want another game where only 1/10th of the screen is visible and the rest is just a featureless void. The gamer in me has to question why people would spend so much on hardware for top-notch graphics just to be metaphorically served a meal on a bottle cap when they could have it on a plate. I mentioned world building with the FoM example because those factors should realistically be what’s influencing an environment’s construction. More simplistically, it’s basic cause and effect. Gloom, fear, danger, and other desired effects can also be achieved via means that don’t dictate arbitrarily blotting out the screen, and spending some time weaving a decent tale (which Diablo has been modest-to-poor at) would actually go a long way in this regard. Relying on “what we know” from our reality is just a narrative shortcut in this regard, and can be a pitfall some fall into like the assumption that cross symbology within Sanctuary means Diablo has roots in Christianity despite the fact we should all know by now there’s no God, Jesus, Lucifer, etc…
Trollish jokes aside, some folks in the past also needed to come to understand concepts like gallows humor when it comes to narrative. Just because a world may be going to hell doesn’t mean the people within it can’t crack wise now and then. And sure, dad joke tier puns may be groan inducing when/if they happen, it’s still a fair and healthy aspect of the psychology that can go into the world.
Mind you, if people want threadbare narrative to better push a self-insert apocalyptic mentality, that’s also something they need to vocalize instead of pointing to the graphics and whining they can’t get edgelord emo enough. But this is also an extension of meaningful critique being more than just like/dislike.
All true… for a new IP. Diablo is already an established universe/IP. Or was one… And it had a certain style to it. So ofc, people sticking to it found the original style appealing. In what ways exactly, from the artistic perspective, is irrelevant for business. What matters is the fact, that it got so popular, that pretty much everybody over the age 20-25 now have heard of Diablo II. It is, sort of, a legendary game now. Ofc it has it flaws, nothing is perfect, but that is, again, irrelevant to the general cult phenomena in the culture.
Multiple reasons. Saving the resources → taking an easier route while designing. Or making the fictional world a bit more realistic or immersive. Or psychologial tricks, playing with the human nature in general, so what the horror genre generally does.
Yes, ofc they can. But they will require, as you point out, very good writing and just an enormous amount of effort (work) put into the creation. Even then it’ll be more of a psychological thriller, rather than a horror. Basic horror deals with the primal instincts. Fear of the unknown in general, and unknown dark are just right on top of the list…
The concepts of “Sin” and “Hell” are deeper and older than Christianity. However, what matters more, is that they’re almost universal, cross cultural concepts. And they’re also, as of now anyway, seem to be timeless. Timeless, as in, from the moment they were articulated well enough, became sophisticated spiritual ideas, all the people were, are and will be able to understand them forever. Perhaps even seriously relate to them, however, that is a whole other debate.
So, an attempt to create somewhat of a horror (at least a dark, horrific atmosphere) using the universal concepts and human nature as the base is wise from a business standpoint. It is also easier/taking an easier route. It is a win/win for developers, because lots of people with different backgrounds, from diffrent cultures, will be able to relate to it.
It shouldn’t be a bad stand up show either. They’ll have to balance it perfectly.
P.S.:
The idea, after all, is to enjoy a specific fictional world, but to a degree, that it will provide people with highly sought-after escapism in the style/artstyle/design they’d personally like.
I always wonder, if the D3 artistic degisners have had at least a 1000 hours in DII and liked it. Same, btw, also goes for the D3 itself. Did people, who created it, put thousands of hours in it? Did they play their own creation? What did they feel? I know for a fact, that the DII devs have played the crap out of Diablo II.
I have my favorite “holy s***, that is sick and disgusting and awful” moments in D3 too. I’ll admit, but they’re scarce… only have a few. Two of the top of my head. And both had nothing to do with the actual main arc of the Diablo itself or ponies. And those emotions, even if, negative, are hard to beat. To experience the whole range of emotions is, what I personally, apart from escapism, etc…, consume the culture for. Ponies/rainbows and happily ever after is not what I’m looking for when playing a Diablo game.
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VV said it well when asked about D2R being brighter and being able to see more than the original. Because it’s 3D. If you applied the “darkness” of 2D D2 onto 3D D2 and you have an even greater unreadable mess. It’s fine for specific instances where not being able to see is part of the moment or atmosphere devs are trying to get across.
We are not really pushing here, but most of us rather just have a casual, almost lighthearted conversation.
I and other people have described this concept here in this thread quite well I think, maybe even several times and I have even shared a ton of screenshots and art to illustrate that.
For Diablo 3, this would mean - for me personally:
- less saturated colors, but not overly desaturaed
- reduce the overall brightness, so that it stops to look like that the particles in the air are glowing
- significantly reduce the brightness of certain effects that makes them look like they are radiating in your face like a bright neon light, or completely replace them with more matte colors.
- add a vignette that is medium transparent (see below)
It of course is on a scale and not a binary between “Darkness” and “Not Darkness”.
In regards to the Light Radius, which is also known as “Vignette”, this vignette also has a transparency, which means that not everything outside your Light Radius has to be 100% dark, just “more dark” than what is inside your Light Radius.
Here are a few examples I created for D3 with the tools I have available that illustrate this all could have looked in D3 (may still needs some adjustments, but for now it will do):
Original
Darkened
==================
Original
Darkened
===================
===================
It was clearly stated that these were over-exaggerated examples to illustrate a point, since this “darkness” all exists on a scale and though D3 is definitely not on the level that the Happy Tree Friends are, D3 is noticeably closer on the scale to Happy Tree Friends than D1, D2 and D4.
People use to exaggerate things to better illustrate things to others, which we have done here since you did not understand what we are talking about, and now you come and say that we were comparing D3 to “low budget toonboom cartoons” and that we do so with the bad faith that it was the devs intent to base it on that.
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In my particular case, the 2nd one it’s the best one.
First I have issues with bright lights, normally my screen are low bright/contrast/saturation and in that situation the 2nd image it’s more familiar to me. Tbh it’s how D3 appears to me when I play it, while D2 weirdly becomes a bit bright in some aspects or really darker in others. But If I would categorize the pictures that could annoy me a lot I would take 1st and 3rd ones using certain presets.
A lot of stuff in the market tries to “exagerate” the color effect from things, when in real life most of the time we don’t have those kind of vivid colors that market wants us to have. I would say that D3 had really hit-miss issue when you have those screens set to vivid colors, while when you reduce the overall contrast and bright, at least my case, I get really nice them and comfortable visual experience. While D2 I had unnusual spikes of darker and brigther areas which it’s a bit weird tbh.
Most of the time I set my games to be similar to the 2nd picture. So for me it’s natural to choose that kind of picture. Also helps to hide some flaws and accentuate others. Really depends on the screen, saturation, contrast and bright. The grayscale it’s more “neutral and natural” at least for me. Even on supposed colorful D3 maps I have a nice experience because of my settings.
The visibility of the logo Blizzard Entertainment it’s by far more readable, for me, at picture 2 than the other 2. Even on forums without clicking on image. On picture 1 the “diablo 2 fire” feels less real, because it’s too yellowish for me. While on picture 3 the yellow pick a bit the red side and the whiteish side become a bit familiar followed by the whiteish from the 2nd picture. About the face and aura, the second it’s more pleasant while the 3rd it’s more “vivid” and the 1st felt forced. On the other hand the text from the frame at border the first and second pictures came to almost a tie on the first place while the 3rd it’s really painful.
so about your questions:
I would pick the 2nd picture and it’s how it appears to me most of my games, with my monitor settings.
While the 3rd appears to be really redish, on lower bright and lower contrast as my case is it’s not painful as 1st one.
I would pick the 2nd one.
I tried to see the picture on my preset and another 3 types of preset(cinema, game and sports). While most of them the 3rd picture became annoying the 1st one wasn’t great either, on my current preset the most readable it’s the second followed by the 3rd while the 1st felt fake. Still it’s a personal preference and particular scenario in the end.
My scenario it’s peculiar, but the industry standard doesn’t apply to all folks, I would say that folks with some kind of visual perk would use the 2nd and 3rd ones instead of the 1st one. Because the detail got more highlighted on those 2 for different reasons. The whiteish effect helps to discern better certain elements from the picture on the image 2, while on image 3 the lightful impact of certain aspects helps to hide picture imperfections and can prejudice a bit monochromatic view.
So for most of color blindness the picture 2 would be the most pleasant picture, followed by the 3rd(except monochromatic view), while the 1st would be the less natural picture in almost every scenario of that kind of perk, except on monochromatic view that could be almost the same as the 2nd one.
On accessibility side the 2nd and 3rd would be the best, if they have any plan to improve the experience for folks with some kind visual perk. At least from previous works on the area I got used that sometimes the “industry” standard it’s not the most pleasure visual experience for most folks, while more “neutral” wash becomes more pleasant for the majority of people, I not saying best color accuracy but the best experience for the majority, if you take in mind visual perks and the pattern behind several events in the game. Huge light transitions isn’t great(can cause epilepsy, even thriller and terror movies wouldn’t use that, mostly they gonna use darker and surprise appearance scenes not huge flashs of light) and too much vivid colors aren’t also(makes things become fake or at least painful for some audiences to watch). The common approach of the picture 2 it’s for recording memories on movies, while they put too much brightness and contrast and most scenes with blur effects. If you remove the brightness and blur effects the experience would become a bit of “retrostyled” which most of the time can be pleasant for most of viewers on acessibility lens.
That’s my take about the theme.
Try having a 4k computer and never playing D4 (i have played A 4k game for 3 hours or so). Stop pushing it!
What are you even on about? The majority of 4k/8k screens in this world will never display a Diablo game on them. That is just the reality.