Possible Diablo III announcement due tommorow

royal

Graphics are fine IMO.

dynamik

royal wrote:

Graphics are fine IMO.

I thought so too. Then I went back to that petition and actually looked at the screenshots. I have to admit, I like the ones they edited much better.

Maybe they'll include some options to adjust the saturation and other environmental aspects. I still think a petition is silly.

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9

royal

Ok, I do admit. I like the modified versions better.

royal

Anyone plan on going to Blizzcon 2008 in Anaheim California in October?

Rikku

I think the graphics are fine. Why not keep it vivid and elemental with the colors. I am all for enhancing the dark feel of the game..without trying to make it so dark you cannot see what your doing. To me the after pictures look dark and dumbed down graphically.

I think if they reverse it, it is taking a step back toward the graphics in D2. It's the future..move forward graphically.

-Rikku

JDMurray

Rikku wrote:

I am all for enhancing the dark feel of the game..without trying to make it so dark you cannot see what your doing.

They sure didn't do a good job of this in Quake 4. That game is so dark and difficult to see that I never went back to finish it again on the higher difficulty levels.

Pash

I really like the gameplay video and the art and gfx look fine to me, I think all the people whining are into deep gothic rituals and things

And thanks dynamik for this link http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/53406 - interesting to see they are working on something else as well.

royal

Good interview from one of the D2 development leads and his take on D3:
http://www.diii.net/articles/670644/the-d2-team-comments-on-d3

JDMurray

royal wrote:

Good interview from one of the D2 development leads and his take on D3:
http://www.diii.net/articles/670644/the-d2-team-comments-on-d3

I especially like these parts:

As for the tone: A comparison of D1 to D2 comes to mind. I remember plowing ahead and making those green pastures and meadows in D2, and thinking after the fact. oops! The original Diablo was so dark and moody; did I screw up the atmosphere? Then I went and made the bright desert wasteland, and the same potential problems cropped up. But it all worked out in my opinion, because we were able to take the player underground, and to various darker environments. Therefore, I think you can't judge the atmosphere of D3 from a short demo. Who knows what incredible sights await the player of Diablo 3

The stark contrasts in the above-world and below-world environments were really done well in D2. An entire game that's dark and forbidding can really wear on you (like in Pain Killer), and having the radically different environments keeps the game a new and changing experience. It is also a great point that we've only seen tiny glimpses of the entire D3 game, and not enough to make a reasonable opinion.

I actually find the return of the characters very comforting. They are like old friends in a weird way, and I can't imagine a Diablo game without Deckard Cain!

The two elements that really make D2 noteworthy for me are the music and the endearing quality of the NPCs. To this day I have fond memories of my interactions with Charsi, Oramus, Gheed, Fara, and Deckard Cain. Similar games, like Titan Quest, don't lend enough depth to their NPCs to make them as memorable as the NPCs in D2.

dynamik

The music was amazing.

Music plays a huge role in determining whether an game feels epic or, well, blah.

I would seriously buy an original score soundtrack for those games. I wonder if those exist...

Thanks for the link. It's loaded on one of my home machines; I haven't had a chance to watch it yet.

royal

A Blizzard post about the loot system. Really glad to see the loot being done this way:

From:
http://www.battle.net/forums/thread.aspx?fn=d3-general&t=78496&s=blizzard&tmp=1#blizzard

Currently - while in a party each player will see their own drops from each kill.

This could mean that after killing a zombie I see a sword drop, and you may see a shoulder slot item drop. Or I see nothing drop, while you got an axe.

Obviously while in a group you're killing faster, and this could translate to an exponentially increasing number of drops with each additional player in your party. However, it's balanced in such a way that the drop % is pulled back a bit with each additional player (I'm simplifying it, but that's what it boils down to). This keeps it from being almost detrimental to not play with a full party, while still giving a nice increase to the amount of drops if you do.

From this system it seems quite a few people got the impression that you'll never see items drop that you can't use. For instance, a Barbarian will never see a dagger that only a Witch Doctor can use. This isn't true. There is no effect, or at least no currently intended effect, to restrict which items which classes can or can't see for their respective drops. It's still intended that you could see an item that your class can't use. It's easy enough to drop the item, ask if anyone can use it, or just sell it off of course.

I really can't wait for the alpha.

dynamik

I doubt we'll hear more about it until Blizzcon (Oct 10-11). They're not going to be at E3 next week. They and/or Activision are having a Press Conference, but that's it.

(And yes, I realize that the interview is after the video. I just started loading the video and went to work. Whoops.)

royal

dynamik wrote:

I doubt we'll hear more about it until Blizzcon (Oct 10-11). They're not going to be at E3 next week. They and/or Activision is having a Press Conference, but that's it.

(I just realized the interview was after that video. I just started loading the video and went to work. Whoops.)

Can't wait for Blizzcon. I've wanted to go to California for a while and am a huge Blizzard fan. The same for my buddy. So we decided we're going to buy tickets this year and fly out there.

dynamik

Wow. I'm definitely jealous. The wife and I would love to do that. It's too bad that airfare alone is over $1k, and it's occurring in the middle of a semester we have to pay for out of pocket

With SC2 and D3 in the works, this is definitely the year to go. I doubt I'll make it, but I expect to see a lot of pics and info on your blog

royal

dynamik wrote:

Wow. I'm definitely jealous. The wife and I would love to do that. It's too bad that airfare alone is over $1k, and it's occurring in the middle of a semester we have to pay for out of pocket

With SC2 and D3 in the works, this is definitely the year to go. I doubt I'll make it, but I expect to see a lot of pics and info on your blog

I am just praying they have a playable demo of D3.

JDMurray

The Anaheim Convention Center where Blizzcon 2008 will be is about a 20-minute drive from my house (depending on traffic). I'm not going to ComicCon 2008 in San Diego this year, but I'm thinking very seriously about Blizzcon. My 17-year old is a bigger D2 fan than I am, and the con is near his birthday. Hmmmm...

Blizzcon Merch

Possible link for Blizzcon 2008 tickets

royal

Blizz post on Item Binding:

http://www.battle.net/forums/thread.aspx?fn=d3-general&t=80476&s=blizzard&tmp=1#blizzard

Diablo is a trading game, and we have no plans to change that. We don't have any inclination to make items bind to a character, or otherwise remove trading opportunities.

Will there be absolutely no items that will be bound to a character? It isn't possible to say with any certainty at this point, there might be.

Excellent news. I'm really glad they're keeping true to Diablo and not taking the WOW elements and putting them into Diablo. I love trading in Diablo and am glad I don't have to worry about the WOW BOE/BOP item binding system going into Diablo.

And the last link I posted about the loot system. One of my big pet peeves about D2 was that so many people just spam clicked for items and some even had hacks to pick up items. It really made it unfair for a lot of people such as myself who would rarely get items they need. This will also prevent a lot of people going to Ebay (at least I think) to purchase items as it will be fun not having to go do a 40/25 person raid like in WOW to go get good items. You can just get into a group and go kill on a fast kill run and not have to go through an 8 hour dungeon like in WOW.

Great stuff. Time sinks to progress your character stink and I think this is where Diablo will shine. Even if you don't get an item you want off of a boss, you can always trade it to get something you want without having to worry about the item being BOP when it drops. This will also encourage replayability due to the fact that when you don't need an item anymore, you can start a new character and twink them out. For those that aren't familiar with twinking, it means you start a new character and you can deck him out due to you already having a higher level character and already have items for your lower level character to help him level faster and be more powerful than your original character when you had nothing.

dynamik

royal wrote:

And the last link I posted about the loot system. One of my big pet peeves about D2 was that so many people just spam clicked for items and some even had hacks to pick up items. It really made it unfair for a lot of people such as myself who would rarely get items they need.

That type of crap is why I hate playing any online game with strangers. I only play with people I know unless, or at least am familiar with, unless I'm completely bored. I would gladly play with anyone here.

We're going to have to start calling out our classes, so we don't end up with a group of barbarians.

Are you going to play another barb? I usually go with the necromancer, so I'll probably switch over to witch doctor. I doubt they'd have another class so similar, so necromancers are probably gone

royal

Depends on if there's magic find still. If there's MF and the sorc returns, I will play a sorc first so I can get good items to trade and give to my barb so he can kick ass when levelling. If MF is removed, I'm going barbarian. Barbarians are by far my favorite class.

JDMurray

dynamik wrote:

Are you going to play another barb? I usually go with the necromancer, so I'll probably switch over to witch doctor. I doubt they'd have another class so similar, so necromancers are probably gone

With only five initial classes it looks like I won't be playing assassins anytime soon either. And they'll probably have either paladins or amazons, but not both. If you can choose the gender of your character, they may also have build variations that allow for both paladin-like and amazon-like classes. I would prefer five base classes (fighter, thief, cleric, magic user, and engineer) and several build variations of each (barbarian, amazon/paladin, assassin, sorcerer/mage, druid/priest, ect.). This is basically the way Titan Quest does it, and some of TQ's builds are awesome.

royal

Q & A with Blizzard written out in a post. Some really good stuff.
http://www.battle.net/forums/thread.aspx?fn=d3-general&t=274438&p=1&#post274438

dynamik

They responded to the art direction criticism: http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/08/04/diablo-iii-designer-turns-tables/

The rainbows part was pretty funny.

Edit: looks like someone takes rainbows too seriously!

Aldur

dynamik wrote:

Edit: looks like someone takes rainbows too seriously!

I would say that this shocking breach in realism is enough to shatter even a casual gamers sense of immersion, and has no room in next-gen gaming!

Ok now really, I think that wouldn't offend the casual gamer let alone "most" hardcore gaming freaks who would notice such a thing.

edit: missed putting the "n't" on wouldn't which completely changed what I was trying to say, just changed it now.

JDMurray

Aldur wrote:

Ok now really, I think that would offend the casual gamer let alone "most" hardcore gaming freaks who would notice such a thing.

These are gaming artists that are critiquing Blizzard's artwork. I really like the line in the article, "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." This reflects the common tug-of-war between game designers/artists and game programmers over what is visually desired versus what is visually possible given the typical computer components used by the game's target market. A competent artist with Photoshop can make something a lot prettier than what is reasonably possible using a $100 graphics card. Programmers need to do the best they can with what the already consumer's got.

Aldur

JDMurray wrote:

Aldur wrote:

Ok now really, I think that would offend the casual gamer let alone "most" hardcore gaming freaks who would notice such a thing.

These are gaming artists that are critiquing Blizzard's artwork. I really like the line in the article, "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." This reflects the common tug-of-war between game designers/artists and game programmers over what is visually desired versus what is visually possible given the typical computer components used by the game's target market. A competent artist with Photoshop can make something a lot prettier than what is reasonably possible using a $100 graphics card. Programmers need to do the best they can with what the already consumer's got.

I agree, you can only push so much with the current technology that we have today. It's one thing if somebody believes that D3 is getting away from its dark dungeon crawling theme but to pick out something so small as the angle/color of a rainbow...

Also, I mistyped part of my last post, forgot the "n't" on wouldn't which changed the entire meaning of my post.

dynamik

Aldur wrote:

I would say that this shocking breach in realism is enough to shatter even a casual gamers sense of immersion, and has no room in next-gen gaming!

I'm pretty sure that's sarcasm. I was just impressed with the length he went to make such a statement. He could have simply said the colors were upside down and left it at that

Aldur

dynamik wrote:

Aldur wrote:

I would say that this shocking breach in realism is enough to shatter even a casual gamers sense of immersion, and has no room in next-gen gaming!

I'm pretty sure that's sarcasm. I was just impressed with the length he went to make such a statement. He could have simply said the colors were upside down and left it at that

haha, ok i should have realized that nobody could pick something out like that without being sarcastic, the detail that he went into was pretty impressive though.

JDMurray

From blizzard.com:

BlizzCon Tickets Now On Sale!

Tickets for BlizzCon 2008 are now available for USD $100 each. BlizzCon will take place October 10-11 in Anaheim, California -- head over to the official site for more information or to place your BlizzCon ticket order. We look forward to meeting some of you at the show!

dynamik

JDMurray wrote:

From blizzard.com:

BlizzCon Tickets Now On Sale!

Tickets for BlizzCon 2008 are now available for USD $100 each. BlizzCon will take place October 10-11 in Anaheim, California -- head over to the official site for more information or to place your BlizzCon ticket order. We look forward to meeting some of you at the show!

I hope everyone got their tickets. It's already sold out: http://kotaku.com/5036557/blizzcon-completely-sold-out-+--all-hope-is-lost

royal

My buddy and I decided not to go. I can't justify spending $100 on a ticket, $300-400 for a flight, wasting a vacation day, hotel costs, taxi costs, to hear Blizzard talk about Diablo 3.