Diablo III Graphics Creates Aura of Defiance
Blizzard has unveiled only morsels of what to expect from its upcoming Action/RPG Diablo III through its new website. Already game-fans are protesting the inequities of an incomplete game they’ve never played in an online petition with over 30,000 signatures. Get a life – fanboy.
The Internet and Web 2.0 can be a glorious thing. Like art itself, it serves to mirror to our civilization, our wants, needs, hopes and our desires. Writers like Chris Anderson have called it the democratization of media. It’s a place where the voice of the individual speaks as loud and clear as corporate media. But what if the individual is just an a**-hole? Well, the Internet is full of that too.
One example is the protest over the graphics in the upcoming game Diablo III by Blizzard. The mythos of the Diablo franchise cannot be understated. It lives on in the hearts and minds of geeks worldwide. For many it was the first taste of multiplayer online gaming as Blizzard made it cheap and easy for Internet users. If Diablo was legendary, then Diablo II turned a generation of gamers into zombified addicts.
Bliz officially open the doors to the Diablo III website, giving fans a glimpse of a game that is months (possibly years after obligatory delays) away from release. Blizzard also probably predicted the firestorm they’d set off regarding its graphics.
Fans with way too much time on their hands are doing their part to protest the graphics in the upcoming installment of the Diablo franchise. An online petition has been created demanding the game’s graphics get retooled. Within the rash of criticisms from point-and-click-critics is the game’s cartoonish quality. Some already cite that the game they haven’t even played is too similar to World of Warcraft.
Some of us may recall the release of Diablo II and remember the firestorm over its graphics. In an era where graphics accelerators like the add-on Monster video cards and early Nvidia chipsets were the order of the day, gamers were hungry to test out their new hardware’s graphical APIs on some shimmering eye-candy.
But Diablo II was stuck with 90s-style 256 colors at an 800×600 resolution. Reluctance quickly dissipated among gamers who found that story and game-play easily trumped graphics. That’s a gaming history lesson that’s all too easily forgotten.
You should try to learn how to write a post without relying on curses to make a point.
Players are not saying D3 is their game, of course its Blizzards game. Still, people are free to criticize what it is displayed to them.
You in fact are the image of what that players are complaining, someone who wants everything pretty fluffy and pink. By this I mean, Blizzard showed us the state of the D3 project and everyone should be happy about it and not say anything, unless its a good thing I guess.
It’s my personal opinion that the game as it is has incredible graphics, and I like the colors. That doesn’t make it the right art style for Diablo 3 though. So, although I will like the game if it comes out similar to what it is now, I would rather have, for example, light radius inside Dungeons. Light radius also give you the chance to experiment with equipment that increases and decreases the light around you, which gives a cool effect.
Regards.
Thank you, bye, you fail.
(Ps: Oh my god oh my god oh my god, I can't wait for this to come out.)
Although I will play it whichever way they choose to colour it, yet I prefer the darker setups of some of the moded pictures in the petition.
In fact thanks for the heads up on that, I think I will sign it just to counter this shitty article.
From what I've seen of Diablo 3, it really does nothing for me at all.
I'll probably give it a miss in all honesty.
I don't like the Witch-Doctor. I like diablo as much as the next guy but this is a little much. The choice is not up to you and you don't get a say weather the witch doctor is in the game. Anyway you will buy the game when it comes out even if it is one level long and only contains the Assassin.
And it's not that i believe that it won't be a good game; blizzard rarely, if ever ,dissapoints us. And we know this is not the final form of the game. However, we saw something, we have every right to judge it, we have everyright to ask for something we fell is better and you are just an asshole who can't get a hold of the situation.
No one likes bitching ofcourse but if you had read the petition which i doubt you have you should see that it doesn't stop in complaining it gives some alternatives of what the game should look like. And this is done with full respect to blizzard's work( maybe there is an exception to that last one).
So fuck you. If you feel we have too much spare time then what should be said about you , who bitch for the bitching. If we take a gmae too seriously this is our choise, no one invited you. So fuck you.
Wow, did someone poop in your cornflakes this morning?
One misconception you have is that "you people" ie. bloggers and writers of articles and "we fans" are different people.
I am a veteran of bliz games from way back.
I use my blog to express opinions. It's no more or less valid than anyone else's opinion. So, why all the hate?
I didn't reall all 30K+ comments in the petition but I did read the outline. I've seen clever ideas in the petition and some people have already gone ahead and made graphic changes to the images provided by Blizzard.
But the point is the game isn't done and Bliz is going to do whatever it wants. If you want a darker game design one or mod Diablo for your own experience.
The gripes about the graphics (art direction whatev) gives me serious deja-vu over pre-release DII news. OMG - DII was a great game anyway!
~Scottie
First of all: My hate comes from the tone of your article. Were you more polite to the people who signed the petition , i would be more polite to you.I have no problem with you expressing your opinion as long as it does not insult me.I wouldn't have a problem even if your opinion was that diablo should have pink unicorns and happy bears. I would just disagree.
I also agreee that the graphics won't be the most important factor about wether the game is good. This is a gameplay matter.
However i cannot understand the logic of people like you and Scottie who say;"We are not here to tell developers what to make--we are here to play what developers give us."
Why not? why can't i ask blizzard to make an x type of game or why can't i propose ways that i think would make the game better. Afterall the games are being made for us. And i don't thing that blizzard is going to do whatever it wants, because blizzard is a professional company tha tries to satisfy most of the people. If 30.000 people today or 300k people tommorow want a darker diablo i think a darkser diablo will be made.
And finally you people (and by you i dont's mean bloggers, i mean you who bitch about us bithcing)
say that as soon as the first screenshots came out you started complaining. So i ask you this. When is the right time to complain? After the gmae is out or now that it is still being made.
Imagine someone saying:
"Hey blizzard , cool thing you made diablo 3 for us and all, but now that you finally finished it and it is on sale , could you make another darker one?"
As about modding the game, it could be a solution but it would take time and you don't know what problems might be brought up. official is usually best.
Diablo 2 sold about 4 million copies worldwide (wikipedia),so more than 6 million should have played it. 30k is a small number compared to that. But not eveyone who has played the game liked it, not eveyone who liked it has access to the internet , not everyone who has access to the internet knows about diablo 3, and not everyone who knows and cares about diablo 3 cares wether thbe graphics are dark or shiny. So if the petition reaches about
300k, i would notice it if i was the game designer.
After all it is not that an important matter.We didn't tell them to make it first person.
I don't think i can explain any better why 1million signatures might matter to blizzard, but i will try.
The people of the internet are just a smal fracture of the people who want to play the game.The people of the net are a sample from the millions of players who'll play the game. These people are a representative of the whole population who will play diablo.This means that any conclusion we make about them can be generalised for the population.
One question is how big this sample is. This is difficult to answer because you cannot actually tell how many are searching the forums and have learned about those petitions. So let's say the people who care that much are about 500k, meaning 500k know about the petitions( my opinion is that this number is way too big)
So we have a sample of the population and 2 petitions, one to change the graphics , one to keep them. From the sample we have 35k who want to change the graphics, 4k who don't, and quite a lot, who just don't give a fuck about the graphics. This numbers are very small yet when compared to 500k(35/500=0.07=7%). However if the signatures reach 300k or more ,that means most people would like darker graphics. I know this is a rough estimation and that this petition is not very reliable. Thus, the point of it, is that blizzard takes our opinion into consideration, and maybe ask us in more formal way , maybe make a poll on the official d3 site or whatever.
Now that we are done talking statistics, i want to tell you that i personally, (although i feel most people who signed the petition believe the same), don't think that the game will suck if the graphics will not change. I agree with you when you say diablo 2 was not about the light radius.And ofcourse i like the new graphics better, i mean they are newer,upgraded!.
I just hope and i am asking kindly from blizzard to make a darker mood for the game,like the previous one.I DON'T want the old one ,i HAVE that. I want a NEW game with certain similarities to the series. And as a whole i am more than satisfied with what i saw. When i saw the monster eating the barb i was like: OMFG!! THAT IS AWESOME!! YEAH! After i first saw the trailers i was really excited and felt that this game will rock , i still do. But someone showed me that there might be a possiblity to make the game slightly better. And i want that. Ofcourse this is my opinion you may like the graphics as they are which is completely respectable. What i don't understand is why our opinion isn't.