New Diablo 3 Images; Design Wins Over Darkness

KingofGnG writes "The new Diablo III screenshots highlight the strong chromatic variations existing between the dungeons and the various stages ... It appears obvious, however, that all those details enriching the scenes, the crumbling parapets of the paths within the dungeons, the plants and the ragged drapes lightened by candles, would lose the best part of their raison d'etre if put in monochrome palettes inclined to black."

Re:Slashdotted

[dnwq]

Coral cache [nyud.net]. But it's insanely slow for me there, too.

Images are on Blizzard's Site

[im_thatoneguy]

http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/media/screenshots.xml [blizzard.com]

Skip the middleman. The first four are the "new" screenshots... which look exactly like the old screenshots. Which is to say... nothing has changed

Really... a slashdot story on Blizzard releasing another 4 screenshots? Will we get a story for every new screenshot they release or only in intervals of 4 or greater?

Penny-Arcade...

[semiotec]

This came up weeks ago.

The article on the comparison between Diablo III design and fan "improved" colours:

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/08/04/diablo-iii-designer-turns-tables [mtv.com]

and Penny-Arcade's take on the "protest":

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/8/6/ [penny-arcade.com]

Re:Screw blackness

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

I remember running into bright blue and green enemies in Diablo 2, even.

Re:Good for Blizzard

[Myrcutio]

To be fair, Diablo bled into WoW long before diablo 3 was even in development. The whole idea of soulbound items didn't exist prior to wow, and was a direct response to all the item trading that was going on in Diablo 2.

For that matter, WoW's item system is noticeably decedent from that in Diablo 2. The random drops, sockets, the uncommon, rare, unique classifications that has become ubiquitous now. Even the bag/bank space is am obvious evolution from diablo 2 days.

Re:Good for Blizzard

[phantomlord]

The whole idea of soulbound items didn't exist prior to wow, and was a direct response to all the item trading that was going on in Diablo 2.

No Drop items existed in EQ before WoW came out... to help prevent a combination of item trading, farming for twinks, to make items more rare, etc.

Re:Good for Blizzard

[markov_chain]

Bah, we had all this stuff on MUDs forever. All Diablo did was put a GUI on the mudlib.

Not that I am complaining, they are beautiful and well done games.

Re:Screw blackness

[fiendie]

I played Gears of War some time ago where you could actually fiddle with the post processing. On "muted" it was nearly unplayable even if the game isn't as fast-pased as a first person shooter. The color makes the opponents stand out from the background.

Re:Screw blackness

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember running into bright blue and green enemies in Diablo 2, even.

Here you go: http://infoceptor.net/strategy/diablo2/walkthrough/mission30/shot3.jpg

Re:Screw blackness

[revengebomber]

or you get Quake which was the brownest game ever.

At least Quake had a technical reason to be brown; it would have been difficult to get any kind of lighting at all without those big 16-step ramps in the color palette.

(And Doom 3 almost has a reason, in that the game was supposed to be scary and make you become disoriented, but that's flimsy at best.)

Re:Screw blackness

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if they decided to turn hell into a giant 70s disco and put Diablo into a leisure suit and platform shoes

Lucasarts already did that [wikipedia.org]

Re:Screw blackness

[Cornflake917]

I don't really agree with the negative tone of your post (I think both games are great), but you forgot one of main similarities between the two games: Skill trees.