Diablo III again
 

Since the last thread is pretty old and almost at the post limit, here's a new one with a link to an interview with one of the Diablo III developers discussing some of the fan-altered screen shots to make the game look darker and why they did/didn't do stuff.

Initially I was turned off by the art direction but after hearing their reasoning for it I feel a bit better.

I haven't heard the reasoning behind it, but I've figured some things out myself:
*There's more than enough Goddamn "dark and edgy" games out there with a palette of black, grey, red and occasionally brown. Why anyone at this point would want to steer a game, any game, in that direction is beyond me.
*A game's graphics do not in any way need to be "realistic". They need to be efficient in communicating to the player what xe needs to see. As far as aestethics go, they might need to be consistent within themselves; to have an artistic direction. Nothing more.
*Telling game developers that you know better than them how their game should look is pretty silly.

Yeah the fan outcry is outrageously stupid. I'm thinking of starting a petition against them.

Oh, the game? It looks okay I guess. Don't really want to saturate my interest in it before I can play it.

What I love is how the guy with the interview basically said "Hey we want to keep this game able to be run on low-end computers. That's why lighting can't be like that. Lighting is just a visual thing, we'd prefer to spend more time with the game making it fun. Deal with it."

I love Blizzard's design philosophy.

I also got a kick out of the "Necromancer's choice". Like, is it a certain necromancer's preference? Was there a poll taken or something, like, four out of five necromancers choose Photoshop? And how seriously can we be expected to take a name like "WoW gayness" from a person who more than likely plays WoW despite all it's 'gayness'?

It's like the most die-hard fanboys of the franchises are the ones that often end up being ridiculed because of their silly diehardedness. Just look at Street Fighter 4's outcry.

What a vicious and hilarious cycle.

I think it goes deeper than that; credibility goes out the window whenever anyone uses the word "gay" as a derogatory term.

I figured that was just kind of implied. Everyone knows if you want to make your point more simple to understand you can just toss out derogatory terminology like it's going out of style.

It is, however, more amusing to me that the Blizzard fanboys are more than likely playing World of Warcraft yet harp on it's bright and shiny color in a mad-dash to sound like they and they alone are the keys to making Diablo 3 not bomb horribly.

It's...just amazing.

I found I liked the edited screenshots more in some respects. I think it was increased contrast that did it for me though.

Currently, the game looks a bit generic to me, but its still in development so its not that surprising.

Thew developer had good points about visibility and how a doctored shot would look pretty than a raw game engine shot though. It's really hard to make out what's going on in quite a few of the editted shots. Especially the bridge one.

I like the bit where he talks about a guy who argued that the rainbow was impossible and backwards. The great rainbow debate!

It's no great news that Blizzard Fans are doing something stupid. There is a predominating segment of Blizzard's fanbase that has distinguished itself as that part of the internet exactly one step removed from the internet shithole that shall not be named.

For me its all about the gameplay.

And the question of if the female characters will get screwed with bikini armor, or if, for once in the history of mankind since the days of Joan of Arc, they will actually get to wear FULL PLATE ARMOR THAT COVERS THE ENTIRE BODY

Concept art says moderate cleavage on otherwise sane armor. A couple of steps up from gaming's debauched standards, but a step down from Diablo 2.

Concept artist must have been dumped by his girlfriend.

EDIT: Wow, like, five minutes after I posted, Blizzard's out an art director.