The Great Diablo III Graphic Theme Debate

[Mr. Hrm]

After posting about the Diablo III announcement and clicking through GameSpy's various Diablo III videos. I found myself loving the new interactive environments and hopped up game action. However, as I commented on the original post, a lot of Diablo III's graphic look left me scratching my head. Why the new World of Warcraft texture and model scheme?

Now, don't get me wrong, I liked Diablo and loved Diablo II. In fact I recently installed Diablo II a month ago and have made it to Act V with what little time I have, "Hardcore Mode" of course.

I am also a seasoned WoW player and while looking at the various Diablo III media it was looking more and more "WoW like" in terms of the graphic feel.

I know the game will most likely rock and make Blizzard another billion dollars but why the "cartoony" change? Was it because most of the original development team that made Diablo II left Blizzard? Was it due to having the same artists that worked on World of Warcraft, work on Diablo III?

Apparently, I was not the only one thinking this. With the help of the The "series of tubes" that makes the internets, a group created an online petition, which all stemmed from this 245+ page thread on a Diablo fan site. As of writing this, the petition has reached 27,600+ signatures of people complaining about the graphic theme.

Now, of course Blizzard will most likely not change game's design this far into production but there is obviously a few angry fans here. Even the producer of Fallout 3 was upset.

Blizzard seemed to have noticed the growing resentment over the new look and quickly began working the press to patch it up, quoting the Diablo III producer, "color is your friend".

Kotaku, a popular gamer website, responded with a rather humorous:






Below are a series of screen shots from Diablo III and some fan-altered screen shots showing what they would like it to look like:






















There are also a few extra pictures below.

Personally, I like most of the fan-edited screen shots more than the originals as they use more of a Diablo II style of lighting. Everyone has their opinions and I shall leave this debate up to all of you, the people who matter, the fans.

[Log1x]

I like the color they are added to the game although I'm sure it will be altered before the final release.

Blizzard wont let us down, people are getting riled up over nothing. It'll come out and be an amazing game, and I'm sure we'll all be sitting here playing it with goose bumps because I'm sure Blizzard will give us a surprise around every corner.

[Mr. Hrm]

Yup, looks like a winner. The boss battles looked really cool.

[shadowbeast]

Regardless of graphics, its now 3d iso. Its also diablo so im cool with whatever they do as long as it stays true to the majority of diablos gameplay

[Zonte]

I personally prefer the original graphics because it seems like the fan-generated pictures take out half the color. On the other hand, the original graphics remind me of Easter...so maybe there should be a half-and-half compromise.

Either way, there is no doubt that this game will be amazing.

[azeroth192]

original graphics look like rated a E game than T or M game but aslong a they keep true to diablos fun gameplay and have awsome boss battles and i hope a very defficult game setting and not carebareicanbeatthisgamein4hourswithnothingbutasti ckandashirt excuse for a defficult setting im fine with the post WoW graphics even though i think blizzard has WoWstyleisbest mentalaty i just wait til its out an in my pc to judge

[ionscorp]

I think the game is going to be awesome, even if the colors stay the same I guarantee you somebody will come out with some hack to change it... 0.o

[MartyBunny]

There are not many dark and sinister games anymore =/ All are happy and colorful "yay"
I actually dunno what i would choose if i had a choice between "i can't see anything" and "rainbows everywhere"
WoW is a bit too colourful, yes... I liked Diablo1/2 as they were, don't really want the 3rd version go all happy on me now =/
But yeah, i htink i'd play it anyway, as long as it has nice armors and sword =3