Dark and Gritty VS Cartoony. Diablo 3's aesthetic. Thoughts?

[Scarim Coral]

I'm fine with the apperance but yet again I'm more of gameplay over graphic and I'm also new to the franchise so I had never played Daiblo 1 & 2.
Beside there are plenty of people hype up for this game so I guess people can overlook the cartoony apperances and want to play the game itself.

 

[Meight08]

Why do people assume dark and gritty vs cartoony are the only possible options in a game?
No seriously Why?
you can have dark gritty and still have color look at grim dawn for example

I think most 40K is pretty far into the realm of self-parody by now, its, sorry, it's like a running gag now how much more darkly grim they can get each story.

Now the ones who take it super cerealy, their, oops, they're even funnier.

Even though you don't show any appreciation for it, i'm sure you've analysed all 50+ books thoroughly, hmm? It's sad that 40k is one of the few things people can still point and laugh at without knowing much about it. If i'd say something similar about anime/jrpgs/comics/books in here I'm sure i'd get a less than savory response.

Tell me about it! If you say this is silly you need to check your head!
Listen to this music and the haunting monologue
Or listen to captain Gabriel Angelos's haunting monologue and the sad music

This is not silly!

 

[Meight08]

Why do people assume dark and gritty vs cartoony are the only possible options in a game?
No seriously Why?
you can have dark gritty and still have color look at grim dawn for example

Oh my god that looks so good I need it nao!

its still in development but here is a link to the website
http://www.grimdawn.com/index.php
(there is a pre order program if you want to support development)
its being developed by guys who worked on titan quest
Oh and its gotten even better

Remember this is the same fucking game talk about juxta position

 

[Yopaz]

The cartoon look is shit. Diablo has never been light hearted, or comical. The fact that the gold grabbing pigs etc have been dropped due to this reinforces the notion that they are just using WoW designers for a game that should be entirely different in aesthetics to WoW.
Arguing specs is nonsense - Diablo 2 has low specs and doesn't have a cartoony look to it.

That is really not what I've said. I've argued specs in the case of WoW, not Diablo, and that was just one advantage their cartoony graphics gave them, by allowing them to keep it low spec but not look like utter shit. The comparison to Diablo 2 is irrelevant since that was a 2d game that wasn't THAT low spec for the year it launched anyway. Again, it's not the case for Diablo3.

Also the point of mentioning WoW's low spec graphics was that it's aesthetic choice is grounded in logic and serves a clear purpose not because they just like it that way, or had no better ideas.

Cartoony graphics don't give you an advantage in terms of performance. As I said, Diablo 2 is low specs yet not cartoony. WoW was done as it was because it was probably seen to be more appealing to a wider player base.

Diablo 2 is low spec because it's kinda old.

OT: For Diablo I would say dark and gritty is my preference, but Mario would never work out any other way, Legend of Zelda has proven to master both styles.

 

[MetalGenocide]

I used to think D3 was too colorful, but then Blizzard reluctantly caved to the complaints(even though they won't admit it) and made it "better".

 

[DarkhoIlow]

My opinion on this particular thing is this: it really doesn't matter how they will make Diablo 3,we all know most of you are dying to play it anyway.

On another note,however,the difference between dark and gritty and a more cartoony look depends solely on the lighting.If the enviorement is too dark,then the visibility will be less and thus in later difficulties there might come up problems while trying to see the enemy up ahead or paths to take in order to try to kite/escape from a dangerous situation.

It's a Blizzard's game so we all know to expect high end quality in their games.I put all my faith in them,knowing that they know what they are doing and Diablo 3 will be a success,like every other game they released thus far.

These are my 2 cents on the matter.

 

[SpaceBat]

I actually like the new looks and I don't see where you're getting the idea that it looks cartoony. so yeah, supporting the more colorful look, as I'm starting to get sick of Dark and Gritty.

 

[Yopaz]

The cartoon look is shit. Diablo has never been light hearted, or comical. The fact that the gold grabbing pigs etc have been dropped due to this reinforces the notion that they are just using WoW designers for a game that should be entirely different in aesthetics to WoW.
Arguing specs is nonsense - Diablo 2 has low specs and doesn't have a cartoony look to it.

That is really not what I've said. I've argued specs in the case of WoW, not Diablo, and that was just one advantage their cartoony graphics gave them, by allowing them to keep it low spec but not look like utter shit. The comparison to Diablo 2 is irrelevant since that was a 2d game that wasn't THAT low spec for the year it launched anyway. Again, it's not the case for Diablo3.

Also the point of mentioning WoW's low spec graphics was that it's aesthetic choice is grounded in logic and serves a clear purpose not because they just like it that way, or had no better ideas.

Cartoony graphics don't give you an advantage in terms of performance. As I said, Diablo 2 is low specs yet not cartoony. WoW was done as it was because it was probably seen to be more appealing to a wider player base.

Diablo 2 is low spec because it's kinda old.

OT: For Diablo I would say dark and gritty is my preference, but Mario would never work out any other way, Legend of Zelda has proven to master both styles.

You completely missed the point as well as making a mistake:
Age doesn't make something low specs; is crysis low specs?

So you want to compare a game that was made a decade ago and a game made a bit more than 4 years ago and say that one require higher specs than the other one? Well I got news for you. Those things increase with years, you also might want to know that Crysis was made too demanding to be played on maxed setting by most computers at the time when it was released. Also Crysis isn't really considered to be in the high end anymore since new games and new hardware has left it behind. So it's still pretty high, but it's not considered as high as it used to be. Give it some time and it will be considered to be pretty low.

 

[Byere]

I'm not totally in love with the brighter graphics, but yesterday I looked at the article about how people had photoshopped released images to make them a lot darker and more detailed. I can understand (after reading the article) that the lighting cannot be done. The developers stated that there was no way to make the light's AI (for lack of a better term) work in that realistic a way. In all fairness though, if they DID manage to do that so that it was just incredibly dark all around your character bar about 3 inches of light around you, I'd end up just turning up the game's brightness level until I could actually see what the hell I'm fighting anyway.

I'd like to see the atmosphere darkened a little, particularly when inside a dungeon, but I think the developers were right about the outside areas. They don't necessarily HAVE to be all gloom and rain. Fine, make it raining... but that doesn't mean the sun cannot be out too. Hell, seeing how that rainbow that caused so much controversy was above a waterfall (even if it was upside down), I think it made sense. You're supposed to be pretty high up at that point, so even the claim that it would be impossible to see it from that angle is wrong anyway.

 

[Kahunaburger]

I think that the issue with the WoW aesthetic is less that it's cartoony and more that it's ugly. Bizarre proportions, extraneous shoulder-pads, and so on. Diablo 3 looks like it has a bit of that going, but not quite as bad. So it's less that one aesthetic goal is inherently better than another, it's that execution of the aesthetic can be good or bad.

 

[VladG]

I think that the issue with the WoW aesthetic is less that it's cartoony and more that it's ugly. Bizarre proportions, extraneous shoulder-pads, and so on. Diablo 3 looks like it has a bit of that going, but not quite as bad. So it's less that one aesthetic goal is inherently better than another, it's that execution of the aesthetic can be good or bad.

Both the bizarre proportions and extraneous shoulder pads serve a clear purpose. To tell you at a glance exactly what you're up against. This is important in PvP. The weird proportions of different races help you identify each from a distance, and the shoulder pads are class-specific and their size makes them very visible.

So when a group of enemies is barreling towards you, you don't have to look around text menus and info to find out what you're up against, a split second look will tell you everything you need to know.

 

[Kahunaburger]

I think that the issue with the WoW aesthetic is less that it's cartoony and more that it's ugly. Bizarre proportions, extraneous shoulder-pads, and so on. Diablo 3 looks like it has a bit of that going, but not quite as bad. So it's less that one aesthetic goal is inherently better than another, it's that execution of the aesthetic can be good or bad.

Both the bizarre proportions and extraneous shoulder pads serve a clear purpose. To tell you at a glance exactly what you're up against. This is important in PvP. The weird proportions of different races help you identify each from a distance, and the shoulder pads are class-specific and their size makes them very visible.

So when a group of enemies is barreling towards you, you don't have to look around text menus and info to find out what you're up against, a split second look will tell you everything you need to know.

Yeah, I totally get the point of having easily recognizable gear in a game where gear matters. It's more a question of whether other games should copy that aesthetic without thinking about whether that aesthetic fits what they're trying to do with their game's visual style.

 

[VladG]

snip

Both the bizarre proportions and extraneous shoulder pads serve a clear purpose. To tell you at a glance exactly what you're up against. This is important in PvP. The weird proportions of different races help you identify each from a distance, and the shoulder pads are class-specific and their size makes them very visible.

So when a group of enemies is barreling towards you, you don't have to look around text menus and info to find out what you're up against, a split second look will tell you everything you need to know.

Yeah, I totally get the point of having easily recognizable gear in a game where gear matters. It's more a question of whether other games should copy that aesthetic without thinking about whether that aesthetic fits what they're trying to do with their game's visual style.

Well, the same thing applies for Diablo3 as well. Oh, I agree, it doesn't fit the game's tone, but better gameplay is more important in my opinion. Function over Form.