Diablo II and Warcraft III Are Apparently About to Be Remastered

ffronw

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Diablo II and Warcraft III Are Apparently About to Be Remastered

//cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/1414/1414876.jpgSome Blizzard job listings have revealed that the company is apparently working on remasters for Diablo 2 and Warcraft III.

PC gamers have been clamoring for remasters of StarCraft, Warcraft III, and Diablo 2. Although the StarCraft remaster has already been confirmed [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/169901-Blizzard-Confirms-StarCraft-Remaster-Original-Game-and-Brood-War-Free], the other two have only existed in the dreams of those gamers. Now, it looks like those wishes may come true, as the remasters exist on Blizzard's job site as well.

You can see one of the listings (for a Senior Software Engineer, Server) here [https://careers.blizzard.com/en-us/openings/osY64fwk], which says,

"Compelling stories. Intense multiplayer. Endless replayability. Qualities that made StarCraft, Warcraft III, and Diablo II the titans of their day. Evolving operating systems, hardware, and online services have made them more difficult to be experienced by their loyal followers or reaching a new generation.

We're restoring them to glory, and we need your engineering talents, your passion, and your ability to get tough jobs done."

A second listing [https://careers.blizzard.com/en-us/openings/onak5fwG] seeks a UI/UX Designer, and says that, "Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo await your machinations."

Of course, there hasn't been any sort of official announcement of either the Diablo 2 or Warcraft III remasters, but these job listings certainly make it seem very likely that we'll see them sooner rather than later.

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shrekfan246

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Eh, if they're glorified upscalings like Starcraft then I can't say I'd be too interested. Diablo II with Diablo III's combat would definitely pull me in. Though Warcraft III with modern character models and a better camera would be great, I think the game holds up pretty well itself, and the modding community has made some pretty awesome campaigns for those of us who really like the lore of Azeroth.

I guess time will tell!
 

InflatableHippo

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Most players that still play this game passionately dont play it on the Battle.net servers (to much map hacking) and instead play it on w3arena servers where there is less map hacking. w3arena also had an update a while back where you have the option to play the game in widescreen and Blizzard will have to add that if theres even a chance for the veterans to switch back over to the Battle.net servers.
 

Naldan

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I'm highly skeptical for the very same reasons MC1980 listed.




This also would show if Blizzard still have it in them. Not to make money, but to make actually great games with a mature tone.
 

babinro

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Do they need it?

Those relatively 'cartoony' artstyles were made to be timeless. It's like making Wind Waker HD...sure it looks better but the game never aged that poorly to begin with.

This is especially true with Warcraft 3 which I revisited only last year.

I suppose Diablo 2 is more debatable on whether or not a remaster is warranted but from my perspective that artstyle holds up just fine.
 

Jadak

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babinro said:
I suppose Diablo 2 is more debatable on whether or not a remaster is warranted but from my perspective that artstyle holds up just fine.
Diablo 2 looks like garbage, at the very least it's worth bumping up the resolution. It's what, 800x600 ?
 

Poetic Nova

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Well, if it merely means redrawing the sprites to fit modern resolutions while keeping support for the existing servers, I'm okay with this. The original Diablo 2 is squint-o-vision at this point.
 

Sniper Team 4

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I suppose it's too much to hope that Diablo II will come to consoles, isn't it? Oh well...still good news to hear this. That game had some atmosphere to it. I remember playing it super late at night when I was a kid, on my Uncle's laptop in my living room with the lights off and the volume down, because my mom didn't want me playing M rated games and I didn't want her finding out. Good times. Really made the hunt for Blood Raven memorable for me.
 

Breywood

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David Brevik weighed in on a Diablo II remake and I found his insights helpful about what's involved. If you're looking to make a Diablo II-3D, you're going to have to build it from the ground up, and quite a bit of that feel is going to be lost because of how differently the game handles animations and mechanics. If you're planning to remake it similar to Starcraft, you'll keep it 2D, but freshen it up and allow stuff like greater than 800 x 600 resolution.

Brevik candidly said that many of the sprites were pretty ugly, but they worked because of the hardware limitations, so there's still plenty of work to do even if you're just planning to make it run on newer systems.

Here's a link to the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fuus5PLMdIQ
 

Hawki

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I was aware of these 'remasters' ages ago, and I think that everyone is jumping the gun. It's confirmed that the Classic Games team will work on them, but they're not necessarily remasters, they could simply be intergrating them into the b.net client (or Blizzard Ap, or whatever it's called). To be honest, I'd rather they update WC1/2/D1, since those games aren't easily available anymore.

MC1980 said:
Anyways, pls don't fuck up D2. No shitty D3 art, no asinine changes to the game, no replacing the cutscenes with cheap slideshows
What did the slideshows replace? Both D2 and D3 used pre-rendered cinematics to bridge acts, D3 just added the slideshows (which I love the aesthetic of), while D2's storytelling approach was anemic.

MC1980 said:
And for the love of god, don't pander to the malignant cunts who are like 'eeeeuuugh, I'm only interested in this restoration of Diablo 2 if you completely change everything about it.' Thankfully Starcraft shows that they have their head in the right place regarding that.
No. Just no. The StarCraft Remaster lost a lot of my interest the moment it was established that they weren't updating the gameplay. I get the argument for not changing it in multiplayer, but there's no excuse for not updating the singleplayer, or at least allowing a mode to allow the improvements SC2 brought.

MC1980 said:
Warcraft, I'm not so worried about. They still might botch the cutscenes, but the game itself they can update without a hitch, since Warcraft is just about the only thing they still have a firm grasp on as far as aesthetic and visuals go.
Except StarCraft, and Overwatch, and Heroes of the Storm, and...

I can sort of sympathize with people not liking D3's art style, but I've never agreed with it being 'cartoony'. Torchlight is an example of an ARPG that is cartoony. D3 is far darker than it - not as dark as PoE, perhaps, but still removed from the Warcraft aesthetic.

MC1980 said:
I do wish they would include the demo campaign in the main game. They basically cut out 3 levels from the game's orc campaign, which lead to a fucked up thing were a bunch of trolls randomly joined your ship crew out of nowhere.
It would be nice to include the missions, but the trolls there don't mess anything up, as it was established in the manual that Thrall had trolls in the Horde prior to the islands due to meeting them in Stranglethorn Vale. It's possible that the isles simply retconned that, or Thrall simply encountered trolls twice, but even without the extra missions, I didn't find the presence of the trolls jarring.

Sniper Team 4 said:
I suppose it's too much to hope that Diablo II will come to consoles, isn't it?
I almost hope it does, if only to see the Diablo community get up in arms (again) about "dirty console peasants." ;p
 

Canadamus Prime

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As long as they don't fuck around with the mechanics too much and focus on updating them to run on current systems then I'm ok with this.
 

008Zulu_v1legacy

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Please please please please please, let them redo The Frozen Throne's climatic fight scene between Arthas and Illidan as a proper CGI sequence like they originally wanted to do!
 

Kahani

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Diablo 2 could use it. The gameplay is fine, but the graphics are seriously dated and it only plays at very low resolutions that look terrible on large monitors. As long as it's just an HD remaster and doesn't mess with the game itself, I'd probably buy it.

Can't see the point of doing anything to Warcraft 3 though. I just reinstalled it recently and have been playing through the campaign again. You could make the models look a bit nicer, but it works fine on modern systems with high resolutions and big monitors, so there's really very little gain possible. Presumably this is talked about simply because it would be so easy - since the game already scales to modern resolutions they can just round the corners off some of the models and call it a day, while updating Warcraft and Warcraft 2 would actually involve some effort.
 

Rangaman

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Kahani said:
Can't see the point of doing anything to Warcraft 3 though.
Easy money, though that can be said of any remaster. I understand that Warcraft III was quite popular, so a remaster is pretty much a guaranteed hit. Plus, they might want to reinvigorate the Warcraft franchise (which is pretty stale at this point, if we're being honest).
 

Hawki

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MC1980 said:
I'm going to assume the former, we all have less fortunate days.
More the former, but moving on:

MC1980 said:
The slideshow comment is not a dig at D3's class&gender specific cutscenes, it comes from a worry about Starcraft Remastered's updating of its cinematics, briefings and animated portraits. They have said that the briefings will have "comic book style" animations, and the portraits are also animated(?) 2D art instead of 3D. And the new art and stills so far all have a different art style to the original SC. They look very, "clean" and "pretty", due to the style of drawings, coloring and shading, despite imitating the dirty aestethic of the original. Looks closer to SC2's cutscene style than SC1 as a result. And we still don't have examples for the new cutscenes, that are assuredly also remade. I worry that instead of redoing the CG, they replaced it with animated art, leading to me saying it gets replaced with a 'slideshow'.
Thing about Remastered is that I'm pretty sure it's been stated that the CG cutscenes will be maintained as they are, just 'sharpened' or something. As for the comic stills, apparently they were going to replace the briefing room segments, so they still exist apparently (we've seen a preview of the protoss briefing room), so either they've been cut, or they're going to serve as interludes.

I completely disagree with the art style - it looks far more like SC1 and SC2, and I love it. I mean, I like both, and from a thematic standpoint the shift works (at least for the terrans), but the SCR style still retains that 'gritty' sense of things.

MC1980 said:
Which leads me to worry for D2, since it's cutscenes also need refreshing, but it would be terrible if they got replaced with moving picture or updated to resemble D3's art. D2's cutscenes to this day capture perfectly what the visual style, proportions and tone of Diablo is, and how D3 did its best to change it completely, in no small part due to arrogance from the influx of WoW devs into the project, who viewed their sensibilities as superior because of the huge success of WoW. (See, "Fuck that guy", the embarrassment that is the pony level which was a petty response to valid criticism of the art style of D3, the manner in which they killed off a beloved D1&2 character and so forth.) So yeah, wouldn't want any of that. Keep everything the same, just update the models, animation, texture work and other obvious deficiencies that come with old CG.
I pretty much disagree with everything there.

D2's cutscenes capture what you say they did, fair enough, but you badly need to cite your WoW claim, because I don't see any evidence of that. I mean, sure, D3 does differ in tone to an extent from D2, but it's no WoW - not in aesthetic, and not in tone either. I mean, actually look at the artwork for D3, and compare it to WoW. I mean, I have, I've got various Warcraft and Diablo art books on my shelf, and no-one could ever mistake one image from one book for the other if you put them in a single volume.

As for Jay Wilson, the fact that he never worked on WoW aside prior to D3 (he did work on Legion), how is Whimsyshire an embarassment? I mean, it's established fact that it's a response to the criticism of its art style, but so what? I'm a Sonic fan, watch Sonic Boom, and that show mocks the fanbase every other episode. Whimyshire is meant as a joke, that's it.

As for Cain, well, I've never been invested in his character anyway. I'm not dismissing people that are/were, but I never saw anything wrong with it. Magda kills him, which makes killing her all the more satisfying, and highlights Magda's own character. After his death, every NPC you talk to in Tristram comments on Cain's death and the tragedy of it. Then, to top it off, we get a CGI cutscene dedicated to his funeral. I mean, the one thing I would do personally is have him die closer to the end of the act, but that's about it.

MC1980 said:
Also, on the art side. While Torchlight is outlandishly cartoony compared to D2, that doesn't meant that D3 isn't cartoony to a great degree, kind of a dishonest comparison actually. It's every "x's not as bad as y" argument in a nutshell, the tacit admission that it is indeed accurate to state that, but the person responding it only views it valid if it is closer to the extreme.
Completely disagree. If someone says a is x, and I say no, b is x, then that's a valid comparison. I'd find that comparison valid in any point of reference. Also a wee bit hypocritical since you use Dark Souls as a point of reference later on.

So, fine, even if we have to ignore Torchlight, I can only say I disagree, I don't find D3 cartoony. I mean, styalized sure, since it's got the painterly art style, and more styalized than D2, but that's about it. There was a thread awhile back that did some comparisons, how in sets of three, there was a D2 image, a WoW image, then a D3 image. There was sharp contrast between the D3 style and WoW style every time, and looking at the sets of three, D3 looks far closer to D2 than WoW.

MC1980 said:
Going way back, D3's art was always criticised as being WoW'd up, which most defenders carelessly disregarded, but it is not inaccurate to state that the way D3's art, enemy design, color palette, and level design combined with it's perspective created a far more exaggarated and enlarged artstyle that proportionally resemled the overly large and wide WoW style, rather than the relatively realistically proportioned D2. The perfect examples would be the incredibly bloated and enlarged enemies of D3, such as the Butcher, which looks completely like a WoW enemy, and looks laughable next to its D2 equivalent act bosses, or even worse when compared to its D1 counterpart Butcher.
Okay, you want to look at the Butcher? Fine.

Here's the Butcher sprite from D1 (https://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/diablo/images/c/c2/The_Butcher.gif/revision/latest?cb=20080730194716)

Here's the Butcher model from Warcraft III (https://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/wow.gamepedia.com/e/ed/Butcher.jpg?version=31e07b912118f3c44517c32cd43a8333)

Here's a different Butcher that appears in WoW (https://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/wow.gamepedia.com/1/1d/The_Butcher.jpg?version=6058c9e3ffa020ad92f74eb85c375df1)

Here's an image that shows the Butcher as it appears in D3, as well as the Butcher as it appears in the D1 anniversary dungeon (https://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/diablo/images/f/ff/2016-nov-6-153.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20161107165830)

I can't embed images, but the links hopefully speak for themselves. The D3 style is still distinct from WoW. It has some styalization, but it's not in the WoW style.

MC1980 said:
And the other prominent example would be the D3 act 1 Halls of Agony, compared to D2's equivalent Monestary Catacombs/Durance of Hate. It becomes incredibly apparent at how needlessly/unrealistcally tall and wide every single hallway and room is compared to the size of human beings that are supposed to inhabit what is essentially supposed to be a torture dungeon, with comically large spiky metal traps and flesh pits.
It's been ages since I've played through those respective sections (since I played through D1-D2-D3 back to back in 2012, and D3 is the only one I've ever returned to), but a quick look on YouTube...I'm sorry, I'm reminded of why the Halls of Agony intimidated me, the catacombs didn't, and why the Durance of Hate only intimidated me with the bodies in the pools. The Halls of Agony have a sense of scale to them, a sense that 'this is bigger than you, Leoric, even as a mortal, was able to build this just for torture,' not to mention the constant sense of descent and red light. The catacombs and durance are just parts of different structures with drab grays/browns that have only been temporarily occupied by foes.

MC1980 said:
Doors several times the size of normal human beings, who look like stickfigure people in the D3 artstyle. Compared to the aformentioned D2 levels, they're sized to match the proportions of the human beings of D2, all of their larger chambers and areas match these consistently, thus the level doesn't dwarf the size of the beings inhabiting it by being exaggarated in unnecessary areas. Which is also why larger structures that do dwarf human character don't look out of place, since the proportions are consistent. These are just obvious examples, but you can make these comparisons between D2&D3 across the entire lenght of both games, as D3 is imitating D2 in its structure completely. Conversely you can find a plethora of similarities between WoW zones/areas and enemy designs that match the proportions and styles of D3 fairly closely. The only big difference between the two is the size of humans and human sized beings, and D3 uses vibrant colors more spaciously, but that combined with the design elements that do resemble WoW, make D3 look like and edgy WoW, which is something a lot of people who couldn't really pinpoint their criticisms of the artstyle did say.
Can't really agree with any of that. The humans in D3 look more like actual humans, who live actual lives, made possible by the use of 3D models rather than sprites and character portraits. In D2, there's a heavy sense of artificiality to the characters, the sense that they're only there for the player, because only vendors/quest-givers talk, and only do so in tedious monologues. In D3, characters are always vocalizing in the background, where entire sub-plots play out regardless of your interaction. Course that's sound design rather than visual design, but the visual design of D3 makes the world feel more real. D2 feels more 'gamey.'

MC1980 said:
This is true to a lesser degree in Starcraft 2. There's quite a bit of clashing between the ingame RTS art and the cutscene/talking with characters art. The ingame art is far more exaggarated and 'cartoony' in proportions, colors and designs compared to even the CG cutscenes, much less SC1. The designs of the Zerg especially look more like overly elaborated and bloated, instead of creepy or menacing. And the CG itself is very clean and pretty compared to the first game aswell. Obviously, there was a disparity between the first games spritework and the CG, but it still felt more consistent overall. This is why I said that they only have a grasp on Warcraft's art out of the 3 franchises, as both Diablo and Starcraft had changes to their art that resulted in the loss of their distinct identities while taking on cues from their WoW design sensibilites. Warcraft has remained Warcraft, despite evolving.
Because, y'know, models are of course going to have the same level of fidelity as cutscenes. That's a complaint that can be levelled at numerous RTS games - Command & Conquer as of Generals comes to mind, whereas only Red Alert 3 had an actual cartoony style.

Now, there are some cartoony elements in the design, and certainly in concept art, but I can't label SC2 as being cartoony. Likewise, the zerg look far more intimidating, such they have the benefit of models rather than sprites. If anything, SC2 gave the StarCraft universe more of a sense of identity, more of a sense you were in a world. SC1 did that to an extent, but key word 'extent.'

MC1980 said:
The manual might say that, but it's still jarring in game. You play tutorial lvl 2, get on a boat with Hellscream and your orc bros, no trolls in sight, the only time you meet trolls it's mobs and Thrall says they kicked them out and they shouldn't have been a part of the horde to begin with. Fast forward to orc campaign proper, and suddenly blue trolls are hanging out with the ship crew. And the events of the demo are canon, WoW has stuff that follows up on it.
Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. Also, Thrall's comment about the trolls is directed to a forest troll, not the Darkspear trolls.

Of course the islands are canon, I'm just saying that both stories can operate, and I never got a sense of disconnect when playing WC3 for the first time (since I played it before I got my hands on the extra missions.

MC1980 said:
Boy that sure was a bile of words. Oh, here's some more, I just thought of something! When they do D2R, they'll probably change the item art to look like those shitty cartoon drawing from D3. Fuck. I refrained from saying that, on a superficial level, Dark Souls has more in common with D2 than D3, since it's not a particularly fair comparison, but in this instance it's going to be completely true. DS uses images based on the renders of the armors and weapons in its inventory, not crappy drawings like D3. Shite. They're going to replace the cg render images of armor with some crappy D3 style art, that's almost certain now, going by SCR and the changes to its art where it was updated. I'm depressed now. I used to love looking at the different pieces of armor and weapons in D2, next to the cutscenes, those were the best looking parts of the game. God Dammit.
And here's where the Dark Souls comparison comes in. "Consistency!"

Look, this section is entirely down to taste, but I found nothing appealing in the D2 armour sets. The sprites are too small to really appreciate any of the aesthetics, and in the menu screen...well, the menu screen is a chore anyway, so I was never in the mindset to appreciate 'piece of armour that looks like every other piece of armour.' D3 has the advantage of transmogs so I can make my toon look how I want them to regardless of the armour they're using. Also, D3 only really gets exotic with its armour when the rarity increases, otherwise it's more down to earth.