Diablo III Looked Heavenly in 2005

Tom Goldman

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Aug 17, 2009
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Diablo III Looked Heavenly in 2005

Screenshots of Blizzard's canned version of Diablo III have emerged from both hell, and heaven.

Back in 2005, Blizzard decided to go back to the drawing board on Diablo III [http://www.amazon.com/Diablo-III-Pc/dp/B00178630A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1297868175&sr=8-1] and scrapped much of what it had under development. What you might not know is that the studio already had a capable version up and running. Newly discovered screenshots show off what it looked like, and how different it is from what we know of Diablo III today.

Kotaku writes that Blizzard had planned Diablo III as a battle through hell, as expected, but also heaven. Some of the screenshots show areas called "Heaven" and the "Angelic Lands." In these areas, the player faces snakes, snake-men, and gritty winged creatures.

[gallery=128]

The remaining screenshots are of an area called "Keep." No enemies are shown in the Keep, but we do get a solid look at its architecture. Overall, the art style looks very similar to Diablo II [http://www.amazon.com/Diablo-Battlechest-new-version-Mac/dp/B0002BQN7Q/ref=sr_1_2?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1297868659&sr=1-2], but using 3D graphics.

Today, Diablo III looks much different (see below), and that's to be expected. Blizzard hasn't been sitting around on its thumbs for the past five-and-a-half years. Not only does it look different, but the current version of the game has a totally new style. Maybe Blizzard wanted something that stood out more from the previous entries in the series?

[gallery=129]

Blizzard hopes [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/107719-Blizzard-Wants-to-Release-Diablo-III-This-Year] Diablo III will be available in 2011.

Source: Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/#!5761172/this-is-what-diablo-iii-looked-like-a-long-time-ago]

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Vaccine

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Feb 13, 2010
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Most likely changed the style to accommodate for consoles.(they're hiring console designers for D3 on Blizzards site.)
 

Carnagath

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Apr 18, 2009
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It's forbidden by law to post news regarding Diablo 3's graphics and not include this picture:


Jokes aside, in my opinion the "old" D3 looks fine, if they'd just improved the effects to the current version's quality it would have looked much darker and faithful to the originals.
 

-Drifter-

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Jun 9, 2009
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Honestly, I would have preferred this version. Diablo 3 may not look like the previous titles, but it does look like about a billion other generic fantasy games.
 

Quesa

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Jul 8, 2009
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Another essentially completed game Blizzard scrapped and started over on because it didn't meet their standards; those greedy bastards.

START RELEASING THAT CRAP DAGGUMIT.
 

Void(null)

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Dec 10, 2008
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Oh hey, at one point it looked like a Diablo Game instead of Isometric WoW.

As an old school Diablo fan I am very much prepared for disappointment, while trying to keep a glimmer of hope. I guess everything is really conjecture and we will all have to see.

If Diablo 3 is a huge disappointment there is always Grim Dawn. [http://www.grimdawn.com/index.php]



 

Fetzenfisch

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Sep 11, 2009
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I would not say that the 2 sets of pictures differ in style that much. Actually they look pretty alike, just the second set got shadows and lighting effects (and a lot of those).



Void(null) said:
If Diablo 3 is a huge disappointment there is always Grim Dawn. [http://www.grimdawn.com/index.php]
looks nice. I like titan quest (still got to play through though) i'll try that one

( i love them just for letting me download soundtrack files. I need more of those. lost my collection of fantasy soundtracks for pen and paper athmo)
 

Void(null)

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If you do a very close contrast and compare it actually doesn't look like they scrapped anything. It looks like they took the same game, changed the textures to that WoW'esk fo-watercolor, added a shit-ton of bloom and blur then began heavily tweaking the mechanics with the 6 years of experience they had gained from WoW while finishing off the levels.
 

Crazy_Dude

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That 2005 version hardly looks better then D2. Aside from the 3D graphics.

I am glad they waited with the release.
 
Feb 13, 2008
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I preferred the original. Sharper clearer graphics, and probably produced a LOT earlier.

Then again, we should be thankful that it's not got canned yet like so many other Blizzard properties.
 

Mister Benoit

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Scrumpmonkey said:
Diablo 2 came out in 2000, 2005 is well enough time and space to have another one. It sounds to me like they just canned a project that they could have completed in this timeframe and picked up another one a couple of years later that would become this version of D-III (i wonder why things got scrapped in 2005.... hmmm...)
World of Warcraft started exploding, also the heads at blizz north left and they relocated the team at the new offices.

I'm pretty sure it has to mostly do with WoW though, noone had any idea that the game was going to be THAT big, seriously, WoW is absolutely massive.
 

LawlessSquirrel

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Aylaine said:
I prefer it the way it looks now. Those screen shots remind me of NeverWinter Nights, which makes me cringe. x.x;
Wow, exactly what went through my mind...minus the cringe part. The old one looks like it could have just been a good mod for Neverwinter Nights.

I'm not one to complain about the new one, I'm not too bothered by the colours (although some of the model work is a little...less than impressive at this point). To be honest, although the original is much more faithful, it looks a little bland by modern standards.

I just wish Diablo 3 didn't look so much like WoW to me, graphically. It worries me that Blizzard is constantly pointing back to WoW as their inspiration in recent years.

Learning from a success is one thing, but I'm sincerely concerned.
 

fundayz

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Feb 22, 2010
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Aylaine said:
I prefer it the way it looks now. Those screen shots remind me of NeverWinter Nights, which makes me cringe. x.x;
That was also pre-pre-alpha in 2005. Imagine what it would have looked like if would've had another 6(and counting) years of development and polish.

The fact is that they already had a game with the classic style yet decided to scrap it the same year as WoW really started picking up, and replaced it with a much more WoW-looking Diablo.
Even though it is denied by Blizzard, this information further supports the idea that Blizzard changed the Diablo style to appeal to the WoW crowd.

This isn't a bad move company-wise, but it shows where their loyalty lies (not in their own classic franchises apparently).
 

LadyMint

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Apr 22, 2010
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I "hope" Diablo 3 will be released in 2011, too. But I'm not holding my breath.

I don't like the character designs in those older pictures. The backgrounds/locations look great as always, but the characters look almost as bad as they did in the second game. I like the newer pictures and designs more, but I've been waiting for that game since they announced it. Maybe someday my grandchildren will get to play it and tell me all about it.
 

babinro

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Sep 24, 2010
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The old screen shots look like another expansion to Diablo 2, rather than a new game entirely.

Graphically speaking it looks worse without question, but I'd have been all for it 5 years ago..not bad at all for last generation.