Whining Diablo 3 Fans Want Artistic Direction Change

We’ve waited years for a Diablo 3 announcement. Within days the Internet is afire with Diablo 3 news, theories, previews, screenshots and dialog about the next Blizzard Game. However, there are hardcore gamers that only see the Diablo cup as half full while the rest of us are simply excited to see gameplay footage.

What’s wrong with the upcoming franchise blockbuster? Apparently the art direction is making a few people upset because it’s too much like World of Warcraft. Holy crap, isn’t that a multi-million dollar hit MMORPG developed and maintained by none other than Blizzard?

“The main objective of this petition is to show Blizzard that there’s a significant number of players that dont agree with the current art style of the game, with this petition we hope to make Blizzard ear our voices, our opinions and our suggestions and we seriously want some changes in the artistic direction of the game so it could be more coherent and familiar with the Diablo universe.” (diablo 3 petition)

Imagine the developers and artist whom have worked, in secret, for years to bring gamers the next game in a series they’ve longed for? Not “thank you for making our dreams come true,” but “oh, c’mon, you can’t make the game I want?”

You must first understand the demographic of video game fans, especially those hardcore fans who will invest their (moms) time and money into the Diablo franchise. To many gamers the world actually revolves around them and all games should cater to their needs and desires.

The gameplay footage didn’t have enough “realistic world with realistic, dirty and muddy textures” and the game has too much “over-sized and exaggerated proportions like big shoulder guards.” The gameplay footage that we’ve seen is too clean, to “cartoony” and looks hand drawn rather than dark and eerie like the other Diablo games.

What? Is this a joke?

No, the internet gives voices to many folks, some folks whom we wish would stay silent. Instead, they start an online petition which will lead to no change, but alas, we can let them pretend.

Diablo 3 looks great, has a very nice direction and I trust that Blizzard will make it work. Blizzard has three key franchises and they work hard to perfect each one with the majority of gamers being satisfied customers.

(Thanks, actiontrip)

0 thoughts on “Whining Diablo 3 Fans Want Artistic Direction Change”

  1. Diablo 2 was released in 2000, the vast majority of the people who play it(And an enormous amount still do) are not living with there mums, but are now all grown up and capable of making decisions based on reason rather than anger.

    Diablo has always, in all aspects, been dark and despairing. The style could only be described as grim, and changing this will only piss off the people who made the game a success in the first place.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Activision and Blizzard LayoffsActivision and Blizzard Layoffs

If you’ve ever been through an acquisition or merger you’d have expected this news to come, but for those new to the concept it’s simple: you can’t keep everyone. After a complete merger you end up with two sales departments, two IT departments, etc.

Do you really need them all? No, not really. You’ll need to keep some on board in order to “brain dump” your job onto others and hopefully stick around for the long hall. Some employees will probably be shuffled to other job responsibilities while some get packages and a thank you card.

These are some of the growing pains when working towards a successful merger, so don’t be surprised or start spreading rumors when a few people are let go. As someone who’s gone through it in two big mergers I can say that certain departments already know their fate ahead of time. Many IT and sales folk start looking for new jobs the minute the merger is announced.

Diablo III: Confirmed and IsometricDiablo III: Confirmed and Isometric

We’ve talked about it on the podcast before, we’ve made speculations and we’ve come up with theories. Blizzard has now cleared up much of the fuzzy details and theories by announcing their next title: Diablo III.

Some of us thought it was too early to announce the game, right on the heals of a StarCraft III announcement but Blizzards marketing team must consider this the perfect time, as it’s official. Not only did they announce the title, but they’ve got a cinematic and a good five minutes of game play footage.

We’re not talking about vaporware, this is a real game with really sweet features, hot new graphics and sound and enemies that make prior diablo look like childs play. The worlds are destructable, you can drop walls upon your enemies, toss them over cliffs (on fire no less) and rescue people whom help you do battle.

The game play footage covers barbarian (fighter) class and the witch doctor (sorta a necromancer archtype) with both male and female varients. They explain some of the great powers of the warrior style class and show off a few of the neat spells for the witch doctor. From electric axes to walls of zombies this game is packed with stylish battle techniques unique to Diablo 3.

Diablo 3 utilizes their standard isometric view, familiar to Diablo gamers with a bit more ease to the control scheme (that’s possible) and health now drops from enemies much like Zelda, you won’t have to pack yourself with potions anymore. Quite possibly the best upgrade in the third revision of Diablo.

Release date? No clue. I’m sure they’re going on the “when it’s ready” methodology, which is expected from Blizzard and their games; there is a reason they’re always of the highest quality. You may want to camp on their FAQ for a few months and perhaps you’ll have the answer. Today, however, their site seems to be a bit slow with all the announcements going out on the Net.

Now that Diablo 3 is confirmed, it’s time for us to buy some thc leans from Fresh Bros and start speculating what’s going to be included. Make sure you checkout their game play video!

(Thanks, Nukoda)

Trials of a World of Warcraft Player: Entry FiveTrials of a World of Warcraft Player: Entry Five

“The Grind”

With Wrath of the Lich King arriving last week it only made sense to jump into the new content “Lich King” style. Although we had initially reacted to the beta, playing the final content was much more fun with all of our guild and friends to play along.

It only took a few hours to get my new Death Knight to level-58 beyond the starting area and into the real world of Azeroth. Upon reaching the main city (Ogrammar as we’re horde) I picked up two new professions to make me a bit of dime: mining and skinning. This is where the beauty of the Death Knight fell apart…

A level-58 character has a few options open for exploration with the Burning Crusade content being the most desirable starting point. However, quickly it became apparent that my professions of mining and skinning were useless in Hellfire and other Burning Crusade areas. Why? Professions start with a value of 1. The last expansion requires your professions to be roughly 300 before you can utilize them.

My level-58 Death Knight has no experience in the ways of skinning and mining, what has he been doing all his life? Apparently killing innocent people in small villages throughout the Eastern Plaguelands. My anticipation with leveling my Death Knight died knowing I’d spend the next few days hunting mines and killing animals as if I where a level-10 toon.

There I was, a high level character trolling Crossroads and Thousand Needles hunting for copper and tin and skinning all the low level creatures I could find. Why didn’t Blizzard consider this when they allow you to create a level-55 character on day one? If we don’t go off and grind our way to a profession level of 300 we might as well not even pick professions at all.

I was not alone in these findings, along my path I found several Death Knights with skinning knives and mining tools looking for open opportunities to cut into the earth or the dead animals skins all around them. Sure, we can kill a cat in seconds flat but the “grind” is what we wanted to avoid, this is what characters spend their first twenty levels doing!

After three sessions of mind numbing grinding I’ve managed to reach a skill of 340 in skinning and coming upon 200 in mining. Mining is still too low for high level game content so I must whisk myself away to noobville every so often to catch a few mythril nodes and pray for a gold deposit along the way.

This may not be a bug in the Wrath of Lich King expansion but it sure is an annoying design flaw.