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Diablo 3 Art Director quits

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killingpeople polycounter lvl 18
I almost had a fucking heart attack fearing a serious delay or something. I'm sure this puts some things behind? who knows? Hopefully this makes my baby better... god I hope so... I literally am having a hard time focusing on anything but Diablo 3.

Kotaku reports the AD quit:
http://kotaku.com/5034395/diablo-iii-art-director-quits-game-remains-the-same

good read worth sharing with Blizzard dev's reply to the ney-sayers on the look of the game:
http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/08/04/diablo-iii-designer-turns-tables/

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  • Murdoc
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    Murdoc polycounter lvl 11
    A win for fans and internet petitions everywhere!

    *joking obviously*
  • RazorBladder
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    RazorBladder polycounter lvl 18
    What I find astounding is how many gaming news sites initially tried to actually link this to the fans petitioning/bitching... Do spoilt self-important gamers honestly think they have the divine power to dictate a company's game development?
  • oXYnary
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    oXYnary polycounter lvl 18
    Depends on how much they reflect the populace who would buy said product.
  • Mark Dygert
    Glad to see he wasn't canned and that the art direction is NOT changing.
  • StrangeFate
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    StrangeFate polycounter lvl 18
    gosh you'd think there's enough too dark, desatured, monochrome, noise filtered games out there. They can just play around with the gamma and lower the colors on their monitors, easy fix, ship it.

    I'm surprised Blizzard even bothered replying.
  • Ferg
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    Ferg polycounter lvl 17
    yah... what kind of company actually listens to what their fans have to say and then responds to them...
  • aesir
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    aesir polycounter lvl 18
    when your fans are douchebags like Blizzard fanboys?? Hopefully all companies.
  • StrangeFate
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    StrangeFate polycounter lvl 18
    99.9% of your fans rarely mess around with your screenshots and could care less about what the 0.1% is whining about.
    Diablo is gonna sell the same millions of units, whether they reply to a bunch of know-better 12 year olds with their pirated Photoshops or not.

    Anybody who's shipped a few games has gone through it... you release some screens or even worse videos, most love it, 0.1% complain it would be cooler if things were this or that way.
    They should spend their time playing with their pets outside and do their own great and original games when they move out of home.
  • danr
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    danr interpolator
    strangefate - count yourself lucky you're not watching them complain and say how they'd do it before you've even released a screenshot and anyone outside the company has a clue what the game looks like ...
  • The_Kozmonaut
    I think the game looks hideous in the fan-altered shots. I get this sudden urge to turn on some emo music and paint my finger nails black when I look at them.
  • EarthQuake
    wow really, who is that big of a nerdfag that you need to come on the internet and argue other nerdfags about your game... when you work for blizzard, what in the flying fuck....
  • Ferg
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    Ferg polycounter lvl 17
    Blizzard's a smart company. Think about it...

    They could have ignored the fans and the petitions, and ended up with a long drawn out (possibly snowballing) fanboy bitching hurricane. More screenshots would have been doctored, more fans would be screaming "HURRR THIS DOESNT LOOK LIKE THE DIABLO I REMEMBER, OMG IT LOOKS LIKE WOW"... the whole diablo3 art bitch movement would have grown and grown. If for no other reason than people that spend all day on the internet love nothing more than to bitch and nitpick about popular things.

    Instead, Blizzard responded with a simple, respectful paragraph. "We hear what you guys are saying. We changed the style, yes, but we have our reasons. Here's what we did, here's why we did it, and this is why we think it will make the game better." From what I can tell, that took care of almost all the bitching.

    Still think ignoring the fans would have been a smarter move? They squelched the art bitch movement without disrespecting the fans... I can't imagine a better way to have handled it.
  • vahl
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    vahl polycounter lvl 18
    Vig wrote: »
    Glad to see he wasn't canned and that the art direction is NOT changing.

    what he said
  • Rhinokey
  • moose
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    moose polycount sponsor
    lol that comic rules.
  • Armanguy
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    Armanguy polycounter lvl 17
    can someone link me to these doctored screens?
  • sub_roland
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    sub_roland polycounter lvl 12
    second link at the top, i didn't even mind the doctored ones, liked the way they went but i understand the changes
  • Asmuel
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    Asmuel polycounter lvl 17
    I understand why they made the artistic decisions they have. But I do like the way some of the photoshoped pics look. .5% shittier art and gameplay would have been a good pay off to make it darker and in keeping with diablo IMO. But meh I guess.
  • Geezus
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    Geezus mod
    They should spend their time playing with their pets outside and do their own great and original games when they move out of home.

    No no no...they should spend their time playing video games and going to Westwood College. Leave the going outside and making games to us.

    The art direction is solid, and no amount of bad shoops or online petitions will change it. I'm glad he quit, and wasn't fired (like early reports eluded to). Either way, dead horse is dead. Can't wait to plaayyyyy. :)
  • acc
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    acc polycounter lvl 18
    to make it darker and in keeping with diablo IMO
    You mean like the green fields of Act1, bright deserts and colourful harems of act 2, lush jungles of act 3, seering molten lava of act 4, and sunny plateaus and blue ice caves of act 5?
  • kwakkie
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    kwakkie polycounter lvl 12
    I doubt it will change much... Some of the concepts on the D2 site have '2002' written on them, the artist have been working at least 6 years on this game, im pretty sure they know the art direction they should follow by now. I find it odd that they arent assigning anybody else internally for the role of art director, and look for new artists instead...
  • sub_roland
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    sub_roland polycounter lvl 12
    Act 1 and 3 were still fairly dark and desaturated even being green fields and lush jungles, not many vibrant colors in there, as it seems they may be giving areas of D3. But doesn't really matter odds are I'll play it no matter what, unless they make it pay to play
  • Generalvivi
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    Generalvivi polycounter lvl 14
    I heard about this today. I think it's pretty lame but it seems like the man just wanted to move on.
  • Wells
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    Wells polycounter lvl 18
    acc wrote: »
    You mean like the green fields of Act1, bright deserts and colourful harems of act 2, lush jungles of act 3, seering molten lava of act 4, and sunny plateaus and blue ice caves of act 5?


    exactly. if it was dark in the same way that II was, everyone would be happy
  • Asmuel
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    Asmuel polycounter lvl 17
    acc wrote: »
    You mean like the green fields of Act1, bright deserts and colourful harems of act 2, lush jungles of act 3, seering molten lava of act 4, and sunny plateaus and blue ice caves of act 5?

    No. I meant in keeping with what most remember from diablo & diablo 2. Dark underground caves, jungles, rainy fields at night time. Primarily the dark, creepy, demoinic aspects. If these weren't the most memorable and characteristic parts nobody would be complaining.

    The bright deserts were hardly the most memorable part of the game.

    However I think if they have some super fucked up demonic corpses everywhere bits, that would make up for the rainbows. Have to wait and see.
  • Geezus
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    Geezus mod
    what fucking rainbows?
  • snemmy
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    snemmy polycounter lvl 18
    Sectaurs wrote: »
    exactly. if it was dark in the same way that II was, everyone would be happy

    Wrong! I wouldn't.

    I like the new direction. Seeing demonic stuff popping out of and creeping into beautiful green fields and jungles is far more disturbing to me than DOOM-ing everything up.

    And good lord people, what has been shown is pretty well the BEGINING of the game. You will probably get your deep dark bowels of hell later on. These games have always had a progression in how much the lords of Hell have infiltrated.
  • Asmuel
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    Asmuel polycounter lvl 17
    Geezus wrote: »
    what fucking rainbows?

    top right

    http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/diablo-fan-04.jpg

    Though they say they got rid of it.

    BTW despite my mild enthusiasm for the paintovers, I don't think they should make it look this fucked out.
  • Wells
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    Wells polycounter lvl 18
    I think there should be rainbows everywhere.

    and if you don't think so, you're emo and probably live with your parents and don't kiss girls. :poly124:

    TOPICALLY - I'm glad the dude wasn't shit-canned [would they really say if he was?] and hopefully this won't delay the game any.

    KP - I'm still trying to get LOD to work. I'll probably just fucking buy it again from the Blizzard Store.
  • Mark Dygert
    I wish he would have touched on the reason behind some of the color choices beside, "it muddies up the profiles, makes the enemies harder to see". I'm glad they took the time to respond and say politely, no its our game, thanks for the feedback. What about mood and contrast, if the game starts in dank demonic hell and never descends anywhere why bother descending?

    Some of the greatest parts of some blizzard games have been seeing the world in its beauty and watching it be slowly eaten by taint and then trying to reverse that against impossible odds. How do you fight to regain beauty you never knew you had? Outside of the "HACK HACK HACK HACK" is there a bigger story unfolding, one that light and color are helping to tell? Are they attempting to broaden Diablo on all fronts not just give people more of the same?

    That's what expansion packs are for. The next version should of a game should push boundaries, do new things and revisit ideas but not wallow in them.

    Maybe people should stop bitching about what D3 should look like, and wait to play it, then they can review it and pass judgment on the entire thing? This whole lets review and critique a game we've never played and hardly seen, is really starting to get old.
  • Sandbag
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    Sandbag polycounter lvl 18
    maybe I've gone completely crazy, but saturation should have zero effect on profile...If you complete remove all color data from a scene and you can no longer read it...uh then you have bad tonality and need more contrasting shades of value, not hue. More distinguished forms wouldn't hurt either...I don't think the only reason I can tell a zombie from a skeleton should be that one is purple and the other is green.

    My biggest complaint though was that 90% of the indoor color came from completely sourceless colored lights. Half of the rooms were flooded with greens and other colors that simply came from nowhere...If you're going to cast a light that is so bright that it completely changes the local color it should probably have a pretty logical source.

    I wouldn't mind if their textures had some texture to them either though. It looked like they took away all their tools in photoshop and left them only able to use a hard brush on 50% opacity...
  • killingpeople
  • snemmy
  • [Deleted User]
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    [Deleted User] polycounter lvl 18
    Nintendo listens to fans.
    spmfrancisyf4.jpg
  • SkullboX
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    SkullboX polycounter lvl 18
    While I agree it doesn't feel as diablo as I'd like to see judging from the media released so far, I do like the art direction a lot. I don't really see this as a bad thing or trent in games though. I've never seen such a widespread discussion among a userbase specifically questioning the art side of a game, nor such an ellaboratly argumented defense of the choices made by the developers. Take the good with the bad, it's just a sign an industry maturing.

    It's also nice to see something other than the usual 'games are about all gameplay' response, it's like saying a movie is all about the story.

    As for people commenting on pre release screenshots. It's a highly anticipated game with a huge dedicated fanbase. If Blizard chooses to release anything to the general public, of course they're going to get a response... but if you think it looks bad, only then do you have to play the finished game first before you can comment?
  • Kevin Johnstone
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    Kevin Johnstone polycounter lvl 20
    Skull: thats just crazy talk, next you'll be saying a book is all about the words in it!!

    just kidding, couldnt resist the cheap shot
  • LordAngelus
    iam a big fan of the diablo games of old days. as i saw this new design after years of waiting i thought fuck, it is like wow why to hell do they that.
    must the abbo player later deciede hmm play i diablo or wow it is nearly the same style only the camera was different ok ok a bit more too ^^.

    but after i saw it moving with all the brutal and liquid animation style and effects i thought wooow cool all is in action and cruel like the old days no matter how colorful it is right now i think the game can be realy great.

    the only problem i see is that blizzard doesnt divide now her big game series anymore. stracraft, wow and now diablo gets same CI and i think this can be a problem to reach all people which are online playing junkies :poly124:
  • Michael Knubben
    Sandbag wrote: »
    maybe I've gone completely crazy, but saturation should have zero effect on profile...If you complete remove all color data from a scene and you can no longer read it...uh then you have bad tonality and need more contrasting shades of value, not hue.

    Don't be dense.
  • stimpack
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    stimpack polycounter lvl 10
    Bottom line....Blizz has a flawless track record. They wont ship, unless the game is gold. Little fan boys can bitch all they want, but they are still going to buy it, and still going to love it. just watch, just watch....
  • Sandbag
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    Sandbag polycounter lvl 18
    I'm not quite sure how I'm being dense. Could you explain it to me?
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