Diablo 3 - Sound Off @ Gamespot

It depends on what you mean by innovative.

The only game I would consider innovative of those you mention would be Diablo 1 - because it combined the roguelike gameplay with the multiplayer aspect of a game like Gauntlet. The way they handled it was novel enough that I would accept it as innovation.

However, Warcraft 1 was more or less a carbon copy of Dune 2 - except it had 2 races instead of 3, and it had local-link multiplayer.

Starcraft is just a natural evolution of Warcraft 2 and the RTS genre as a whole, nothing in that game constituted a true innovation, if you ask me. Except perhaps the idea of 3 balanced races.

But you need to look at the way Blizzard operates and how they've evolved as a company. They've been very open about their approach to innovation.

If you expected Diablo 3 to be something entirely new or fresh as the gamespot person clearly did, then you simply have no idea about their history.

I'm not saying anything else, and if you DO expect innovation then you're certainly free to do so.

Exactly. Blizzard is conservative enough business-wise to continue with a proven model rather than take that IP in a drastically different direction at the risk of losing sales. D3 is essentially the same gameplay as D1&2 from the looks of it, but look at the rancor over something as simple as the color palette. Imagine if they'd gone the route of Fallout3. If they're going to truly innovate, they'd do so with a blank slate. Let Bethesda be risk takers.
 
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D3 is essentially the same gameplay as D1&2 from the looks of it, but look at the rancor over something as simple as the color palette.
It's not just the color palette - the art style as a whole has changed. The models (armor and statues with a comic look right out of WoW), textures (they used to look like they were not very detailed due to heavy compression/the pixelation of a 640 or 800 screen resolution, now they are clearly aiming for hand drawn comic style textures) and interior architecture (the dungeon looks like a WoW raid instance) have all changed. Lighting as well. There's the bluish/green fog one would expect in the comic style of WoW instead of darkness outside your field of vision.
 
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instead of darkness outside your field of vision.

As a sidenote, I just had a funny thought ... :lol: :

Normally, characters have an "aura of light" shining around them ... ;)

Like ... I think it was the Barbarian ?

It gives light to the character(s) - especially inside of tunnels.


Now, imagine the complete opposite : An evil creature trying to intimidate its opponents with an "aura of darkness" ... complete blackness around the character ...

Now, how do you play a character you cannot see ? ;) :lol:
 
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It's not just the color palette - the art style as a whole has changed. The models (armor and statues with a comic look right out of WoW), textures (they used to look like they were not very detailed due to heavy compression/the pixelation of a 640 or 800 screen resolution, now they are clearly aiming for hand drawn comic style textures) and interior architecture (the dungeon looks like a WoW raid instance) have all changed. Lighting as well. There's the bluish/green fog one would expect in the comic style of WoW instead of darkness outside your field of vision.

People have a right to be disappointed with the new art style if it's not their preference, my point was that things could be a lot worse. At least the core gameplay reminds me of the previous 2. I'd much rather adjust to a different art style than play D3 from an over the shoulder or first person perspective.
 
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Like so many others I got pretty excited about the Diablo3 announcement. So excited, in fact, that I installed Diablo2 again and I have just completed act 1 as a Druid.

Replaying an almost 10 year old title it quickly becomes clear (IMO) that the fragmentation of old memories must have set in with a lot of the people complaining about the "new style".

First of all, the graphical details of the main character and his or her equipment is barely enough to distinguish a leather armour from a plate mail and the different types within the same category (e.g. leather armour, hard leather armour, studded leather armour, etc) is pretty much only differing from each other by a vertical stripe of colour or a similar minuscule detail. So no matter which style they chose for Diablo3 it would look very different from the old one because you can actually SEE the armour details on the character.

Secondly, the limited range of colours in the Diablo2 colour palette is clearly a case of necessity rather than choice. The technology 10 years ago simply couldn't handle too many graphical details and still run smoothly on the standard home PC. Before someone says something like: "But Baldur's Gate looked a lot better and had many more colours", let me just remind you that Baldur's Gate's backgrounds were hand drawn whereas Diablo2 used auto generated levels. *BIG* difference.

Now, if you don't like the style Blizzard have chosen for Diablo3 then you have every right to voice your opinion. I would like to suggest, however, that before you start making signs and start marching up and down the square before the Blizzard headquarters that you install Diablo2 again and see with your own eyes (and not how you remember it) what Diablo2 actually looked like.
 
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Now, how do you play a character you cannot see ? ;) :lol:

I've been playing RTS games for years without ever seeing the "awesome commander who always wins" I was supposed to incarnate. Just kidding of course ;-)
 
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Secondly, the limited range of colours in the Diablo2 colour palette is clearly a case of necessity rather than choice. The technology 10 years ago simply couldn't handle too many graphical details and still run smoothly on the standard home PC. Before someone says something like: "But Baldur's Gate looked a lot better and had many more colours", let me just remind you that Baldur's Gate's backgrounds were hand drawn whereas Diablo2 used auto generated levels. *BIG* difference.

That was a good one!
 
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