Diablo 3 - Beta Tidbits

Dhruin

SasqWatch
Joined
August 30, 2006
Messages
11,842
Location
Sydney, Australia
Diablo III is still the biggest news around the 'net and here are a few more items.
Gaming Illustrated has some very early impressions of the beta, though there isn't much detail:
The graphics of the game so far are pretty impressive. While we haven’t been super impressed with the actual character and monster graphics, the environment and spell effects look absolutely amazing. It’s a lot of fun to tactically kill something like a “Grotesque” creature that explodes and causes an AoE damage for enemies once he’s killed. One of the big things we noticed is how amazing the sound effects are. The music is good but the spell sound effects are amazing. Also, all dialog in the game is done via voice, even the lore that you find that gives you a background into characters and areas you visit.
From the where-do-they-get-these-people department comes a GameSpy article that asks, should Diablo III be first-person?
I'll admit it. My first ever hands-on time with any Diablo game occurred just 24 hours ago, when my inexperienced Demon Hunter took his first fumbling steps into the Diablo III beta's dark and ominous dungeons. It took just three hours before I'd hacked and slashed my way to the main storyline's satisfying conclusion, but in that short period of time my eyes were opened to an entirely new perspective on a gaming world. As a lover of first person games, the isometric camera system in Diablo III felt very unfamiliar, and I inevitably wondered why Blizzard didn't make the leap to first person like so many other developers. This led me to wonder - should Diablo III have been a first person game, and what are the pros and cons of this approach?
For my money, he misses the whole point, by the way.
Joystiq reports that Blizzard's Jay Wilson is posturing for the inevitable console release, saying it feels better with a controller:
Blizzard has been conducting said experiments, Wilson said, because "we feel that the controls and the style of the game lend itself to a console." And the tests have been successful. "With some of our early experiments in putting a direct control scheme into the game via a 360-like analogue controller, I've been 'Oh this feels even better, with direct control...'"
Lastly, IGN has a series of videos that show the entire Beta act from beginning to end.
More information.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
11,842
Location
Sydney, Australia
Gotta love a guy who has never played any Diablo before getting invited to beta test D3 and then acting like he knows what's best for the genre. Can you imagine a Barbarian's whirlwind or tactical placement of a Sorceress' frozen orb in first person?

Oh well. Ignorant people are ignorant.
 
Joined
Nov 10, 2008
Messages
5,978
Location
Florida, USA
I remember a certain Ashley Cheung from Bethesda writing a blog entry regarding Blizzard's choice to maintain Diablo III's isometric perspective.

I think he called their design decision "conservative" and not innovative for not willing to consider making D3 first person. That was all very amusing.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jul 12, 2009
Messages
1,974
Location
Australia
Hellgate showed how well this gameplay formula can work with a different perspective.

I wouldn't say it was necessarily "better" - but it was definitely a much more engaging and visceral experience in terms of combat.

I don't think it would work quite as well in a pure fantasy game, where ranged combat is less common. But the "over-the-shoulder-view" worked very well also.

D3 IS conservative in some ways, and I think it's a legitimate observation.
 
"game lends itself to a console"

already seems to have been designed with console in mind imho
 
Joined
Feb 3, 2011
Messages
586
As a lover of first person games, the isometric camera system in Diablo III felt very unfamiliar, and I inevitably wondered why Blizzard didn't make the leap to first person like so many other developers. This led me to wonder - should Diablo III have been a first person game, and what are the pros and cons of this approach?
This is really amazing. A retard got his hands on Diablo 3.

And there's one thing I don't understand. Why in the nine hells would it be innovative to make a first person Diablo? First person games have been in the market for decades now. FP camera is not as innovative as it was 30 years ago. except for people who think Halo and CoD were the first FPS games ever.
I wonder if he would call it innovation if Infinity Ward created an isometric Call of Duty. Would it be innovative enough for him?
If that's the definition of innovation today, please spare me the innovation bullshit. I prefer the old, conservative methods, where FPSs remain FPSs and RPGs remain RPGs and innovation is not defined by removing good old things, but by adding new good things.
 
Joined
May 17, 2009
Messages
328
Hellgate showed how well this gameplay formula can work with a different perspective.

That's subjective, of course. I didn't think very much of the couple of hours I played of Hellgate - it certainly didn't make me want to continue playing. Perhaps it just didn't work well for me.

D3 IS conservative in some ways, and I think it's a legitimate observation.

Well…it's more of a value judgement than an observation, but valid nontheless I suppose.

I was actually pointing out Cheung's idea for the hypocritical irony rather than making any particular point of truth about D3's design.
The blog entry came out during the heated debates following Fallout 3's release. Given Bethesda's history of creating games with a first person perspective, it would have been a nonsensical expectation for them to use an isometric perspective since "that's not what we they do well" - to misquote a Todd Howardism.

Thus, one could argue that Bethesda in sticking to what they knew and what they had done in the past, were adopting a similarly conservative approach lacking in innovation. Yet, this didn't prevent Mr Cheung from making his ironical comments regarding D3's design. Again, I thought it was all quite amusing.
 
Joined
Jul 12, 2009
Messages
1,974
Location
Australia
Back
Top Bottom