: Our new rainbow overlords
Here we have yet another tale of video game fanboy entitlement, but one that doesn't involve the ongoing Console Wars for a change. In fact, the game involved is a PC/Mac title: Blizzard's highly-anticipated Diablo III.
It all started with an online petition calling for "Renewed artistic direction for Diablo 3". According to the petitioners, the Diablo universe calls for gothic, dark realism, but the new game's art direction is "cartoon'ish" and reminiscent of the Warcraft titles, with color and variety and *gasp* RAINBOWS! What they want is:
( Teh Gothicness, basically )
Rounding out the petition are several links to images depicting what Diablo III should look like. In short, everything should look a lot more grey and brown.
MTV Multiplayer later posts an interview with Diablo III's lead designer in which these fan mockups are discussed and criticized at length. For example, here's what the designer had to say about this one, depicting what the petitioners want in terms of lighting:
The key thing to remember here is that this has been Photoshopped. This isn’t created by the engine. Though it looks really cool, it’s almost impossible to do in a 3D engine because you can’t have lighting that smart and run on systems that are reasonable. If we could do that, we probably would in a few of the dungeons.
Now in terms of the actual texturing, this texturing, where they grayed out everything and it’s very flat and the monsters are all kind of a similar tone — that does not play well. It’s very boring to run through more than a couple of times, and it’s very difficult to tell creatures apart and pop them out of the environment. So those things don’t really work for us. A lot of the lighting stuff I think is very cool, but it’s also not very doable for us.
The rainbow (or lack thereof, rather) in one of the altered screenshots is also discussed:
More rain? It’s funny because if watch later on in the [debut gameplay] video, we have more rain. It is much stronger than that. I’m sure they got rid of the rainbow. Yeah, rainbow — gone. I think our artist just put [the rainbow] in there because they knew that’d be controversial. And I’m sure they were like, “Well we’ll see how far we can push it.”
There is anger and annoyance in the comments, representing both sides of the argument:
( COLOR IS BAD! COLOR IS NOT BAD! )
And of course, there's the obligatory Penny Arcade comic.
ETA: So it seems Blizzard is now looking for a new art director for Diablo III after their previous one quit. Fanboys, now's your chance!
Here we have yet another tale of video game fanboy entitlement, but one that doesn't involve the ongoing Console Wars for a change. In fact, the game involved is a PC/Mac title: Blizzard's highly-anticipated Diablo III.
It all started with an online petition calling for "Renewed artistic direction for Diablo 3". According to the petitioners, the Diablo universe calls for gothic, dark realism, but the new game's art direction is "cartoon'ish" and reminiscent of the Warcraft titles, with color and variety and *gasp* RAINBOWS! What they want is:
( Teh Gothicness, basically )
Rounding out the petition are several links to images depicting what Diablo III should look like. In short, everything should look a lot more grey and brown.
MTV Multiplayer later posts an interview with Diablo III's lead designer in which these fan mockups are discussed and criticized at length. For example, here's what the designer had to say about this one, depicting what the petitioners want in terms of lighting:
The key thing to remember here is that this has been Photoshopped. This isn’t created by the engine. Though it looks really cool, it’s almost impossible to do in a 3D engine because you can’t have lighting that smart and run on systems that are reasonable. If we could do that, we probably would in a few of the dungeons.
Now in terms of the actual texturing, this texturing, where they grayed out everything and it’s very flat and the monsters are all kind of a similar tone — that does not play well. It’s very boring to run through more than a couple of times, and it’s very difficult to tell creatures apart and pop them out of the environment. So those things don’t really work for us. A lot of the lighting stuff I think is very cool, but it’s also not very doable for us.
The rainbow (or lack thereof, rather) in one of the altered screenshots is also discussed:
More rain? It’s funny because if watch later on in the [debut gameplay] video, we have more rain. It is much stronger than that. I’m sure they got rid of the rainbow. Yeah, rainbow — gone. I think our artist just put [the rainbow] in there because they knew that’d be controversial. And I’m sure they were like, “Well we’ll see how far we can push it.”
There is anger and annoyance in the comments, representing both sides of the argument:
( COLOR IS BAD! COLOR IS NOT BAD! )
And of course, there's the obligatory Penny Arcade comic.
ETA: So it seems Blizzard is now looking for a new art director for Diablo III after their previous one quit. Fanboys, now's your chance!
amused
