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Fear of the Dark
No wander Iron Maiden has named one of their legendary songs with this name. There is a well-known truth behind this...
The Dark is Fear and Fear is The Dark!
Applied in D3, this will mean that I like to be some caverns and dungeons (not many, 1 per act) that are totally dark. In which you’ll fight at the light of your own spells and will have a nice reward at the end.
Few things are more scary than total darkness. I know from stories of peoples lost in caves, that remained eventually without light, and the majority of them (from those who lived) have gone mad, in the true sense of world. Imagine the darkness filled with the roars of demons and their filthy minions...
Will be a nice challenge for the players, and a totally different approach to game play then usual.
Few things are more scary than total darkness.
Few things annoy me more then darkness in games. I just don't like darkness.
I like the idea of dark but I really need to see things to kill it :) Perhaps we can light candles along the way ?
I don't really like the dark, more that it is just annoying. In D1 the dark doesn't scare me but it makes it hard for me to see items/monsters, so I "mouse scan" often to see any highlighted silhouettes.
But I guess its ok to have darkness in certain areas to give D3 a broader range of environments.
stillman
23-01-2009, 21:47
Yeah, imagine having decripify on you all the time.
I believe it is impossible to scare us now that we've all been bombarded with thousands of cheesey horror movies. I mean, was anyone really scared of all the tortured bodies in d2, or did we just get desensitized to it all? No one is afraid of the dark anymore.
It's not just the black that is scary, it's the no-save combined with "short enemy detection range" (aka light) that is fricking fearful!
In very few areas it would be very nice. I like the candles method to light your path ;)
Yeah, imagine having decripify on you all the time.
I believe it is impossible to scare us now that we've all been bombarded with thousands of cheesey horror movies. I mean, was anyone really scared of all the tortured bodies in d2, or did we just get desensitized to it all? No one is afraid of the dark anymore.
dats cuz d2 is not a horror survivial game. it gets much more intense if u play in a first-person or third-person view rather than up-and-down view.
raveharu
24-01-2009, 23:30
Usually its near the ending of the game that Diablo gets really creepy and scary, remember when one could enter the depths of Hell in D1.
D2 wasn't that intense but the masses of huge monsters in Chaos Sanctuary/Worldstone made up for it.
If the demo video of D3 shows the beginning of the game, I can't imagine the horrors we'll get to experience in the later stage of the game :jig:
Crying Freeman
25-01-2009, 12:32
Darkness only mess things up. There´s a point in the game where you will get scared, the first time you play it. After that, the scare factor fades and the darkness remains. Did ya like the darkness from Doom 3? I thought so.
But if you want to get scared, a hint to Blizz: music. That´s everything.
@Crying Freeman
Too true, I first played Diablo1 when I was 10 years old, the thing that scared me the most was the music and sound effects. I had to turn off the speaker (yes I'm weak sauce I know) just to be able to play the game. If I was more afraid of the dark and scenery I wouldn't even play the game in the first place. I did the same for D2 when I played it when I was 11.
Funkopotamus
25-01-2009, 22:06
I remember the catacombs and hell levels being consistently spooky for me. Not knowing the undefined number of W's (what, where, when, how) of journalism really got to me. Of course when I was higher level I could just send endless waves of chain lightning into the darkness and be done with it but when I rebuilt it still spooked me.
But apparently Doom did really bad with it and Hellgate had some parts like that that would of been more compelling if they had different monster types in there or something. So yeah, if a company doesn't think they're capable of pulling it off they probably shouldn't try.
That is an awesome song though.
Darkness? OK, but leave the light radius from players in. Or have the ability to replace your weapon or shield with a torch. Could be nice.
I'd have to agree with the music argument, though.
Point lighting is more atmospheric than ambient lighting, end of.
stillman, if you want something really scary try watching "A Haunting", from Discovery Channel. Or visit: http://community.discovery.com/eve/forums/a/frm/f/2281983318.
There are enough interesting subjects there for side quests for 10 Diablo games.
Jay Wilson said in an art-style interview that some areas are much darker than others. Variation would be nice.
Did anyone else notice the bit in the gameplay vid right before he gets to the skeletal shieldmen? He was momentarily in a small corridor with zero light, except a TINY circle around him.
Nahlraka
29-01-2009, 11:01
Variation is great. To be in some rainbow meadow and then have to descend into a dungeon [Swampy Pit, anyone?] would really change things up.
I like the mechanics of the light radius. The way that if you have a small light radius, things are less likely to notice you, but you have a hard time seeing monsters, too. If the radius is large, you can sometimes draw more monsters than you bargained for, but it's generally easier to see what's happening around you, too.
This is from someone who LIKES the darkness in Doom 3 [I'm surprised there are so many haters on the Internet] and also likes to spam Cloak of Shadows as an Assassin.
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