Not enough gore? Really?

[Jimbob]

I've heard a lot of people complain about this and they do have a point about the world being too colorful for a Diablo game; you can't deny that. However, they aren't in beta yet, so give them some time. Look at Warcraft 3 before beta and after and you will notice a big difference in terms of graphics. Look at Starcraft 2 now and compare it to its first screenshots. You'll notice much more details and better overall graphics. It will be the same with Diablo 3. Besides, didn't they just hire some art director from the original Diablo 2 staff? I think the game will look more like it's in the Diablo universe by the time we get closer to the release date.

They have also said that they plan to make the game get darker as it goes on. Not a bad ideal, I think.

One more thing; to those who complain about not having enough gore. Did you forget that they added fatalities?! Don't you remember the Barbarian getting his head bitten off and than being thrown against the wall! Thats not enough gore for you?! I think fatalities is going to be an awesome thing to put into Diablo! It will make the game much more entertaining as well as more embarrassing. It's one thing to die in front of your party, but its another thing to get your character ripped in half right in front of your companions; wouldn't that be embarrassing. People would be like;"You just got owned!!"

[sreda]

The direction of the art style has already been set in stone, there will be no more reiterations of the art direction. Blizzard have already stated this in several interviews, they like the style and direction they have now and hope that the fans will agree once they get to play the game. I personally like the art style, but I do wish it was a bit more dark and grittier, with less emphasis on the NightmareBeforeChristmas-esque art style. The game though as it is now, is quite amazing and I can't wait to get my fair share of it :)

[Jimbob]

I appreciate your comment. I guess Blizzard is already satisfied with what they got; at the same time they have said we haven't seen the darker places yet, so no worries.

Whats your take on the fatalities?

[sreda]

I appreciate your comment. I guess Blizzard is already satisfied with what they got; at the same time they have said we haven't seen the darker places yet, so no worries.

Whats your take on the fatalities?

The gore in this game is definitely up to par, and if you look back onto D2, D3 even exceeds most of the gore in D2. The game has better graphics, so we're going to see a lot more detailed gore, blood stains, limbs and such. I like the way they have taken the fatalities, a critical hit which kills a monster, causes the monster to explode (when dealing with physical damage). Not like in D2, where all the monsters died the same way, it starts to lose it's scariness after a while.

So far, with all that they've implemented artistically speaking, I'm quite pleased. I'm sure a lot of people out there would wish for a darker and grittier diablo, but there are even more out there than would disagree so just let it slide.

[Ishtor]

to me when people say grittier i only inmagine not as clear as graphics. I have watched the fan made movie on the way he thinks the game should look. Here is my opinon on the subject though.

They know what they are doing. This is how they think it is going to work out the best, i bet the more towards the end game will be much more darker. The thing that people are tending to forget. It has been a long time since they been attacked by evil, and all those event are nothing but myth, and Cain trying to tell people aboiut about has made him look crazy. I inmagine as said as you get deeper into the game, and the more evil you face, more dark the game will get. Dont complain about something until you get the full picture.

[Bad Ash]

The BIGGEST counter arguement in my opinion is what you said JimBob: They want the world to feel progressive.

None of us can relate to that because all we have seen is concept art for a potential second act and a couple of places in the first act.

The progression factor will not only make the game more intense but defintely opens up the world to become grittier as we get farther along in the game. It'll be awesome to experience IMO

Edit: didnt read Ishtor's comment till after mine. Totally agree with what you said. +1 to you

[Jimbob]

The thing that people are tending to forget. It has been a long time since they been attacked by evil

Good point; 20 years to be exact, so it would make sense to have the game be progressive. This will give the Diablo universe a different kind of feel because we really haven't seen the lighter side and less tainted parts of Sanctuary yet. One of the lighter parts is the Golden City of Ureh which is said to be a very prosperous city filled with righteous people. From what I know someone tried to open up a portal to Heaven from there, but failed miserably. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we get to go to this city in Diablo3? If so than, it also supports the rumors of possibly going to Heaven as well. In other words I think we will get to see the lighter side of Sanctuary in Diablo 3. At the same time I don't think we've seen the Darkest parts of Sanctuary yet either. I like how the game will be progressive and I think this will make it more entertaining, interesting and exciting as the game goes on or as we advance through the story. I thought that Diablo 2 got kind of boring when we got to Act 3. Going to Hell spiced it up a bit, but I thought they could have done better. I think they will make Hell look scarier in Diablo 3 though, if we get to go there.

[Akse]

Thers a lot of gore in d3.. just like d2 but in d3 with the new improved graphics the gore looks more real and has a better effect on the player.

[zasz]

On the topic of gore, I feel they're spot on. Not too much so as to be ridiculous but not so little that it feels like looney tunes.

On the game getting darker, that's always been how Diablo games work so I can see that here. What I hope the D3 team does is put more variety into each of the settings. I liked the transition of Deciduous forest, to desert, to jungle, to hell, to mountain in D2, but Acts 1-3 really lacked inner diversity. Aside from the underground areas the outdoor scenes were pretty cookie cutter. Adding some more diversity akin to A5 would be nice which had more ice, less ice, trees, buildings, underground ice, those different hell areas, etc. That would allow for more contrast between light and dark areas, indoor vs outdoor, and in general make each act feel more complete.

[Grug]

I was reading through all the old interviews on behalf of the anniversary, and I noticed that Jay Wilson has hinted several times that things are going to "go to hell" the further you go through the game. Apparently, he wants to set up a feeling of (relative) peace at the beginning due to the 20 demon-free years, and then have everything get much, much worse. I relish the change. If you start the game too scary, there's no room to get scarier.

Also, lets remember that most of us were young when we first played D1 and D2, so you can't expect D3 to be quite at terrifying. It's also kind of hard to be too scared of monsters when hacking the to bits. Diablo is about fighting, not running.

[Flux]

The OP says "gore" and then doesn't mention blood or violence at all; just talks about colorful. Not the same thing. In theory, the more gore, the more colorful; blood is a color, after all. Lots of colors, if we get a variety of blood types from different beasties, as we did in D2.

The color controversy has been done to death, so I'll address the thread title, since it's something I was concerned about going into my first viewing of D3 at last year's Blizzcon. Happily, I wrote a fair amount about it at the time, so I can just point to that and save my fingers today.

http://www.diablowiki.net/Horror

Here's a short quote from the end of the page.

The death animations of the monsters are well done, and they’re very visceral and bloody. Normal deaths are quite messy, with body parts breaking off in gratuitous fashion and blood spilling, but the real fun comes from critical hit deaths. When monsters die from critical hit damage, (which happens quite often), they get an extra special death animation. They literally explode, in appropriate fashion for the type of damage that did them in. You’ll see frost on the shattered pieces, or lightning flickering along with an extra nova blast, or flames charring the chunks of meat, or gouts of blood from the corpse explosion like critical hits with physical damage. I was frequently impressed with how much blood spilled onto the floor during battles, and the ensanguinated stone and scattered arms, legs, heads, chunks of rib cage, and various internal organs left lying around after a big fight was just awesome.

On the whole I was quite pleasantly surprised by the gruesome nature of D3. Much more than I’d expected, and more reminiscent of the mood of D1 than D2.

[Goatlust]

You need only take a look at the butcher's den on Diablo or watch a necromancer summon a skeleton or cast corpse explosion to know that Diablo III has still got a way to go. The average monster death does looks to be very visually striking and more gorey than in previous games. This is an excellent development if we see the return of the real stunners like corpse explosions!

That said, I don't want to see the return of corpse explosion unless it is a necro casting it (fingers crossed for expac).

[GuardianHadriel]

I love the possibility to get my torso torn in half and the contrast between the different acts will be amazing...and not only gore and darkness will improve in later development, graphics too, starcraft II has been improved in the same matter as any other game, just as D3 will be.:yes::propeller:

[Jimbob]

I love the possibility to get my torso torn in half

LOL, thats something you don't hear every day.

You need only take a look at the butcher's den on Diablo or watch a necromancer summon a skeleton or cast corpse explosion to know that Diablo III has still got a way to go.

True, we really haven't seen that yet in any of the trailers, but again I think we will see it later on in the game; just not right away. Remember, it's been 20 years since sanctuary was last attacked by demons. Blizzard is aiming for this game to be progressive- the further you advance in the story the darker it will get.

Flux, thanks for the info;

The D3 team has often said that they were going to recreate the mood and theme of D1 more than D2, and that they wanted to make D3 more of a horror game.

I thought this quote by Blizzard was informative and interesting. I agree that Diablo 2 didn't have that horror feel like Diablo 1. I'm glad to see that Blizzard is trying to bring that back.

[D_TradeSs]

I love the possibility to get my torso torn in half

don't forget that the barbarian being torn in half (i supose you're talking about this) was something made just for the gameplay trailer, meaning these kind of deaths might not come to the retail version at all (even though I hope it will :whistling: )

Gore-wise I think the game looks fantastic, I'm just a bit disappointed with the corpses that are part of the scenario as they dont seem to give the same feeling like those you could find in Catacombs on act 1 or other acts.
Then again, we've only seen a tiny portion of the game so better not judge to quickly :)



Off-topic: Btw, is Ureh going to be a visiting point on the game ? I think i've read somewhere it wouldn't be (even though the diablo 3 world map marks it as a playable area).
Besides, isn't Ureh torn to ruins ? I got that feeling from what i've read on Kingdom of Shadow.

[Flux]

Off-topic: Btw, is Ureh going to be a visiting point on the game ? I think i've read somewhere it wouldn't be (even though the diablo 3 world map marks it as a playable area).

Unknown. Nothing is confirmed in the game until we see it in the game, and even then they could theoretically pull it back and save it for an expansion area. Bashiok and others have said that not every area named on the map or shown in concept art will be in the original release version of D3.

http://diablo.incgamers.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=716

There were some quotes fairly early in the D2 development talking about icy caves and snow in some areas, but as we know, that didn't show up until act 5 in the expansion. Which makes it seem like they had harrogath planned for the original game, at some point. Similar changes with d3 are highly likely.

[visom]

The art might undergo a quick but large transformation. SC2's art direction quickly took a shade change and some redesign (darker color, sharper image, etc) so the same might happen to D3 but I like the D3 color better than D2. If you really look at it you'll see that D3 isn't really that much more colorful than D2. It only looks more colorful because it's settings is more realistic with the color. If there is grass in a field that has rain (area where the WD fought in the D3 announcement video) then it should be lush and green instead of dark, otherwise it wouldn't make sense, especially when the sun is Heck even real life is colorful as well.

[CaptainDingo]

Is that... a Teenage Mutant Ninja Squirtle?

[drae]

Is that... a Teenage Mutant Ninja Squirtle?

I think so..

[dantose]

D1 was truely amazing at setting the atmosphere despite limited graphics of the time. D2 was considerably more cartoony and early indications were that that would continue. From the videos it seems on par with D2 except for the fade out of the bodies (not a fan) Maybe we'll get some more but my hopes aren't high. The general response has been "This is the way the whole series always was, You are using an outdated version of history. Furthermore, we have always been at war with Eurasia."

[Risingred]

D1 had a great atmosphere for things other than the visuals.

For instance, you couldn't run. The spells were rather low-key in comparison to some of them in D2. The music was much more ambient and much less overpowering, etc.
What really did it for me was the sound the monsters made. The monster sounds in D2 were really my biggest disappointment. I know that sounds like a silly complaint, but it is what it is. Nothing like killing a goatman and hearing that bloody, bleating sound erupt from their gurgling throats, choked with blood. :)

[visom]

Is that... a Teenage Mutant Ninja Squirtle?

Yes it is my friend.

What do you call a ninja pokemon?