The Barbarian is not cartoony.

[MooCQ]

For all the people saying the barbarian looks cartoony.

Yea, he is cartoony.. throughout the ENTIRE DIABLO SERIES! NOT ONCE HAS HE EVER APPEARED "REALISTIC" ! Not even CONAN appears realistic.. why not?? cause he was on roids!!! Realism is overrated.. especially in an animated series.. ..

[raveharu]

Absurd you mean like the massive horns on the great helms which were just as big and useless as the ones on the barbarians belt? Do you mean absurd like leaping 50 feet in full platemail? Maybe you mean absurd like conjuring a gigantic iceball weighing hundreds of pounds flying across the screen shooting dozens of three foot long icicles at 500lb maggots in the depths of hell?

How about tiny flying hammers that kill most monsters and you in 1 hit?

Naked amazons who can punch arrows, and naked barbs who can kill you in one punch?

[Funkopotamus]

I dont think the shoulders are floating. The barbarian has pretty huge shoulders even without those pads on and as far as I can tell the modelers are smart enough to make them not float off the shoulders.

I know he has huge shoulders, I mentioned that earlier. Even so, I'm looking at the character select screen mock-up on the D3 website and his shoulders aren't that big. It's clearly very large shoulder armor. At the point I see in that picture, and many others, it looks cartoony to me. Ever heard of the saying "Too much of a good thing"?

It is other people in threads/petitions/etc. that make the Warcraft comparisons.

Okay, but I wasn't doing it in that post.

[Tsumaru]

I think people need to distinguish between cartoon, unrealism, and fantasy.

Cartoony, to me, means graphics which don't have good textures and/or have unrealistic proportions. Like a cartoon.
Unrealistic is anything which is, obviously, unrealistic.
Fantasy is unrealism for the sake of entertainment, but balanced with a bit of good sense and generally not taken too far.

Throwing ice-balls may be unrealistic, but it's fantasy so it's okay. Leaping 50 feet into the air with plate armour may be unrealistic, but it's fantasy so it's okay. Nobody wants to play a medieval-based RPG where you fight demons in Hell and yet you're restricted to realism. That's just stupid.

But at the same time, just because there is unrealistic or fantasy stuff - that doesn't make it cartoony either. So maybe some big huge shoulderpads are unrealistic. But it's fantasy. If the proportions are still half-decent and there are good textures - I don't think it's cartoony. It's just fantasy.

That having been said, the complaint that it looks kind of like the shoulder pads are floating - that's a comment about the distorted proportions etc. That's when you can make a valid cartoony criticism. The horns on the belt, well, I don't think you can call it unrealistic or cartoony. In this case you just say "it looks crap". And personally I would agree with that. The barbarians are savage and brutal - but that doesn't mean they have these elaborate demon-faced belts with horns coming out which would completely get in the way of any attempt to fight. It just looks out of place to me.

The way everyone calls everything cartoony just isn't making sense to me.

[ill logic]

I'm gonna play it even if it the next unveiled character is Daffy Duck. In any case, the Barb is impressive aesthetically and he doesn't look overly cartoony. However, I think the Hammer of Ancients skill is gonna....take some getting used to. I wasn't expecting a huge hammer to come out of nowhere. But I thought Blessed Hammers looked funny at first as well

[Funkopotamus]

However, I think the Hammer of Ancients skill is gonna....take some getting used to. I wasn't expecting a huge hammer to come out of nowhere.

I did not even notice that. I take it back. A giant hammer appearing out of no where to smash your enemy with? The barbarian isn't cartoony at all.

[Lord_Jaroh]

I don't get how big spikey shoulderpads and a badass demon face with horns for a belt is "Cartoony". Spikey shoulderpads, loincloths and such are just traditional accesories for savage barbaric races in fantasy settings.

I dont think he looks very much like an Orc from warcraft. The textures look alot dirtier and crisp than WoW.

Warcraft Orcs = Savage, Barbaric.
Barbarian = Savage, BARBARIC (obvious).
Spikey leather shoulderpads = Barbaric.

Even if there are some similiarities I really don't care if they look a little similiar to Warcraft orcs. They look cool to me and better than anything in WoWs ugly stretched out textures. Plus they're not the only shoulderpad graphics in the game if you really hate them that much.

People are also forgetting about how ridiculous looking alot of barbarian items in d2 were like the jawbone caps and other crazy helmets. When barbarians wore plate mail in D2 it looks absolutely nothing like real platemail, would you consider that cartoony too? They can wield 2 oversized two-handed weapons at the same time and spin a circle.. Isn't that "Cartoony" or "unrealistic"...Who cares? It's cool, it's fantasy and its about beating the crap out of demons.

It doesn't look like a cartoon it's just a pair of spikey shoulderpads on an old barbarian dude who wants to kick some demon ***.

If you can't see the similarity between your image and this one:



Then you are clearly insane. Here, I'll even help you:



They are clearly similar.

[Nezumi]

Almost all fantasy images are over the top.
I have always found the should pads on most character designs ridiculous. Try swinging a weapon around half of the "fantasy" gear most characters are designed with. Ain't happening. Look at the size of most weapons - totally unrealistic.

But this is a fantasy game. Not a medieval combat sim.

As for similarity... I am not that fond of the WoW art style. I thought part of what set Diablo apart as its own universe was the different art style. When the project moved from Bliz North to Bliz Irvine I feared it would be taken under the same art direction as their existing, successful fantasy title. So far the images I have seen seem not TOO derivative of WoW and that gives me hope that D3 will retain it's own visual universe.

Diversity in fantasy is a good thing.

[Dacar92]

Diversity in fantasy is a good thing.

Couldn't agree more.

This game will have better graphics than D2 no doubt. Everyone here got hooked on D2, which was made when, 8 or 9 years ago? Those graphics look cartoony to me and to you, probably, too. But yet, we still were hooked on the game. D3 will be so much better, graphics wise. Don't put a lot of stock in how the game looks now. The graphics will change, and usually that change, before the alpha test, will be for the better.

[GUFF]

There have been some good points made in this post.

I remember a developer mentioning how they wanted an "over-the-top" design plan when it came to D3 and that the barb was a perfect example.

They definately succedded in their goal.

I started a barb character the other day in LOD just tinkering around and yes the barb armour even in D2 was not as good looking as say the same armour on the Paladin.

However, it was at least somewhat believeable, somewhat mideavil (sp?) like. The armour above is not even close.

Lord_Jaroh's post with the orc pic is actually the first image that I thought of when i seen the barb equip his armour in the gameplay video.

From what I Have seen so far I feel the developer's need to tweak the armour/weapon/character models (Specifically Barbarian).

I am very worried how the rest of classes will look with their armour and weapons....