Fallout 3 producer finds Diablo 3 design 'conservative'

I think Bliz may be getting to harshly criticized for its decision to do "more of the same" If they changed the formula too much there would be mass outcries of Diablo blasphemy. Beside, look what happened when they went FPS with Starcraft Ghost...

I think leaving the core game mechanics in tact while overhauling the other part of a game is a perfectly acceptable practice. Sure this is no ground breaking game in terms of new technology, but when did a Diablo game ever do that?

Its about the gameplay and story with this one. If its fun, who the fuck cares?

I think Bliz may be getting to harshly criticized for its decision to do "more of the same" If they changed the formula too much there would be mass outcries of Diablo blasphemy. Beside, look what happened when they went FPS with Starcraft Ghost...

I think leaving the core game mechanics in tact while overhauling the other part of a game is a perfectly acceptable practice. Sure this is no ground breaking game in terms of new technology, but when did a Diablo game ever do that?

Its about the gameplay and story with this one. If its fun, who the fuck cares?

I think Bliz may be getting to harshly criticized for its decision to do "more of the same" If they changed the formula too much there would be mass outcries of Diablo blasphemy. Beside, look what happened when they went FPS with Starcraft Ghost...

I think leaving the core game mechanics in tact while overhauling the other part of a game is a perfectly acceptable practice. Sure this is no ground breaking game in terms of new technology, but when did a Diablo game ever do that?

Its about the gameplay and story with this one. If its fun, who the fuck cares?

wow....sorry guys...

PROTIP: Ashley is a guy.

I'm a little torn on this. Diablo III was a little meh inspiring because it is so much the same. I was also expecting a totally different game much like the overhaul fallout is recieving.
But, Diablo and Diablo II were great games so I know blizzard will make it just as entertaining.
Lot's of games don't deviate too far and people still enjoy them. Look at the castlevania series, Mario, Sonic, Mega man, final fantasy, dragon quest. These all do the same thing over and over with very few changes and people love them. And when they deviate too far it takes away from what made the game so great in the first place.
So I can see why people are upset its not so different but at the same time the majority of remakes and revamps of series are not that great or dissapointing with a few exceptions.
Besides if blizzard totally re-did Diablo in a first person or 3rd person camera view it might have ended up like another Starcraft ghost that may never ever see the light of day.

If it aint broke dont fix it.

Diablo 3 looks fine, its not graphically stunning and so it should stay, I want to actually be able to play this game with mates, not have half of them not able to run it on thier slow PCs due to the high spec demands.

Blizzard did a good deed, Diablo is popular, and I would do anything to play it, but I will be annoyed and turned off if:

1: Like WoW I suddenly need to pay to play
2: Graphics specs are so high that even if I can play it, the chances of my closest online mates getting to being slim if they don't have the kinda computer I do.
3: It just isn't the same Diablo experience the first 2 were.

In all honesty, I thought they would go Oblivion style or third person veiw style (over the shoulder sorta thing eg: Monster Hunter). And I guess I kinda hoped it would change so that it would diffrenciat itself from WoW again.

Now that I've seen the outcome however, I am glad they didn't change it.

Ashley Cheng - Just because you decided to adulterate the Fallout series with a third person real-time combat game with console-itis doesn't mean that Blizzard has to do the same thing to their beloved franchises. I wager Diablo fans will be far more pleased with Diablo III than Fallout fans will be of Fallout 3.

"Take heed" from the person who thinks turning Fallout into an Oblivion mod is a progressive update.

Take heed, Blizzard. Do. Not. Listen. To. Bethesda. Developers.

Blizzard is following Nintendo's lead. Don't change anything besides minor details, update the graphics, and let your fanboyase eat it up.

Yes, I meant to type fanboyase.

D3 looks perfectly fine - it's about how fun and addicting it is than the 'ambiance'. I also don't care about storyline in any game. D1 was awesome, D2 is still awesome, the devs for D3 would be stupid to deviate so much from the first 2 games. They'd seriously have to f*@k up royally to not make D3 a hit. I can't wait till this comes out.

I gotta say it looks good but really very much more of the same, and I am aware of the saying of if it aint broke don't fix it but they could have done something more than just put on a new coat of paint in the 8 years this has been in one form of production or another.

Wow, I had no idea that the community was so uptight about the look of the game.

Personally, I think it looks fantastic, and for me that runs a bit deeper than "I liek th3 WoW!" (I've never played WoW, actually). I'm colorblind, "red-green-deficient" to be exact. This tends to cause problems in certain games.

I cannot tell you how many times in Diablo 1/2 I found myself getting chewed to bits by some little frog thing that I had to "find" by clicking madly in circles because, well, obviously the brown and red markings should stand out from the green grass! No. Sorry. It's brown, slightly darker brown, and slightly lighter brown to me.

So, imagine my delight when I watch the D3 gameplay trailers and see lots of brighter colors! Objects kinda "pop" from the background! I can actually SEE the enemies now! Wow! What a concept! This fact alone makes me very excited for the game.

...and then the fanboys come, and start whining about it "not being dark enough". And they post pictures of what they want it to look like. And you know what those pictures look like to me? Brown, brown, and (you guessed it) brown.

You know what? Screw your atmosphere! I give about half a rats ass about wether or not it's "gritty" enough, I just want to see what's trying to kill me! You want it darker? Turn down the contrast on your monitor! But don't go and screw up my ability to play the game!

I did not have any problem with the look of the game. I thought it looks graphically improved over its predecessors but still had the Diablo look to it. It was a bit brighter, but I don't know if that is a horrible thing. In terms of the outside environments, perhaps there is a story reason for how things look. Also, we have only seen a very small part of the game, so I don't think it is time for a petition about making the game "darker," you could always turned down the gamma. ;P

To get to the comment from Cheng, I think it is a bit more ballsy to stay with the classic design of a game instead of updating it into an FPS (in a market already flooded with more FPS games then needed). Now, don't think I am trying to hate on FPSs or Fallout 3 because I am a fan of the genre and property, but I just thought I would put my two cents out there.

I guess their fans would beup in arms if they made any changes to Starcraft, and probably to Diablo either.

But it would have been nice if they'd at least attempted to try something new.

Though, thinking back, Blizzard has never really been an innovative company. All their big hits have simply been very refined versions of existing gameplay models. But they did at least TRY some bigger changes with past games... SC2 and D3 do seem essentially like (nice) graphical tweaks / expansion packs to the original games.

This coming from a guy that works for a company that has yet to make a stable game fore the life of them. I mean come on now, Oblivion on my 360 and PC still crash left and right as did the prequel to the Oblivion.
10 bucks says that Fallout 3 is just as unstable when falls out of the it's not done oven.

I'm a bit torn on this game. On the one hand I religiously played Diablo and Diablo 2 for a number of years. Usually with a friend or two. It was a lot of fun. I've been looking forward to a Diablo 3 game.

I do play WOW and appreciated what at the time felt a bit like an evolution of the Diablo playstyle. (I've also played MMO's for years so yes I know WOW is owes quite a bit to EQ etc..) Still it felt like a step forward.

I've recently played the NWN2 games and found them quite enjoyable but also aggravating in their control schemes. It definitely felt like I've taken a step backwards in how to control my character and my party. Primitive comes to mind when I think about the control scheme.

My point about this is that the gameplay of Diablo 3 looks exactly like Diablo 1&2. While for some that is great news, for me, it's meh. I'd like to see an interface that doesn't feel primitive and from watching the attacks and the general point&clickyness of the interface it just looks "old school".

I'd have preferred to see Diablo 3 move more in a direction such as Oblivion or even the Witcher. I'm just not impressed with seeing a game that seems like I'll be using essentially the same interface I was using in 1999. I'd very much hoped for more.

As to the comments about the art style and direction, yeah I'm getting a bit sick of the cartoony over the top armor look. But right now it seems many people still enjoy it. I guess I'll just have to wait a while until the pendulum swing back to my more minimalist preference.

Still its Blizzard, they are known for making quality games, just not so great at doing any sort of innovation so I guess I shouldn't be suprised. Overall I'm sure this will be a good game, I just don't think its going to fall into the category of top 100 pc games like many other Blizzard games.

uh yeah i really don't get people going after cheng for his comments here considering the body of his blog post was almost entirely composed gushing over blizzard and their most popular piece of shit, wow.

and people criticizing the design choices for fallout 3, do you expect any major game company to come out with a turn-based, hex-tiled, isometric rpg in today's market? come on.

This is exactly why Fallout3 could very well suck.

Most Fallout fans want an improved version of what they knew and love, not for Bethesda to go out and do whatever the f*ck they want with a beloved franchise.

I want to play Diablo3 and have it bring back everything I like about Diablo2 only better, and that includes the extremely familiar interface, the isometric view, and every other "conservative" element present in the gameplay video.

By the way, who the hell cares what Ashley Cheng thinks. He's just jealous he's not working for blizzard.

It sure sounds he's just a bit jelous that Blizzard pretty much slapped them in the face by saying, this is for the fans first and anyone else liking this is free to join them.

As for the art style, man oh man, I must have a problem with my eyes or something, because to me, it looks apsolutely gorgeus. It could have something to do with the fact that to me style >> realistic every time.

Also, can we please stop with the smug comments about the gameplay untill we actualy see more than 2 areas and part of the game that could be summed up as the bigest fan service in game announcing history.

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To my mind it should be outside the same like it is in the gameplaymovie, because it really looks great

BUT when it comes to dungeons it is a MUST that they stick to typical "diablo colours" because this is very important for the atmosphere

so you still have a big variety of ambiences

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To my mind it should be outside the same like it is in the gameplaymovie, because it really looks great

BUT when it comes to dungeons it is a MUST that they stick to typical "diablo colours" because this is very important for the atmosphere

so you still have a big variety of ambiences

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