Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Diablo 3 Announced

Eric5h5 said:
Using a ***THREEDEE!!!!!*** control scheme, just because you can, is not "moving with the times", it is called "bad gameplay." It's like lens flares and bloom. Overdone, and not cool anymore except when used sparingly.

--Eric
Click to expand...

lol, that's an understatemente.


So third person view equals bad gameplay?

So WoW, Gears of War, JK2, Oblivion, Fable, Guild Wars, LOTRO, Age of Conan, Resident Evil 4, KOTOR, Morrowind, Bioshock, Halo, Battlefield, Crysis, Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, Grand Theft Auto 3/VC/SA etc etc etc - All these games have bad gameplay.

They all suck because they didn't reduced themselfs to a narrow minded viewpoint, that kills perspective and scope for players who apparently don't have a problem with controlling a camera with the mouse, which is most logicial and immersive.

Thats really the key thing here. In the video when the Barbarian was "behind" a wall from the top down view, the entire wall became transparent and you could see through it - Its logicial and understandable why they would do this, but it's absolutely bullcrap since it kills the immersion.

I like making pretty characters and having the camera behind their backs. I like seeing them dodge sword attacks and arrow in real time from behind. I don't want a first person view, because that often feels like your just controlling a moving box in the air with no underbody(with a few exceptions like in Metroid, Crysis and Halo). I like a third person view from behind the character. you see what they see, but you also see yourself, and the things around you. you see what you character sees into the distance.

With a top down view like this, you dont get the sense of seeing anything.. you cant watch the sunset in the distance coming down from the mountains, you cant see epic large battles with 200 enemies charging at you from across a field.

its not about the combat, and perhaps not even about the controls, but simply about a point of view.

I am only saying this because I think the game looks ungodly awesome, but I never was an RTS player.. I was never good at aiming with the mouse, at by the time I got back into PC gaming, Diablo 2 was horrible outdated.


WoW has one of my favorite control schemes ever. I love how dynamic the camera and everything is. At no point has it ever become an inssue with me. your running around bunny hopping, watching close ups of your characters face and feel like that you are in complete control.
 
Well, I reckon it's pretty obvious Diablo 3 is running off the same engine as Starcraft 2. And I agree it looks pretty awesome. I have played Diablo, but I haven't played Diablo 2. I definitely enjoyed playing Diablo though, except for the dull linearity. Let's hope Diablo 3 is more like Oblivion in that respect. (I would assume D2 is like that, but I could be wrong)

Well, I guess this is a definite candidate for the list of games I have to have, which at the moment includes Spore, Starcraft 2, and any more Crysis games.
 
Wow, some people *cof* luffytubby* don't really understand gameplay mechanics and fitting a camera style to suit the game.

The games you listed (at least the good ones) work well because that's how they're supposed to work. What about Age of Empires in a first person view? Yea - broken game. Half Life in 2D - broken game.
The Diablo, and many others gameplay works best with a camera above.

As someone said - just because you can do something with new engines doesn't mean you should. Best current example is how they made Smash Bros Brawl's primary control scheme the Gamecube controller, rather than gesture-based motion controls.

The application of technology isn't a gung-ho design philosophy.

And I can't wait for Diablo 3.
 
raggedjimmi said:
Wow, some people *cof* luffytubby* don't really understand gameplay mechanics and fitting a camera style to suit the game.

The games you listed (at least the good ones) work well because that's how they're supposed to work. What about Age of Empires in a first person view? Yea - broken game. Half Life in 2D - broken game.
The Diablo, and many others gameplay works best with a camera above.

As someone said - just because you can do something with new engines doesn't mean you should. Best current example is how they made Smash Bros Brawl's primary control scheme the Gamecube controller, rather than gesture-based motion controls.

The application of technology isn't a gung-ho design philosophy.

And I can't wait for Diablo 3.
Click to expand...

but have they event tried?

i know they did it with neverwinter nights aswell.. it had arrow key control but that sucked. so click to move was best in that game aswell. and I know Titan Quest did it aswell.

and of course the hero units in Warcraft 3.



but... I dont know. I guess your right. I am not a gameplay designer. I can only say what I personally feel, and honestly I am really sad because I am not used to this. I feel its a step backwards to something I have not enjoyed when trying to play D2(I played it extensively, but never completed it or anything).



Well then - if its a matter of getting used to it, then I have to get used to it, but I dont think I can. it seems so alien. so slow. so... ackward.
 
luffytubby said:
So third person view equals bad gameplay?
Click to expand...

When grafted onto the wrong game, yes. I though it was exceedingly obvious that we're talking about Diablo, not FPS games or any other game where a 3D perspective is fine.

You can tilt the camera down in Warcraft3 so that you basically get a 3rd-person viewpoint. Does anyone ever play the game like that, ever? Answer: no. It sucks horribly.

(Although, honestly, I'm not thrilled about D3 anyway. I enjoyed D1; D2 not so much. It's nothing to do with the perspective, but the insanely repetitive clicking gets old. Hopefully D3 will be an improvement.)

--Eric
 
It's simply different kinds of games. Some people only like first-person shooters. Others only like 3rd-person platformers. Others only play racing games!

The Diablo series is what it is, and many people like it. Other people would better enjoy some other kind of game. Nothing wrong with that. Maybe they'd like some hybrid of Diablo 3 and WoW, and maybe someday someone will make that :)
 
wildcardd said:
Yes, see: Hellgate London.

I still like the isometric perspective for a game like Diablo. Isometric is where it is at for that game.
Click to expand...
Yea, Hellgate London had both a third-person and a first-person view. I was actually pretty impressed with it too, me and my friend each got a copy and we thought it was pretty fun. Not quite up to Diablo standards, but close, and it held us over for a long while. :)
 
rbarris said:
This turns out not to be the case.
Click to expand...

Really? I wonder why they chose not to. Seems like a big waste of time and money to me. I mean nothing says you can't have disappearing/transparent walls and a movable camera...
And is it just me, or do the baddies in D3 look, well, not very well done? The animations are fantastic, but I just think the textures look like crap.
 
Erasmus said:
Really? I wonder why they chose not to. Seems like a big waste of time and money to me. I mean nothing says you can't have disappearing/transparent walls and a movable camera...
And is it just me, or do the baddies in D3 look, well, not very well done? The animations are fantastic, but I just think the textures look like crap.
Click to expand...

perhaps its just not a game for you?
 
luffytubby said:
but have they event tried?

i know they did it with neverwinter nights aswell.. it had arrow key control but that sucked. so click to move was best in that game aswell. and I know Titan Quest did it aswell.

and of course the hero units in Warcraft 3.



but... I dont know. I guess your right. I am not a gameplay designer. I can only say what I personally feel, and honestly I am really sad because I am not used to this. I feel its a step backwards to something I have not enjoyed when trying to play D2(I played it extensively, but never completed it or anything).



Well then - if its a matter of getting used to it, then I have to get used to it, but I dont think I can. it seems so alien. so slow. so... ackward.
Click to expand...

You don't seem to understand, Diablo III is a Diablo game, it's not called World of Diablo or Diablo Adventures or Diablo Beyond the Dark Portal, it's called Diablo III and as such it must remain a Diablo game.

If you haven't played the previous games then you wouldn't understand but if you have (and most gamers above the age of 15 have played the games) then you wouldn't want Blizzard to re-invent the franchise, you just want an improvement.

For those who want a revolutionary RPG, wait for a new franchise or a spinoff, Diablo IV (when it comes in 2020) will probably maintain the isometric perspective :), if not, it won't be released.

Catch my drift?

P.D: Blizzard, being the meticulous developers they are, probably tried a bunch of perspectives for Diablo and decided isometric was the way to go, if there's a developer you can trust it's Blizzard. They don't take decades to release their games because they're lazy you know.
 
Chone said:
You don't seem to understand, Diablo III is a Diablo game, it's not called World of Diablo or Diablo Adventures or Diablo Beyond the Dark Portal, it's called Diablo III and as such it must remain a Diablo game.

If you haven't played the previous games then you wouldn't understand but if you have (and most gamers above the age of 15 have played the games) then you wouldn't want Blizzard to re-invent the franchise, you just want an improvement.

For those who want a revolutionary RPG, wait for a new franchise or a spinoff, Diablo IV (when it comes in 2020) will probably maintain the isometric perspective :), if not, it won't be released.

Catch my drift?

P.D: Blizzard, being the meticulous developers they are, probably tried a bunch of perspectives for Diablo and decided isometric was the way to go, if there's a developer you can trust it's Blizzard. They don't take decades to release their games because they're lazy you know.
Click to expand...

That does not make any sense. You keep clinging on to the fact that its a Diablo game, so it should stick to gameplay that was relevant almost ten years ago.


Thank the heavens for you not being a game developer. with that attitude, many franchises like Super Mario 64/Metroid Prime/Zelda OOT/Prince of Persia SOT, would never have made the transistion into 3D, which was both logical, groundbreaking, a risk and overall the right thing to do.


Yeah, I HAVE PLAYED Diablo. And I rather liked it, lol. But that does not mean, that things that was okay 8-10 years ago, is okay to do. Things have moved forward.
I suggest you try understanding that before going on a parade how it's "the right thing to do" or use some childish mentality like "if it ain't broken don't fix it".


wildcardd said:
Yes, see: Hellgate London.

I still like the isometric perspective for a game like Diablo. Isometric is where it is at for that game.
Click to expand...


Well played, sir. Except, HGL is made by people no longer working at Blizzard. Or maybe you wanted to argue that Flagship Studos failures, confirms that another company, AND franchise should go another route not to face similiar dimise?
*scratches head* Okay, I will play ball - HGL was a game that sucked, due to being released to early. Most likely forced by their incompetent publisher, EA, which took over when Namco jumped shift.
HGL had the right ideas going for it, and the controls, camera and semi-real time combat was all handed reasonable well. It's failures didn't really have anything to do with being third person.
Or that is unless... Of course, that you seriously want to argue that all third person view games are horrible?



Eric5h5 said:
When grafted onto the wrong game, yes. I though it was exceedingly obvious that we're talking about Diablo, not FPS games or any other game where a 3D perspective is fine.

You can tilt the camera down in Warcraft3 so that you basically get a 3rd-person viewpoint. Does anyone ever play the game like that, ever? Answer: no. It sucks horribly.

(Although, honestly, I'm not thrilled about D3 anyway. I enjoyed D1; D2 not so much. It's nothing to do with the perspective, but the insanely repetitive clicking gets old. Hopefully D3 will be an improvement.)

--Eric
Click to expand...

Thats great Eric. You can tilt the camera down in Warcraft 3.

1)You can also tilt the camera down in Diablo III. But this is not a third person perspective. Its merely... as you said, tilting the camera down. Has nothing to do with anything.

2)Warcraft 3 is an RTS.


In Diablo you slay monsters - grafted onto the wrong game? Are you kidding me? name one element that would make it unconvienent to be used in third person perspective?
if you look at anything from guild wars to gears of war to resident evil to ninja gaiden, to bla bla bla bla... all games about killing things.
Its exactly the same in Diablo.
there is nothing in the game that suggests that its more reasonable to stare down into some boring ground textures.



I am pretty convinced that its something they do, not to interfere with WoWs succes. dont want all their addicted subscribers to go over to the free game. makes sense.
 
Erasmus said:
And is it just me, or do the baddies in D3 look, well, not very well done? The animations are fantastic, but I just think the textures look like crap.
Click to expand...

I think it's a matter of preferences, personally I think they look very good.

EDIT:
luffytubby said:
That does not make any sense. You keep clinging on to the fact that its a Diablo game, so it should stick to gameplay that was relevant almost ten years ago.
Click to expand...
I think it boils down to gameplay, graphics might make the game nice, modern and cool, but ultimately, it depends on the whole package. Between choosing an isometric or 3D view, I think it's a matter of preferences. I don't think you can fault blizzard if they choose to go the isometric view.
 
camera angle/graphics

Personally I don't care about the camera angle, as long as it works :), I'm glad they decided to keep the old camera angle, cause it feels familiar for a diablo game...

as far as graphics go, I must admid I was hoping for a more detailed world, more gothic and les saturaded. there are some pics on the net eddited by fans
to make them look more diablo'ish, and i must admid that those look allot more diablo'ish and fit more to the music...

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/7807/itshouldrh5.jpg
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/8366/contrastqj1.jpg

:)
 
angelneo said:
I think it boils down to gameplay, graphics might make the game nice, modern and cool, but ultimately, it depends on the whole package. Between choosing an isometric or 3D view, I think it's a matter of preferences. I don't think you can fault blizzard if they choose to go the isometric view.
Click to expand...

No, I guess not.

Maybe I will get used to it. Who knows.
 
In regards to the camera perspective:

My guess would be that Blizzard opted for the isometric camera because of tradition and because in a game where you want to constantly swarm the player from all sides, and the player needs to respond to attack from any direction quickly, it is better to deliver a camera perspective that allows players to see around them in all directions to a more or less equal degree. While a third-person camera allows for a drastic increase in the amount of stuff you can see in front of you, it comes at a cost of a decrease in the amount of stuff you can see behind you. When an attack is just about as likely to come from behind as it is from the front, that would not be very good.

In regards to WoW players:

I don't think Blizzard is making a deliberate effort to dissuade WoW players from Diablo III. To the contrary, I think they're actively trying to attract them. Diablo III's UI has taken clear design cues from WoW, such that a WoW player can look at it and immediately see, "Oh that's an experience bar and that's an action bar." Furthermore, the game's art style is similar to the style in WoW, albeit a bit darker and significantly bloodier. Finally, Blizzard posted the Diablo III announcement, amongst other sites, on the official World of Warcraft site. I think Blizzard is hoping people will spend the one time fee on Diablo, but won't give up their monthly subscriptions to WoW, which doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility to me.
 
Hey! something to get me back into games!

I'm not a "gamer" by any standard, but Diablo II was one game I really enjoyed and have continued to play (a little here and there). I can't believe it's been ten years since it was announced.

I like the idea of keeping things similar to the previous titles - making the game third person with WASD controls etc. would intrude on other Blizzard titles and take the game away from the original paradigm. People accused Diablo 1&2 of repetitive game play and there is some truth in that, but I have enjoyed the game and kept playing it for years...and judging by sales figures many, many others have also.

This game should be coming out right about the time I'm looking to replace one fo my G4 machines with a new Mac, so I'll be ready, credit card in hand, when it arrives.;)

I just wish the interweb was running faster so I can check out the D3 site...
 
luffytubby said:
That does not make any sense. You keep clinging on to the fact that its a Diablo game, so it should stick to gameplay that was relevant almost ten years ago.


Thank the heavens for you not being a game developer. with that attitude, many franchises like Super Mario 64/Metroid Prime/Zelda OOT/Prince of Persia SOT, would never have made the transistion into 3D, which was both logical, groundbreaking, a risk and overall the right thing to do.


Yeah, I HAVE PLAYED Diablo. And I rather liked it, lol. But that does not mean, that things that was okay 8-10 years ago, is okay to do. Things have moved forward.
I suggest you try understanding that before going on a parade how it's "the right thing to do" or use some childish mentality like "if it ain't broken don't fix it".
Click to expand...

Thank god you aren't a developer either because you seem to think that just because we can do something means we should. Blizzard is the game developer, they know what they are doing and they are the ones who know what works for their game and guess what? They chose isometric

Before you call my mentality childish just think about this, many people absolutely loved Diablo and they expect Diablo III to feel like a Diablo game, you think it would feel like so if it was in a 3rd/1st person perspective?

Many games are still being done in isometric, Titan Quest was pretty enjoyable, Mythos (from the makers of HG:L) is isometric, Space Siege (from Gas Powered Games) is isometric and they are all incredible games (well maybe not SS because it's not released yet but it has potential).

Before you feel like you are the authority in what works in games maybe you should see what developers are doing. Flagship Studios actually tried and released an RPG with 3rd-1st person perspective and yet their new game is an isometric one, that should tell you something.

And your claims about Diablo not being 3rd person because it would mess up with WoW are just plain stupid, Diablo is not even an online RPG, it's a story based RPG with a definite start and end that can be played online for PvP and going through the game in co-op, it doesn't even play like Guild Wars or Mythos online much less like World of Warcraft.

Maybe Blizzard will do 3rd/1st person for one of their RPGs but like I told you, it won't be Diablo IV.
 
(For the record, Diablo 3 is NOT isometric. Isometric means no perspective. If things are smaller the farther they are, like Diablo, than that's not isometric, merely an overhead view which is an update of the old isometric gameplay into true 3D. Just like was done with Starcraft 2.)
 
I, for one, love the fact that they're remaining in the overhead view. Changing the perspective would only make the game appear like many other games out there, and that's probably something that Diablo should stay away from.

For me, I've been playing D2 for years, and what makes the experience great has little to do with gameplay (click, click, click repeat). It's about the randomly generated content that makes multiplayer feel different every time you play. It's about the loot and the character trees to make the ultimate character. You then discuss your stats with your mates, and then debate merits of your own philosophies.

D2 was a remarkably social game for me, and it still keeps pulling me and my friends together. Admittedly, it's not as often as before, but we'll still often find ourselves breaking out D2 if we're stuck for a game to play at a LAN.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back