Art controversy

The art controversy of Diablo III started with WWI 2008, when a number of Diablo fans found the color of the Diablo environment palette to be "too colorful".

Fan Reactions

One Diablo fan's artistic inspiration from the WWI 2008 reveal.

This is what Blizzard said in regards to the Diablo III art direction in the Lore & Environmental Art Panel:

Skip to about the 21:00 mark to hear it. To paraphrase, the designers talk about how their memories of D1 and D2 were that they were dark and gritty, but that when they actually looked back through the games they found much more color than they expected. They also say that they looked at horror movies and noticed how the color was used effectively to create mood, and that they're following that design path with Diablo III.

How it "Should" Look

A lot of discussion started up about the color of the environments in the community forums, where some fans utterly hated the new colors, some didn't care as long as they got D3, and some liked it. Fan-made photoshopped images popped up with no color, higher contrast, more "grit", or even the odd blood stain. More pictures have been posted in the Controversy Gallery since then. Naturally, effects such as rainbows were done away with as the point of all these images is to make the pictures more gray and "dark". Some variants just enhance a few aspects, while some go all-out. A very strong fear for just "re-making World of Warcraft" is prevalent.

Sample of arguments:

The art should be nowhere near the art of World of Warcraft.
Art should not look "cartoonish" at all. Less pastel with bold lines and defined contours. More realism.
Darker environment with more realistic gothic creepy dark influences.
Less color in the environment.
No rainbows!
Add the 'light radius' of Diablo 1 and Diablo 2.
Equipment should be more realistic, with smaller shoulder plates as a main focus point.

Color, brightness, details and "grit".
Darker, more red ambient light, "creepier" with more blood.
Light radius and line-of-sight light.
Rainbows? An upset fan exclaims disappointment.
One suggested color change. Red.
Dungeon with more "gothic" colors and detail. Necromancer's choice.
Outdoor color change, more contrast, less pastel.
Rainy weather, and darker.

The Petitions

Together with the first few photoshopped images, petitions started to appear on the net with the demand that Blizzard should change the art design, similar to what they did with Terrans in Starcraft II. Petition signature count 2008-08-07:

One of the petitions against the new art direction got quite popular, and Blizzard originally did not comment on it. There were also petitions starting to support Blizzard's decision. The number of signatures on the different petitions is probably not an accurate guideline for what fans think however, as the fans who do like the current direction would be less vocal than those who are unhappy.

Responses to Complaints

Among other fans, popular web comic site Penny Arcade didn't quite think the changes required such a violent response, and made a very satirical response to it. Very "Penny-Arcade-esque".

Penny Arcade responded with a comic named 'Angst.jpg'.

Blizzard's Response

Blizzard seemed to be prepared for some sort of onslaught against the colours well before the actual WWI 2008 reveal, and started talking about the importance of colour in the D3 Lore and Environmental Art Panel before the petitions even started.

Video comment by Flux:

Skip to about the 21:00 mark to hear it. To paraphrase, the designers talk about how their memories of D1 and D2 were that they were dark and gritty, but that when they actually looked back through the games they found much more color than they expected. They also say that they looked at horror movies and noticed how the color was used effectively to create mood, and that they're following that design path with Diablo III.

The reactions from fans might have been a bit stronger than they initially thought though, as they started out in the beginning of July to avoiding replying to the petition itself. It's unlikely Blizzard didn't know about it, as it was reported on from several websites like Slashgear, The Globe and Mail as well as the largest Diablo 3 fansite.

Keith Lee replies:

A great analogy is like in 'Lord of the Rings' — not everything is dark. [...] We don't want everything to look the same and that’s really what we're trying to aim for. [...]What we also tried to do is create very clean textures so that you can really focus. It's a stylized feel and in that sense, it's very sort of a Blizzard philosophy. It's just really pushing the envelope in terms of the visuals so that everyone is excited about how everything looks. We think that 'Diablo III' is going to be better in so many different ways. We're just building and improving upon the the first and second 'Diablo' games.

We're very involved, because everyone's very passionate about our games. Blizzard employees, we spend a lot of time actually iterating on [the game], and so in terms of the next phase, what we'll try to do is a proof on concept on lot of different gameplay aspects. And we really want to get as much feedback as possible so that we can improve on the game and ensure that we meet Blizzard quality for our fans and for ourselves as players.

Later in July, a few mainstream sites got the opportunity to talk to Blizzard in NYC, where art direction, and direct replies to some petition pictures were made by Jay Wilson.

Jay Wilson judges fan pics:

Jay Wilson: The key thing to remember here is that this has been Photoshopped. This isn’t created by the engine. Though it looks really cool, it's almost impossible to do in a 3D engine because you can’t have lighting that smart and run on systems that are reasonable. If we could do that, we probably would in a few of the dungeons.

Now in terms of the actual texturing, this texturing, where they grayed out everything and it's very flat and the monsters are all kind of a similar tone — that does not play well. It's very boring to run through more than a couple of times, and it's very difficult to tell creatures apart and pop them out of the environment. So those things don't really work for us. A lot of the lighting stuff I think is very cool, but it's also not very doable for us.

Blizzard Art Department Departing

In the beginning of August, Kotaku noted that the Lead Art Director position of Diablo III had quit, since they were looking for a new one. Brian Morrisoe worked as Lead Art Director as recently as WWI 2008, where he headed the Environmental Art Panel, and did some media, such as this interview with CVG. Some fans said it seemed odd that he quit in time for the fan protests, just like if there had been tensions in the team, which re-ignited with fan protests.

Blizzard recruiting art people.

What the Kotaku piece doesn't mention is that there are several other D3 art team jobs listed on Blizzard's jobs page. None of them are recent additions, but it many fans speculated that Blizzard was having trouble finding/keeping art talent on Diablo 3. Some even went as far as to say that the tem might have gotten split up because of internal disagreements on the art direction. Jay Wilson, Diablo 3's Lead Producer, handled the fan screenshot replies mentioned previously, and some fans ask why the Art Directors didn't handle that.

Blizzard made a statement saying that Brian quit to start his own company.

Regarding Brian, he recently resigned to form a startup technology company (outside the game industry), which is why we've posted about the open position. This change won't impact the game - we're really pleased with the look and feel that Brian helped create for Diablo III, and the new person we bring onboard will work with the other artists on the team to maintain the art style moving forward. Given this state of affairs, it's hard not to speculate (as several emailers have) that perhaps the controversy over the game's art direction wasn't just amongst the fans. Perhaps different factions within the Diablo 3 team had their own strong opinions on how the game's art should look, and when push came to shove, some of the crew left. Or were asked to leave? Happily, as Blizzard often points out, the production of a game as large as Diablo 3 is handled by a large team, and no one is indispensable. Let's hope they get talented job applicants and can plug them into the openings and carry on smoothly.

This doesn't say anything in regards to if he quit because of disagreements, or other reasons.

Blizzard Changes Art Based on Feedback

While most of the feedback from enthusiastic fans were discounted as not being a priority or even possible in terms of gameplay, Jay did come back and told the fans through IncGamers that they made certain changes from the feedback. Here is a summary from Diii.net:

In the interview Jay talks about his past jobs in the gaming industry, the D2 team guys working on D3, struggles they've had with game and art design, and art design, and art design, and art design. Have you heard that there was a controversy about the art design? No? Well, this interview will fill you right in. Jay does elaborate on two art changes they've made based on fan feedback; they're going back and making a lot of the dungeon environments grittier and bloodier, and they're not going to fade out all of the corpses after battles now; just some of them. Many will remain on the ground until the characters leave the area. Also he confirms that there will be cinematics for D3, at least as many as there were for D2, and that the teaser we saw from WWI was pieced together from several of the longer cinematics we'll see in the final game.

Video Interview.

The End of the Art Controversy?

In the second week of September, a Diablo fan called Sozou posted a completely modified gameplay video of Diablo III with desaturated and "gritted" moving art in high resolution, showing what the dev team could do. With all the possible screenshot modifications and the like, it seems unlikely any more thorough example of what some fans would like can be made. He also gave Diii.net a short interview.

Blizzard have not responded to this new media yet, but as the hype slowly has diminished, it's not quite likely they will either.

Links

Discuss the Issue
- Join the Colour Fan Debate - The big debate in the community about the colour palette.
General Information
- WWI 2008 - Art panels, video and screenshots of the new game.
- Art Controversy Category - All articles, pictures, panels and other material related in the wiki.
- Controversy Gallery - Gallery of original screenshots and edited ones by fans trying to convey a more "dark" feeling. Including responses to the critics.
- Media Coverage - All Interview, Previews, Videos and Pictures released by mainstream gaming media.
Articles
- Art Direction Disarray - Lead Art Director quit timely with the fan protests.