Subtle but extremely important artistic/atmospheric aspects that should be included in D4
1. Light Radius
Anyone who plays through D2 will understand that light radius plays an extremely important role in terms of the gothic horror experience. It is fear of the unknown, the light radius allows monsters to scare you, it allows you to be truly ambushed, darkness coupled with proper, appropriate environment design (claustrophobic spaces, thick wilderness, gothic and medieval architecture, etc) allows the Diablo mood to set in, without paying attention to lighting, that mood can easily be lost.
2. Monster lighting
Somebody else brought this up earlier, when you hit a monster in D3, they light up slightly, in the D4 demo this also exists but it’s not as obvious. It’s very important that monsters not be well lit, unless they are carrying candles or if it is an important part of their design. Monsters should be visible and readable, but when a monster is dark and not completely in the light, they appear more imposing and scary then they are otherwise. Make sure that the light generated from skills dosen’t illuminate monsters too well, and be sure to strike the balance between realistic lighting physics and enough darkness that the mind of the player can add onto the monster design in the sense of the mind filling in the gaps put in place by the darkness.
3. Non player humans not being completely weak
In D3, townsfolk are almost COMPLETELY inept compared to the player and the monsters they face, while this isn’t as true in D2. When townsfolk and regular humans are worthless, the world honestly feels surreal and it takes away from the fact that the player in D4 should feel mortal and not godlike. There should be a clear gap between the player and most humans, but regular humans should be at least a little competent even if they are getting owned by demons.
4. VERY IMPORTANT - Not being godlike throughout and starting off relatively weak and getting more powerful as you level.
In D3, even your first abilities like the Barbarian’s bash the Wizard’s magic missile, Demon Hunter’s rapid fire, etc feel overwhelmingly strong, they don’t feel like they were designed for being the first few abilities you get. In D2, it’s sort of the opposite. You start of with a valuable but basic spell, sorceresses get firebolt, Necromancers get raise skeleton, Barbarians and Paladins just melee. It’s not until you start to really level up that you can put skill points into better spells and really get strong. This reinforces the sense of being mortal and the RPG sense of starting off weak and earning your way to strength. In a Diablo game (and all Blizzard games) these things are inextricably linked.
5. UI not being too bright, distracting.
In Diablo 3, the UI has a lot of light in it. When you click on the ground you see a yellow/orange pulse. The mini map, time, chat, and objectives all feel a little too modern and it almost feels sci-fi at times, it feels too obvious you’re playing a game and take away from immersion. I think it’s good in a close up MMORPG like WoW but in an isometric RPG like Diablo, I think it’s the wrong approach. In D2 the AI is much more gothic, minimally invasive and fits the theme of the game. The screen isn’t taken up by the mini map or other elements. To the contrary, everything but the bottom of the screen is free, and the UI is artistic but not an excessive source of brightness and distraction.
6. World building, narrations, and voice overs.
In D2 it was pretty common that you would find those lore books that had that epic dark narration, it was a major tone setter, you felt like you had a glimpse into the larger story but it still felt distant and vague, it left you food for thought. In D3, you get a lot of monster journals and stuff like that, I do like these, as much as Abd Al Hazir is an awesome character and is my boy, I think that for D4 the narrations can’t be light hearted as some in vanilla D3 were. They need to be be dark and foreboding, like you’re finding an ancient tome of demonic lore. They should have a sense of mysteriousness surrounding them.
Bottom line, narrations need to follow the same gothic theme as everything else, and should weave a larger story behind theme, they need to be scary, they need to serve to make you afraid of hell and the foes the game throw at you. They need to play up to Diablo’s atmosphere.
What else do you guys think are critical artistic, atmospheric things to be included?
