The Old Blizzard!

[Radicool]

Man just thought I'd share how awesome the Brood War intro was for Starcraft.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GMOTrIjVao

Blizzard games just aren't the same anymore...

 

[NhazUl]

Well, back then (before WoW) all three Blizzard game had their own style and athmosphere. Now everything is 5 cm thick armor suits, giant fists, impossibly heavy swords, spikes, huge shoulderpads and demons that look all the same (look at Diablo III, Deathwing and the SCII hydralisk). It's an unsuccessful attempt to emulate Warhammer, with female fanservice added (Leah, Sylvanas and Kerrigan).

 

[Radicool]

Yeah agreed. Their current games are trying to mainstream the cinematics, style and atmosphere of the game. Back then it was graphic, emotionally intense and very mature.

 

[nhs325]

Look on the bright side. At least we still have HotS to count on.
Man, the trailer itself even better than some movies that i have watched.

 

[PlankingWolf]

Look on the bright side. At least we still have HotS to count on.
Man, the trailer itself even better than some movies that i have watched.

Hell yeah, son! That trailer, is a damn good 'same-company-character' meetup/battle thingy.
But, yeah, I gotta agree. The marines are kinda too bulky. Diablo looks too much like a hydralisk. But I got no problems for Arthas or Archangel. They look awesome the way they are.

 

[Nuclear]

I don't get it. HotS opening cinematic is great, you just seem to have a lot of misguided nostalgia.

 

[Deleted member 212788]

He's not saying it's bad, it's fantastically put together. The thing is, the guys at Blizzard are completely forsaking the uniqueness and atmosphere of each of the games. They are currently screwing around with SC2's pricing model and overall idea. Warcraft's story is currently non-existent as they've basically recycled everything from the beginning and Diablo is pretty much reduced to a black and white painting where there is not depth to the story at all, which, in my opinion, is no something an RPG should be tainted by.

 

[Vengeancekael]

Hearthstone's storyline is deeper than Diablo III tbh.

 

[nhs325]

Accept our future, guys. Unless someone from the Hive works in Blizzard, he/she can persuade the CEO and remake Blizzard all over again.
Yes, I think they are hitting 'smple plot-simple game' for newbies to easily understand it, not for the fans who follow them since the begining of Blizzard. They, no offense, pretty fucked up all of the storyline, because they thinking: 'who cares about the story while you have good graphics, anwsome gameplay?'.

 

[Linaze]

Accept our future, guys. Unless someone from the Hive works in Blizzard, he/she can persuade the CEO and remake Blizzard all over again.
Yes, I think they are hitting 'smple plot-simple game' for newbies to easily understand it, not for the fans who follow them since the begining of Blizzard. They, no offense, pretty fucked up all of the storyline, because they thinking: 'who cares about the story while you have good graphics, anwsome gameplay?'.

At what point did Blizzard ever care about "good graphics"? I thought their thing was always making their games as inclusive as possible. Well, since Warcraft 2 and onward anyway.

 

[nhs325]

I thought Diablo 3 has good graphic.

 

[Linaze]

Well it's the Blizzard game with the best graphics, I'll give it that much. But given that it's also the most recent of the bunch, I don't consider it much of an achievment. Now, Diablo 3 isn't ugly, but it's not Witcher 2 either, so to say.

 

[nhs325]

Well, but you cannot actually blame Blizzard for all of this. Its the way of evolution. We have to accept the new but never....... EVER forget the old ones as well. That's how everything evole today.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Yeah agreed. Their current games are trying to mainstream the cinematics, style and atmosphere of the game. Back then it was graphic, emotionally intense and very mature.

I believe that is because the cinematics are main stream. Blizzard does not make their own cinematics and instead outsources to an animation firm to do them (which is how HotS ending was leaked almost immediately after WoL). This is why they appear considerably higher quality than the above which was likely made in-house.

It is necessary as pre-rendered animation is completely different from real time since you do not have the complexity constraints that real time places on you. This basically means that little to none of the art assets can be shared between the two, which is why outsourcing makes sense.

There is also a problem that everything has become ultra realistic to some degree. 15 years ago the animation quality was so poor that you could easily come up with completely different art systems to portray the same thing. Some companies used modern techniques where as others resorted to the most basic animations which gave variance. Now all companies use pretty much all the available technologies such as the same lighting models, tessellation, physics etc so obviously the results all look the same.

 

[nhs325]

Wait. So you saying that all game companies are the same?

 

[Dr Super Good]

Wait. So you saying that all game companies are the same?

Cinematic and art wise? Yes. They all use the same visual techniques now which is why Assassins creed looks like Halo 5 (or whatever halo they are now on). Yes the individual models and overall detail might be different, but they use similar shader design. You can even compare both of those games to modern LEGO titles as they also use the same cookie cutter shader design. SC2 and D3 do not really fit into this as they use slightly more elaborate sharders just because Blizzard wanted them to stand out but their cinematics use standard cinematic shaders which is why they look like all others.