Thank goodness Blizzard isn’t listening to those whiners.  I’ve always considered the argument that "colours = kiddie" to be itself, very immature. 

I’m really happy to see Blizzard sticking with its guns.  I already feel that they shouldn’t have messed with SC2’s palette, and the fact that they did (particularly with Terrans) really had me worried about D3.

So make monsters wear contrasting color to the environment as part of what defines the tileset.  See cave in diablo I for example.  It doesn’t have the cooridoors, but its visual uniqueness was in the contrast between the void-like environment versus the bright skinned monsters shooting out lightning and brightly glowing acid and breathing fire.  So it’s a big area with a lot of open space and these huge bright-colored beast don’t try to sneak up you. Instead they just charge u, surrounding u and u have no place to hide.  That makes the experience.

Plus, having environments that’s green there, red here, yellow there as seen in the wilderness area, it’s more jarring to move around in and more difficult to spot beasties.  I disagree with those who want D3 to be in black and white, but I also do not think colors should be used so… recklessly. 

The "eye-popping" colors should be placed on the creatures, so that the colors draw players’ attention to monsters automatically.  The environment should be cool to look at before and after a fight, but it shouldn’t be so saturated with all sorts of different colors that it washes over the monsters to the point that it’s harder to spot the star of the show (the beasties) under broad day light than it is to spot a static petal in a flower in the bush next to the road.

Jay is saying that 3D models reflect ambient light, therefore the background must emit light.  This happens particularly through phong shading-esque techniques.

SSH83… here is something to think about:  colorful monsters go a long way in making a game look extremely fake.  To explain, if an environment is colored properly, the monsters will be visible because of light emitting from torches, windows, spells that are cast, sunlight, etc.  This AMBIENT light bounces off of them and then is visible in the world.  If the environment is gray but monsters are blue or green or red, then the monsters seem to be emanating color from some unknown light source (their skin?)

I’m not trying to argue that this should be a photo realistic game, but monsters "lighting themselves" will go a long way to look like sprites pasted on a stationary background.  This, I think, is the problem that Jay Wilson is saying happens with 3D models.

I now feel so much better finally hearing them speak directly on the ‘lol petitions’. grats to Blizzard.

This is what I’ve always been saying. Since they are upping the technology, especially going from 2D sprites, to 3D polygons, why the hell not take advantage of it? You really want more greys and blacks in a 3D game? Talk about dull and boring looking. I’m glad Blizzard isn’t going to do a complete make over because of afew whiners who don’t appreciate a new art direction and rather be selfish just because they remember Diablo 1 from 1996 all dark and gloomy. Well if you really enjoy that so much, reinstall it and play it on your 1996 PC, because I don’t want that same look on my modern day PC. If anything, they could add more gore and keep the tortured decals as they had in some dungeons in Diablo 2 that add to the creepyness. Seeing dead barbarians mutilated and whatnot in Act 5 was mature stuff. So I say, rock on with this art direction, just add more mature elements to it if anything. Colors are no problem IMO. Take advantage of what you can do now, and forget the past.

I can agree it feels better that they commented directly, but at the same time, I MYSELF says ‘lol petitions’ in this particular case. SO blown out of proportions, and I SO agree with Mr Wilson.