Blizzard has upadated the official Diablo 3 website with images of the female Monk character. There is some artwork, as well as an animated in-game model. The animation is not as polished as what we’ll see for the official release of D3, but rather than delay the posting of the highly anticipated female Monk model, Blizzard elected to give fans something to chew on right away.
For all intents and purposes, the female Monk model looks great. However, with something this highly anticipated, there will always be some nitpicking going on. Here’s what Bashiok had to say about that:
Quote from Bashiok
We decided that it wasn’t worth holding up the update to fix the artifacting on her hand. Essentially it’s just that the green screen process used isn’t quite sharp enough to keep details like her dainty fingers. Probably something we’ll correct but it’s not going to stop the show.
OR! You can explain it away by saying that she’s actually punching so fast it looks like she’s mostly standing still, but her fingers have broken the time barrier and exist in multiple dimensions.
Regarding clipping: the geometry and animation isn’t final so there’s bound to be some clipping. It would take time cleaning something up for a web capture to then throw away the clean up and keep working on it. So yeah, little things we just have to live with. You too. 😉 Aside from that as was said some amount of clipping is fine, because having an animation that looks good from the camera distance is more important than a clipping artifact you won’t even see.
[ Post edited by Bashiok ] (Source)
I think this initial look at the female Monk character is quite satisfying. The Monk class seems like it will be incredibly fun to play, and will no doubt find fans of Diablo II’s assassin class gravitating towards it. I know that the Monk will be far fresher and more challenging to play than the Assassin, but after seeing this animated version of the female Monk, I can’t help but think Assassion version 2.0.
She even has a similar hairstyle. With the exception of the platinum blonde look, it’s pretty close to what the Assassin was wearing in D2.
Here’s some more blue goodness from Bashiok, this time it’s in response to the feedback and criticism surrounding her heavy armor apparent in the conceptual artwork.
Quote from Bashiok
Re: shoulder armor
I’ve seen people mentioning it here and there, wondering why a “light” fighter like a monk would have heavy gear or why it’s just so darn pointy.
Essentially it’s a two part answer.
1. Your character should look bad ass toward the end of the game, and that’s what that armor is a concept of; a set later in the game. The concept within the artwork gallery is a lighter armor look.
2. The shoulders may look big in a concept like that, but (and I feel like it’s been two weeks of hearing a broken record about this but…) from the distance the game camera is at they’re going to look downright awesome [see part 1].
So the issue is really just an understanding of how we design characters to be seen from an angle that the concepts just don’t do. Now, maybe the smart thing is not to show concepts like that unless we have screenshots to go with it, but I also don’t know if holding off on releasing this stuff until we have the armor sets done in game is what people want either.
Addressing maybe the most core issue is the weight of the armor and that’s simply a fact of wanting each stage in armor progression to feel like… progression. There’s only so much you can do to make robes look progressively more powerful, and especially from the game’s camera angle. But make no mistake, a monk’s “heavy” armor is going to look nowhere near as heavy as something like a barbarian’s heavy armor. We’re very aware of the look of each character, their style, how they fight, what their spells and feeling of the character mean, and go to great lengths to make sure that each class doesn’t just look like they’re wearing plate mail at the end of the game.
Any realism concerns of “he’d impale himself on his belt!” or “she’d slice her ears off!” is a case of realism being shifted for the sake of fantasy. Which is what this game is based in. Also it looks cool.
[ Post edited by Bashiok ] (Source)
Gamers can be a critical bunch, especially with a game as passion-invoking (is that a proper term..?) as the Diablo series. With all of the time that has elapsed since DII: Lord of Destruction, it’s no surprise that fans are going to be highly critical of whatever Blizzard unveils. After all, they’ve had a long time to sit and ponder these new character classes and D3 game play. Anything less than ideal is going to be a disappointment, right..?
So far, Blizz has my stamp of approval on all of the revealed character models. I think they look incredible; but I’m still dying to see the other gender models, as well as the fifth and final class!
At any rate, Barb has my vote as being the class I’m most likely to roll first, but Monk is undoubtedly a close second and climbing fast. The early glimpses at the Monk game play have me giddy with anticipation.
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