inglorious

In the recent Blizzard podcast Diablo 3‘s senior artist Mike Nicholson expounded on the UI and inventory system for Diablo 3 equating it to World of Warcraft. Diablo 2 had several problems, especially when it came to inventory, and from the what Nicholson says it seems that many of these issues will be solved.

With the massive success of World of Warcraft I can’t say I am surprised by this direction. However, I am no fan of the WoW UI. I find it cluttered and confusing, especially to initial players. Skills, abilities, and inventory items are often difficult to tell apart. With a few exceptions, there isn’t a solid color scheme that would allow plays to at easily recognize what an ability or item would do. Nicholson talks specifically about all the colorful little icons and how they plan to bring multiple sized bags to the dark world of Diablo 3. This gives me concern.

As it stands from the videos and screenshots I have seen Diablo 3’s UI looks a lot like a reskinned World of Warcraft interface. As Kotaku said, this may anger a lot of Diablo fans. As always with products still in development, time will tell.

Hit Kotaku to check out a few more screenshots.