Character model rework 25% complete (Tom Chilton & Cory Stockton interview)

[Deventh]

This is fu*king insulting. 25% DONE? ARE YOU MAKING A NEW GAME or WHAT? We expected them with the release of MoP if they are not in for the next expansion release I will not pay you, Blizzard. I will join a private server and fu*king laugh at you.

[Klingers]

so they basicly doesn't change anything and yet after alll this years where they supposedly "worked hard" on it, they are still at 25% work done???
WTF Blizzard, I was expecting new player models at this year Blizzcon ffs.

Orc/Human/Tauren/Dwarf have aged a lot worse than Undead/Troll (lack of blinking notwithstanding)/Night Elf/Gnome. This is mainly because although the game came out in 2004, those models have been around since about 2002. Gnomes especially were very late in the development cycle, which means they're about 2 years newer. They're still rubbish compared to the new models, but they hold up better. I'd rather see them further down the dev cycle if it means that humans don't have to keep looking like He-Man and orcs don't have to keep looking fugly-as-hell.

Really hoping to see Humans, Orcs and Tauren especially be the first new models released.

[Deleted]

This is fu*king insulting. 25% DONE? ARE YOU MAKING A NEW GAME or WHAT? We expected them with the release of MoP if they are not in for the next expansion release I will not pay you, Blizzard. I will join a private server and fu*king laugh at you.

Lol, what?

It'd be more insulting if they introduced new models which looked nothing like our current ones, or just added new textures.

They're actually making the models from scratch, design new textures from scratch and then have them resemble all current existing face/hairstyle/attribute combinations, including new ones.

The same animations need to be made with these new models.

Making a new model might not take too long, but making them look exactly like the old ones, but much much nicer is a lot of work.

You go ahead and try making a 3d-detailed figurine using an origami figure as base.

It takes much more time getting everything right than just making a new figurine.

EDIT: Besides, if you're not playing this game until the new models come along, you're playing the game for the wrong reasons.

[Deventh]

Insarius it's insulting that we are waiting around 2-3 years for new models when it takes that much time to develop a whole new game. Don't go on saying how hard it is, because it's not that hard that it will take half a decade to make. It is insulting, because million of players pay for this game and they don't have the time to make something the community wants for years now.

[The Hero of Legend]

Interesting interview on the main page talking about the new models. Seems they're working on making beards and hair move fluidly and have actual individual fingers move. That's really great. I hope we get bigger beards for humans. It's also nice to know that they compare the new models to the old ones weekly just so they feel like our characters still. They seem really invested in this, so it is surprising to know it's only 25% done.

[Deleted]

Interesting interview on the main page talking about the new models. Seems they're working on making beards and hair move fluidly and have actual individual fingers move. That's really great. I hope we get bigger beards for humans. It's also nice to know that they compare the new models to the old ones weekly. They seem really invested in this, so it is surprising to know it's only 25% done.

I would love for Humans to be able to have a long beard, something like this:


I wouldn't play it personally, but it would be awesome to see a Mage or Warlock actually look like the classical kind of Wizard. ^^

[Netherspark]

I'm not going to read 56 pages of what is probably mostly complaining, but here's a thought I just had...

-Blizzard says they're going to release the races who's models are finished first....

-this means that Blizzard isn't working on them all equally or even at the same time

-Blizzard says they're 25% done working on character models

-Thus we could conclude that they do indeed already have a number of the character models finished...

No. They would be working on them at least partly simultaneously before choosing one race at a time to focus on.

What they mean by "25%" is not that two of them are finished but that they've done the design work, probably made up a handful of textures and hairstyles, have made up a few basic models and are now beginning to plan and test out some animations.

I would imagine most of the work so far has just been concept and design. They said themselves that pretty much every animation requires a weekly meeting to compare and iterate on. Once they're happy with it all I expect progress will accelerate substantially.

Insarius it's insulting that we are waiting around 2-3 years for new models when it takes that much time to develop a whole new game. Don't go on saying how hard it is, because it's not that hard that it will take half a decade to make. It is insulting, because million of players pay for this game and they don't have the time to make something the community wants for years now.

You are assuming that the designers are working on nothing else, which is FAR from true. The same guys have to also build raids, armour, weapons, spell effects, bosses, NPCs and props/doodads for both MoP AND the next expansion as well.

If Blizzard really focused on getting the player models done they'd have been in the game by MoP but there would be no other new artwork at all.

[Celista]

No. They would be working on them at least partly simultaneously before choosing one race at a time to focus on.

What they mean by "25%" is not that two of them are finished but that they've done the design work, probably made up a handful of textures and hairstyles, have made up a few basic models and are now beginning to plan and test out some animations.

I would imagine most of the work so far has just been concept and design. They said themselves that pretty much every animation requires a weekly meeting to compare and iterate on. Once they're happy with it all I expect progress will accelerate substantially.

A weekly meeting for every animation? Wow, that is...really inefficient. Sounds like the corporate jobs I've had :P

[The Hero of Legend]

I would love for Humans to be able to have a long beard, something like this:


I wouldn't play it personally, but it would be awesome to see a Mage or Warlock actually look like the classical kind of Wizard. ^^

YES this is what I want! Classic Wizard look!

[Deleted]

Insarius it's insulting that we are waiting around 2-3 years for new models when it takes that much time to develop a whole new game. Don't go on saying how hard it is, because it's not that hard that it will take half a decade to make. It is insulting, because million of players pay for this game and they don't have the time to make something the community wants for years now.

Mate, they have always said and regarded it as a side-project, and they will keep it that way most likely.

Why? Because the game itself, the expansions and new content have a much higher value to them to push out than the models.

[Yarathir]

Mate, they have always said and regarded it as a side-project, and they will keep it that way most likely.

Why? Because the game itself, the expansions and new content have a much higher value to them to push out than the models.

If you don't find it alarming that at this pace, it will be 6 years (at least) until we finally get all of the model updates, then go ahead and tell them "take your time, Blizzard".


But for those of us who actually want to see them before WoW dies out, their pace is alarming and highly disappointing. Leave us to be disappointed, and rightfully so.



There is a fine line between "taking your time" and "don't expect it before 2021", it's not just black or white. Not just "they take their time, or else they rush it".

[Deleted]

I think Blizz is just holding their cards close to their chest like they did with the MOP trademark, character models are probably a key feature of next expansion and they don't want to announce it yet.

[cwowtbang]

To me this is not surprising, but to those who defend this 25%, why would you settle for less, what is wrong with wanting something better? I believe this is a trick and they will unveil them at Blizzcon. I cannot count how many times they say something and do another. Instead of attacking the people that are like WTF why aren't they more complete, take a view of your mindset and how it doesn't make sense to people that have been waiting. All I'm saying, is why should my new toad pet from Isle of Thunder have more polygons than me? LOL.

[Deleted]

To me this is not surprising, but to those who defend this 25%, why would you settle for less, what is wrong with wanting something better? I believe this is a trick and they will unveil them at Blizzcon. I cannot count how many times they say something and do another. Instead of attacking the people that are like WTF why aren't they more complete, take a view of your mindset and how it doesn't make sense to people that have been waiting. All I'm saying, is why should my new toad pet from Isle of Thunder have more polygons than me? LOL.

The problem with WoW is that the game is steadily evolving with better models every expansion/patch and thus Blizz can´t keep the old models forever. Compare new pet/mount models with the 2004 ones and you will see how much better they are.

So why are there still these clumsy old models from 2004 in the game when each expansion added new races that blew the old ones out of the water (especially pandaren)?

This definitely should not be a back-burner project because it is pretty important to pimp the old races !! You can´t keep adding new, better looking stuff every expansion while the original stuff gets left behind and in turn looks like crap compared to the new stuff.

[Deleted]

If you don't find it alarming that at this pace, it will be 6 years (at least) until we finally get all of the model updates, then go ahead and tell them "take your time, Blizzard".


But for those of us who actually want to see them before WoW dies out, their pace is alarming and highly disappointing. Leave us to be disappointed, and rightfully so.



There is a fine line between "taking your time" and "don't expect it before 2021", it's not just black or white. Not just "they take their time, or else they rush it".

Well, I'd rather not have new models at all and get great new content faster if that needs to be the trade-off.

[Yarathir]

Well, I'd rather not have new models at all and get great new content faster if that needs to be the trade-off.

That's just you then.




And yes. We're so starved for content. I mean, it's not like there are people who complained that there was too much content at a too fast pace lately. We're really starved. Look at how famished we are for new content. How dare those filthy people who care about the look of their character ask for a one-time makeover.

[Trickname]

the release via patch thing rather than all at once seems like an excellent money making opportunity. Anyway I'd prefer new models and sacrifice two new daily quest hubs.

[Deleted]

Well, I'd rather not have new models at all and get great new content faster if that needs to be the trade-off.

Sure but you have to know that in 1-2 expansion time the current Orc model will look like a piece of pixel-shit with 100 times less polygons than the new models.

Wouldn't you rather trade in a bit of content for updated races with the quality of Garrosh´s new model? Like the whole animations of his face, his fingers and stuff is pretty amazing compared to the stupid 2004 stuff we have now.

Remember: You can´t keep updating your content forever and still keep your old models from 2004 in the game !! In time they will look like shit and thus you can´t justify adding new Pandaren models while most of your races look like crap compared to that.

[Solonar]

remember there's 12 that would want updating.

Alliance: Human, Gnome, Dwarf, Night Elf, Draenei.
Horde: Orc, Undead, Tauren, Troll, Blood Elf.

Where are number 6 for each faction? If you're going to say Worgen and Goblin, then I seriously need to call bullshit on that considering both of them are fairly close to Pandaren level of detail. Though Female Worgen I could...sort of..agree with.

However, people seem to think this an easy process, it's not. Look at it this way:

Each race has a lot of animations. Unarmed, 1H ready, 2H ready, staff/polearm, ranged (gun/xbow/bow), all of it needs to be redone to adjust to the new models. Then not to mention all the equipment needs to work with the additional animations of the character such as fingers moving, casting animations. Each race having male/female, and 10 races in DIRE need of an update. Keep in mind that -every- item piece or weapon needs to be adjusted to work with the new models and there are a LOT of items (even the ones unavailable to players, basically dubbed NPC items). It's really a lot more work than people realize.

However, it was kinda stupid of Blizzard to say they were working on new models - might've been better to have kept us in the dark on that one, because 1.5 year later and going "only 25% done" is kind of a...bad answer.

[Deleted]

I'm actually pretty shocked by the figure. They've been working on these for over a year now, I would have expected at least 60-70% by now. If it's only 25% over the course of ONE expansion, that suggests it's going to take a few more years for them to ever complete them all.