New Character models, why do we care?

[Spotnick]

That doesn't change much, honestly. WoW does look very outdated compared to many - I'd say most - modern games for many, many, many people. Character models are going to help a bit with that (and even then there's a question of will they help enough? enough to justify the apparently enormous time costs? not sure, really...).

I think you underestimate how much money they will get back with people buying race changes and faction changes.

There is already many people wanting to go alliance after seeing those models in my guild, can't be the only ones.

[Deleted]

As a member of the male community, you should sit down and keep your mouth shut.

The last time I checked, I live in a free country. Maybe that's something you want to change?

You are a horrible representation of our sex and I would prefer you speak for yourself and not on behalf of our entire population. There's not a single redeeming thing I can say about your posts. They are sexist, assuming, and wrong. Just stop.

"I'm not like everybody else".

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I think you underestimate how much money they will get back with people buying race changes and faction changes.

There is already many people wanting to go alliance after seeing those models in my guild, can't be the only ones.

That's true. I don't think Blizz will play favourites with the new models though in order to encourage people to race change.

I know people who would play as human males but can't stand the way they look. The new models might change that.

[Kelimbror]

I'm not like everybody else

Certainly. Most people know when their foot should be put in their mouth. Fair warning though, being hostile and baiting people into conversations that you pepper with open sexism is skirting the lines of forum rules at best. This isn't General Off topic. This is the WoW forum. I'd suggest you save your bigotry for those forums where it seems anything goes, no matter how inflammatory. It doesn't belong here.

[Deleted]

Certainly. Most people know when their foot should be put in their mouth. Fair warning though, being hostile and baiting people into conversations that you pepper with open sexism is skirting the lines of forum rules at best. This isn't General Off topic. This is the WoW forum. I'd suggest you save your bigotry for those forums where it seems anything goes, no matter how inflammatory. It doesn't belong here.

I'm not being sexist. I am merely stating that WoW is still played mostly by men, and therefore the game needs to reflect its audience.

Like with these new character models. Blizz could be politically correct if they want. The original Night Elf female models certainly weren't politically correct so I wonder if Blizz will change them.

Time will tell.

[cabyio]

Certainly. Most people know when their foot should be put in their mouth. Fair warning though, being hostile and baiting people into conversations that you pepper with open sexism is skirting the lines of forum rules at best. This isn't General Off topic. This is the WoW forum. I'd suggest you save your bigotry for those forums where it seems anything goes, no matter how inflammatory. It doesn't belong here.

You may not like what he says but it was inline with the discussion.

[Pull My Finger]

The last time I checked, I live in a free country. Maybe that's something you want to change?

No need to expand things to a national scale. For starters, it would really do if you just bit a sock. Sexists generally shouldn't talk much.

[Deleted]

The game was graphically broken. We had characters that were ancient looking, whilst others looked amazing. You shouldn't have to feel forced to play a certain race because the graphics looked outdated. All races should be equally playable by any person wishing to play said race. Had they ignored this, and moved on with adding more graphics without updating old content, they would be amateurs. Massive, careless amateurs. I'd expect such from a smaller game, but from a fee-based MMO like World of Warcraft? Not a chance.

[bionics]

I dont get why people are going crazy over the new models. We put armor over our characters and zoom all the way out. Its not like you'll prob notice any difference.

Because the game is a decade old and putting a new coat of paint on everything just makes the game shine that much more. And the models aren't the only things being ameliorated; more importantly, the character animations, facial expressions, and fluidity of their movement overall is being improved upon -- which makes a colossal difference, even if you're "just armored up and zoomed out."

Also, why do you think all major websites overhaul their designs once in a while?

[Pogs]

It's not just models, it's animations too.

Exactly. And unless you're zoomed out to the max, your character will have smoother edges, better shading, etc. That, along with the animations of how they run, jump, use abilities, and cast spells will give an all around beautiful improvement graphically (and I'd argue gameplay wise too to some degree). The gameplay also takes into account the immersion factor which in my opinion will be enhanced with MUCH improved character models.

Just wait until its out and (if you have the computer) running on max graphics and you'll see. I can almost guarantee it will make the expansion feel a lot more fresh than previous ones.

Sure, we zoom out and often are focused on what the enemy is doing and maybe our action bars but your character's animation is always in your peripherals and you'll notice the improvement. Plus in pvp, the enemy you're attacking will have improved looks. It just goes back to what I was saying about immersion. It's just gonna make the game look and feel better, more fresh, and more up to date.

[Baracuda]

I think wow has pretty decent gameplay, decent story but graphics are... bad. With good looking models and instant 90 I think more people would be convinced to join the game since people believe graphics are more important than gameplay today.

[Thybalt]

Because we like our characters to be ugly in a pretty way. I think our characters will also look more heroic if they are more 'realistic' without the visible pixels.

[Yig]

Because I don't play zoomed out. I play at angles like this.


Blizzard made this game above all to bring the Warcraft world to life and to let you feel like you were exploring a living painting in the MMORPG they'd always wanted to play themselves.

You're wasting the majority of developer effort this game puts it's budget and passion into just to focus on a tiny part of it that you think is important. It's like paying to go to Disney World just to ride one ride on a daily basis. The weird thing is you are under the impression that what you think is important must be what's important to everyone else, so you look around at the thousands of people walking around in Disney World who don't happen to be lined up at your ride and you're wondering if they're just riding your ride when you're not looking while shrugging and figuring "that must be it" while you look at all the shallow superficial park attendees riding the other rides with a superior and smug look on your face as you dismiss them as part of some fringe group you don't really care about or understand.

Personally I feel sorry for you and what you're missing out on, but maybe you just only really care about addictive carrot on a stick gameplay that never gives you the actual carrot, it's an illusion in your mind you'll never get back the same way again once you lose appreciation for the never ending carrot.

And once that never-ending-carrot is exposed for the naked and pale white irishman it is bereft of pockets for carrots or potatoes alike, what's left to keep you playing? Maybe you just enjoy inviting that carrot/irishmen over to your friend's house for weekly get togethers because of the good conversations.

You're not playing the "World of Warcraft", you're playing "The Never Ending Carrot"

Only this time in the storyline Atreyu get's burned out trying to stop the Nothing and he just sits around criticizing the ChildLike Empress all day for how Fantasia used to be while they float around on rocks in space being bored while Bastion is at college drinking beer and trying to score with the ladies.

People like you make me think you'd rather have the art team making ever more awesome fonts instead of illustrations and digital sculptures.
This is my hyperbolic vision of what you'd prefer the next expansion to be called.



And this what the vitriolic community forums would look like in this alternate universe instead of complaining about business as usual.

OMG Blizzard's just phoning it in again, every expansion they just rehash and recycle as many fonts as they can more and more. You can clearly see they just took the fonts from the expansion title and rehashed it by making some of the letters scaled bigger and smaller as if they could fool us just by switching some of the letters around in the fonts. It's Cataclysmic Fonts all over again. GG Blizz, I'm just going to cancel my sub and play with my Speak and Spell. At least that never changes on me. The oldskool fonts were soooo much better, gameplay>graphics any day. There's no point to fancier fonts if we're just getting rehashed gameplay

[Herazim]

Because I don't play zoomed out. I play at angles like this.


Blizzard made this game above all to bring the Warcraft world to life and to let you feel like you were exploring a living painting in the MMORPG they'd always wanted to play themselves.

You're wasting the majority of developer effort this game puts it's budget and passion into just to focus on a tiny part of it that you think is important. It's like paying to go to Disney World just to ride one ride on a daily basis. The weird thing is you are under the impression that what you think is important must be what's important to everyone else, so you look around at the thousands of people walking around in Disney World who don't happen to be lined up at your ride and you're wondering if they're just riding your ride when you're not looking while shrugging and figuring "that must be it" while you look at all the shallow superficial park attendees riding the other rides with a superior and smug look on your face as you dismiss them as part of some fringe group you don't really care about or understand.

Personally I feel sorry for you and what you're missing out on, but maybe you just only really care about addictive carrot on a stick gameplay that never gives you the actual carrot, it's an illusion in your mind you'll never get back the same way again once you lose appreciation for the never ending carrot.

And once that never-ending-carrot is exposed for the naked and pale white irishman it is bereft of pockets for carrots or potatoes alike, what's left to keep you playing? Maybe you just enjoy inviting that carrot/irishmen over to your friend's house for weekly get togethers because of the good conversations.

You're not playing the "World of Warcraft", you're playing "The Never Ending Carrot"

Only this time in the storyline Atreyu get's burned out trying to stop the Nothing and he just sits around criticizing the ChildLike Empress all day for how Fantasia used to be while they float around on rocks in space being bored while Bastion is at college drinking beer and trying to score with the ladies.

People like you make me think you'd rather have the art team making ever more awesome fonts instead of illustrations and digital sculptures.
This is my hyperbolic vision of what you'd prefer the next expansion to be called.



And this what the vitriolic community forums would look like in this alternate universe instead of complaining about business as usual.

Hah..this is what I always say. Nowadays people just care about numbers, they should just add more font option for numbers and boom sudden increase by 50% of subscribers.

[Varabently]

With this argument you could say everything can be ugly as fuck, because you zoom out so, who cares. Look at the transmog feature, it is popular because people care about how their character looks like.

Some things are more subject to inspection even when zoomed out. An example is landscape, spell effects and boss models. Those are all things you would notice if they changed. Armor/player models are not.

I agree with you OP, but it's clear the community at large does actually care about what their character looks like. Apparently spell animations and such are being redone as well, which may be something you actually notice.

But again, I don't look at my character that much. I'm more focused on balance, content, difficulty, etc. than superficial game changes. What I don't get is, why don't they just change the face? The rest is covered up anyway...It's sort of like how news anchors probably wear nice, ironed pants, despite them not being seen. You want to think the pants are nice, but for all practical purposes, it won't matter.

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i don't personally give a shit about the new animations or models, after a week it will not be noticeable anyway, but still im not gonna sit here and wonder why people care, if people are excited for it all, then good for them.

This is the whole point, I think. Initially it will be a big deal, even for us who don't care about models. It WILL be noticeable after realizing how bad the current models look. But after a couple days, no one will care. People will start complaining again 6 months later about how the graphics don't look as good as game XYZ.

[Yig]

Some things are more subject to inspection even when zoomed out. An example is landscape, spell effects and boss models. Those are all things you would notice if they changed. Armor/player models are not.

I agree with you OP, but it's clear the community at large does actually care about what their character looks like. Apparently spell animations and such are being redone as well, which may be something you actually notice.

But again, I don't look at my character that much. I'm more focused on balance, content, difficulty, etc. than superficial game changes. What I don't get is, why don't they just change the face? The rest is covered up anyway...It's sort of like how news anchors probably wear nice, ironed pants, despite them not being seen. You want to think the pants are nice, but for all practical purposes, it won't matter.

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This is the whole point, I think. Initially it will be a big deal, even for us who don't care about models. It WILL be noticeable after realizing how bad the current models look. But after a couple days, no one will care. People will start complaining again 6 months later about how the graphics don't look as good as game XYZ.

*sigh*

Serenity now,...
Serenity now,...
Serenity now,...
Serenity now,...

[dwightyo39]

With the graphics upgrade my shadow priest can look like a total badass while being trained by melee 24/7.

To be honest I have wanted improved models for years.

[Deleted]

Because it's new and looks pretty.

I struggle to believe the new models and animations will bring players back to the game though, or at least in the numbers some MOOC posters seem to predict.

[Lazuli]

New models is a huge deal for WoW.

People been begging for this for yeaaaaars (but Bliiizzaaaard! EQ did it forever agooo!!!)

I can't wait to look pretty :3

[Deleted]

Personally, I care more about models/how my char looks than about a new raid tbh. I'm not a raider, so why would I care if Blizzard puts less ressources into that part of the game?
(They don't, but it's basically the same question as in the OP).