To go along with char models. non painted-on gear

[Soulwind]

I think you're overreacting. They could eventually do it. They could even start by just making a few geosets, using those, and pasting extra stuff on those. (chest-wise)


Say there is a geoset for a scaled armor piece, and the armor textures indicate that the chestpiece has the shape of a golden lion in the middle. Model that and paste it on the existing geoset. Something like that.

Small pieces and details, sure, specially for tier sets. It's how belts work, really. I thought you meant fully modelled gear, which would be too much.

[dope_danny]

its been 8 years, i doubt this will change now.

[Yarathir]

Small pieces and details, sure, specially for tier sets. It's how belts work, really. I thought you meant fully modelled gear, which would be too much.

Eventually, but not for every piece of gear. Like I said, tier gear or PvP gear, or hell, at first only challenge mode gear. (if they are adding more of those sets along the line)

[Kaleredar]

Eventually, but not for every piece of gear. Like I said, tier gear or PvP gear, or hell, at first only challenge mode gear. (if they are adding more of those sets along the line)

Making things like that, however, takes an inordinate amount of time, seeing as you'd have to do it for every gender of every race.

Shoulders are just a matter of scaling. The newer belts with the 3-D projections are just floating props that float at waist level. Helmets give you a more accurate idea... they have to be adjusted for the variety of character skulls.

But designing armor for the various body sizes and shapes of all the different genders of all the different characters would be a great undertaking. Unlike helmets and shoulders and the new belts, which just sit on the character, 3D armor would have to MOVE with the character, around the arms, with each animation. They'd have to do that for all of the ones they designed, and then check them for skinning/clipping issues.

People cite arthas' Lich King model as an example... But he's not a dressed up NPC. That model was built pretty much from the ground up with accommodating animations to suit his built-in bulk. Now, if you look at models like Arthas' human stratholme model, which uses the animations of a normal human, it's rife with clipping issues where the more embellished armor has been put into place.

[Yarathir]

Making things like that, however, takes an inordinate amount of time, seeing as you'd have to do it for every gender of every race.

Shoulders are just a matter of scaling. The newer belts with the 3-D projections are just floating props that float at waist level. Helmets give you a more accurate idea... they have to be adjusted for the variety of character skulls.

But designing armor for the various body sizes and shapes of all the different genders of all the different characters would be a great undertaking. Unlike helmets and shoulders and the new belts, which just sit on the character, 3D armor would have to MOVE with the character, around the arms, with each animation. They'd have to do that for all of the ones they designed, and then check them for skinning/clipping issues.

People cite arthas' Lich King model as an example... But he's not a dressed up NPC. That model was built pretty much from the ground up with accommodating animations to suit his built-in bulk. Now, if you look at models like Arthas' human stratholme model, which uses the animations of a normal human, it's rife with clipping issues where the more embellished armor has been put into place.

Sorry, I'm sure it's a lot of work, but when other MMOs get the job done with a team and budget that is way smaller, then you can't keep defending it as "it is so hard that it is not worth the time". I'm not saying that they'd be done in the blink of an eye, but I do think it's something that should be done eventually.

[Kaleredar]

Sorry, I'm sure it's a lot of work, but when other MMOs get the job done with a team and budget that is way smaller, then you can't keep defending it as "it is so hard that it is not worth the time". I'm not saying that they'd be done in the blink of an eye, but I do think it's something that should be done eventually.

Blizzard's art team never struck me as being that large. And it seems that their art team is almost wholly consigned to either working on the next patch, or the patch after it, not just all of them sitting in a room and "doing whatever comes down the tubes."

As for newer game developers, it's much easier to design a system initially and then put it into place than it is to take an old system and integrate a new system that's meant to interact with the old system that was never designed with the new system even in mind.

[Yarathir]

Blizzard's art team never struck me as being that large. And it seems that their art team is almost wholly consigned to either working on the next patch, or the patch after it, not just all of them sitting in a room and "doing whatever comes down the tubes."

As for newer game developers, it's much easier to design a system initially and then put it into place than it is to take an old system and integrate a new system that's meant to interact with the old system that was never designed with the new system even in mind.

I doubt the team is a lot smaller than that of the typical company creating an MMO. And yes, I acknowledge that when first creating the MMO, it is easier to do such a thing, but it has been so long, and now the player models are getting updated; strikes me as a perfect time to do the same for armor.


And what if one of the features of a patch or expansion were such armor? Then they would be working on the next patch/patch after it or expansion after the current, so I don't see it solely as a "doing whatever comes down the tubes" type of deal. On top of that, the main tier artist has said that they do have the intention to do "non painted-on" gear. And no, he didn't say only belt buckles.

[Deleted]

"OH MY FUCKING GOD BLIZZARD, Y dont u start doing exactly what you've been doing for a couple tiers now but that i chose to ignore? FFS GREEDY"

Also, going back and redoing every bit of armor ever put in the game seems nothing more than a huge ass waste of time and effort, I'd rather have them focus on making all the new stuff have quality.

'course. But from here on I hope they stop just re-texturing the torso and legs. There's a reason I despise it when WoWhead or MMO-Champion use female humans or elves for showing off armour, because breasts screw up the texture MAJORLY and to be frank I'm sick every every race but human having armour look like turd because they're not shaped like the default male human. (See every female variant of every race as well as male worgen, trolls and draenei.)

I'd also appreciate if bits that dangle off weapons and armour weren't just a flat 2D texture that follows the camera and defies gravity...

[velde046]

Yeah man, damn lazy bastards not willing to redo thousands and thousands of models they made over 9 years.

I see what you're doing there.

[huth]

Sorry, I'm sure it's a lot of work, but when other MMOs get the job done with a team and budget that is way smaller, then you can't keep defending it as "it is so hard that it is not worth the time". I'm not saying that they'd be done in the blink of an eye, but I do think it's something that should be done eventually.

Other MMOs usually also take other shortcuts to keep the work down. I don't know any other MMOs that both have more complex armor and the same level of diversity between body builds as WoW has.

[Deleted]

Other MMOs usually also take other shortcuts to keep the work down. I don't know any other MMOs that both have more complex armor and the same level of diversity between body builds as WoW has.

Depends what you mean on body builds, technically Rift and so on have more due to having actual character customisation.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

If they were going to do this, Pandaren would have had it already. They aren't going to revamp the 8 vanilla races, plus the 5 post-launch races all at once for that.

[Soulwind]

If they were going to do this, Pandaren would have had it already. They aren't going to revamp the 8 vanilla races, plus the 5 post-launch races all at once for that.

But they are already revamping the 8 original races. The newer ones could keep the current gear until some patch, individually they wouldn't take as long to update. Not for this.

[Tragopan]

I wish. Really the only thing that pushes me away from WoW is the poor aesthetics. Character models, gear models, gear art style. Pushes me right into the arms of newer, prettier MMOs. Really though, how much can WoW do without updating its engine? At what point is it no longer worth it? I know I'm not alone in the category of "Never going back to WoW because of aesthetics," but I don't think it is a big enough category for Blizzard to do anything about.

TL/DR: Want, but not hopeful. Too many content with mediocrity.

[Deleted]

The only way I see it being done is if there was a WoW2 with a brand new engine. Mind that wouldn't be a bad thing at all, I believe EQ1 is still going and popular(ish)?