Famelic lizards form is final, DF release date announced

[Caiphon]

I believe the art style is to give the vibe that the land is a tad artificial and fairy tale like. We, mortals and players alike, have never been permitted to go there, and the dragons left it before it was sealed off. Some of the zones give a good vibe for the theme of the expansion, we're after all stepping on Titan content again.

That's actually an interesting perspective I haven't considered up to this point. If Blizzard was going for a slight How to Train Your Dragon vibe with the introduction of dragonriding I guess it kinda fits. Though most Titan content we've had so far have been of the majestic/cosmic variety (Ul-facilities, Un'goro, Sholazar etc.).

Still wish they kept that style to the drakes rather than on something like gnolls, but perhaps the Dragon Isles gnolls are a bit more friendly...

[Lochton]

That's actually an interesting perspective I haven't considered up to this point. If Blizzard was going for a slight How to Train Your Dragon vibe with the introduction of dragonriding I guess it kinda fits. Though most Titan content we've had so far have been of the majestic/cosmic variety (Ul-facilities, Un'goro, Sholazar etc.).

Still wish they kept that style to the drakes rather than on something like gnolls, but perhaps the Dragon Isles gnolls are a bit more friendly...

Well, first of all, the dragons settled around a titan facility made for them, so the growth and all that is most likely part of the dragons building how they wanted it (like, giving someone a block of land in Minecraft, and they'll make it completely different than yours). And the majestic part is hard to uphold when the homeowners have been gone for 10000 years, having multiple events screw with your beautiful stylish home, such things as Deathwing's actions, which would truly have an effect on the island too, not to mention smaller races finding their way there somehow, don't know that answer yet, heh.

[Jervaise]

With the release date announced, any hope of improvements on actual look of wannabe dragons is gone and seems we´re stuck with the famelic lizards.
Are you going to play them?

I sincerely think they look out of place and won't be touching them. Or the game.

[Nephod]

As a healer main I loved the idea of a new healer class. Too bad the lizards look so ugly. Feminine or butch doesn't matter as much. They just look non-WoW, in lack of a better word.

I won't be playing the class/spec/race.

[Polybius]

So many swol options out there...they must be majorly overcompensating for something since the seem to need to play characters who look like they have a side of steroids with every meal

They also don't seem to realize dragons aren't real, they're fantasy creatures and even then they come in all shapes and sizes...not all dragons are big and bulky like the Aspects type of dragon

Steroid culture. I wouldn't mind slightly more buff options but the one being thrown around here looks like it's about to explode from its own mass. Peeps are not aware the grossly buff look they're suggesting is hideous, same for Zandalari hulks. Dracthyr actually look normal and correct when they fly since their bellies are down and head forward.

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As a healer main I loved the idea of a new healer class. Too bad the lizards look so ugly. Feminine or butch doesn't matter as much. They just look non-WoW, in lack of a better word.

I won't be playing the class/spec/race.

They definitely look out of place. I've gotten used to it now but the art direction in the game has clearly changed, same with spell animations.

[Nerph-]

But the art method hasn't really changed since what, MoP? With DF, we're experiencing what is meant to look a bit off, look a bit "boosted" and fairy tale-like as we, players and mortals, have never been there before, even the dragons have been away for a while. We're stepping on titan content again, not like Wrath where it was fragmented, see Sholazar Basin (which some of DF gives me the vibe off) or Storm Peaks. I wouldn't call it cute and cuddly directly because that means I believe the same about Mulgore, Eversong, and Arathi Highlands.

Like Caiphon, I find it hard to explain what I mean exactly, but he got close enough. With the added detail to the art (which has progressively been getting more detailed since MoP, as you pointed out) things just don't look as mean as they used to. Hogger's first model and Hogger's latest model are good examples of this I guess, while the detail has dramatically improved, he doesn't look as ferocious as he once did IMO.

[Pakheth]

I recall them saying that after tbc they didn't want to over sexualize characters. It's why the female worgen had the worst face imaginable for a long time.

The first iteration of Worgen, both male and female, was a lot less gnarly and people complained. That's why we got the chiuaua snarl on the female form and the males got a terrible dental problem. Thankfully the female was eventually fixed but damn I was mad at the whiners who made them look like that in the first place.

[Austilias]

They were intended from Day 1 to be scalie-bait. Hell, half of the Blizzard design team nowadays are probably scalies, and the other half furries.

Why was anyone expecting they'd ever meaningfully change the design?

[Nymrohd]

Like Caiphon, I find it hard to explain what I mean exactly, but he got close enough. With the added detail to the art (which has progressively been getting more detailed since MoP, as you pointed out) things just don't look as mean as they used to. Hogger's first model and Hogger's latest model are good examples of this I guess, while the detail has dramatically improved, he doesn't look as ferocious as he once did IMO.

I think the issue is not even detail or sillouettes. It's just textures. They need to be grimy/dirtier. Gnolls should not look like they just came out of the hair salon.

[Daedius]

Gonna play me a cheechak.



So fearsome

[Pakheth]

I'm not sure if I can explain this well enough, but it's less atmosphere and more... art style? TBC was hella colourful but the art was a far cry from 'cute and fluffy', it was more in the lines of 'glamorous and over-the-top'. In DF it seems everything has these beady almost anime eyes and well trimmed cuddly fur/scales... at best it gives children's adventure novel vibes and at worst it feels a step or two away from the forbidden fantasies of some basement variety man-child...

Compare the proto-drake mounts from WotLK to the ones we get in DF. The former, despite the relatively crude texture, captures a fantasy beast aesthetic with the visible tongue, mottled scales and fiery eyes while the latter is very smooth and kinda looks like a plushie.

I think your issue is more with textures and how they are rendered. Lower quality textures(ie pixelated) can often make things look grittier, dirtier and your brain can often look for a median to make what you see more cohesive, and you imagine things different than it actually is. It's a bit like how a sketch can look very good, because you brain finds the median in all the loose lines, but in a finished lined artwork it can't do that and errors become more apparent. So something that has a low polygon count looks more gnarly because your brain imagines depth in the stretched low resolution textures. But with higher poly count and high resolution textures we kinda miss that aspect as now what we see was what was intended all along, we can't imagine something more than what's there. Less rough noise or simulated texture on a model will also help makes things look smoother and more plasticky but it's a fine line between textured and noisy.
Not to mention how light is rendered on the model itself. If the Devs use the wrong shader things can look really bad. Like all surfaces might look shiny and wet, which is a peeve of mine in a lot of games rendered in Unreal, especially western "realistic" RPGs. Not everything needs to look like someone sprayed it with a hose.

I would also argue that the WoW style has become more consistent in the last 10 years, while during vanilla/TBC the artists working on the game did not have a unified vision, which made some aspects look darker and grittier than others. The cartoony character models for example didn't always fit in with the very "dark" backgrounds and object models.

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Like Caiphon, I find it hard to explain what I mean exactly, but he got close enough. With the added detail to the art (which has progressively been getting more detailed since MoP, as you pointed out) things just don't look as mean as they used to. Hogger's first model and Hogger's latest model are good examples of this I guess, while the detail has dramatically improved, he doesn't look as ferocious as he once did IMO.

See my comment above to Caiphon. Might be an explanation to your issue?

[Accendor]

....did ya'll really think blizz was gonna just trash and redesign an entire race this close to release?

The thing is this: they release something on beta and ask for feedback. The feedback they get is overwhelmingingly clear: The players don't like the design. However, they don't change it.

Not wanting to change it is fair enough. It's their vision how it should look like and if they want to stay that way, fair enough. Why ask for feedback then and waste our time tho?

[Highlord Hanibuhl]

Some of the players here think that their opinion is the law... The art style is very consistent and has undergone some nice development, improving along the way.
You may not LIKE it, but artisticly, they're doing a fine job (coming from an art director)
They keep pushing the enveloppe, with what is required by the other teams - from what we see from the outside.

Now, you can like or dislike how things look, but I think people here need a lesson in what is the difference between an opinion and a fact.

Opinion: you THINK the dragons look like they're starving / you THINK they look buff and ready to fight
Fact: The green dragon is green / The polycount and texture-detail has improved

Just because you THINK that something looks stupid, doens't make it stupid. There's plenty of people that think otherwise. I for one love all the art in Dragonflight.

[i3ackero]

famelic lizards

Did I miss something? You know you can customize your draconic form yeah?

[Biomega]

Drac'thyr are far from the deciding factor why I'm not interested in DF. I do happen to not really like their aesthetic, but that's fairly immaterial considering Evoker didn't interest me to begin with.

Would I play if they looked more drakonid-y and could be classes other than Evoker? Who knows. Maybe more of a chance than it is now, but probably not enough to swing it. And it's not like that would happen to begin with.

So... yeah, the twink dragons are whatever. Let people who enjoy them enjoy them.

[Gaidax]

I played Evoker in beta for a few weeks and outside various mechanical annoyances which will probably take an expansion to fix, I liked it overall. I do intend to main one in DF. I just hope they will improve Empowers which are kind of meh and give Evokers a bit more defenses, because they shatter to million tiny pieces when anything looks at it funny.

Others can do whatever they want.

[Soikona]

Ill lvl one but wont main one as I don't want to play a caster.

they look fine though and not feminine in any real sense.

They don’t like masculine, so what else is there?

Sorry, they don’t look like body type 1

[Auburst]

I'm not really hyped for the expansion and I'm not the only one. It's the first time I see so little interest in the new race and class before release. No surprise tho considering how undraconic Shitthyr look like. A bunch of bottom heavy lizards.

[Venziir]

Kick Dracthyr pretenders from your raids. Real Drakonoids or bust!





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On a serious note, I might create one, if only to check out the starting zone. Won't play him past level 10.

They start at level 58 so...

[Celement]

The thing is this: they release something on beta and ask for feedback. The feedback they get is overwhelmingingly clear: The players don't like the design. However, they don't change it.

Not wanting to change it is fair enough. It's their vision how it should look like and if they want to stay that way, fair enough. Why ask for feedback then and waste our time tho?

They wanna be praised if the new devs are like the old devs at least.