Why I think Updated Race Models are taking so long (and why they should take longer)

[Valdemar]

Alot of people in World of Warcraft seem to be begging for new race models (or information on them). The main gripe I see is that they seem to be taking too long.

I think they should take longer, and take it one step further.

A major improvement like this is normally featured with an expansion. When doing a major overhaul on the playable races in World of Warcraft, or in any game for that matter, they also need to rework other things commonly associated with character aesthetics.

The first hurdle is armor and weapons. Every piece of gear in the entire game. It all needs to be reworked or replaced because the geometry would not fit the new race models properly, causing more harm than good to come from the vanilla races, as well as Blood Elves and Draenai.

The second issue involves many of the older mounts with lower polygon counts, such as the classic ground mounts. Think of how out-dated the old night elf kitties are in contrast to the new one that has been previewed as a reward for Arena and Rated Battleground wins. All in all, they have ALOT of work to do. While they're at it, I wouldn't mind them re-itemizing many of the uncommon low-level items to include stats like crit, haste, etc.

For an extra step, they should also implement some kind of sub-race system. There are many different kinds of humans, Stromgarde humans, Stormwind Humans, and Tiristifal Humans. There are Fel Orcs, Mag'har Orcs, Green Orcs. Taunka, Tauren. Ice Trolls, Jungle Trolls, Desert Trolls. Night Elves, Highborn. Goblins from other trade cartels. The only issue I could see is that the Worgen are humans, and that Gnomes and Dwarves lack counterparts in other parts of the Warcraft universe (Stone/Lightning Dwarves and Mechagnomes would be a stretch).

One thing I find lacking in World of Warcraft is character development. With Blizzard's excellent new phasing technology, they could make it possible for Mag'hari orcs to start in Nagrand, then move on to Azeroth similarly to how Death Knights go to pledge allegiance to the rulers of the Horde and the Alliance. It would add alot more depth and flavour to the game, as well as a more diverse character story from player to player, and between each players' characters.

Just a thought. While I don't play WoW anymore I often find myself thinking about it, as well as a reason to come back to the game.

Thanks for reading.

[mykro9]

I like the idea that they should take longer, and that things like mounts should be addressed. I hope they are pretty far along by now, though.

[Anprionsa]

I like all of these ideas.

[Gimlix]

Well people never realize that there are much more work in remodeling these giant things.

Their are much more things blizzard needs to keep an eye on when remodeling things like:

Chairs ( u got to sit properly still )
Ingame transform items ( They need to adjust the forms too )
NPC's in WoW, i assume they won't let just the players look new, i assume the rest of the world too.

And you think changing 8 year old work they added to the game is done in a brief moment? This can take months/years.

[Aqua]

I'm fully aware of the massive undertaking this is, just thinking about everything they'd have to do boggles my mind but I wait patiently with excitement.
Anyone going omg it's just reskinning blah blah, no. You are wrong and have no clue. It's not. Go back to bed.

Soon... Soon all my characters will be the master race... Tauren.

[kramjam]

The sub races idea sounds amazing, however i think the reason it has been taking so long it because they mostly likely have very few people actually working on it

[loganroth51]

I really want Blizz to take the time and make them look good. I realize it is a ton of work, but I will be so very happy when they are finished. It will make the game so much more enjoyable. I really love the warcraft universe and I want the races to look good.

I also really like the idea of sub-races. Being a Mag'har Orc, or a redeemed Fel Orc would be really cool.

[Boogums]

Alot of people in World of Warcraft seem to be begging for new race models (or information on them). The main gripe I see is that they seem to be taking too long.

I think they should take longer, and take it one step further.

A major improvement like this is normally featured with an expansion. When doing a major overhaul on the playable races in World of Warcraft, or in any game for that matter, they also need to rework other things commonly associated with character aesthetics.

The first hurdle is armor and weapons. Every piece of gear in the entire game. It all needs to be reworked or replaced because the geometry would not fit the new race models properly, causing more harm than good to come from the vanilla races, as well as Blood Elves and Draenai.

This is only assuming they are changing the shapes of the models, and not simply improving the quality of them.

The second issue involves many of the older mounts with lower polygon counts, such as the classic ground mounts. Think of how out-dated the old night elf kitties are in contrast to the new one that has been previewed as a reward for Arena and Rated Battleground wins. All in all, they have ALOT of work to do. While they're at it, I wouldn't mind them re-itemizing many of the uncommon low-level items to include stats like crit, haste, etc.

There's nothing wrong with mount models, I doubt we'll be seeing these updated.

For an extra step, they should also implement some kind of sub-race system. There are many different kinds of humans, Stromgarde humans, Stormwind Humans, and Tiristifal Humans. There are Fel Orcs, Mag'har Orcs, Green Orcs. Taunka, Tauren. Ice Trolls, Jungle Trolls, Desert Trolls. Night Elves, Highborn. Goblins from other trade cartels. The only issue I could see is that the Worgen are humans, and that Gnomes and Dwarves lack counterparts in other parts of the Warcraft universe (Stone/Lightning Dwarves and Mechagnomes would be a stretch).

One thing I find lacking in World of Warcraft is character development. With Blizzard's excellent new phasing technology, they could make it possible for Mag'hari orcs to start in Nagrand, then move on to Azeroth similarly to how Death Knights go to pledge allegiance to the rulers of the Horde and the Alliance. It would add alot more depth and flavour to the game, as well as a more diverse character story from player to player, and between each players' characters.

This would be neat as long as the "sub races" they implement don't break the lore.

[quote Just a thought. While I don't play WoW anymore I often find myself thinking about it, as well as a reason to come back to the game.

Thanks for reading.[/QUOTE]

You're welcome.

[SpaceDuck]

i believe blizzard stated that it takes alot of time because they are remodeling characters that people have become attatched too, so the changes need to be perfect and not sub par else it will upset players connection to their character

[Thimagryn]

Every time Blizzard has made updates with NPC models, you see huge sweeping changes with the old zone NPCs as well. From the Ogre updates back in Vanilla with Dire maul to the Blood Elves in TBC to the Goblins in Cata, they're been pretty good at dealing with revamps.

I don't think it should take longer. If they can't get it all done for an expansion, I think they should do it in waves. Yes, it will be disappointing for those who have to wait, but I think it would be better that way.

[OzoAndIndi]

Exactly. And depending on how far they're going with it, that's a heck of a lot of work if they may have started from scratch...new models that take time, rigging them, may need to redo animations, how armor and stuff fits, new textures I assume (or in game-speak, the skins). Not to mention beforehand you have all the designing and whatnot that goes into deciding how it's going to look before the modelers and other artists get to work.

[Togarox]

There's nothing wrong with mount models, I doubt we'll be seeing these updated.

Idk, some of them look pretty bad.

OT- I don't mind these ideas. I think creating a starting area for each sub-race is a little much. Maybe have the starting cinematic give backgrounds on each sub-race instead.

[Lime]

I don't care how long it takes. I just want a free race change in-case I don't like the new model.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who would want that.

[Thage]

I think they've already got male orcs, at minimum, in a good place--Garrosh's new model just screams that it's using the new male orc base, skeleton, and animations (just look at the various emotes he's set up with that he'll probably never use ingame). Combine that with Ghostcrawler's teasing tweet (when someone asked him if Garrosh was a preview of the new model, GC just asked if they liked the result), it sounds like we might see the new models as a selling point for next expansion, like the new race/class combos were in Cata.

[ChocoboRanger]

Just wanna say Dwarves have Dark Iron, Wildhammer (really just cool tatoos), and the Frostborn :3

[enchanted]

As much as I would LOVE to see the ideas you've said, there's no way it would take longer than 2+ years to make. Models are enough for now and let blizz focus on other content and later add sub races etc...

[K i s u]

I do like those ideas, I don't see blizzard actually going through with sub-races but I'd love for that to be an option.

[Kayb]

I'd love it if they overhauled the entire customization screen. There really should be SLIDERS for many of the options.

And I agree, they really should take their time and get it right, otherwise we'll end up with more junk like those disaster models such as the Worgen female

[Morbownz]

I like the idea with the sub races, I think its way too elaborate to introduce at this point in the game.

[ShadowJester]

The problem with sub races is this (horde side example): With trolls, the reason there aren't forest, frost, sand, or dark trolls in the Horde is because the only group of Trolls allied with the horde are the Darkspear and they are jungle trolls. It doesn't make sense for there to be a sand troll running around when normally they aren't friendly.

of course this brings up the well what about Sand Troll mercenaries who could have different thoughts on the Horde then most other sand trolls, and well yes that's true, but then whats to stop the alliance from whining, because hypothetically couldn't there be trolls who idealistically aligned with the Alliance? So then you start having every race being able to be on either side, because you can't argue that there would never be a human who fought with the orcs or a tauren that stood with night elves. So because of this you can't have sub races.

And what about sub races that make sense, like the Mag'har or the Wildhammer, well we can't have them because having troll sub races would lead to a complete dissolution of all racial faction separation and that's bad and confusing, so if we can't have one races subraces we can't have any....to keep it fair. Sorry.