Why did races became homogenized too?

[FAILoZOFF]

With in old WoW where animations were bound to races rather than classes I had this cool feeling of "novelty" (?) every time I switched races. Now it all feels about the same no matter if you play gnome or orc.

[Soon-TM]

With in old WoW where animations were bound to races rather than classes I had this cool feeling of "novelty" (?) every time I switched races. Now it all feels about the same no matter if you play gnome or orc.

It was less work for the team that made the new animations, I guess... It is quite jarring tbh.

[unbound]

It was less work for the team that made the new animations, I guess... It is quite jarring tbh.

And we have the winner.

Most of the decisions Blizz has made over the past 5 expansions have been more rooted in reducing costs than in providing a compelling experience for the players which is the real reason subs have been declining the whole time.

[Mister Cheese]

With in old WoW where animations were bound to races rather than classes I had this cool feeling of "novelty" (?) every time I switched races. Now it all feels about the same no matter if you play gnome or orc.

This is a great question that would be amazing to ask at blizzcon. But the first post is the best post. All of the races and animations are based on the same rig now. New animations can be created and used for every race. Reduces time and cost.

[EbaumsTipster]

Simple: the Devs hate the players, and you specifically.

[Castration]

Because in today's world, if you have races that are different giving benefits to some and not others, then you're going to get a twitter mafia on your ass.

[Leih]

I mean the idea was to move away from different animations per race and instead give different animations per class - bearing in mind the bulk of these changes came into play in Legion, which was a heavily class-focused expansion. Ultimately, having almost every class using the same model animations, but each race being different is not much of a change in situation from having every race using the same model animations, but each class being different.

Granted, in the end they started to get a bit lazy with some of them, as the art team evidently ran out of time with this. You start to see a lot of reuse of animations between classes, particularly the ones done later in the expansion and through to the start of BFA. But the intention was reasonable enough... it's not like it's some sort of conspiracy to make all races and classes the same... but I guess they just ran out of time and resources and took some shortcuts in the end.

[melzas]

They didn't remove old animations, they added class specific animations on top of race specific animations. Now you have plenty of animations and your character isn't just repeating same swirl/uppercut/sommersault over and over again and you are complaining? You make me sick.

I remember playing DK in wrath, where he had literally ONE ANIMATIOn for every special attack, so my character would just endlessly repeat same motion in combat, over and over and over again. BUT MUH NOSTALGIA

[Lorgar Aurelian]

And we have the winner.

Most of the decisions Blizz has made over the past 5 expansions have been more rooted in reducing costs than in providing a compelling experience for the players which is the real reason subs have been declining the whole time.

This is just wrong they aren’t reducing any cost but putting in more in game cutscenes more cgi cut scenes more voice acting and a metric ton of new art.

[seleri]

I agree, I'm not a fan of MMOs with races that share all of the same animations. It was my biggest complaint with Wildstar.

Luckily, that isn't the case with WoW. All of the original animations are still used for something, as far as I can recall. I don't mind them adding shared animations for new stuff or even occasionally old stuff (I'm a fan of the new instant cast animation, for instance), as long as the iconic animations stay in the game.

[Niwes]

And we have the winner.

Most of the decisions Blizz has made over the past 5 expansions have been more rooted in reducing costs than in providing a compelling experience for the players which is the real reason subs have been declining the whole time.

exactly this.

its all about cost effective development and milking the cow as long and as much as possible.

- - - Updated - - -

This is just wrong they aren’t reducing any cost but putting in more in game cutscenes more cgi cut scenes more voice acting and a metric ton of new art.

lol. which is again way cheaper than creating systems, mechanics, raids, dungeons and so on. they habe superior gfx ppl and gfx is super scalable. and in small pieces. and know what ? gfx cant have bugs. dont need maintenance. and looks good. designing an dungeon, adding and perfectionize sprites, designing bosses and making all work, while fixing all errors, is waaaay more complex and bound way more ppl and is waaaay less scalable. so, lol. your argument do not fit in here very well.

[Powerogue]

They didn't remove old animations, they added class specific animations on top of race specific animations. Now you have plenty of animations and your character isn't just repeating same swirl/uppercut/sommersault over and over again and you are complaining? You make me sick.

I remember playing DK in wrath, where he had literally ONE ANIMATIOn for every special attack, so my character would just endlessly repeat same motion in combat, over and over and over again. BUT MUH NOSTALGIA

Going with this guy. Having actual class specific animations is rad.

Previous: For one race, most of the classes used the same animations.
now: For one class, most of the races use roughly the same animations (+ existing racial animations)

It's better. Would every single race/class combo having its own totally unique animations be neat? Sure, but that'd be exponentially more work.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

exactly this.

its all about cost effective development and milking the cow as long and as much as possible.

- - - Updated - - -




lol. which is again way cheaper than creating systems, mechanics, raids, dungeons and so on. they habe superior gfx ppl and gfx is super scalable. and in small pieces. and know what ? gfx cant have bugs. dont need maintenance. and looks good. designing an dungeon, adding and perfectionize sprites, designing bosses and making all work, while fixing all errors, is waaaay more complex and bound way more ppl and is waaaay less scalable. so, lol. your argument do not fit in here very well.

I don't think you understand how much cgi takes to make. bfa/legion also had new systems mechanics raids dungeons ect. so again your just wrong.

[huth]

It was less work for the team that made the new animations, I guess... It is quite jarring tbh.

Which freed resources to make a lot more animations than we had before since they didn't have to do it for every race individually. They couldn't have done the combat animation overhaul without it.

They're still personalised for races, though.


You don't save money by having your artists sit on their thumbs.