Is WoW becoming more cute?

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

No clue, that's like the least important thing I could conceive of for this game.
More worried about class and dungeon design for next expansion.

[Raelyn]

[QUOTE=Morbidius;51918171]While playing Shadowlands demo on Blizzcon, I've faced stewards of Kyryian covenant - owl-like humanoids. It felt mismatched to see such a cute species in the death realm. In parallel to that vulpera race felt the same way in terms of warcraft fantasy - mismatched. Should I say that making them death knights feels dissonant.
Imo Wow never was a dark fantasy and there was always place for humor and absurd. But I can't remember WoW universe having such examples of cutiness like lately, however, I might be wrong. How do you feel about stewards and vulpera? Do they match WoW fantasy in your opionion?

One word, Murlocs.

(needed more than one word for 10 chars!)

[Muajin76]

That's the true face of fear...

[bloodmoth13]

How many xpacs ago was MoP?
That was essentially when they jumped the shark on that.

[tikcol]

Not cute, just stupid

[Jastall]

I never understood this obsession with making everything super grimdark and gritty, and the uproar Diablo being too cArToOnY caused

A good story is a good story to me, PoE deals a lot with bloodmagic and there's literally a church that has rivers of blood and bodies and places with people with legs for heads, victims of disturbing rituals. Did it make me more interested in the universe though? Not really.

Indeed. PoE is a good example of a setting that tries too hard to be grimdark and ends up being uninteresting for it, in my eyes at least. Sure, the Holocaust-tier atrocities in the Lunaris Temple are shocking at first, but the rest of the lore isn't very engaging so in the end it doesn't matter much if they kill a million no-names and make building-sized piles of bodies with them for shits and giggles.

WoW, and really Warcraft itself has always gone for a more cartoony aesthetic, and the story since at least WC2 has had a pulpy comic book feel. Sure, some elements of the setting are quite dark (such as the genocide of the MU Draenei or the Scourge in its entirety) but this claim that Warcraft has always been some deadly serious game for deadly serious people is pure fantasy.

[Naiattavain]

Blizzard is a SoCal company. By virtue of the campus location, the studio is full of woke sjws. Not surprised.

the real problems with blizzard. blizzard blue had no problems. rainbow blizzard is full of leftists smucks.

- - - Updated - - -

That's the true face of fear...

montypython reference lol

[Aeluron Lightsong]

the real problems with blizzard. blizzard blue had no problems. rainbow blizzard is full of leftists smucks.

You guys are just as bad as the people you claim to hate.

[FelPlague]

While playing Shadowlands demo on Blizzcon, I've faced stewards of Kyryian covenant - owl-like humanoids. It felt mismatched to see such a cute species in the death realm. In parallel to that vulpera race felt the same way in terms of warcraft fantasy - mismatched. Should I say that making them death knights feels dissonant.
Imo Wow never was a dark fantasy and there was always place for humor and absurd. But I can't remember WoW universe having such examples of cutiness like lately, however, I might be wrong. How do you feel about stewards and vulpera? Do they match WoW fantasy in your opionion?

Remember the dancing baby murloc added in vanilla
and the cute panda pet in vanilla
and the cute pets added in tbc with orphan week
etc etc
yeah nah, the game has always been cute.
what we as humans find cute is not factual, owls are horrifying creatures in nature, they are cold blooded killers of the night, relentless and powerful, but we find them cute cause aww big eyes!

scarey as fuck things, horrifying things, murderous things, we find them cute, cause we are weird. look to cats.

otters are cute right? oh yeah they rape each other to death, drowning younger ones while doing so.
welcome to nature, cute is not a thing, it is just a thing that happens sometimes, if something is cute, that is not intentional, that is just something that comes cause us humans have specific sites.

https://www.vox.com/2014/4/24/564089...rrassed-to-ask

Btw for source if you dont beleive me.

Awww arnt owls so cute!

OH DEAR GOD WTF JUST HAPPENED!??!??!

[Muajin76]

the real problems with blizzard. blizzard blue had no problems. rainbow blizzard is full of leftists smucks.

- - - Updated - - -



montypython reference lol

That's how they get ya...they act cute then cut you up when you least expect it!

[derpkitteh]

You guys are just as bad as the people you claim to hate.

i guess i shouldn't point out the fact that someone has the flu, since noticing the symptoms makes me as bad as the illness.

as for the op question, i don't really have a problem with a small and cute race being added. there's been one added almost every expansion so far, going all the way back to tbc with podlings.

the artstyle lets it be a bit more cute than things in the past, which can detract from the overall seriousness of the game. but i still don't think it's too bad.

[liberaet]

While playing Shadowlands demo on Blizzcon, I've faced stewards of Kyryian covenant - owl-like humanoids. It felt mismatched to see such a cute species in the death realm. In parallel to that vulpera race felt the same way in terms of warcraft fantasy - mismatched. Should I say that making them death knights feels dissonant.
Imo Wow never was a dark fantasy and there was always place for humor and absurd. But I can't remember WoW universe having such examples of cutiness like lately, however, I might be wrong. How do you feel about stewards and vulpera? Do they match WoW fantasy in your opionion?

Yes I also feel these kind of "creatures" are absurd in WoW, as are vulpera, vulpine familiar mount etc. But that is how WoW has changed, these are probably ingame so younger folks are amazed and would also love to play the game. It disgusts me and is one of the reasons I dont play retail WoW.

Those peeps who comment that there has always been some degree of cuteness in WoW, well, there has never been stuff like this. Yeah, even Warcraft 3 has Pandaren but the style was not so childish and they were not all over the place. If you don't see it / don't agree - oh well. Sometimes I get a feeling these guys who say that work for Activision lol.

[Shaetha]

The franchise of Warcraft became cute in November 2004 when World of Warcraft was released.


Take that for what you will.

It's worth mentioning to this idea that Chen Stormstout was in Warcraft III: TFT.

[TwoMana]

Yes I also feel these kind of "creatures" are absurd in WoW, as are vulpera, vulpine familiar mount etc. But that is how WoW has changed, these are probably ingame so younger folks are amazed and would also love to play the game. It disgusts me and is one of the reasons I dont play retail WoW.

Those peeps who comment that there has always been some degree of cuteness in WoW, well, there has never been stuff like this. Yeah, even Warcraft 3 has Pandaren but the style was not so childish and they were not all over the place. If you don't see it / don't agree - oh well. Sometimes I get a feeling these guys who say that work for Activision lol.

You can easily verify it by searching for old articles. For example, here's one from March 18th, 2004
https://www.graffes.com/forums/showt...e-Alpha-Tester

The direct quote is: "it feels like you're playing and exploring a Disney cartoon for adults" and while the author goes on to say it's not a kids game, that is how many hardcore players saw it, back in the day; colorful, cartoonish game. Reviews often said things like "it's colorful with cartoon graphics, but it's not for kids!"

WoW has always been full of this stuff. Taurens, Gnomes, silly steampunkish tech, pop culture references and cutesey humor.

[Alkizon]

Quote of justice:

huth
Besides, what you're mentioning makes the vanilla shot less realistic.

Never said they're

By the way, I have never really touched directly environment in previous discussions, only about fancifully exaggerated cartoony absurdity in appearance and behavior of new models. As for environment, it never tried to look realistic in my opinion, rather much like fairy tale, but this was precisely the essence of balance: fairy tales often kind and cheerful, but never dumb, which is often much more characteristic for a cartoon. And this where I see difference between classic and current art version: environment/models = if old version was exactly centered in both parameters (and therefore didn't cause feeling of discomfort, inconsistency between this and that), then new art already is overly tricky/saturated for first parameter with various processing systems, and stupid to absurdity, being cut off from reality, oversimplified for second one (as if for children (that f@cking toggle $hit again )) clownery (and quite naturally, that they're very badly combined together).

Also this:

There is another problem around this theme:
- do we talking purely about plot or also cinematic's stylistics?.. because this particular style is the one to which I appeal, when talking about certain game's one degradation: without looking at fact of 3D animation, I don’t dare to call it “emphasized cartoony”, in contrast to disgrace that is happening in game now - environment doesn't look like "if even qualitative, but emphasized artificial", models don't look grotesque/isolated from the world, "toy-ish" (geometry/texture interaction with lighting and shadows/palette used), simplistically unnaturally animated, etc.

One of my friends recently, when he saw new pre-SL video, asked - You was kind of playing this game. Looks not bad. Tell me more about. - I said that video has nothing stylistically to do with what is happening in the game. He didn't believe it, watched couple of "game" scenes and we didn't return to this conversation anymore.

...and, speaking of this, I'm very inclined to blame precisely "if even qualitative, but emphasized artificial" for fact that “old” style aged bad, it began to look like something altered, details spoiled everything, they began to emphasize what was supposedly possible, but it wasn’t obsessive, didn't go beyond limits of each's personal perception, everyone was free to think in framework of their own imagination... there is no such thing now.

All this for me now, after I formulated more or less what I thought, began to resemble unacceptable situation with classes' design (excessive "detail" of specs, especially moment with obsession and limitation of player’s imagination/fantasy, its oversaturation by fettering gimmicks, besides, and with influence on overall design, its inappropriateness within framework of overall picture). Don't know what to say

Speaking about current game's situation, I can be quite tolerant to the plot...
- - -
On one hand, I have never really shared their desire (recently) to impose plot, I don’t find it appropriate for MMO projects (there could be plot, but only within - "go in that direction, and it will be seen there, how's going", but never like - "now we will tell you in detail every step you take from beginning to end"), no-no, I have already spoken about this several times. But on other hand, everything has already been mixed up so much and they have been doing it for so long, that plot now isn't really perceived for another reason - it makes no sense to follow it because "our future has ceased to be important, since it's not known what our past will be tomorrow". Retcon-retcon-retcon. There only stays unpleasant effect of "train" organizing of quest component - I never liked it and never will.
- - -
...but art style is something I won't (also agree with this).

Also.

[Destinas]

I mean, owls have always been associated with wisdom, due to classical Greek mythology concerning Athena. The Kyrians have a very Greek/Nordic aesthetic and naming conventions. That particular aspect has nothing to do with being "cute" - other than most owls are cute.

Otherwise, no. WoW hasn't become "more" cute - there have always been animal people, pets, kids, and other "cute" models in WoW. 8.3 deals with tentacles, eyeballs, and flesh, with Vulpera being playable.

[khazmodan]

can there really be that many Fu ... adorable animal fans out there?

Bad parents can produce an infinite variety of weird and stupid behavior in there kids...

[ls-]

WoW and War3 have always been cute and cartoony, it's just too low-poly for many to realise it. And as it's mentioned numerous times in this thread, back when WoW was released, it's treated as a game for kids and a safespace for carebears because of how it looked and how it played.

[vsb]

No, WoW was always dark and gloom. It wasn't cute. They changed game direction to please chinese anime players.

[Calfredd]

No, WoW was always dark and gloom. It wasn't cute. They changed game direction to please chinese anime players.

All the way back in Vanilla, right?