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  1. #481
    Mechagnome Ragu4's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mythzrak View Post
    Will the new "president" class have orange skin or be old and feeble minded?
    HA, that's funny cause it's a reference.

  2. #482
    I am calling Gnolls as an allied race, going all in on fury races.

  3. #483
    The Unstoppable Force Ielenia's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Triceron View Post
    So you're implying a new Player Race only have a new skeleton and no nee animations to go with it? That is your argument?

    It's downright painful to see how little you know about the subject yet try to pose as the more knowledgeable one, just so you know.
    "Torturing someone is not an evil thing to do if it is done for good reasons" by Varodoc
    "You sit in OG/SW waiting on a Mythic+ queue" by Altmer <- Oh, the pearls in this forum...
    "They sort of did this Dragonriding, which ushered in the Dracthyr race." by Teriz <- the BS some people reach for their narratives...

  4. #484
    Pandaren Monk AngerFork's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ielenia View Post
    If "excitement" you mean "hate"? At least for the void elves, since nobody asked for them and that race was literally an asspull that did not exist in the game and lore until literally BfA came along, and because it trampled over the part of the game's community who wanted high elves in the Alliance.
    Right, everyone hates the Void Elves. That must be why they are currently listed as the 3rd most played race in the Alliance from Wow Analytica: https://wowanalytica.com/statistics/...ance?tab=races

    I'm not going to say it's 100% love for them, but they've consistently been pretty popular with much of the Alliance player base.

    That's the point of Allied Races. They're not supposed to be "big players" in the story being told, and at best fill in a supporting role.
    Wait, you think the Zandalari & Kul'Tirans weren't big players in the story of BfA? That at best they filled a supporting role in the story? That's like saying the Pandaren weren't big players in the story of MoP.

    And guess how many people are going to be disappointed instead of happy when they find out this supposed """"""""""new allied race"""""""""" turns out not to be the one they wanted and/or speculated on? But if you showcase, from the get-go, what this supposed """"""""""new allied race"""""""""" is going to be, there is not going to be any disappointment the moment the pre-order season opens.

    Again: there is absolutely zero merit to completely hide a new feature from the expansion reveal.
    Your argument might hold water if Blizz had advertised that an Allied Race was coming, but didn't say what it was. But they didn't...they haven't mentioned a thing about any sort of race addition or new bonus with the DF preorder aside from early access to Evokers. If nothing new race-wise is added in 9.2.5, they haven't lied or anything like. If something is added, it's a bonus...not a disappointment because it isn't what the community hoped for.

    I'd argue that revealing it early would be more of a risk for that disappointment because you have a month then for the community to talk down about what you are getting as opposed to just getting the reveal of a cool surprise if it comes out.

    Vulperas are not goblins. They are a completely separate race, despite sharing skeletons. The zandalari troll could easily be given to trolls by giving them an 'upright' stance option like they've done to orcs. Kul'tirans? They're literally 'fat humans' so it could be an option to give humans a beer belly and done.
    That's kind of my point with Vulpera...they are a different separate race. If customizations could just be given to the current races rather than having Allied Races, then we essentially would not have the Vulpera as playable. The Zandalari models are a completely different set of models from the Troll setup, it would take a lot more than just putting them upright. Kul'tirans are a far different model than the traditional Human model as well, it's a lot more than just a "beer belly". Putting those as customizations is akin to saying that Blood Elves should just be a customization of Night Elves. The models are different, the stories are different, the reasoning is different...aside from just a base race similarity, they aren't really mere customizations.

    If it's a race, then it's not a class, therefore it's not dark rangers. Dark rangers aren't a race just like paladin is not a race and orc is not a class.
    As it stands right now, they aren't. But if we are getting Darkfallen (as rumored) with the Dark Rangers being part of the storyline that leads into them, there's a decent chance the current Dark Rangers get partially rebranded into Darkfallen Hunters. I'm not saying it's the right way, but if we're going off the rumors & the bits of encrypted content shown, it's at least partially in consideration.

  5. #485
    Quote Originally Posted by Ielenia View Post
    It's downright painful to see how little you know about the subject yet try to pose as the more knowledgeable one, just so you know.
    You really think just because a skeleton can be created with a push of a button, that no additional time and effort would be needed to follow through in taking that skeleton and turning it into a new Playable Race?

    I will remind you that I literally work on WC3 and Starcraft 2 mods using WoW models and skeletons and do animation transfers. My current project is Chronicles of the Second War. So yes, I do know more about the subject than you seem to imply here, lol.

  6. #486
    Warchief Lupinemancer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Northelim View Post
    I am gonna guess Tuskarr is the allied race. They have an otter mount, they wear player model glasses and they added females and kids and upressed them.

    Who are the Darkfallen??
    If the Vulpera is any indication, then the Tuskarr will become an Allied Race in the future. Whether they'll become Horde or Alliance, or both, remains to be seen.

  7. #487
    Quote Originally Posted by Lupinemancer View Post
    If the Vulpera is any indication, then the Tuskarr will become an Allied Race in the future. Whether they'll become Horde or Alliance, or both, remains to be seen.
    By 11.0 the idea of Alliance, Horde will just be redundant with everyone being Neutral.

  8. #488
    The Unstoppable Force Ielenia's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Triceron View Post
    You really think just because a skeleton can be created with a push of a button, that no additional time and effort would be needed to follow through in taking that skeleton and turning it into a new Playable Race?
    I literally asked if you were talking about the models or the skeletons:
    Quote Originally Posted by Ielenia View Post
    Are you talking models, or skeletons? Because "skeletons" are literally stick figures, the 'bones' of the animations.
    To which you replied "yes I'm talking about the skeletons". And now you're talking about "turning the skeleton into a new playable race", meaning you're now moving the goalposts to fit your narrative here.
    "Torturing someone is not an evil thing to do if it is done for good reasons" by Varodoc
    "You sit in OG/SW waiting on a Mythic+ queue" by Altmer <- Oh, the pearls in this forum...
    "They sort of did this Dragonriding, which ushered in the Dracthyr race." by Teriz <- the BS some people reach for their narratives...

  9. #489
    Technically individual models don't have unique skeletons anymore, not as of Pandaren and the WoD character updates. They all use a unified rigging system, all playable races share 1 skeleton. It's how you get beauties like this:


  10. #490
    The Unstoppable Force Ielenia's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AngerFork View Post
    Right, everyone hates the Void Elves. That must be why they are currently listed as the 3rd most played race in the Alliance from Wow Analytica: https://wowanalytica.com/statistics/...ance?tab=races
    Go read the High Elf Megathread around the date of BfA's announcement and later and see how happy the high elf community was about that asspull.

    Your argument might hold water if Blizz had advertised that an Allied Race was coming, but didn't say what it was. But they didn't...they haven't mentioned a thing about any sort of race addition or new bonus with the DF preorder aside from early access to Evokers.
    ... Did you somehow miss that the entire point of this thread is about a supposed "leak" about a """"""""""new allied race"""""""""" that would come with the pre-order?

    I'd argue that revealing it early would be more of a risk for that disappointment because you have a month then for the community to talk down about what you are getting as opposed to just getting the reveal of a cool surprise if it comes out.
    Wrong. It's always worse to let your community hype itself up over something they don't know what is going to be, because it's a fact that it would never live up to the expectations of the majority of your playerbase. It's much better to just reveal from the get-go. Remember: Blizzard didn't even announce "and one more playable race to be revealed later" like they did with BfA and their allied races.

    The Zandalari models are a completely different set of models from the Troll setup, it would take a lot more than just putting them upright. Kul'tirans are a far different model than the traditional Human model as well,
    But the point is that they could be. After all, all Kul'Tirans and Zandalari had normal human and troll skeletons up to that point. Remember that we saw Kul'Tirans already both in Theramore and on the Alliance forward base on Durotar, as well as Zandalari in Stranglethorn Vale and Zul'Drak before.

    As it stands right now, they aren't. But if we are getting Darkfallen (as rumored) with the Dark Rangers being part of the storyline that leads into them, there's a decent chance the current Dark Rangers get partially rebranded into Darkfallen Hunters. I'm not saying it's the right way, but if we're going off the rumors & the bits of encrypted content shown, it's at least partially in consideration.
    But that would not be "dark rangers". I'm willing to bet the majority of people who want dark rangers as a playable class would not be satisfied with "undead hunter" as a replacement.
    "Torturing someone is not an evil thing to do if it is done for good reasons" by Varodoc
    "You sit in OG/SW waiting on a Mythic+ queue" by Altmer <- Oh, the pearls in this forum...
    "They sort of did this Dragonriding, which ushered in the Dracthyr race." by Teriz <- the BS some people reach for their narratives...

  11. #491
    Quote Originally Posted by Ielenia View Post
    I literally asked if you were talking about the models or the skeletons:

    To which you replied "yes I'm talking about the skeletons".
    Nope. Actual quote:

    I was talking about what creating a new skeleton actually implies in relation to having them become a playable class.


    This means I'm talking about the full process of generating the skeleton and designating proportions, creating new animations, adding hardpoints for armor/clothing customization, tweaking the mesh and all the technical and visual iteration in between that you're intentionally omitting. Don't generalize my argument if you don't know what I'm talking about, lol. The entire post history is still on this board.

    It's not my problem if you have a reading comprehension issue.
    Last edited by Triceron; 2022-05-26 at 06:24 PM.

  12. #492
    The Unstoppable Force Ielenia's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Triceron View Post
    This means I'm talking about the full process of animations, adding hardpoints, tweaking the mesh and all the technical and visual iteration in between that you're intentionally omitting. Don't generalize my argument if you don't know what I'm talking about, lol.

    It's not my problem if you have a reading comprehension problem.
    Actually, it's your problem because you didn't express your answer correctly. "I was talking about both" would have been the correct answer, but you didn't say that, and instead kept talking about the skeleton and nothing else.

    Don't project your errors onto me, please.
    "Torturing someone is not an evil thing to do if it is done for good reasons" by Varodoc
    "You sit in OG/SW waiting on a Mythic+ queue" by Altmer <- Oh, the pearls in this forum...
    "They sort of did this Dragonriding, which ushered in the Dracthyr race." by Teriz <- the BS some people reach for their narratives...

  13. #493
    Quote Originally Posted by Ielenia View Post
    Actually, it's your problem because you didn't express your answer correctly. "I was talking about both" would have been the correct answer, but you didn't say that, and instead kept talking about the skeleton and nothing else.

    Don't project your errors onto me, please.
    I'm talking about what creating a new skeleton actually implies in relation to having them become a playable class.
    There is waaaaay more work in making a new skeleton workable as a player race than it is to have an existing Player Race skeleton


    ^ I am talking about everything related to making it playable. I even gave you a couple paragraphs after that explaining that lol.

    You really going to argue that I was incorrect when I directly replied to you that I was talking about the skeletons in relation to a playable class?

    Yeah, that is not my error. The statement reads exactly the same as it did when I originally wrote it, my friend.
    Last edited by Triceron; 2022-05-26 at 06:30 PM.

  14. #494
    Quote Originally Posted by Triceron View Post
    I'm talking about what creating a new skeleton actually implies in relation to having them become a playable class.
    There is waaaaay more work in making a new skeleton workable as a player race than it is to have an existing Player Race skeleton


    ^ I am talking about everything related to making it playable. I even gave you a couple paragraphs after that explaining that lol.

    You really going to argue that I was incorrect when I directly replied to you that I was talking about the skeletons in relation to a playable class?

    Yeah, that is not my error. The statement reads exactly the same as it did when I originally wrote it, my friend.
    It is not as hard to create new playable races as you are making it out to be. Blizzard is not creating brand new skeletons/animation rigs each time they create a new race, playable or otherwise. They haven't worked this way for a very very long time.

    Read this first: https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...e-One-Skeleton

    Both playable races and modern NPC races are built on top of the same adaptive, unified system. Every animation can be swapped for another, each animation for every race a variation of every single other. Accessible to all models built using the same system.

    For example Sethrak, though not playable, is built using the adaptive system and you can see in the linked post that it's made of a mix and match of various player animations. I believe Legion's Naga Males are mainly Tauren from the waist up, and of course all the Shadowlands Races too are built using this system. You can tell that the Night Fae use Worgen Female as a starting point. I am sure even the Dredgers and Stoneborn and Nathrezim, are all also built on this system.

    At this point it looks like they have completely migrated to the new system, as the more it's used the more useful it becomes, it's a much more efficient way of animating new models. Just shop around for some fitting starting points, and tweak to get the desired result.

    Goblins and Worgen were the first to use the adaptive system, which is why they have Monk animations despite not being able to be Monks. There's no Worgen and Goblin Monk animations! They have been ripped from somewhere else and implemented crudely.

    So the point is, there's no need to start from scratch to create playable Shadowlands races, they are already half way there. Unlike Nightborne, who were not built on the adaptive system from the start, the adaptive Nightborne that we ended up getting looked like shit, Shadowlands races won't need a ground-up reworking.
    Last edited by shoc; 2022-05-26 at 07:14 PM.

  15. #495
    Quote Originally Posted by choom View Post
    Both playable races and modern NPC races are built on top of the same adaptive, unified system. Every animation can be swapped for another, each animation for every race a variation of every single other. Accessible to all models built using the same system.
    The issue that people don't understand is that yes, animations can be swapped, but the issues come from having a new skeleton that has *different proportions* from something that already exists.

    If you have Skeleton A have the same Arm Length, Spine Length, Leg Length etc as Skeleton B and the only difference is B has a tail, then yes it's not that bad because most of the animations will be transferrable, while you only have to account for making sure the tail animations work and don't get in the way.

    If you have Skeleton A be a standard Human-looking skeleton, and Skeleton B is an Ogre type that has shorter legs, longer spine (lower center of gravity), longer arms, and wider hips, then the animation transfers might not work properly at all. The running animations might work, but not fit a character that has a lower center of gravity and might have too long of a stride. The mounting animations might work, but legs might end up clipping through most models or the waist position is off because of the altered hip proportions. And making that many tweaks is on the level of practically making new ones, if we're talking about completely different proportions.

    The alternative is then adapting to an existing race of similar proportions, like we're seeing with Tuskar having new skeleton and animations that are supposedly based on Pandaren (from what I've heard, so I could be wrong). That is something that saves time.

    Animation and technical work (making sure clothing works, making sure facial customizations work, etc) is where most of the iteration and time is spent.


    Animation transfers is a common thing. We use it all the time for WC3 Reforged modding. Yet just because it works and is common doesn't mean it works for everything. For example, we transferred animations of Reforged's Dragons onto Heroes of the Storm Deathwing to give him Flight animations. The animations work, but they also get pretty F'd up. So yes, transferring would save time if the proportions of the two things being transferred are relatively similar. If not, they can actually waste more time than save.
    Last edited by Triceron; 2022-05-26 at 07:33 PM.

  16. #496
    Pandaren Monk AngerFork's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ielenia View Post
    Go read the High Elf Megathread around the date of BfA's announcement and later and see how happy the high elf community was about that asspull.
    High Elf community != the WoW community at large. There were plenty that were upset about Void Elves in that thread to be sure. I still have a theory that Void Elves weren't the initial plan there. But the community at large seems to be very into them, with lots of fan art & tons of Void Elves in the Alliance. Hardly an example of hate...but you'll notice in all the talk about Void Elves that not much was said about the Lightforged Draenei, which was my initial point.

    ... Did you somehow miss that the entire point of this thread is about a supposed "leak" about a """"""""""new allied race"""""""""" that would come with the pre-order?
    No, I got that. It's about a "leak" that may or may not have come from someone associated with Blizzard (likely not). Again though, Blizz has not advertised a thing with this to this point. This is fan speculation, pure and simple. So to put an expectation like you have above regarding people being upset that a new Allied Race wouldn't be the one they specifically want and would thus hinder excitement for the launch is a bit weird.

    Wrong. It's always worse to let your community hype itself up over something they don't know what is going to be, because it's a fact that it would never live up to the expectations of the majority of your playerbase. It's much better to just reveal from the get-go. Remember: Blizzard didn't even announce "and one more playable race to be revealed later" like they did with BfA and their allied races.
    You're right, they didn't. But that's kind of the point here. By announcing that there were more playable races to be named later, people took off trying to find what playable races could fit. Lots of people to this day find the list incomplete as we don't have a Worgen, Forsaken, or Pandaren-adjacent Allied Race...even though Blizz never advertised that each race would get one. This case is different though because the community is hyping this up themselves...this isn't Blizz doing it, this is the community. Blizz's sole contribution here is to hide stuff & then reveal it should such a thing be in place. To Blizz, this would be them revealing an unexpected & welcome surprise, not letting the community hype themselves up & then delivering something slightly different.

    But the point is that they could be. After all, all Kul'Tirans and Zandalari had normal human and troll skeletons up to that point. Remember that we saw Kul'Tirans already both in Theramore and on the Alliance forward base on Durotar, as well as Zandalari in Stranglethorn Vale and Zul'Drak before.
    We also saw Zandalari in Mogu'shan Vaults and while some of them used the traditional troll skeleton, others used an early version of the Night Elf-style skeleton that we have today. Simply using the Human or Troll skeletons to be Kul'Tirans or Zandalari would not have felt nearly as good as the ones we got do. Besides, Blizz was clearly moving in a direction of more customized races by the end of BfA given the fresh models for Kul'Tirans, the fresh take on the Goblin model for Vulpera, & the weird customizations for Mechagnomes. An Allied Race in the future is far more likely to be further customized in that way than it is to be something like a Forsaken with flashlight implants.

    But that would not be "dark rangers". I'm willing to bet the majority of people who want dark rangers as a playable class would not be satisfied with "undead hunter" as a replacement.
    I'd argue that differs based on how it comes across. If it's more of a class-skin style model where Darkfallen Hunters have special Dark Ranger customized spells, that may go down a bit easier.

  17. #497
    Herald of the Titans Nightshade711's Avatar
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    I’m honestly expecting the “allied race” in the leak to be talking about the Dracthyr.

    If you were to see them without any context, especially the visage form, they’d look like an allied race.
    Quote Originally Posted by Teriz View Post
    Chen isn't a Monk

  18. #498
    Quote Originally Posted by Triceron View Post
    The issue that people don't understand is that yes, animations can be swapped, but the issues come from having a new skeleton that has *different proportions* from something that already exists.

    If you have Skeleton A have the same Arm Length, Spine Length, Leg Length etc as Skeleton B and the only difference is B has a tail, then yes it's not that bad because most of the animations will be transferrable, while you only have to account for making sure the tail animations work and don't get in the way.

    If you have Skeleton A be a standard Human-looking skeleton, and Skeleton B is an Ogre type that has shorter legs, longer spine (lower center of gravity), longer arms, and wider hips, then the animation transfers might not work properly at all. The running animations might work, but not fit a character that has a lower center of gravity and might have too long of a stride. The mounting animations might work, but legs might end up clipping through most models or the waist position is off because of the altered hip proportions. And making that many tweaks is on the level of practically making new ones, if we're talking about completely different proportions.

    The alternative is then adapting to an existing race of similar proportions, like we're seeing with Tuskar having new skeleton and animations that are supposedly based on Pandaren (from what I've heard, so I could be wrong). That is something that saves time.

    Animation and technical work (making sure clothing works, making sure facial customizations work, etc) is where most of the iteration and time is spent.


    Animation transfers is a common thing. We use it all the time for WC3 Reforged modding. Yet just because it works and is common doesn't mean it works for everything. For example, we transferred animations of Reforged's Dragons onto Heroes of the Storm Deathwing to give him Flight animations. The animations work, but they also get pretty F'd up. So yes, transferring would save time if the proportions of the two things being transferred are relatively similar. If not, they can actually waste more time than save.
    The whole point here is that, the Shadowlands races are already very close to being playable, the work is 80% done, on account of the fact that they've been in-game for 2 years. The difficult work you are describing, is done and has been done for a long time. Armor rigging and dance emotes are about all that's left. Which is a small price to pay in the millions that it will generate in race changes.

  19. #499
    Quote Originally Posted by Nightshade711 View Post
    I’m honestly expecting the “allied race” in the leak to be talking about the Dracthyr.

    If you were to see them without any context, especially the visage form, they’d look like an allied race.
    don't think so, the leak explicitly says new race, new class AND new allied race with preorders

  20. #500
    Quote Originally Posted by choom View Post
    The whole point here is that, the Shadowlands races are already very close to being playable, the work is 80% done, on account of the fact that they've been in-game for 2 years. The difficult work you are describing, is done and has been done for a long time. Armor rigging and dance emotes are about all that's left. Which is a small price to pay in the millions that it will generate in race changes.
    Er, depends on what races you're talking about.

    Night Fae? Yes.

    Venthyr and Kyrian? Still require quite a bit of work on both parts. Venthyr are not built to be Player viable at all, while Kyrian are using female Vrykul animations which are also not existing race animations. All we know is that they have attachment points so some gear fits their bodies. So they work fine as NPCs, but are no where close to being Player Race viable.

    Maldraxxian is purely NPC. I mean, they don't even have faces. I doubt they would be made into a Player Race as we recognize them now.

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