You and I must have played different versions of BC, because I remember people running around like they fell out of bags of Skittles with their armor, silly transformations (Noggenfogger, anyone?), and other goofy things. WoW has always had a healthy dose whimsy (both intentional and not) mixed in.
Pandas looking badass and Dracthyr not is purely subjective.
And we’re saying it’s always looked that way. It’s always looked like a cartoon, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s helped it stay relevant for 20+ years.
The funny thing is that they’ve actually improved the graphics of the game a lot over the years. Not just things like water animation, but in improving the resolution of bitmaps for characters, landscapes, etc. they’ve even totally overhauled the graphics for some races (e.g. gnomes, which for a while in beta led to nightmarish animations of their eyes bulging through their eyelids when they blinked).
But to your point: yes, they’ve deliberately left the characters having a goofy, disproportionate cartoonist feel. Because it’s such an integral signature of the game, always has been, and always will be.
Yeah, I’m not sure my reaction to them adding Pandas as a playable race (in the Warcraft III expansion) was that they were “really badass” as OP seemed to think.
I always thought WoW was Cartoonish looking. I remember back on Everquest my guild and I were talking about WOW when it launched and we laughed. Called it’ “Baby’s first MMO”. Now mind you Everquest wasn’t any better in looks. There aren’t many Realistic MMOs out there.
Yeah, it has always had a cartoonish, exaggerated art style, almost every character has limbs, hands and feet that are far more voluminous than a more realistic character, color schemes are usually quite bold and highly contrasting, and all weapons and armor also have comically accentuated proportions and excess to them.
Its a shame Blizzard seems to have just decided that all its IPs now basically follow the WoW style conventions, abandoning the earlier, distinct styles of their other IPs.
It is especially weird because their concept art for much of their stuff… often doesn’t have the weird cartoony proportions … but by the time it ends as an ingame asset, it does.
I remember when World of Warcraft was a pretty serious looking game
I think you’re seeing it through rose-tinted nostalgia because the aesthetic style has never changed. Only actual tech used to render the graphics, which has made it look less plastic.
Giant, hulking, musclebound men that are wider than belief wearing pauldrons three times bigger than their barrel-chested selves… So serious.
Spyro the Dragon here wouldn’t look out of place even back before Burning Crusades came out.
I came to comment on the same thing. I remember when World Warcraft was yet to be released, most weren’t expecting it to succeed due to its silly look compared to Ultimate Online 2 and Everquest 2 coming out near the same time, and I want to say there was another big name that was expected to run the same time but it eludes me. WoW was often criticized as looking to cartoony and potentially made just for young children. Of course this was before the beta was out, and you had at most screen captures in gaming magazines.
You are suggesting that the pandas looked badass and that this Dracthyr looks goofy. I’m not a WoW player, but it really sounds to me like you just have a very strong, but subjective ideal about what is “badass” and what is “goofy”. You are treating that ideal as objective, but I promise you that others have a different opinion.
Also it’s a game that let’s you roleplay fantasy races and factions with a bunch of other nerds around the world (using the term “nerds” lovingly here). Why is it unusual that some things in that style of game gets a bit silly sometimes?
It hasn’t been a serious franchise since Wacraft 2 Tides of Darkness, it’s always had a goofy art-style alongside lots of silly gags and pop culture references.
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For what it’s worth, non evoker dragon people can use visage form to be humanoid/normal armor/weapon models.
It also works as an HP regen+ aura out of combat.
I’ve never played World of Warcraft and even I know it was a cartoony art style from day one. Go look up some old screenshots for comparison.
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You and I must have played different versions of BC, because I remember people running around like they fell out of bags of Skittles with their armor, silly transformations (Noggenfogger, anyone?), and other goofy things. WoW has always had a healthy dose whimsy (both intentional and not) mixed in.
Pandas looking badass and Dracthyr not is purely subjective.
I think you have rose-tinted glasses on, friend.
And we’re saying it’s always looked that way. It’s always looked like a cartoon, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s helped it stay relevant for 20+ years.
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It’s not about what they can afford. They could afford to change it, but they prefer to keep the same style they’ve been using.
Whether it looks stupid is your subjective opinion.
The funny thing is that they’ve actually improved the graphics of the game a lot over the years. Not just things like water animation, but in improving the resolution of bitmaps for characters, landscapes, etc. they’ve even totally overhauled the graphics for some races (e.g. gnomes, which for a while in beta led to nightmarish animations of their eyes bulging through their eyelids when they blinked).
But to your point: yes, they’ve deliberately left the characters having a goofy, disproportionate cartoonist feel. Because it’s such an integral signature of the game, always has been, and always will be.
Yeah, I’m not sure my reaction to them adding Pandas as a playable race (in the Warcraft III expansion) was that they were “really badass” as OP seemed to think.
I always thought WoW was Cartoonish looking. I remember back on Everquest my guild and I were talking about WOW when it launched and we laughed. Called it’ “Baby’s first MMO”. Now mind you Everquest wasn’t any better in looks. There aren’t many Realistic MMOs out there.
It was the mid-2000s. Graphics were held to different standards back then.
There are so many things that look goofy yet you choose to post a perfectly fine dragonish character. This one looks good to me.
Go watch South Park’s “Make Love, Not Warcraft.”
It was ugly and goofy looking in 2006 as well.
Your mind just remembers it prettier than it actually was.
Yeah, it has always had a cartoonish, exaggerated art style, almost every character has limbs, hands and feet that are far more voluminous than a more realistic character, color schemes are usually quite bold and highly contrasting, and all weapons and armor also have comically accentuated proportions and excess to them.
Its a shame Blizzard seems to have just decided that all its IPs now basically follow the WoW style conventions, abandoning the earlier, distinct styles of their other IPs.
It is especially weird because their concept art for much of their stuff… often doesn’t have the weird cartoony proportions … but by the time it ends as an ingame asset, it does.
I don’t recall any wow toons having feet bigger then their heads
Being cartoonish reduces your hit box size.
The only people left are furries. Let them have this
yo I’d fuck that dragon silly
I think you’re seeing it through rose-tinted nostalgia because the aesthetic style has never changed. Only actual tech used to render the graphics, which has made it look less plastic.
Giant, hulking, musclebound men that are wider than belief wearing pauldrons three times bigger than their barrel-chested selves… So serious.
Spyro the Dragon here wouldn’t look out of place even back before Burning Crusades came out.
I came to comment on the same thing. I remember when World Warcraft was yet to be released, most weren’t expecting it to succeed due to its silly look compared to Ultimate Online 2 and Everquest 2 coming out near the same time, and I want to say there was another big name that was expected to run the same time but it eludes me. WoW was often criticized as looking to cartoony and potentially made just for young children. Of course this was before the beta was out, and you had at most screen captures in gaming magazines.
You are suggesting that the pandas looked badass and that this Dracthyr looks goofy. I’m not a WoW player, but it really sounds to me like you just have a very strong, but subjective ideal about what is “badass” and what is “goofy”. You are treating that ideal as objective, but I promise you that others have a different opinion.
Also it’s a game that let’s you roleplay fantasy races and factions with a bunch of other nerds around the world (using the term “nerds” lovingly here). Why is it unusual that some things in that style of game gets a bit silly sometimes?
It hasn’t been a serious franchise since Wacraft 2 Tides of Darkness, it’s always had a goofy art-style alongside lots of silly gags and pop culture references.
Why do people like things that I don’t like? I don’t understand
This is not OP’s first post in this genre, either.
As someone who hasn’t played wow in almost a decade, it looks exactly like I remember it.
Warcraft was always pretty goofy, I mean have you played wc3?
Maybe it looks goofy because you’re looking at a picture you took of your monitor instead of taking a screenshot like a rational adult.