Check Out World of Warcraft's Updated Player Models

[Diddy_Mao]

I like the new Forsaken models. though I wonder how/if they're going to tackle the new facial expressions on a race that has the option to be missing major parts of their facial structure.

As for "Why waste time updating this stuff on WoW and just release WoW 2 instead."

I think it's safe to assume Blizzard is working on a sequel of some sort already. A lot of the updates that have been made to the game since Cataclysm seem like testing the waters to see what does and doesn't work while building up a new MMO.
As the new x-packs have come out and have been slightly more graphics intensive, updating player character models is a good way to field test the graphical limitations of their player base.

 

[michael87cn]

All of the comments here talking about WoW 2 might want to look into a little project known as "Project Titan." That's Blizzard's next MMO. We may still see a WoW 2, but if it comes, I predict we won't see it until long into Titan's lifespan. (Likely, not at all.)

They specifically said that Titan was NOT a WoW or StarCraft MMORPG.

 

[StraightToHeck]

remember: more polygons means more emoshuns

 

[Someone Depressing]

Because everyone wanted Orc fanservice.

And any character with a Y chromosome is still smuggling bowling balls whereve they go.. God, I love Wow's art style.

 

[DugMachine]

I'm beyond excited for these new models. Dwarves look amazing and those female gnomes are so cute. Definitely making a F gnome mage when the expansion hits

 

[Abomination]

I wonder if they're going to un-nerf the Draenei female boobies.

Remember those sweater-kittens at Burning Crusade launch? If she turned too quickly she could knock herself out.

 

[Loop Stricken]

Liking the Tauren reskins

I for one dislike them immensely. I'm an angry tauren, not some dopey docile walking hamburger.
Never mind that Blizzard are killing my guild off because we dared raid 10-man heroics, but that's another story.

 

[Ferisar]

Liking the Tauren reskins

I for one dislike them immensely. I'm an angry tauren, not some dopey docile walking hamburger.
Never mind that Blizzard are killing my guild off because we dared raid 10-man heroics, but that's another story.

Obviously every single tauren is going to look docile and dopey with the same face texture, right? COME ON.

OT:
Saw it. Excited. I want my prettier BEs.

 

[AldUK]

All of the comments here talking about WoW 2 might want to look into a little project known as "Project Titan." That's Blizzard's next MMO. We may still see a WoW 2, but if it comes, I predict we won't see it until long into Titan's lifespan. (Likely, not at all.)

They specifically said that Titan was NOT a WoW or StarCraft MMORPG.

I am aware of that. But that has nothing to do with my post, which simply states that Blizzard are working on another MMO right now, so there is little chance of a direct sequel to WoW, aka WoW 2. As was being discussed.

 

[Paragon Fury]

The new models look nice; but let us see the update Human, Night Elf and blood Elf females already.

 

[Excludos]

why they don't just start from scratch with WoW 2 or something?

If they can incrementally upgrade the engine and content, why would they need to publish an entirely new game?

People who keep wondering when "WoW 2" will come out should realize each expansion has pretty much been sequel. Everything from the graphics engine (much more graphics intensive now than at launch) to the gameplay and content has been overhauled gradually over time.

I haven't really player WoW since shortly before Cataclysm, but if there's one thing I've always though about a well-managed MMO, is that it shouldn't really need to launch sequels. Why ask the established player base to leave their game-world behind for a new iteration, when you can just expand said world?

It has happened before, for example, people still play the original Everquest (which still gets expansions) despite the launch of Everquest 2.

And the usual reason for launching sequels, namely attracting new players or bringing back old ones... Expansions already do that (hence why there's another one on the way).

The dwindling popularity of WoW seems more like brand exhaustion, and a sequel wouldn't do much to help. That's why I suspect Blizzard is working on a new brand for their next big MMO, and if they ever release a WoW2, it'd probably be when said new project starts dwindling in popularity.

But Blizzard is merged with Activision now, so maybe they'll just shove a WoW2 down our throats after all, and discover if the actual wow-killer would be the sequel.... Or not (It'd be delightfully ironic to have WoW2 go free-to-play after being unable to defeat WoW itself )

Titan will be the spiritual successor of WoW, yes. And as proof that they aren't just half assing it because they're soulless or activison (which is some of the accusations in the diablo 3 thread), they've already scratched everything on Titan to start anew because they didn't feel it was up to Blizzard standards. They want to make a good game and take their time rather than bring it out as quickly as possible to lower expenses. If that doesn't prove that blizzard is still worthy as one of the best AAA gaming companies still out there, I'm not sure what will.

edit: When I say spiritual successor, I mean it in the way that its what they will keep most of their focus on after launching. The game itself will have nothing to do with WoW lore or universe.

 

[Charli]

And yet they leave some of the most hideous character models completely untouched. They have not seemed to show the human models, which compared to all but the dwarves, is hideous.

They're working on all of them you clod. This is just what is currently presentable.

And the image doesn't do the work justice, you have to see them animated to really understand just how much effort has been put into making them flow and move more naturally.

It's astounding to look at. And the gnome female facial expressions are excellent.

WoW's visual style is a very different pond from 'other MMO's' with hyper beautiful standardized modeling. The charm is in the cartoony characterization and I think these updates have nailed it. There's so much more they can no do with story telling and fun extras now that the models can all be rigged to react and emote more clearly.



ALL MODELS FROM VANILLA TO BC ARE TO BE UPDATED. IT TAKES ALOT OF WORK. (Trust me)
Human
Dwarf
Gnome
Night Elf
Draenai
Orc
Forsaken
Tauren
Troll
Blood Elf

...Time that by 2, for 2 genders. The increase in bones and gon' count is large. But worth it.

remember: more polygons means more emoshuns

Hahaha. It does if it's an update from 2004 to now.
And if the polygons are used correctly, which if you look above, is absolutely the case.
Check out dat emoting baby.

 

[Icehearted]

Beardless dwarf women?! Sure we're going to make them look a little slimmer and sexier, but no facial hair? OUTRAGEOUS!

If you need me I'll be in the angry dome.

 

[Grabehn]

But... What if I don't want to change the skins on my character?

 

[The Lugz]

Right.

I mean they look better, certainly. They still don't really get anywhere near the new stuff in other MMOs.

To be fair, there's probably only so much you can do with an engine as old as WoWs before you hit "may as well just make a WoW2 while you're at it" territory.

I can confirm this, I've worked with classic wow models to attempt modding the game,
which isn't strictly within the TOS but.. well they can't do anything about it so who cares?

anyhow, the original 3d engine for this game is absolutely archaic. there is literally no wiggle room the models must conform to poly limits in terms of size or the game will disable them, the models must have separate skin files that conform to size and dimension limits or the game will reject them, if parts of the model used for animation are missing, no models will load in the game world ect... this is also why wow model's arms and textures would 'bend' or stretch as they animate, lack of modern uv layering techniques ( imagine stapling your clothes on via fixed points, and you'll get the idea )

my advice overall: modding wow is a *****, find another hobby.

now with blizzard's proprietary model tools it's obviously going to be easier, as these limits will doubtless be hard-coded in but my point is you can't simply drag and drop any old model file in there as you can with say, skyrim, crysis or anything even remotely modern, so these updates are indeed a refresh of the engine using updated tools.

and, having studied software development I can also tell you that if you have the source code you can continue to mod it to the end of time, if you know the variables and how they interact there is simply no point in making a 'new' engine since it will share half it's code with the old one anyway as code never really gets old unless it's been outdated by more efficient code and well if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

so with the original code, yep there are massive limits but blizzard has the power to modify them on a whim so it's not a major problem it just takes time.

 

[Shinkicker444]

Some of the female gnome facial expressions are absolutely adorable.

Spoiler

 

[Carnagath]

I don't see why we would need a WoW 2 for graphics improvements. Runescape, for example, simply changed to a new engine (twice!).

Yes, changing engine would be fine, but they're not doing it. They're just overloading the old engine with crap that it can't handle. The game's performance in raids has been unacceptable for a while now. I'm obviously fucked cause I'm on a laptop, but a friend with a pretty damn good PC drops to like 25 FPS during boss fights unless he drops everything to low. The game is extremely CPU-intensive, but is unable to utilize fast CPU's well. They really need to get their shit together instead of adding more bells and whistles to a fucked up engine.

 

[Ohlookit'sMatty]

As a 3D modeller this is a form of porn to me // Just look at those beautiful polygons and the prefect texture maps *starts to breathe heavily* Being a huge WoW fan also helps

-M

 

[AngelSword]

Well, that was an efficient way to take the wind out of the article; build up & build up the feature, then cut it down by saying, "Why bother?"

 

[feauxx]

The new models look nice; but let us see the update Human, Night Elf and blood Elf females already.

They haven't done those yet, they don't know if they can finish all races before WoD release actually.