Tuesday, October 28, 2014

New WoW character models - mixed bag

I got 7 days free game time, so I checked back into that game that totally can't hook me anymore. They remade the character models. And it looks like they were trying to hurry it in some cases. The different races and genders have different results. My main issue is that while the old models managed to create very different personalities with the face textures alone, now some look all the same. A few models actually have different facial geometry in the models, which helps to achieve the old level of distinction, but many look too much the same - exactly the same head features, just a different texture slapped on - so it might be all the same person in different conditions. Especially the humans have this problem. And whoever designed their human and gnome females is lacking that certain something in artistic skill. The gnome females have lost all their cuteness (funnily, the males haven't), and the human females ... damn, those eyes are creepy! And because of mentioned lack of distinction, now ALL human female faces have creepy eyes. I had one face among the human females that I favored because it had that certain something; it was likeable and radiated a certain character. Now there's basically just one vibe that all faces convey, and it's what I can only describe as stinging, strict tension.
Those problems didn't occur to me with the previous character models of past expansions (Worgen, Goblins, Pandaren), which were already of higher detail than the original ones. They still follow the original design idea (in lack of better words).
When looking at my main characters, I have to say, the charm is (partially - depending on the race/gender) gone. ... But I guess it very much fits the bitter theme of the coming expansion.



Left: A character I used to love. - Right: The eyes of a crazy chick.

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