Friday, October 24, 2014

Considerations of Future Visual Upgrades

6.0's biggest feature is probably the model revamps for the vanilla races and Draenei. Some elicit cheers, others tears, but without a doubt, this is one of the biggest visual changes the game has ever experienced. I, for one, am overjoyed by the look of my Human Paladin (though unlike most, I was actually not so bothered by the old human male model. Perhaps it's because I had the goatee facial hair, which had normal-sized eyebrows.) I'm pretty happy with the others - the only one that caused me any trouble was my Male Night Elf, who previously had a very thin face that seemed to be rounded out, but a quick stop at the Barber/Plastic Surgeon fixed that (I'm also waiting for them to fix the Undead Male's eyes where previously there were empty sockets.)

We know that the very next visual change will be an update to the Blood Elves. Both BC races were slated for an update, but Blood Elves have a relatively small presence in Draenor outside of Talador, whereas Draenei are the most central Alliance race in the expansion (no matter how many times I say or write that, it still makes me smile.)

So I expect to see Blood Elves updated as soon as 6.1. What comes next?

First off, while the Cataclysm models are far, far better than the Vanilla and BC ones, some of the facial gesture mapping that came in with the Pandaren is definitely lacking. My Worgen, much as I adore him, can't really make any facial expressions beyond "mouth open" and "mouth closed." I feel like the Goblins are a bit more facially dextrous, but it might be nice to see both of them a little more expressive. Still, unlike the Classic/BC races, I wouldn't go overboard with these revamps. Just do a little work on the faces (and I've heard that a lot of female Worgen would be interested in getting quite a bit more work,) and they should be ok.

Blizzard folks have talked about a few things. Moonkin form remains the only Druid model that hasn't changed since Vanilla (even the new Cataclysm Druid races got palette swap versions of the Night Elf version.) So it looks like these are due for an update. My personal hope is that we get greater racial distinction between the forms, much in the way that the Bear and Cat forms have nice touches that distinguish them. War paint and a mohawk and tusks for Trolls, glowing eyes and perhaps charms hanging from the antlers for Night Elves, etc.

Blizzard has also mentioned that they'd like to add some cosmetic items like quivers for hunters and librams for paladins. I'm not sure that every class has an obvious thing that's missing - for example, Warriors are pretty set (unless you'd like to give them a Blademaster-style war-banner to wear on their backs.)

Another thing that players have been clamoring for for quite a while is racial variations. Implementing Blackrock/Mag'har Orc Skins would be as easy as adding new skin color options. One could also do so with Dark Iron Dwarves (and you could even roll Wildhammer face tattoos in there as well.) Not every race is begging for this kind of variation - Draenei for example can be just about any color from dark purple to porcelain-white, and there's not really anything in lore to justify anything that's not some kind of bluish color, as the only red eredar we see are demons, and decidedly not on good terms with Velen. The Grimtotem Tauren are a similar issue - it's not unreasonable to think of implementing the Grimtotem facial tattoos, but are there any good Grimtotem (the closest we get are a group of them who get support from the Alliance to fight the Horde, but the rest of the tribe is clearly hostile to everyone.) That actually brings up probably the most popular racial-variant option, which is the High Elves. Many Alliance players have been hoping to play High Elves for a very long time indeed, but would this effectively make the Blood Elves a Pandaren-style neutral race, or would they need a whole new starting experience? Or just dump them into Northshire Abbey with the Humans?

Beyond that, however, there are greater variations in the races. We've now seen two variants on the Tauren - the Taunka and Yaungol. The Draenei have been accompanied by the Broken since BC (though don't expect to see any of them in Draenor, as the Horde rejected Warlock magic in that timeline.) Undead theoretically should be able to include all manner of creatures, from the current zombie-ish guys to skeletons, ghosts, and stuff like that. These variations might be a little tougher to implement. For instance, if you're a Taunka, do you start your adventures in Mulgore, far, far away from your home in Northrend? And does everyone just refer to you as a Tauren as if you were just another member of the Bloodhoof Tribe?

In terms of gear, I don't really think we need model revamps for gear. As much as I'd love to see my 25-man Paladin Tier 8 set updated (particularly to implement the awesome, huge belt buckle from the concept art,) it's probably best that they focus on the new gear models. There's some cool stuff coming in tier 17 (I'm particularly fond of the Rogue set,) and given that there will always be a need for new gear models, I'm happy for them to just work on that stuff.

Actually, to be frank, now that we have transmog for any gear pieces we're less enamored of, I wish that dungeon gear at least was a little more eclectic in look. I miss BC's re-colors of old raid gear. Oh well.

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