Friday, May 8, 2015

A complaint post.

     This post is full of complaining and possibly somewhat unreasonable irritation. I don't think it is unreasonable but being the one who is irritated I wouldn't. You've been warned. This isn't a post about the things I feel are wrong with Warlords. Others have expressed those things far better and more eloquently than me: Grumpy Elf and Misdirections to name a very few. This is about one very specific and probably silly thing: Male blood elf models.
    I have been trying so hard to like these new models, I've been staring at them since the patch and trying to find the things I like in them. There are things. They're not 100% bad. But this post isn't even about how much I hate the facial proportions. This is about the fact that in places these models are flat out broken.
     This first one is perhaps a minor quibble, but still something I feel should never have made it into live as it is. This is a very iconic Blood Elf hair style. Lor'themar himself wears it.But the hair clips into the cheek and ear every time they turn their heads while idling. There are several helmets that aren't usable any more due to clipping issues: Veils that clip through the nose, circlets that clip into the forehead, but armor clipping has always been a thing, annoying as it is. This, though, that's his hair, I don't feel like it should clip into him that way, especially not during something as basic as just standing around.

     The next one is the thing that upsets me most. This is a screenshot I took today while Aug was out trapping. This isn't the first time I noticed this issue because I've been staring at it since the beta. It was posted about multiple times in the forums before they ever went live. But every time I go out to trap or do dungeons or anything where Aug does that thing that hunters do and runs and shoots at the same time... I get to see this:
     This isn't okay. It's not something about models moving that way, my male night elf  doesn't have this problem. I don't know if the female blood elves do, but it makes it very hard to enjoy playing my hunter when I keep noticing this. We don't get to have flying mounts this expansion because 'immersion'. What do you suppose this does to 'immersion'?
     This next one is a minor quibble. I've got a little male night elf, Tyndellan. He uses the hairstyle that's equivalent to Tai's. And since the model update it's awesome. His braids sway when he moves and when he jumps they do this:
     When male night elf new models went live and I saw this I was so excited. I couldn't wait for Tai's hair to get this update. Here's a screenshot of what Tai's hair does when he jumps... and when he stands... and when he does... anything:
     Nothing. It's glued to him or something. Which it was in the old models too and which I probably wouldn't mind if I hadn't seen what it could be.
     There is a lot more. I could probably rant on this for a while, but I think this is enough. I will just say though, that we waited longer for our model update than anybody else and I feel extremely insulted that what we got in the end is flat out broken in ways I haven't noticed in any other models. It makes it worse that I looked at the patch notes and didn't see anything about blood elves getting any tweaks at all, unlike the other races who had a lot of minor problems that had gone live fixed entirely by those.

4 comments:

  1. Yeah, I read their posts and pretty much agree. I think that's why I trotted Ironsally out again.

    I only have the one Blood Elf, I think he's level 6. I logged in once to look at him and was pretty disappointed. He is really MEAN looking now. Thought I'd go back and try to give him a redo when he's ready to travel. Didn't even know about no hair redesign for them.

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    1. Of the new faces there are only two I find kind of passable, where I used to like almost all of them. I'm pretty disappointed by that. And with the hair... it's weird. They redid the texture and some parts of it are animated. The one with all the clipping that top ponytail does some awesome stuff, but I'm just so disappointed about Tai's braids, especially when I compare it to the nelfs. Even aside from my issues with the faces they just feel very half-finished to me.

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  2. Wow, you're right! Female draenei hair doesn't move either, it's kind of weird... And I've noticed that hair grows in weird directions on several races. But as you said, some races are definitely more done than others, like that male night elf.

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    1. I actually didn't know that about the female draenei. The one I play has hers in the style with the two little buns so I hadn't expected it to move at all even if theirs was animated.

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