I -really- want to like the new models. This is my favorite race to play and most of my favorite characters are male Blood Elves, so I feel like I'm trying maybe a little too hard to look at these in a positive light. There are things I love. New animations are more fluid... the run's a little different but not the goofy run the male Night Elves had been saddled with (and which they fixed in the PTR, Huzzah!). The new hands look great, the body is really well done, definitely an upgrade. But the faces... well...
I understand that they're not done. They're all apparently using the same geometry right now and so I am -really- hoping that all the things I really dislike in this new face will be confined to one option and not over all of them the way they are now. Now we get image heavy, and we'll start with the one I feel most okay with.
Here's Rim, the perfect knight.
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It's all progressively downhill from here. Here's Laen, the gentle one:
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I can't decide which of these last two bothers me more. Here's Tai:
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The PTR version looks nothing like that... it's got the problem all the PTR faces have... which is next to no lips, cheeks that are a bit too wide and a mouth set too far up the face. It doesn't look like Tai. I do like the hair, except for the fact that it doesn't move. Tyndellan has the night elven version of the same hair and his braids sway a little when he moves and actually lift and fall again when he jumps. Tai's never move, they may as well be solid. I hope that'll get fixed before it goes Live but even if it does I don't know if I can live with that face... and none of them are enough different from it right now for me to fix it. I really hope that's going to change.
And then there's Seish:
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But it's not. He looks insufferable and smug, even beyond the amounts of sort of insufferable and smug that he actually is, and that's saying something. I want to like these models. I'm okay with Rim's. I could work on being okay with Laen's but Tai and Seish... I have a really hard time with. All I can say is that I hope they're listening to what little feedback has been given on the male blood elves and that they'll change up the facial structure a bit for all of them and then make them different.
I do have to wonder what it is with Blizzard and putting giant chins on everybody. I'm not freaking out right now, I'm reminding myself that they're still working on things and that hopefully they'll tweak stuff to make them better before they go live. I'll happily wait another month or so for that. And they -did- fix the male night elf run, so there's hope.
I think they look great, but maybe that's my own bias on the Blood Elf race: they are, how can I say, 'gently arrogant?' as a race - that is what makes them singular. One thing I am jealous of is Blizz made their faces unique and different - there is variety. There is zero variety with Draenei female faces now. None. Just flat, dead faces. *still sad*
ReplyDeleteI think that may come down to what you're used to playing and looking at. I find very little variety in those faces that doesn't come from my choices of hair and beard. Especially not compared to the originals. They've put the textures over them it's true and those add a little difference to Tai's but the jawline is pretty much the same on all of them the mouth is at the same not quite right place on the face on all of them and also the same shape and expression on all of them.
DeleteOn the originals there were some that were smiling and some that were frowning and some more neutral expression. Now they all look like they've scrunched up their face and pursed their lips all the time.
Noses are all also identically shaped as far as I can see. So to me there's very little variety in the actual faces at all.It's honestly the same problem I see with the draenei. They seem to have picked one face and if it's not one you liked, too bad for you.
I was curious to hear what you think since you have Blood Elves. Since I don't really have one I took a quick look and thought they looked pretty good but seeing your comparisons there is quite a difference.
ReplyDeleteThe only one of my characters that changed and actually looks like herself is my Night Elf hunter. I should go check my level 3? 6? Blood Elf now for his before shot.
Honestly I do like a lot of things about the new model, but I can't get past the faces. I thought maybe I was being overly picky but went to the official feedback thread on the forum I found out that when I weeded past all the posts about the size of the female blood elf's posterior that the few people who had anything to say about the male blood elves all said the same thing I thought: His mouth is too small and in slightly the wrong place on his face.
DeleteI honestly don't mind if Seish keeps looking pretty smug and arrogant. He is. But I'd like it if he did it with a face that wasn't misproportioned. And it would be nice if we could get smiles back for the ones that were smiling originally.And the same face/mouth problem is on all the faces on the customization page, not just the guys I posted here.