New Character Models Discussion - Update! Fem Gnome Faces

[Falcon]

I apologize for sounding negative, but this is making me extremely worried about how the female blood elves will look. :/ Having a character you've had for years suddenly change into a complete stranger because your character looks so different than what you've grown so used to? Yeah, no thanks. I've put up with the horrid valley girl voice set and the nail polish for years because of how much I love the blood elf lore and backstory, but this may end up being a dealbreaker or me if in the end if I can't even recognize my own characters anymore.

So, yeah, I really hope they don't end up butchering the female blood elves.

[Rower]

After all this years I can accept an upgrade, even if the character will look a bit different.
I mean, what if WoW would just end and we lose the character for ever?
Sometimes in life we have to move on and accept changes Don't be too close minded.
I'm a person that really hates changes IRL, but I'm really excited for this models because they just look better.

And blood elves look all pretty much the same to me, they just have some different make up, and males all have the same face except the "elder" looking one. So yeah. I don't understand the "same-face" hysteria either.

[Snowy]

The only thing I'm majorily concerned for myself are the female undead. I left WoW and intended to come back at some point and re-make my first ever character, a female undead warlock. But if she can't have 'her' face (Which, to me, was a VERY distinct look) it won't be 'her' and I most likely won't want to play that exact character.

Also, as female B'elf player, the faces do not at all look all the same from my point of view. There were serious faces, happy faces, even a 'cute' face and more neutral faces.

[Rower]

Come on, it's the same face. The different lipstick and eye colour / make up gives you the illusion of a different face
I'm scrolling their faces right now, it's the freaking same face

[Vephriel]

It's the same facial structure, but they all have very clearly different appearances. I spend so much time making new characters and alts that I look very closely at minute details and the subtle differences. They were able to pull off a surprisingly diverse set of faces by changing small details such as expression, eye width, makeup, mouth shape...to me each of the blood elf faces has a very distinct attitude and personality (along with most other races honestly), but these new revamped models don't seem to be doing much in terms of facial variety. I get that it's mostly because the new faces are so much more than just some illusionary textures, they have complex musculature and a ridiculous amount of polygons. The simple, low res skins of the originals made it easier to implement variety by some shading tricks and such, but the new models are so crisp and clear those sorts of shortcuts don't work anymore, and I don't think Blizzard seems to be making completely different face shapes since they're so complex now. They're sticking to the one and attempting to add varying details, but those little details don't have as much of an impact on the new models so we get Same Face Syndrome, if that makes sense.

I also apologize for being negative, I don't like to be, I'm just becoming more concerned as we see the different faces which don't look very different to me. I know Vanilla models weren't amazing in their customization, but to me the faces all looked clearly unique and I'll be sad to see those personalities blur as we get the same expression on everyone.

[Falcon]

After all this years I can accept an upgrade, even if the character will look a bit different.
I mean, what if WoW would just end and we lose the character for ever?
Sometimes in life we have to move on and accept changes Don't be too close minded.
I'm a person that really hates changes IRL, but I'm really excited for this models because they just look better.

And blood elves look all pretty much the same to me, they just have some different make up, and males all have the same face except the "elder" looking one. So yeah. I don't understand the "same-face" hysteria either.

Closed minded? Well, excuse me for being attached to my characters. From now on, I'm just going to keep things to myself.

And, Vephriel, I couldn't say it any better myself, thank you.

[Rower]

Yes, close minded. Like those people that after 9 years still can't accept that Tarja isn't the Nightwish singer anymore. Just sayin'

Sorry, I don't want to sound rude or anything like that, but really...don't be so negative about those freaking models ^^ After some days you will feel attached to the new face and never want to turn back

[Lupis]

Rower, I agree that for some people, that will totally be true. Heck, I'm sure I'll get used to/love all of my revamped characters, because honestly I've never been able to get super attached to any of my character appearances anyway.

But the thing you need to remember is that not all people will react in that way. You might, I might, but other people won't- and that's just as legitimate as your reaction. They might be more attached to their character and really won't feel like the new model is something they can just get used to and love. And that's a totally understandable thing- just as legit as loving the new models.

[GormanGhaste]

I'm sorry Rower, but you don't get to dictate feelings for everyone else. Why jump in with your comments if you don't even understand our complaints?

[Vephriel]

Apologies for the large image in this reply. I'm not sure if this will matter to many other people, and I'm not trying to be preemptively critical since we haven't even seen blood elf faces yet, but I thought I'd try to illustrate the facial differences that I see. To me these all have very different attitudes, but I realize not everyone looks too closely.

Faces are referenced in number from left to right going down.


1. This face is stern, you could perhaps say angry, with creased eyebrows, pursed lips, and narrowed eyes.
2. This face has dark lipstick, obvious eyeshadow, and a neutral expression.
3. Wide eyes, plump bottom lip, and a neutral expression.
4. Freckles! Eyebrows are slightly drawn down to give a sterner look, rounded upper lip without a cupid's bow.
5. Very large eyes, sterner expression, and large lips.
6. Soft eyelashes, wide eyes, slight smile. A cutesy face, in my opinion.
7. Very neutral expression, similar to Face #3 but with less eye makeup.
8. Elegant looking face with long eyes. Note the pale shading around the eyes, there is less black here and more soft browns. Lipstick is obvious but not as dark as Face #2
9. Pinched expression, small lips, slightly furrowed brow.
10. A very stern/angry face. Minimal makeup, heavy lines around the eyes, definite creased brows.

If you look closely you can also note differences in the noses (shading tricks that make them seem like they have varying shapes even though they don't). Also some eyes have stronger "glows"; some have more obvious pupils whereas others are almost entirely green. There's also some slight face texture for cheekbones, eyelines, etc. You can see that they did a lot with the limited canvas they had to work with. Sadly those sorts of shading tricks won't quite work the same when we have more detailed musculature in the new models unless they specifically crafted altered shapes, which I'm not sure if they'll do or they'd likely have to tweak and rig each shape separately.

[cowmuflage]

I don't think Bloodelves and Dwarfs are in the same boat face wise. The BE's are newer and do have distinct faces, so I think they will be fine! They don't after all just have different eye liner and slightly different angled eyebrows like the dwarf females "faces". :3

[Snowy]

Rower, you're rude. Falcon was expressing her concerns, like everyone else. That doesn't make her 'close minded'. Jesus.

I don't like being too negative either. I know I can be but I'm in the exact same boat as other people here - I'm scared that their attention to too much new detail will prevent us from having the faces that we care about. Any blood elf player who's made multiple characters and/or has looked through all the options for faces a hundred times know that there's plenty of variety there - variety we're worried we're not going to get in the new models. It's far too early for us to assume what's going to happen, but that doesn't at all make us 'close minded'. It means we have concerns and we would like to address them.

So far, the female dwarves and gnomes seems to have one face with *very* minor changes - so minor in fact that I can barely tell the difference without focusing on each one properly. Dwarves look like used and abused wives and gnomes look like they're on acid. AKA. Neither are nice. They *may* look nicer with animation, hopefully. It's hard to tell from screenshots.

[Lisaara]

I personally like them and gave done an amazing job. My gnome still looks like my gnome. My orc still looks like my orc.

I think BOTH sides need to take a step back and calm down on this(least the ones involved in this argument that are getting a bit too aggressive). There's no reason to get hackles up. You should take the time to understand the opposing viewpoint then empathize. You can state your views but please guys.....put the claws away.

[Slickrock]

Old models: 8-12 "faces" for each race, each showing one emotion forever.

New models: 1 "face" for each race, showing 8-?? emotions.

It's a different paradigm with the new models. You are gaining better detail, better hair, better animations.

But with any discussion of models here, they get nitpicked to death. Sometimes I wish the RP section was separate from the hunter section, it might be more peaceful.

[Wain]

OK guys, I think that's enough of the "same face" discussion for now!

It's becoming personal again, which it did not need to.

As I said on the hydra thread:

- keep it rational and reasonable, and also remember that Blizzard's designers are just people who genuinely want to do a good job with their art. So the kind of "that really sucks / Blizzard are being lazy" comments are only inviting conflict as well as being cheap. As far as I could tell those kinds of comments haven't appeared here, or much in this forum at all, but just mentioning it. Mostly people are pretty clear in what their criticisms are
- try to offer your thoughts and move on. That doesn't mean you have to avoid posting again, but try to avoid the trap of needing to post the same things again just because others have a different impression to you. You don't need to convince them your likes and dislikes are "right". Again, exercise some discretion with this. I don't want to stop all back and forth discussion, but try to avoid getting bogged down in this because it's like trying to argue whether blue or red is a better colour.

In the context of this thread, if you feel that none of the new faces are a good representation of your character, it's ok to feel disappointed and to express that. Players have had their characters for anything up to 10 years now. But also give it time and animate them in the model viewer. Sometimes things look totally different when animated and it's possible the look the team is going for simply isn't conveyed well on a static image.

If you're really happy with the new looks, express that too. I think they have done a pretty amazing job for the most part, even if there are occasional quirks with a couple of models that make me go "gah!" on first look.

But regardless of your opinion, you don't need to convince anyone else or judge them because their opinion differs from yours. That part can be left off all future discussion here.

[Falcon]

Thank you, Wain. I'll probably always be nervous about posting my thoughts again, though, because I don't take kindly to being singled out, like that person did, and I'd rather it not happen again. :/ Still, a friend told me that there's going to be a toggle for the character models, so that makes me feel a lot better.

[cowmuflage]

Still, a friend told me that there's going to be a toggle for the character models, so that makes me feel a lot better.

Is there a link to that? First time I've heard of that. Not being rude or anything just you know it's better with a blue saying so (to me anyway) XD

You never know with the faces they might of been designed around being animated and so would not show up in a photo.

[Lisaara]

To answer your question Cow...

Since we are being blessed with new character models (Which can be disabled? Yes, no?)
Yes.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic ... 1?page=1#7

Also thank you Wain for coming to the rescue!

[cowmuflage]

Thanks :3 I'm very skeptical when it comes to things

[Kayb]

The toggle, per say, doesn't relate to just the models however. You have to turn down you entire graphics settings to low to keep using the old models and not see the new ones.