Wain wrote:Nachtwulf wrote:I love the outland hydras. Despite, or perhaps because of, how completely freakish their heads are.
I really wish the artists had built upon that model, and the Outland chimaera and two-headed vulture models which had similarities in style, for Draenor.
I can't see into the heads of the team that did the designs for BC, but their work gave me the impression that they went out of their way to make Draenor wildlife feel very alien to us. I felt it was meant to be a different kind of world, rather than just "fel energy did it".
Much as I love the new art (and I really do think it's beautiful), I feel like the current team has undone all that. The new models may have a few bits of hard skin here and there, but it's basically fluffy and familiar updated
Azeroth wildlife, or things that at least look more familiar to the player and far less "HR Geiger" like the originals. I feel like they didn't make any bold choices and that they actually destroyed the bold choices of the team that had gone before them.
Of course I don't know these people or their reasons. Hell, maybe most of them worked on BC and I'm not aware of it. But that's certainly the impression I am getting so far. I love the models... but for Azeroth.
Wain, I agree with you, to a point, however I think you're missing the real problem.
What I think the key issue is is that there are two competing design paradigms here, which has left the artwork all over the map.
One one hand you had things that are "uncorrupted by Fel energy". On the other, you had "more savage". So let's look at the beasts.
The eleks, clefthoof, and talbuks are less savage. But I wonder how they could evolve into the milder BC versions in such a hurry, and neither the WoD or BC versions seem to be effected by Fel energy in either case.
The ravagers are just completely different. They're not even the same species, and maybe not even in the same family.
The hydras, at least sofar, are also a totally different species, family, and perhaps even order. The new one looks draconic and vaguely mamalian, where the BC ones are reptilian or something else.
Are the sporelings the corrupted versions of the new podling things?
The boars are the only thing we've seen sofar where they actually got it right, and have "more savage" and "uncorrupted by Fel energy". The whole bloody rest of them are a disaster.
But I don't think it's "safe cuddly" choices by the designers. I think the core problem is a vast screw-up in the design principles, probably some design by committee, and a WHOLE lotta lack of direction.
But if you are looking for Blizz to make decisions that make sense that way and stick to a story, and perhaps make some scientific sense, you'll only dissapoint yourself. Blizz has a long history of doing things that get explained away by "it's a different world" but make my brain hurt if you think about them. Just the geology of their ores and minerals is enough to make my brain hurt. And then there's the fish, where there are very simple things they could fix that would make things make so much sense. (Like assigning what is obviously a trout icon to a fish called a salmon, and what is obviously a salmon to something called a trout). Arrgh!!
I think the research department at Blizz cuts all the names off everything before they give reference art to the artists and designers.. on purpose.
But ya.. it's poor design principles and lack of clear story direction at the core.
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Rat dog!
In fact the "chimaeraling" minipet you can loot from an egg is an Outland style one at the moment, so maybe they do occur as a separate species.
