r/classicwow • u/ObviousMessage • 5d ago
Forever Beta Feedback Example of a Skyborne Owlbear from the community.
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Saw this example in TheoryWise's video about the mismatched art styles and absolutely love it. Way more classic and they toned down the blue a ton. I think the silhouette and colors fit right in to classic way more than the neon blue bear, what do you all think?
Creator - https://x.com/naitsade/status/2099583338289782910?s=46&t=wQsh0caLxmxVN-QH7ssHhg
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u/Wind_Best_1440 5d ago
I have a theory that if a lot of the skyborne animals weren't bright blue/navy blue and were regular colours of browns/beige/orange/tans/blacks. They wouldn't stand out like sore thumbs.
The thing is even in Zephyr isles, they stand out like sore thumbs. Generally animals adopt colour patterns based on pred and prey dynamics for hunting.
But unless the prey animals on zephyr's isle developed a type of colour blindness. I don't see how bright blue colours is good for stealth and hunting in a place of greens and browns.
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u/MacabreDanze 5d ago
It's not only the color, it's the art style
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u/Tacotuesdayftw 4d ago
They literally have a brown recolor of all of the druid forms you can change to in the barber shop and they still stick out like a sore thumb. Dude's trippin.
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u/jackfwaust 5d ago
Yeah part of it is definitely the color palette that they used. Vanilla doesn’t typically have anything as vibrant as the skelf Druid forms so they stand out even more than if they had more muted colors. The models still wouldn’t be in the same artstyle as everything else, but it’d help hide it a bit
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u/Boethion 5d ago
Hell even the Skyborne themselves shouldnt be this blue unless they have been drinking cooling fluids for thousands of years. Draenei skin colors look much more realistic even if they are also different shades of blue, but Skyborne cranked it up to 11.
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u/bozzikpcmr 5d ago
also, it's veeeeeeery hard to find blue in nature outside of the sea.
there is a small amount of blue animals, most of them are in the tropics or amazon, and none of them are mammals.-1
u/rhaesdaenys 5d ago
Blue Jay. Cardinal. Owls. Birds in general.
What does the Skyborne druid form have in common? Bird.
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u/bozzikpcmr 5d ago
blue owls? what?
the forms are also bear cat moonkin travel and aquatic, bears and cats being mammals, they just look off and not really classic-y, same as a blue bear cat troll druid would.also that shade of blue is kyrian/retail coded, it just reminds you of anima power and all that bs
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u/SandvichCommanda 5d ago
Ah, you see they clearly never go outside, I'm guessing they think the blue skyborne owls are a newly discovered species.
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u/bozzikpcmr 5d ago
i said 5 euro and 30 silver to my friend today when getting ice cream i'm cooked
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u/Icy_Chain_1504 5d ago
Uuuugh the sky? Its litterally everywhere and its their whole thing.
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u/the_man_in_the_box 5d ago edited 5d ago
IRL, the prey animals of tigers see them as grey/foliage colored.
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u/Wind_Best_1440 5d ago
That's why I said unless animals developed a type of colour blindness. To a lot of animals that live around tigers, they see the orange and the environment around them as all green. It's why tigers evolved to have orange fur.
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u/Crazymage321 5d ago
I agree, if they had more muted blues and grays instead of bright it would fit in better.
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u/leakmydata 5d ago
Yeah, the issue that’s occurring is the same problem we’d have if nightelves had bubble gum pink skin and hair.
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u/RealHumanVibes 5d ago
It's all the feathers that do it for me. That kind of fidelity (and curviness) just wasn't in classic.
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u/Kernoriordan 5d ago
I went to the barbershop and changed my owlbear to the brown and green colouring - fits in much better in the world
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u/ex0ll 5d ago
what I don't understand is: why a literal TEAM OF ARTISTS who should live and breathe first-hand the game cannot, but a single dude who's just a player can nail it?
I truly just don't get it, I'm sure there's something I must be missing.
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u/Defiant_Coat_2491 5d ago
It's either flat out developers/artist incompetence or a lead problem or both? It made me even curious when the other day I saw a post about someone asking 3D software artists who use softwares like Autodesk 3DS Max, Maya, Blender and something like Photoshop asking folks how "hard" or "impossible" it was to replicate the style and quality of the original Vanilla and TBC tier sets without copying them and making completely new ones never seen before but capture the same essence of how it was made back in the early to late 2000's, and most of the replies who I believe are from artists or experts who use those softwares clearly state that it isn't an impossible task even for a single person let alone an entire development team and artists
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u/SandvichCommanda 5d ago
It's probably far higher up the chain than this. Something like it was a retail race they got forced to bring into Forever, or Microsoft forced them to add a very flashy race to grab retail players.
I lowkey refuse to believe any artist hired at this level can actually be this atrocious. And yes the "we can't do this anymore" arguments are completely brain damaged, models have been stored using the same raw coordinates for at least 40 years.
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u/Ok-Calligrapher-4504 5d ago
As a someone who has been doing 3D animation in Blender for a couple of years (as a hobby). There is literally nothing stopping them from doing low poly models or models in the style of vanilla in the modern softwares (and no not even textures is a problem).
I can see it being hard from an artistic POV to nail the artstyle but saying it's not doable on modern software is disingenous at best.
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u/egotistical-moron 4d ago
you don’t understand how much of a minority this sub and people who share this opinion is
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u/burningupinside 5d ago
God damn....how can the community do sooooo much better than blizzard
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u/Fearless-Diamond3474 5d ago
They understand the game better
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u/LordDShadowy53 5d ago
Imagine hearing feedback from the people who play the game itself
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u/no_shoes_are_canny 5d ago
After playing a skyborne druid in the beta, I love the blues and purples. It's what made me choose to play it. I like colours that stand out, not muted tones. I would honestly prefer Classic gameplay with retail graphics.
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u/im12whatispolitics 5d ago
Hey, that's totally valid - but that means forever isn't the game for you. You're more than welcome to play, but it was internally called classic plus and not retail minus for a reason
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u/no_shoes_are_canny 5d ago
Enjoying the beta with the HD skyborne graphics and aesthetics means that Forever is for me, though. I want them to add more stuff like that. It's a great Plus on Classic.
And when it comes down to it, it's the gameplay I like. I play games for mechanics primarily.
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u/ShoulderpadInsurance 5d ago
I mean, the community has clearly invested more resources… /s
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u/Calm-Inevitable3341 5d ago
You joke, but it’s probably true
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u/ShoulderpadInsurance 5d ago
Not a chance, considering how much money they make compared to previously existing private projects.
Just goes to show how much money is wasted on administration and poor art direction instead of passion.
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u/ScreamHawk 5d ago edited 5d ago
Not even remotely true
EDIT: I read this wrong, my bad
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u/Calm-Inevitable3341 5d ago
bro they literally spent $100 in man-hours on game assets hundreds of thousands of people will be experiencing for years
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u/TechnologyPowerful62 5d ago
why do redditors feel the need to always flag their obvious sarcasm.
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u/CyonHal 5d ago
Right? I have never had someone miss extremely obvious sarcasm before on reddit.
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u/Cultist-Cat 5d ago
Never underestimate a redditors capability to misunderstand something and become extremely upset lol
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u/Paxa 5d ago
Doesn't matter how obvious you think it is. Sarcarsm doesn't transfer through text fullstop. People detect sarcasm by noticing a mismatch between what's said and what's meant. Tone and facial expressions do much of the work, and text removes both. When people read comments, they read them in their own voice. If you're sarcastic yourself all the time, you can easily misunderstand and read something as sarcastic, when it wasn't meant to be, and vice versa.
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u/ShoulderpadInsurance 5d ago
Exactly this. It saves the effort of the second post explaining the joke most of the time.
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u/TechnologyPowerful62 5d ago
if you make a obvious face or change you voice while being sarcastic, then you are not doing it right.
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u/sup3rrn0va 5d ago
I heard they weren’t even planning on using SD models until much later in development. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a much better SD model/texture for Skyborne and their forms relatively soon.
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u/DriverNo3808 5d ago
There we have it, a lot more consistent with the actual art direction Vanilla has.
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u/Manticzeus 5d ago
I’m the same but for different reasons. Often times fans will spend way more time than the devs are able to on a singular asset, so of course it will look better.
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u/BlueberryWasps 5d ago
also, like, they do hire fans. everyone on that stage has talked about their 20 year relationship with WoW, often a relationship that began when they were children. these aren’t soulless corpos spewing out crap. they’re fellow artists working to a spec and a deadline on something they love regardless.
we can criticise their work and offer feedback without insulting them.
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u/Lucky_Pangolin_3760 5d ago
I doubt they spent a lot of time on this, the bear part is essentially unchanged
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u/Rantaflit 5d ago
For me it looks better, yes, but can’t we all agree that it just needs a simple bear? Never heard of a taunting owl which forces me to fight back. I don’t get it.
“If it’s black, fight back.”
“If it flies… oh look a bird.”
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u/Skramzkid 4d ago
Looks really great. Obviously new but feels like it could be an enemy in some alternate universe where Hyjal was opened in 04.
It’s why I detest the people who are so hostile to people who speak out about the lack of visual cohesion in Forever. Either make everything SD or HD don’t do half an half
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u/ThisAd1371 5d ago
i dont understand how the community can come up with something that fits while blizz cant
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u/helpprogram2 5d ago
The funny thing about this design is that it’s super obvious. So obvious that blizzard might have already had a similar one internally. But now because this bear exists made by someone that doesn’t work at blizzard they might not be able to do it
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u/draven33l 5d ago
I'm good with that. I have no problem with owl bears, it just needs to fit the art style and polygon count of Classic. This looks like something you'd see in Winterspring.
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u/Uttam_Avabhanakti 5d ago
Fine for the sd model but don’t change the hd one.
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u/ObviousMessage 5d ago
Oh 100%. I think the HD version is great for HD. I'd just love a toned down version for SD since it's like a neon sign when one walks by. The original art is really good, it's just doesn't fit in with the classic models.
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u/MacabreDanze 5d ago
They can't make 2 version for everything, it's just too much work. Hd have to go
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u/The_Katzenjammer 5d ago
i think thats not whats happening this wow forever project was done with low ressource probably im pretty sure a lot of ressource will be unlocked now if it keep being popular.
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u/rhaesdaenys 5d ago
Lmfao and they'd lose 80% of their playerbase. Y'all SD enjoyers are in an echo chamber here on the classic wow subreddit. Venturing out of this bubble almost all of the polls show favoring HD models.
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u/NuklearFerret 5d ago
Except the devs already stated pretty clearly that they aren't making Forever for retail players. The stated goal (and financial incentive) of Forever is to bring back early vanilla/tbc/wrath players that didn't like how the game was progressing in retail. Retail players are already subbed.
All of that is to say that if you're a retail player with an active sub, Forever is literally not made for you. If they like it as it is, that's great, but they shouldn't be catering to it.
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u/rhaesdaenys 5d ago
Yep and if they don't update the art a bit we will be exactly where we are with Era. Low playerbase and hardly any new content because they're looking for a cash cow. Not a project to make classic sd assets sell. They literally won't sell them enough to justify it.
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u/NuklearFerret 5d ago
Era dies because everyone rushes off to the next classic iteration. It's one of those things where if enough people go to a server, that's the game mode to be at, and it's a snowball effect fueled by FOMO. If era and retail were the only 2 things going, era would have more players, but SoD, anniversary, and now forever keep poaching from it.
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u/Mavman11 5d ago
Theorywises video has 150k views 7.4k likes 366 dislikes sooo show me a poll with that much traction since you're claiming all these polls show otherwise.
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u/JohnAlterat 5d ago
Sorry but it's horrible as f. Combine two separate elements with no clue how it should be on the art and design side. Yes, this is not the pro work, just example but such sh.. create misdirection.
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u/silenkurii 5d ago
Yeah it's really not hard to "classicify" this model. Again, this is a great example of the correct aesthetic.
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u/samurai1226 5d ago
Most people don't know that Forever doesn't have HD and SD toggle for druid forms. You can change between the classic model and the different colors of the wotlk forms at a barber for your NE and Tauren druids, everybody sees the HD model if you chose that for your char. So it doesn't matter if blizzard add SD Skyborne forms, you will still see all kind of different HD models of druid forms in SD mode. And honestly I play with SD models and actually prefer that I can use the wotlk forms since the original Tauren cat is just awful
I got whispers standing in wotlk bear form in Orgrimmar with people wondering how I got that
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u/Ubbermann 5d ago
Okay wait... This one's actually really good.
Also, so Blizzard simply can't do this. While some dude did this in under a week IN A CAVE WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!
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u/Icy_Can_301 4d ago
" Dose tools doesn't exist anymore"....
"My wife is an artist and she says it would be a very very difficult challenge"....
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u/Matt7824 2d ago
I HATE the long tail on the current Owlbear, neither owls or bears have long tails, so why does an Owlbear have a long tail? It just looks so out of place, honestly if it had a short stubby tail without changing anything, else it would already looks SO much better.
The Owlcat as well, I get that because obviously cats have long tails, but it has a bush at the end of it and I also hate that, looks so dumb, just have a normal tail, they seem to go over the top with these designs, and I know its nitpicky, but I gotta say it.
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u/whoxcaresxixdont 5d ago
This is actually really good. I hope blizzards artists can match this level of skill!
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u/rhaesdaenys 5d ago
This is literally just the night elf bear model with an owl head stapled to it. It looks bad.
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u/Both-Reason3811 5d ago
Not really it’s the defult bear model in classic with a bird head I think adding ruffled feathers all across the back could fix it and make it more seem less
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u/Orcsjustwannahavefun 5d ago
And yet fits on to the world better than the current HD owl
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u/rhaesdaenys 5d ago
I mean I disagree. It looks like a cheap copy of the night elf one right down to the colors.
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u/Electro-banana 5d ago
there's "which one looks better?" and "which one fits better?" and the latter is way less subjective imo
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u/rhaesdaenys 5d ago
Definitely subjective, but I think they need to pick one between hd and SD and stick with it.
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u/Electro-banana 5d ago
a majority of the game is sd tho since it's an extension off of era
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u/rhaesdaenys 5d ago
Honestly I really don't care? This should be a remaster style update where they update a lot of the textures anyways. They already did lighting, fog and shadows, next up, textures and models. Make this game look good. Of course without fucking up the style.
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u/Electro-banana 5d ago
at blizzcon they literally said they want to keep the aesthetic as is. hd is a completely different art style. the new lighting, fog, and shadows are not changing the art at all
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u/rhaesdaenys 5d ago
Except they added SD as an afterthought. Streamers had to mention it to them to even get it added - they weren't going to do it at all.
HD was what they intended to launch with
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u/Electro-banana 5d ago
the world is sd, you're talking about character models. a bit of an extrapolation I would say
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u/NuklearFerret 5d ago
Nelf bear is brown. It's a Nelf bear with an owl head using Nelf cat paint.
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u/Mavman11 5d ago
Love how this dude is claiming the SD enjoyers are in the minority, but hes the only one on all these posts praising HD. Actual main character syndrome.
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u/rhaesdaenys 5d ago
Because the classicwow subreddit is the echo chamber. This is the only subreddit with the majority liking the old ugly models.
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u/Mavman11 5d ago
Show proof. I commented on your earlier post with raw numbers disagreeing with you.
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u/Initial_Plastic_8069 5d ago
wow, the sub that is abuot Classic WoW likes things Classic WoW .
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u/rhaesdaenys 5d ago
Yep, which is my point. Thanks for understanding. So now you'll also understand that the vast majority of players don't open reddit. Or the forums. And those same people are going to click Enhanced and High Definition by default.
Which again, is my point.
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u/Danielbes 5d ago
Then they can play retail? What's the point of forcing hd models down the throat of classic players when there already exists an hd heaven for players who prefer it? Namely retail.
This wishy washy "both worlds" bullshit will end up alienating everyone.
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u/rhaesdaenys 5d ago
I love when people like you say 'they can play retail?'
Like no, dude. Retail literally plays like an entirely different game. Classic Era plays similarly to Forever. It isn't much to ask to have options for HD models with classic gameplay while preserving your precious ugly SD blurry mess.
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u/Danielbes 4d ago
That's the problem - blizzard tries to please a bunch of different player groups, and will end up pleasing no one. It would be better if they went with only hd models or only SD models, mixing them makes it look very jarring.
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u/Mavman11 5d ago
I like how you've failed to show proof of your claims. You claimed all the polls show a majority will be using HD models. We have visible proof saying more people prefer SD. You're just rage bait posting kinda lame.
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u/rhaesdaenys 5d ago
On the classicwow subreddit there have been tons of polls over the days, every single one is nearly 50/50 on this subreddit. On the foreverwow subreddit there have been many polls. Every single one has been 80/20 in favor of HD. I'm not going to go search them up again because searching on reddit is annoying
I know what I saw. Each poll has roughly 2000 votes total. If you think I'm crazy go to the foreverwow subreddit and start a poll HD vs SD yourself and see what happens.
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u/Mavman11 5d ago
You're just typing numbers without showing the proof. Whereas the theorywise video has hard proof, and reactions from xaryu, esfand, guzu, etc to that video also have hard proof that you're wrong. All of those videos have a 95-99% like to dislike ratio on that video. Xaryus video alone has over 210 thousand views 99% like ratio.
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u/rhaesdaenys 5d ago
Again I don't have to show proof. Blizzard has the numbers and I know without a doubt it's HD that's winning that race. For many reasons. The polls I saw and logic. Logic says the average person prefers pretty things. Hence the reason Blood Elf single handedly saved the Horde population.
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u/Mavman11 5d ago
I agree with you HD will win but not for the reasons you listed. HD will win because why pay for 2 separate art teams when u can be lazy and just use the retail art team and reuse the same assets for 2 games. If that is your argument I 100% agree.
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u/AQuebecJoke 5d ago
wow that’s amazing! Yea I really think the devs are 2 inches away from making the elves/form fit really well, just do something like this owlbear
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u/KamikazePenguiin 5d ago
Honestly, I would just like to see a bunch of weight off the belly and ass and instead put it towards shoulder muscle, pop the chest up and forward a bit more.
Instead of some hunched fat owl bear, I would prefer it looking fierce.
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u/GreyWolfx 5d ago
Why can't a bearform just be a fucking bear I don't like these alternate druid forms and never have, the troll ones from retail are cringe, basically all of the druid forms that werent tauren and nightelf were too creative in stupid ways
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u/WashedWashingMachine 5d ago
Looks classic but u shouldnt be doing Dev job for the devs ur not paid
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u/Defiant_Coat_2491 5d ago
The fact that this was done by someone who isn't being paid for it says a lot more about the devs who are paid a good amount of money to make stuff like this, or in their case not making stuff like this
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u/ConniesCurse 5d ago
One factor that I think people are overlooking is that blizzard has essentially already sold the skyborne, their druid forms, people have already paid money for them as they currently are.
If they massively change them, it opens them up to refunds. Big companies almost never take risks like that.
Even if it's the right choice financially,
"sell something and show it one way in your advertisements and then change it later"
is such a "business 101 don't do this" type of thing that even if this should be an exception, they're still not gonna do it.
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u/Lucky_Pangolin_3760 5d ago
I dont understand that argument, they heavily changed all the graphics in WoD and what people paid for no longer existed
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u/ConniesCurse 5d ago
there's a massive difference between doing it like weeks after people pay for something and doing it years later in a live service game.
Legally speaking, they do have the full right to change whatever they want, but it's like a vibes thing
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u/dahpizza 5d ago
They could easily add it as an sd option in the barber shop. The other druid forms do
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u/Ashamed-Health-8070 5d ago
That's not the this works. That's not the way any of this works.
What you're describing here is literally the opposite of the way video games have worked for literally... Ever?
Have you seen the cover of Atari Real Sports Football!?!?
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u/Defiant_Coat_2491 5d ago
Yep, the damage is already done, Blizzard is a company that should never be taken with out a constant grain of salt, these folks can be professional con artists on side of being a video game developer
I personally will not pay $30 for this race neither would I consider creating one even if it was for free
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u/Dinoriel6142713 5d ago
The game is in beta. Everything is subject to change. And besides, Blizzard offers refunds for pre-purchases. If you end up not being happy with the direction they take during beta, get your money back.
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u/FineNinja7370 5d ago
ugh, ill never understand why game studios dont just actually hire people from the community instead of these ungrateful kids who spent time at school and applied at blizzard or by other means this is sickening /s
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u/Flannel_Panels 5d ago
Stop trying to make them not sell skyelves in retail /s. Pretty obvious thats why they made all the designs look retail.
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u/glormosh 5d ago
I have bad news for a lot of you.
There's clearly a weird feedback loop occurring in their dev team after watching that first podcast.
They believe the bear form is great right now and it has already received multiple improvement passes that they felt were unnecessary.
I've also heard a rumor from a wow journalist that the Dev post that we saw was real AND it caused internal drama.
There's clearly a mixed vision coming down from leadership.
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u/NotAnIBanker 5d ago
If I would Blizzard I would try to get this in the release just for the community points. I'm sure it's much easier said than done, but stuff like this is low hanging fruit for community interaction cred.
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u/queakymart 5d ago
Who cares man... you're still going to be looking at the same old bear butt for the next 10 years. The only reason the werebear form from legion was popular was simply because it finally give you something else to look at, even though most of the other artifact forms were objectively better looking in a general sense.
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u/Sure-Paper3027 5d ago
Insane how much better this is