It is very much around, not necessarily here and I don’t want to point fingers and/or derail a discussion that has died. Even in all kinds of other forums beyond WoW, there are often these kinds of “cultural wars”, and if one digs it wouldn’t be hard to find. Like, this is the internet, is it crazy to think there are people expressing themselves poorly with bad takes? Likely not. We are not here for that though!
Huge agree.
NGL we need more character customization. Dragonflight kind of started going in that direction, but as of TWW, everything halted? WoW is lagging behind a lot of other competitors and even free private servers at this stage.
For example, I can’t bring myself to play the copy-pasted protoss race because they don’t look like protoss/aliens, but rather their body-builder version who got a ton of steroids! The current male model works for paladins and warriors, and that’s it.
But also, a more frail human would be kind of neat? And so on. I won’t bother to make a list.
I’m old. The ‘too pretty/not pretty enough’ debate brings me back to my teenage years when people we’re having this exact same discourse about Lara Croft in the PS1 days when her meat missiles were 24 pixels and the shape of a Toblerone because we’d only just invented polygons the week before.
So when people start having a raging culture war on reddit over Liadrin’s jawline I start feeling like I’m in some frelling Groundhog Day scenario.
I don’t see the issue with making video game characters look beautiful, perfect or otherwise appealing. Men or women. I think it’s fine. So long as it’s applied equally.
Also women have literally no (0/0) leg to stand on about calling men out for wanting female characters in games to be good looking, when y’all have an entire SECTION in the book stores with smut about vampires, werewolves and god-knows what other monsters getting it on with the fairer side of society. And yet somehow, someway, that is more acceptable.
Anyway, back to the topic and regarding Midnight, I wonder if there will be a lot of class or talent changes overall, or will the specs remain mostly the same? I think its probably the latter, but I hope not. I like change.
When looking up fanart of Liadrin in this particular case (digital, traditional, photorealistic, blender, cosplay, etc…) the crushing majority make her look attractive. When the fans have created a hundred times more content about her in this similar vein, the fact that the official first look of her in CGI is so distant from collective hivemind of fanart -and- previous official artwork from Blizzard themselves… How can someone be surprised that a lot of people are miffed about it?
There’s a discussion for sure to be had about the relationship between official artists and that of its spectators/buyers but this isn’t the thread for it.
Personally she just doesn’t look all elvish at all. Remove pointy ears and she’s just a gruff looking human. There’s this uncanny valley between the “Mewing face” and the FemCustodes CGI looks that just doesn’t do it for me. They would have been better off reusing the female model of the TBC cinematic.
I tapped out when I saw someone defending the CGI design of Liadrin by attacking critics not liking that they designed her to look like Brienne of Tarth.
I wonder still what they think the rest of the GoT cast looked like.
I’ve said to others that she looks off, and the main thing was the eyes, which in turn, makes you notice more flaws in how she looked.
She looks too much like a human, and I personally wonder if they just used a RL human model for the scene and then CGI’d a bunch of stuff.
But, apparently, not liking her cinamatic model for any reason at all means we all need to:
Delete WoW, all files and System 32
Destroy our computers, burn it all and never touch electronics again
Go outside and stay out there for days
Touch grass, roll around it in, stuff it in your clothing, embrace it
Seek mental help because you obviously need psychological treatment.
Those like this who are defending the cinematic version are just as unhigned as the ones who are just being vile about it without criticising it.
Meanwhile, I just don’t like it because she looks more like a human and less like an elf.
I personally think it’s great that they introduce new races, rather than enriching the existing ones. I no longer have much faith in Blizzard storytelling, so I’d rather be given new toys to play with, so we players can make our own stories with them.
However, with this approach, it’s best if the new races actually fill some new niche, or add something new and interesting that we can work with. The dracthyr were… Okay, I suppose, but there were many other ways they could’ve given us a dragon-themed race. The earthen were in my opinion the least inspiring and most forgettable race they ever added. They’re just dwarves with all personality erased.
The haranir don’t add anything either, that we didn’t already have. They just seem like ultra-night elves with some visual differences.
My only question is if outfits are set with a transmogged weapon - for example, Elly’s current transmog with his scythe…what happens when I switch into frost?
Will the two 1hs be transmogged into the scythe? Seems unlikely, but that would be preeeeeeeeetty neat. I note that the example screenshots show a prot paladin with a 2h sword transmogged, and not a 1h with shield.
Could open up a whole bunch of opportunities if real (single minded fury go bye bye, 2h frost comes back, sword+shield arms warrior, fist weapon assassination rogue) but too early to get hyped probably.
Edit: The paladin in the example screenshot also appears to have a leather chest and cloth trousers on. It’s definitely too much to hope for armour restriction removal but…mayhaps…? Perchance…?
I suspect the same thing that happens now when you change weapons to a type different to what you have transmogged - Chaos reigns and you may or may not keep the weapon transmog you wanted.
it really bothers me that some caster daggers/swords I can transmog into other but some daggers/swords I can only transmog into whichever one they are (dagger or sword). i’m a wizard, I’m not gonna stab anyone with this.
The subject of Liadrin’s cinematic appearance has been thoroughly debated, but a perspective I haven’t seen explored much online is how it influences the cinematic’s intended atmosphere and nuance when it comes to storytelling. Beauty can be appreciated, and beauty can be distracting; had they emphasized Liadrin’s attractiveness more, I think that could’ve detracted from the narrative vibes the directors wanted to tell. Had they given her more alluring looks, the vibe with Liadrin could’ve read as “a delicate damsel in distress”. Instead, they wanted to depict her as a seasoned warrior, a Matriarch, a devout follower of the Light; someone whose commitment to her duties and faith takes precedence over her appearance.
In my opinion, her appearance in the cinematic worked just fine for what they wanted to focus on in the scenes. Hardship, inner struggle, faith. Had the cinematic visuals been more stylized/cartoony, then I think it would’ve been easier to pull off a hotter look for all characters.
I also believe that emphasizing Liadrin’s sexiness more would’ve seemed somewhat old-fashioned when the character is paired with Lor’themar - the stereotype of an old battle-scarred male character next to a young super attractive female character.
Nonetheless, I join the choir of people wishing the elf eyes were more glowy.
Now, on to other subjects;
I’m quite looking forward to Haranir, and finding out more about their culture and homeland.
Also looking forward exploring the revamped Silvermoon and Eversong Forest, having roleplayed a blood elf when TBC first came out, and then again some decade ago. Curious if I’ll feel nostalgic roaming the place.
I think I’m mostly looking forward to housing, though; if y’all could deal with the Void invasion that’d be snazzy, I’ll be just redecorating my living room for the unth time.
Mages can transmog daggers into swords, but rogues can’t transmog daggers into swords. The class that is known for not playing by the rules is being outperformed by the nerds.