The Spirit Realm

... they look terrible.

Also, I am officially requesting that Tharkis' Pretty Kitty Princess Pink color be returned to him, even if he is a Mod.

Die Bethiana, die. But yes, as I've been vocal on the eqlive thread, the new models suck bad. I'm an advocate of them scrapping the whole project and outsourcing it to an art team to do all new models, unique armor graphics for the races etc. Right now the new models , to try to save on memory, dont even have different armor graphics for the guys and girls... result all the girls look like they've got a package... eww.

I am glad they are going with the new human models

Its great fun to tease the softskin monks about what they will look like when they go live

Nah, most of them will quit, Ughbash. The models are *just* that bad. If I have to see my sk look like that, I'll either have to use illusions full time or just retire her.

There's something that I think is being overlooked, though.

Humans may be the 'average folk', sure, but Adventurers are the ones who didn't become traders or barmaids or bankers or farmers or millers - we are the exceptional humans - and members of each of the races - the ones not content to slouch through mundane tasks in our semi-fuedal society. The ones with higher goals than eating, drinking, reproducing and dying. The ones who seek out encounters to the death across the nation, across the continent, around the world, on the moon, in distant planes and dimensions, and have even defeated the Gods themselves!

So why should we look like the poor schmucks who can't handle delivering Tumpy Tonics or stamping out the Crushbone Orcs?

Well, I guess the male and female models look like someone took a man and a woman and averaged them out... you can't tell the difference between male and female easily.

While the "about to topple forward" image of the barbarian female luclin model is not my favourite, I do like there to be some difference between males and females.

I have to say looking at some of the examples in that thread, the Guild War models put the EQ models to shame in both looks, customizibility and animations. And, apparantly they aren't system hogs either and have a multitude of different armour graphics. It really makes you wonder when you see SOE trying to pass the new models off as some sort of improvement.

You're the second person that I have heard mention the Guild Wars models. I'm wondering if you can provide some screen shots for comparison? What about other games people particularly like the human models in? Maybe we can gather up some examples of good characters to show SOE what they should be striving for?

There are a lot of images from guildwars in the thread on eqlive. They're used for comparison because unlike vanguard, or eq2 etc, the models are not memory intensive, infact they're relativly low polygon count, however they use very detailed texturing, and have a multitude of available armors for every race and gender.

I'm not sure if you saw the images, but someone posted several long sets of screenshots of the multitude of armor sets available for the Lineage II characters. This is from a game that is 4-5 years old. What also impressed me was the enviornment graphics you could see especially the one or two screenshots with the treed background.

Another thing that seems to be brought up a lot is the pitiful character animations that EQ features. Take WoW for example. Each race/gender combination has its own dance animation, as well as Bearform, Cat form, Moonkin form, Tree of Life form (druid shapeshifts) as well as Ogre form (ogre form comes from a 10 minute duration illusion item that is useable for a quest) and I believe Skeleton form and Pirate suit form as well (also illusion effects obtainable from items). This is along with the usual suite of character animations. I was actually suprised when one of my quest illusion items (an item you are supposed to use during the quest and then turn in to get your reward) didn't have a dance animation. Compare this to EQ where most non-PC character illusions don't even have sitting animations let alone any other animations.

Shaman's Ghost Wolf also has its own dance animation. Pirate form shares the dance animation from the other human forms. Not sure about ninja. Ogre form makes me laugh profusely. Some of the NPC races have special animations as well. The Sea Striders/Shore Striders in Feralas will look around nervously, fart out a green bubble, curiously poke it, then wave away the stench. Hydra, if inactive for a small period of time, start arguing and fighting amongst their three heads. Voice emotes are fun, too. Each class has 4-5 flirts (Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Good! Bring ample supply of butter and goblin jumper cables!), 3 jokes, and various other voice emotes (I've been known to make people choke on their drink with the female Draenei /train emote).

That was one of the things that made playing EQ again the last time so difficult. The game felt stale, like cardboard, in relation. Plus the world in WoW seems alive. Cities move around you, not when you interact with them. Towns and Camps are the same way. Their NPCs don't need you to interact with them.

I shudder to think how bad the non-human proportioned models will be if they can't get the baseline human done properly.