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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Are pretty pixels important to you?
by Stephanie Drury 
Jun 12th 2011 at 8:00AM
I admit it: I judge books by their covers. By the same token, I also judge games by their pixels. The look and feel is a key factor of my enjoyment of the game. If I can't customize a character, the game loses appeal quickly.
WoW doesn't have a huge amount of customization, but it's added a lot with barber shops to keep me and my mood swings satisfied. It may be a niche need or desire, but I am happy it is recognized. There are, however, some colors I think it would be great to see added. Female night elf death knights need a pink hair color option. I would love if my druid could get this same hair color without having to die for it. The Gilnean rogue trainer Lorna and Surwich Innkeeper Donna Berrymore have a dark blue/purple hair color. I wish one of my humans could stumble upon this mysterious hair dye bottle.
Blizzard recently mentioned that it's adding a choice between male and female versions of demons
Some players have voiced a desire for an option to show or hide their gear. I'd like to broach the idea of dyes here as well. Although it would hinder being able to tell heroic from normal gear at a glance, it would make it more aesthetically pleasing for each character to choose an individual look. I wouldn't look the same as every other person in my class.
In what other areas would you like to see the game's aesthetics added to or improved?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
DarkWalker Jun 12th 2011 12:09PM
Given that Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 are both similar to WoW regarding how models and textures work, Blizzard actually has experience with setting a dye system. After all, each army in those games needs different colors for each possible player.
razion Jun 12th 2011 9:40AM
More combat animations--for both melee and casters.
Melee combat doesn't seem to differ very much--always the same special swing, over and over. It doesn't help that the strikes you use against enemies don't give off a different strike effect, certainly. At the least, Dual-wielders do get the Mutilate / Raging Blow attack to spice things up, but for 2-hand specialists, they have to make do with that single special attack swing.
Casters are in sort of a similar boat--there are few casting animations that you'll use regularly, but in most cases you stick to a set offensive or healing cast. Something that's always really bugged me about casters is that their weapons are never put into their spells. I never see a caster wave their staff in the air while conjuring an attack, or thrusting out their wand to unleash a powerful spell. It's just non-existent.
For me, the game is all about combat. And only getting to look at less than half a handful of animations regularly can get uninteresting. I find I spend more time looking at my bars not because I have to but because they change with more frequency than my character does in its attacks.
HappyTreeDance Jun 12th 2011 10:33AM
Can't upvote this enough. There are certain races that I really love but just can't play because I hate the animations so much. The third toon I ever rolled was a female troll rogue. Horrible. I really couldn't stand the way she looked when she was fighting, and I never made it past level 20 with her. Then I rolled a female belf rogue and it was an absolute world of difference.
The reason a lot of my toons are belfs is because I like the animations so much, particularly for male two handed melee. This is why my DK is a belf. Of the original Horde races, i really only think that female undead have good animations (and by the way, those animations are why I finally fell in love with the warrior class. Front flip!).
Sadly, the toon I have to look at the most has the absolute worst animations. Female tauren, I love you, but you just look silly. The casting animations are boring as hell. It makes me miss my tree form and the hallelujah! arms.
Please update animations Blizz so that they are all on par with goblins and belfs. :)
Sergel Jun 12th 2011 3:22PM
I gotta agree, and its one of the things that really bugged me. I noticed in boss fights that are supposed to huge and epic that, say dragons for example, kinda just swipe you with their claw. While in other games, i see them literally shaking the screen, flying up with gusts of wind, breaking objects. It really feels immersive.
There are other mmos that have nice casting animations, and different ones for different spells. And they move while casting!! like they move their arms, they aren't solid statues.
*sigh* its the little things that make a huge deal for me.
Glostakarov Jun 12th 2011 9:44AM
Really, being able to readily identify race/class/tier/heroic at a glance only seriously matters in pvp. If you're inviting a pug to a raid you will probably inspect their gear no matter what you see because most of it isn't visible anyhow. So why not give us the ability to display any set we've collected and have that not function in battlegrounds, arenas, and pvp zones like WG and TB. Seems like a decent compromise between aesthetics and functionality.
DarkWalker Jun 12th 2011 12:05PM
I sincerely think being able to determine at a glance the other player's gear level, class, and often even spec, cheapens PvP. More so with World PvP; with gear visible, gankers are able to determine at a glance if the character they are looking at will be able to fight back or not, and avoid confrontation if they are not sure of their success.
Noyou Jun 12th 2011 12:45PM
You can already tell easily if they are low levels by the gray levle number when you click to target. A quick mouseover at the health pool is all it takes most times if they are similar level or higher. The PvP argument is probably the worst one going as far as silhouettes goes. If it's red, kill it. /endstory.
Sergel Jun 12th 2011 3:13PM
But other pvp games like Aion and games with PvP like Rift all have a sort of appearance tabs or wardrobe slots.
Jonisjalopy Jun 12th 2011 9:54AM
My Wish List:
1) I want to be able "turn off" pieces of my gear as a warrior to give that Conan the Barbarian feel.
2) Moonkin. Nuff said.
3) Glow enchants added to other gear besides just weapons. Maybe having the shoulder chants do something nifty as well. Too many glowies would get out of hand though.
Arrohon Jun 12th 2011 11:00AM
Too many tier sets have glowing pieces so if the enchant made that piece to glow it might look like a Crayola explosion.
Jason Ralph Jun 12th 2011 10:23AM
Gear in DCUO is called styles. When you equip, you learn the style it's part of. As a result, you can be sporting the high end raiding gear (tier 2), or PvP gear (tier 2 as well), and not displaying it's look.
I mentioned that for one reason, and one reason alone: how cool would it be to be walking around displaying Arena Season 2 (Merciless set; BC), while actually wearing the current season???
Or rolling in Mid Summer's Festival clothes when you kill Deathwing (but actually having equipped the raid gear; don't raid so don't know what it is :]).
However, honestly, I think Blizzard hasn't because if they did, and weren't able to ad in a particular set or something, someone would feel left out, and would gripe. One of the things it'll be cool if they did, but probably won't... That's A LOT of gear (figure it would be a whole xpac in it's self just going off of all the item sets in the game 0_0).
DarkWalker Jun 12th 2011 11:49AM
This would actually give players a reason to look at old content, which is a quite nice side effect.
Also, having cosmetic gear outside our bags would push some players (such as me :P ) to collect them. I do so with DCUO, can't let a single piece of cosmetic gear behind :)
Revnah Jun 12th 2011 10:38AM
I'm actually happy with the way the characters look.
One thing I'd like is more customization, but it takes away some of the immersion for me if people would choose to display different armour than they are wearing. I'd like more bearable faces for Troll women, and more hair colours and all, and it would be great if there was a skirt in the game (the way there are shirts and dresses and the like), but apart from that, I hope they don't change things too much :-)
DarkWalker Jun 12th 2011 11:45AM
I, for once, would really love if most characters didn't look like what they are wearing. The last time I actually liked a set of tier gear was back in Vanilla. I spent the whole time since I started raiding quite unhappy with my character looks (specially the WWF-like belt and the humongous shoulder pieces; the rest I find uninspiring but mostly OK). I would even settle for looking like I was dressed in starter gear.
Arrohon Jun 12th 2011 10:57AM
I'm about to go slightly off-topic here. I was playing Final Fantasy 12 and put on a new piece of armor only to see... no change at all. It has really taken the appeal of that game and destroyed it for me (a game with visuals that great and they couldn't at least put an option in for you to see your armor?). Yes, visuals are important to me. I really wish that boots were visible on my worgen and all the bootless horde races. I'd like a female night elf face that looks like the sample (all of the current ones are actually hideous).
Prystus Jun 12th 2011 11:05AM
As Jonisjalopy said:
"The dye doesn't have to change the entire piece to one color, but at least a general swap of color would be nice."
EQ didn't allow you to just totally flop the armors color. A dye tinted or shaded what was already there, with the color added.
That would be very simple to implement. And get the same results.
quelynne dk Jun 12th 2011 11:40AM
i have been begging for pink hair since I rolled my dk... but blizzard hates pink
Noyou Jun 12th 2011 12:48PM
Don't troll females get pink hair? And night elf DK's have "pinkish" options. Also gnome females. So it's in the game just not available to all.
DarkWalker Jun 12th 2011 12:19PM
Let me put it this way: if I'm going to spend dozens of hours staring at a character's behind, I better like how it looks.
Noyou Jun 12th 2011 12:50PM
I hear that theory a lot. Not sure how you play the game if your are looking at your toon's behind. :p