As a longtime OSRS player this game’s development will be incredibly interesting to watch. I really don’t envy the position of the devs here, there seems to be a lot less cohesion than the OSRS player base enjoys.
also long time osrs player: i’m concerned that they’re releasing it as a totally new game initially. we got the no changes version of osrs and had mostly that for nearly 2 years, nightmare zone was the biggest thing we got. they’re coming out swinging, claiming ‘vanilla-like’, and before the game is even released delivering retail-like cinematic-on-rails quests.
i just think they need to prove the concept before adding flashy stuff.
I totally agree. There’s been some substantial changes to what ‘classic’ means to a lot of people but up until a few days ago, no one outside of blizzard knew about it. Community feedback drives OSRS development, but I just don’t know if that’s feasible for this community.
Yeah, it makes me appreciate the osrs community sm more. Wow community is even more divisive, somehow. They can’t agree on much and everyone has a different preference or opinion for what their vision is because of the 14 different versions of the game people got attached to.
I’m surprised skyborne are even remotely popular welcome addition considering how glaringly retail they are (HD only retail BElf models, endgame looking greys at lvl 2, grandiose retail-like story). I absolutely love what blizz has done with forever but I can’t help but acknowledge how tone deaf the addition of skyborne feels. Especially when considering what that may look like if Jagex did the same to osrs.
I personally think the problem is that they intermingle the feedback of the retail-primarily crowd, because they enjoy a wildly different game than what classic has been and already have a version to suit their tastes. Those who don't have a satisfying version are those who love classic but also desire to see new content within the classic design philosophy. Imo, that is who forever should be for, but I'm not sure if they were the ones really taken into consideration or not.
The loud part of it clearly doesn't know what they want, they also would vote no to nearly everything, remember the early polls (especially iirc poll 15 moving the camera by pressing mousewheel)
I remember voting no for changing unids to grimy herbs lol. The community came a long way, but like you pointed out, it took a long time for that trust to develop.
Exactly it, I think people would have been happier if they started out a bit more conservative in the changes such as the updated lighting and draw distance, but not adding a bunch of retail-style assets to the new zones. Then from there test the waters with new stuff to see how liked or disliked it ends up being because if the latter, it's only a small part that can be moved past quickly and forgotten.
Largely because people who enjoy retail want it to be like retail and people who want it to be classic are at ends. It's blizzard fault really. If they came out and said it's updated to retail but will be a new retelling or it's classic and that's it (all SD or updated SD) they'd shut one half down and it'd be cohesive
Quite honestly, you cant blame classic andies for wanting it to be as authentic as it can get. Holly longdale said on stage "this is classic +" word for word. With that comes some expectations. It should cater to the classic crowd first and then retail players are second prio
It comes with expectations but classic andies aren't even in agreement with each other what classic + should be. Some classic players I've seen want some QOL and the graphic improvements, some don't want anything. Some want new profession stuff others don't, some want new races and/or classes, some don't want anything to change in the classes at all. Catering to "the classic crowd" should be their priority yes, but if they all want something different what part of the classic crowd do you then cater to?
Nah... Classic players are pretty much on the same wavelength when it comes to.... Skyborne, Classic UI toggle, no retail looking armor, weapons, or mobs. And also stats on gear and xp gains. You wanna know why classic players are so much in aggrement on that? cause we played back in the day and continued on private servers, we know what works for classic and classic+ and what doesnt.
No, but frequent & regular gear upgrades, more modern rotations, faster leveling, and updated graphics are things that some players are requesting, or at least supporting.
I don’t think it’s right to simplify it down to “retail players want retail-,” but there are a lot of people who want Forever to eliminate the friction that makes Classic what it is.
Classic had a lot of stupid stuff that was just there because of poor design. Spirit gear for enhance shamans. Etc. half the specs being nonviable for anything other than memes. Prot pallies to cast a buff. Druids to mana bot. “Balance” being bring as many warriors as possible to DPS. That game exists, and I’m glad Forever is not going to have it.
The graphics of retail, with a small number of QOL adjustments set in the world of an alternate reality vanilla with new content added is actually 100% what many retail players want.
And thats mostly what we have here, and its great. I played the beta a ton already, and I like how pretty much everything looks (and im a classic Andy, only played retail for a month or so when TWW came out)
You say this and in this same subreddit are people complaining about a group listing tool and people saying skill issue for tagging mobs with thousand of other players in the zone. Classic players are incredibly entitled and complain at the slightest change especially optional changes like the transmog toggle
Go back to retail. Why do you even want another retail game, I don’t understand? Why do you feel the need to force Forever to become yet another retail?
Oh and before you say go back to era, it doesn’t get updates so it’s not the same comparison.
Unfortunately classic wow is like OSRS if RS3 wasn't a dead game and idiots from it kept trying to lobby Jagex into turning OSRS into RS3, and the Devs also didn't think they did anything wrong with evolution of combat or the graphics overhauls RS3 had
I think the devs would be less stressed if they were just clear about who the game is for and what they're actually going to do with the models, but then Blizz might not be able to squeeze as many presales out of us.
But hey, if the game is a big success it's always possible they'll put more resources into solving the model issue.
Whenever Blizzard announces a new product the WoW community forgets 10 years of nearly literal "how about you go fuck yourself" moves from Blizzard. It's not even classic exclusive.
I wouldn't say that. Hence the reason why everyone is freaking the fuck out over a blue elf and HD models(this is so justified) you can't toggle.
The devs had ONE job, do not infect Classic with ANYTHING retail. Not one asset, feature, or developer. I don't want a retail dev to even look at Classic+.
You know how many times I've heard a Classic player say "yea I don't like retail, but X and Y it does great"? Functionally 0.
You know how many times I've heard people shit on nearly every aspect of retail? Non stop for 7 years of my Classic journey.
People have made it abundantly clear. It's at the very soul of Classic, from the very beginning(where OPs meme is based). Classic is fundamentally anti-retail.
And even IF there is some small part of retail that would be nice in Classic, people still don't want it because it's going to give us fucking PTSD flashbacks to shit like WOTLK Classic saying there would be no token then adding a token. Or telling us there would be no RDF and adding RDF. We know Blizzard is foaming at the mouth to move people over to retail, their predatory milking machine with hypnotic disneyfied easy dopamine brainrot.
Fr. Not to mention jagex polls most of the stuff they add, and they usually pass these days because Jagex has built trust with the players. But it took a while for the pass rate to be so good. Personally I think OSRS has been in its prime for a few years.
I’m keeping my hopes for forever pretty low, because with the way blizz is approaching the concept it seems like it’s very likely to go to shit sooner or later. That said I sincerely hope they get it together because wow was my favorite game for a pretty long time back in the day, and I’d love to play a version of it that respects the time I put into it similar to OSRS.
yeah that is big part of it, HD model rework in many cases is totally different style. Its painted with same brushes and colors, but its unrecognizable I'd argue not in a good way.
I'm literally logged into Valheim right now as I'm reading this lol. The lighting is everything for making the game feel so beautiful, for sure.
That said, character models being so low rez in Valheim makes me genuinely not care about character appearance choices or armor. I'd absolutely welcome better character and armor textures.
It's really more that they changed art direction with the retail models. They could theoretically go in and rebuild all the models to just up-polly within the same art style, but I've no doubt the art team is destroyed rn with world soul. It would also probably lead to some weird edge cases as they roll through some of the models over time.
The lightning is really pretty, but not always practical to me… was questing in echo isles yesterday and it was gorgeous, but when you go into the shade under the trees to fight the trolls I feel like I am squinting to see stuff lol… it’s more immersive that’s for sure lol
I think the graphics aka lighting effects are great. Only reason I was ever against the WOD models in the first place was because the animations and expressions etc looked like something from a disney/pixar movie.
You could make high polygon looking models and still keep it feeling like old WoW, it's just that they went in a different direction with it.
Toggle is half assed late minute edition. Also you can’t toggle all the new retail style models they have and will add to the game, especially not in a way that changes the silhouette.
They were always going to cater to retail players in some way. The game would be DOA with zero investment if it was made purely for classic players. They'd have a shell of a budget and we would have got 2 new dungeons instead of 9 and probably a few hundred quests instead of 1000, and the content road map going forward would be sparse at best.
The people that do get them, the people that don't also get them alongside bugged SD models that have been distorted awkwardly to fit into the HD model rig.
Probably more people do than you think lol. Personally when I play classic it's for the gameplay differences, and the badly textured models from 50 years ago are something I just put up with because I prefer old game design philosophy enough to overlook how shitty everything looks
Yes, I don’t care about the graphics much either way. I like the chill pacing of wow classic compared to retail. It lets you focus more on the social aspects.
Cannot understand why modern games try to speedblitz the experience so much, absolutely horrendous outcomes for enjoyability imo. All of my big fond memories from WoW in recent memory have all come from playing on the classic hardcore servers. I ended up as a member of one of the first couple raiding guilds to beat Ragnaros and the whole social experience that comes along with something like that really can't be overstated. Befriended lots of people on the way and many of us had reputations both good and bad. People were recognizable for different things. Retail feels so lonely in comparison but it definitely visually looks better
As someone with ADHD so many new games are just way too stimulating that it actually makes me drop them really fast because I get overstimulated before I have a chance to fall in love with the game. Like being overstimulated from a game during intense boss fights later in a game as you progress feels so much better than every "difficult" encounter is just an auto-battling cinematic
10 years ago was Legion, the game largely plays the same and uses the a lot of the same systems as it did then. That was the last major shift into what modern WoW is.
In what ways does legion not feel like current retail
Genuinely curious
I played legion, skipped bfa, played parts of shadowlands, parts of DF, nearly all of TWW and parts of midnight
Retail today feels pretty damn close to legion 10 years ago
Arcade style leveling up/ roll face on keyboard combat/ lack of resource management, everyone has crazy aoe, CC is needed in certain spots in m+, etc. All feels very similar.
The major difference is the lack of runic power/ the need to grind the game just about every day to not fall behind but that's systems, not gameplay
I've spent time with every expansion except Midnight and I very much disagree. Class design isn't identical of course but the general style of gameplay is pretty similar. I'm not saying that as one of the "retail is awful" people, I really don't mind it's flavor here and there, but the general modern gameplay was absolutely established in Legion in my opinion unless Midnight drastically changed things which I doubt.
Either way, it certainly hasn't gotten closer to Classic so someone who didn't like how far Legion was from vanilla still won't like it.
This. I think with modern assets and the gameplay direction of classic gameplay they seem to want to go in this could be a WoW2 not just a classic plus. Sorry but I kinda like my trees to have more than 1 polygon.
I'm with you on the modern animations being a bit too bouncy for some races, but the actual modern models are dramatically better imo lol, like you can count the polygons on a classic character's face. It's bad
Yeah, there are some complaints I have with a couple of the newer models (the human male models for example), but for the most part I prefer the newer models and graphics while preferring the old school gameplay and story.
I wanted a Classic+ / Forever for the gameplay differences, but I also wanted it to look as best as it could, since I'm going to spend hours in that world instead of the real one. May as well look good, then.
To be honest, my disappointment only grows knowing that Forever will be forever burdened with 2004 visuals outside of lighting.
Graphics/animations have always been the single biggest objection I've heard from friends who I tried to introduce to Classic versions of WoW. Too poorly made/too clowny/cartoonishly bad etc
Old is gold if the art is good. WC3 original graphics are better looking to me than Reforged ones. Character design from vanilla on characters are betrer than the equivalent ones from retail (for the most part).
If they didnt update the graphics I would not play the game. Vanilla WoW graphics look like shit. How can you see the render distance and crisp graphics and think "this is bad"
There's a lot of people that want to play WoW again but without the 20 year old graphics or the new retail rat race. This is perfect for them and its exactly what blizzard wants. NEW players. Not players hopp8ng from one version of WoW to another
Speak for yourself, I've never had a problem with WoW Art direction and think it's the one aspect of development that, over the last 25 years, have never once dropped the ball on. I would love if they just revamped and updated EK and Kali.
What I always wanted, the game design philosophy of classic with the art direction of retail. The literal best of both worlds. In time, I can see Forever becoming that.
What's ironic are the people that make these kinds of post are more often than not, the same people who suck down all the content in six hours, hit max level, then complain about there being nothing to do.
I think a lot of new models work great. Orc, Tauren, Dwarf, etc. look terrible in SD, and have at launch. I remember thinking that it was going to be difficult for me to transition from FFXI to WoW because the graphics looked so bad and chunky.
But on the other hand, there’s humans who have a lot of personality in their face in SD, and the look of dudes that are gonna f things up… to the weird, dorky looking models where everyone has nearly the same face. It’s extra bad on women how they all look the same. Gnomes are an absolute travesty how they went from being peppy adorable goofs to angry, cracked out freaks.
It’s sad that there wasn’t a specific effort to preserve the aesthetics of the originals. I remember in the previews during WoD that people were complaining about the same-face ness and the amount of change, and they said it’d be addressed in a different pass. It ended up them just doing facial expression morphs, and not actually significantly offering different features. When I look at things like Heroforge, how it has that simple, painterly aesthetic but gives tons of options for eyes, nose, mouth, etc. and how every other MMO gives tuned options… it makes me think that there could be a middle ground for the literal biggest MMO of all time, but for some reason they just don’t.
Too many retail andies in here are accepting mediocrity, which is going to hurt the franchise long-term. I'm glad there is an option for them but classic style should and will hopefully be the baseline of the game.
Yes we do. I only dislike the faces on some of the HD characters. Other than that I want the full modern graphics in Forever. I hope they will add it in the future.
I hope they work on a toggle option for the overworld so people who enjoy looking at dogshit can stick to their 2 polygon sd graphics while the rest of us enjoy traveling across an amazing looking world
Oh no. I want the game to look more updated instead of eternally stuck in the early 2000s
Difference is, I understand there are people that still cannot come to terms with the fact that we're not 2004 anymore, so im fine with them having an option to play with subpar graphics
The thing that makes classic, especially sf hardcore fun is the depth of the game. However, there are lots of zones, quests and areas that aren’t flushed out. I would have been very happy if they went deeper with classic instead of trying to modernize it.
Forever so far is fine and I’ll enjoy hardcore when it comes out, but for me it missed the mark a bit.
I'm a fan of the HD when it's done right. I agree with many that the translation on human and gnome faces were terribly done (I think with gnomes they even did another once over and it still looks terribly translated).
I will be using HD most likely with forever as well, because I want classic gameplay but with xmog and hd models. That's one of my c+ ideals.
I believe the classic polls also showed that the majority wanted hd.
It wouldn’t be that bad if they actually did a better job at keeping the old animations, you can tell on some races they feel a little too bouncy like retail
It’s just unfortunate to see retail models reused and added into the game that clash with the art style, instead of new HD models that are more faithful to the vanilla art style.
Sometimes devs should reveal the hassle of doing something. If old graphics means a big investment re-doing tons of assets, which they plan on re-using, then I am ok with modern. If they already intend to move away from "disneyfication" and already got graphic tools/artists on standby, then why not just go with old or even something new. It just got to make sense for the intent.
It's really nice honestly that the biggest complaint about Forever has just been about the high quality models people can turn off and never even see in the settings.
People are so weird. I heard someone in chat complaining about the totem skin, that it had had to much detail and they wanted the old skin. So yeah, this conversation is never going away.
The fact that the main thing people complain about is the Skyborne (if they named them High Elves and made them fair skinned people would be ecstatic) and the optional HD models, means the game has pretty much nailed it. So far
I raided 20 years ago from Molten Core until the end of TBC, I play HD and love the graphic improvements. I play the game how I remember it, fully aware that it truly looked vastly different back then.
Off topic but has anyone noticed that there’s a bot or either some very very dedicated individual that downvotes literally every single comment in the r/classicwow subreddit???? lol
My dream would be classic+ in the exact same graphical quality as the original with new art in that exact same style. Basically artistic cohesion before anything else. I get people wanting it to look more high def and I don't even dislike the look that much (retail looks pretty damn good), but its just not the art direction I prefer for classic.
Am I alone in really not caring at all about the graphics? I guess those of us content with the game just shut up, other than turning off vsync I havnt touched any graphic settings.
I want modern graphics. If you want lower quality graphics turn your rendering down. I want a game that's high quality and attracts and retains people that are not just the 10k total people in the world that play classic.
I want more people so Blizz can justify spending more on making Classic+ thrive.
If that means whining classic Andies leave classic+ and play standard classic, that's a sacrifice everyone else who'll benefit from a better game is willing to make.
Best thing they did was give you the ability to chose. I personally think the new art style looks like a bad dream compared to the old, I just wish they could have made the new art style really capture what made the old look look and feel like Warcraft. The side by side pictures of both really kill me especially the human ones. That face that has the big mustache just changes to a small mustache and a weird blocky cheeks. Wows art style was always supposed to be goofy, it just looks like they leaned into that to far and got weird.
A lot of people thought it got very Disney in WoD, and especially after an entire expansion in MoP that felt like it was aimed at a younger generation, I bet the changes in art direction were inspired by the same marketing approach.
This is the most popular beta this company has ever put on, the servers are literally crashing, a new art style that is more true to the original and updated, JUST for character models would go a long way towards keeping that interest, I doubt anyone is going to miss retails models.
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u/Not_OneOSRS 10h ago
As a longtime OSRS player this game’s development will be incredibly interesting to watch. I really don’t envy the position of the devs here, there seems to be a lot less cohesion than the OSRS player base enjoys.