Bad News, Bears?
Tyranis
"Am I level 10 or 80? Who knows!"Blizzard just slipped us a sneak preview of the long-awaited updated models for the druid animal forms. Currently, the preview only shows the tauren bear form, but they announced that the night elf bear form will be revealed by the end of the week.
They mention that there are five different skins for each animal form per faction. In other words, each druid will have access to five unique bear forms and five unique cat forms, which will differ from druids of the opposing faction. The various skins are chosen and changed in the barbershop.
I don't play a druid, but I wonder how I would feel if I waited this long for a new look to accompany my feral side. All the other classes have been able to improve their gear and change their appearances drastically, but the poor bears and cats have been looking at the same models for over four years. There must be throngs of druids jumping up and down at this announcement.
For some reason, I was expecting more than just a simple cosmetic change via the barbershop. How long will these new forms be interesting or exciting? Don't get me wrong, the screenshots of the tauren bear forms look awesome, but I think the issue is deeper than that. The problem is, these new models are still static. They don't change as your character improves or gets new gear. Unless they plan on implementing new skins on a regular basis, they, too, will get stale. These changes also do nothing for our healing druids in tree form.
I can sympathize with the complexity of trying to integrate item upgrades onto multiple animal forms. As it is, when they create a new item they have to make sure it looks right on twenty different models representing both genders of each race. Adding item textures for the bear, cat and tree forms of both factions would be a huge drain of time and resources. However, I can't help thinking there would be some way to at least have some visual representation of how well-geared you were while in these forms.
Perhaps they could use the average item level of the equipped gear to determine how ferocious or predatory your toon looks. They have similar technology already coded. For example, the Flame Leviathan vehicles check the average item level of their driver to determine how powerful they should be. How amazing would it be to have the top gear from Ulduar hard modes and strut around Dalaran in animal forms few others could duplicate? A few glow and particle effects could easily differentiate a druid in heroic blues versus a druid decked out in tier 8. Glowing eyes, saliva-dripping maws and bristling fur embody the druid's natural fury a bit better than a trip to the hair salon for a fur-frosting and dye job.
Let us assume they added three visual upgrades with each raiding tier and included the neglected tree form as well. Then for the 3.1 patch, they would have needed to design a total of eighteen new models, which includes different models for both the Horde and the Alliance. This sounds reasonable to me and would certainly give druids of all types something to look forward to as they geared up and progressed through content. In any case, I'm going to head over the official WoW forums so I can watch the shadow priests crying over not having new models for their shadowform!
What do you think of Blizzard's announcement? Are you satisfied or were you also hoping for something that scaled with gear?
Reader Comments (39)
1st
YAY first
and i play a druid and i love the fact that there will be new skins i hate looking at the same thing everytime
To be honest, i dont see the huge fuss, i'm a druid and i certainly dont strut around in any of my forms.
I only use my forms in instances and in then i'm focusing on healing/tanking so how i look makes no difference to me.
My gear looks good enough when i'm out of my forms and thats all i care about.
I see tanking as a bear is good enough anyway!
I don't mind so much that the skin doesn't scale with gear. I find it kind of amusing actually that ppl don't know what gear lvl you are wearing when they roll up to you in a pvp environment.
I like that you can change the color of your bear or cat form whenever you like. And since my druid is a Boomkin/Tree I am really looking forward to future changes to these skins (seriously .. the tree of life looks dead lol). What I would really like to see is different skins for male and female druids when in bear, cat, boomkin or tree form. And no I don't mean that my female boomkin needs to have "bumps" on her torso. I just want a more feminine silhouette ... perhaps slightly smaller and thinner than her male coutnerpart.
its definatly about time they changed the druid forms up a bit, im just afraid that this is too little too late. Its for sure needed though. Not many things are as disappointing as when you finally upgrade from Bear form to Dire Bear form only to find out that they look exactly the same. :(
they could atleast have added some type of beast(ish) armor... i mean.. that would be awesome.. being in bear form with a huge metal spike as a horn with other spikes along your joints.. but.. thats just me :P
I've played a druid since release day so I've pondered many of these issues for a long time.
It's unfortunate that we can't really show off our pimp Ulduar gear when we shape-shift into our respective rolls, but that doesn't concern me a tremendous amount. The problem with our various forms is pretty easy: We tend to look just like normal mobs of the same type. We might have a little bit of difference in the material wrapped around our bear/cat/tree/owlkin model, but for the most part....it's just a regular old mob with some extra colors on it.
The answer (at least a much BETTER answer) is adding armor, gems, lots of cool details....make us look epic. A perfect example is the druid epic flight form. Go check out some pics of that. It's not just a storm-crow (ala WC3) but a huge bird with armor and massive detail all over it. Having that same attention to detail with all our forms would go a long way to making us druids much happier.
Just do something....anything....to that poor tree.
The one good thing I like about playing a druid is in pvp no one can tell how geared you are, so you can totally pwn newbs ftw wearing the lastest arena gear. But in raids it does can be confusing when trying to tell one druid from another when things get fast
I think they did a great job. You get to pick how you look. Plus it will relate to the look you have out of form. THis makes total sence. I don't see why you should need your gear to show while in your form. All you need is you big bear butt or you kitty everything is there in fuzzy form. Don't get me wrong that would look cool but sometime the simple answer is the best.
I think this blog would have benefited more if it was written by someone who actually plays the class – I just don’t understand where this requirement of I’m 80 and run Naxx so my Bear form should look more epic came from??? Why even pretend to make a comment like that when you don’t play the class?
But I like how there’s going to be some verity amongst the legions of bear and cat forms now (not to mention the upgrade is always appreciated).
Maybe being able to choose a bear mob in the game and taking that skin, i'd like the plagued ones in the Plaguelands. Same goes for cat form.
That'd be nice.
I personally think it would be way better if they scaled with gear like you said item lvl would differentiate between who actually has spent time in BG's and Raids and who has just done heroics or messed around. I also think it is not a waste of time for it would give druids something to look for I think they should do this for tree form and OOMKIN's and possibly for flight form.
i think they could as well do this for other classes like let hunters and locks change the look of their pets and have different looks for shadow form or different warrior stances as well as DK presences.
Video :-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KzN9-FYzfg
Why do people take images from websites and make them fade in and out, stick them on youtube and think that makes it "more awesome"?
While it's lameo that every druid looks pretty much the same while doing something productive the true fashion show is on the steps of the bank anyways. However it will be very nice for when you can't figure out what cat in the melee pile is you.
I am very sad that trees got no love in this change not only do I look like a Freya trash mob I also look just like the other tree druid in the raid even though I am way hotter.
I don't really care about how the bears look. What I want is to be able to decorate a tree! :P
It would be nice if they also pimped out moonkins. :)
OK, we get amani armored war bear mounts, yet we can't put armor on druids in Bear form? And we also can't turn our trees into Christmas Trees for teh holidays? AND we can't turn the druid flying formsto airplanes?
YOUR HOLDING US BACK DEVS!!
the gear should show up on the outside of the bear just like it shows up on a normal toon
if i was a druid i would be happy with this :D
If you didn't bring enough for everyone....
You do something cool like that with level/gear for druids changing their appearance, then I give it less than a second before the forums start filling with people complaining about how they got nothing and now the devs favor druids.
I'd guess 90 percent of the end game character classes look nearly identicle. Besides, if the druid wants to look different, then pop out of bear form and look like everyone else (get it... different, like everyone else!) My boot flask isnt going to make me look like someone else who takes a boot flask. My savory deviate delight wont make me look like a different pirate than you...
Besides, you dont see bears mounted on vehicles, or walking around dalaran... no, they just bear up in combat and I know I'm far too busy watching healthbars (priest here!) pokey balls on the floor, train tracks of thorim, hurricans by freya, eyebeams from korogon, to give too whiffs what a druid looks or not looks like - so why bother?
I was thinking it would be neat to add achievement awards that unlock the new looks. For example, gaining exalted with Cenarian Circle might unlock one of the new cat skins.
First and foremost, anyone who hasn't played a Druid from day one, or plays a druid near that level, wouldn't give a damn.
OMFG LVL 40 DIRE BAER FORM
I look the same... the level of excitement was cut down dramatically. You have to cut us some slack-- I mean I remember going to Thottbot and seeing glyphs that would turn you into a Polar Bear rather than Dire Bear-- or Lynx instead of Saber. We've been let down a lot.
And as many others said, the poor Tree doesn't get a say in this (who gives a flapjack about how the Boomkin looks, they're sexy as is).
And yes, I would like to atleast see my Hat, Pendant, Waist and Bracers on my Bear - Cat. As feeble details they may be, it'd make a difference in how we see our epic baer yo.
Or Tree...
Roi - Nazgrel - Drood Man
I never played a druid mostly pushed away by looking the same all the time.
I personally love to improve my characters not only by getting nicer and nicer stats, but also with cool looking pieces, that add soooo much epicness to what it looks like.
If I were playing a druid I'd be definetely after getting some look changes in forms, it could be really anything, special horns, maybe pieces of armor and clothing or some jewelery - I don't know!
But surely in T8 gear, it's sad to look like a 6 level bear from Kharanos's area...