If I remember the story correctly, that concept armor was initially planned for the game, but then the devs realized that it would've been far beyond what any home computers would be capable of rendering, and the game launched with some pretty high requirements for 2004 to begin with anyway.
Yes, but they look much less janky. In this early rendition, those gauntlets look *weird* compared to how the exact same pair of gauntlets looks in game. ...That said, I'd like to note something about that original-model ogre. HE HAS A BEARD. Also, I've got two more shots to dig up. First of all is this: Besides featuring my beloved EQ2Classic orc models and how they wore armor, I can't help but notice a certain axe in one orc's hand. This axe exists in-game as a wall-hanger house item you learn to craft from a Guide Quest involving a Dwarf, that also gives you the title "the Axe Master". However, it doesn't exist as a usable weapon anywhere in-game, despite appearing as if it would make an excellent dwarven axe. Secondly, we have this--what appears to be customizable scar and warpaint options for original model ogres. This, I'm really, really sad didn't make the cut.
Yeah, the classic orc models all wore the same armor as players until DoF came out. They seemed to have the majority, if not all, of the player animations as well. When in plate and chain, this looked really great. When wearing the padded cloth armor, it made for some goofy looking orcs.
By the way Tobey, is there anything in the pipeline to optimise the game engine? I can still access the old CPU shadows through a custom UI setting and they still look incredible even though it brings a multicore ryzen beast cpu to its knees in the city areas. EQ2 could use with a new lick of paint after all these years as the base game has enough detail, just needs to bring it in line with modern hardware so we can actually play the game on extreme quality for those who have the system to do so. Such as native 4k support, multicore cpu support, dx 12, 64-bit client etc. I know this is wishful thinking but one can hope...along with the chariot mount .
Why are you asking the animator? Ask Kander and hope he doesn't ban you from Discord for your impudence.
Now this might be silly... but could we get some spell/attack animations as emotes? Some of them are just so cool but rarely used. Us in the RP crowd sometimes like to use these for effects during roleplay, but it's hard trying to find the proper buff to do our SUPER COOL MADE UP CASTER MOVES. Since these are already in-game it wouldn't have to be new stuff! If you've ever been to the player festivals on AB, there's often a /ran100 arena event between RP characters, and this would spice them up for us. (Also the fighting moves for our non-caster buddies. Sword swings for our bladey buddies and super illegal ninja-moves for our brawlers.) The animations the characters do don't need particle effects in the emotes, but it would be so cool to have our characters break out these animations whenever. It makes the RP feel a bit more alive! I'd especially love to see the one at 1:08 here.https://www.4gamer.net/jump.php?http://download.bbgames.jp/4gamer/movie/EQ2_Buffs.zip (Alsoalso, can we get the alternate /salute pose? The one with the hand to the chest? I've always found that very cool!) (Sorry, multiple requests fueled by caffeine)
*internal loud squeaking* I'm so excited! I hope you can do it!! ALSO! Addendum!! Bard spells too, including the lute and the horn and singing gestures! Sorry to add more, but yeah, any would be lovely!