Tired excuses of limitations in terms of man hours and storage and whatnot. I thought the game was bought by a proper sized company? Aren't they willing to invest in the game(s) and bring them into the 21st century and hopefully profitability? What Sturrmlocke has shown would be a massive boost to the character models and has been in dire need since the game launched. Humans look like they are all on drugs. Dwarves and Barbarians look hideous. Most human styled races hair looks plastic.
I like them too ! I used to try the newer games with better graphics ... for the graphics They usually kept me playing for a few weeks ( the longest was ESO for 2 months) ! EQ 2 feels familiar and comfortable to me even with older graphics !
I'd be happy to even pay for the new playermodels in the shop. Just make one and consider it a test. See if it can pay for itself in development costs. Start with Ratonga ofcourse!
Scrap both sets of existing models and make a new, modern set with a minimal number of shared skeletons.
Most likely. The fat is in the fire for this game on App. The new game will address all these pressing concrens
Based on perceptions of how well EQ Next went over, I doubt very much that DBG/DPG has any intention of pumping any money into such an endeavor, though I am admittedly a 'glass seven-eighths empty' type of fellow. And in the event they did, EQ1 development (and likely DCUO) would slow to a crawl (it's the cash cow at the moment, by all appearances), and EQ2 would likely be put on maintenance mode - enough staff to fix bugs, make the occasional QOL improvement, and maybe make the rare Adventure Pack a la The Bloodline Chronicles. And only so the company could (justifiably) claim "See? You get all this with your All Access subscription!" Or whatever it's called these days. And Daybreak/Darkpaw know full well that they'd be under the microscope in developing such a successor effort. Something as elementary as the game engine can make or break any effort - AGS proved this with their Lumberyard Engine in the development of New World. Yes, the engine works, but the developers hated using it, and the popular theory is that they should have bitten the bullet and gone with Unreal Engine IV (V?). So the question needs to be asked: What Would Darkpaw do? And then there's the question of lore. Hoo, boy, talk about tap-dancing drunk in a minefield. The preferred map of Norrath has been made obvious (the original one), that's the easy part. But as EQ Next showed, literally nothing else can be taken for granted. The writers and developers would have to be mindful of the vast fields of lore eggshells. Regardless - yes, I'd like to see it. No, I don't think it'll happen. Or even updated models, for that matter. The money simply isn't going to be made available. That's been the experience, I doubt that changes.
Ttobey, some people might have panic attacks, but I would be happy if one Expansion was spent just on this subject alone. Hell, toss in the GUs for that year too. Let them be the accessories!
I'm admittedly a graphics snob myself, so I'd love to see upgraded graphics for characters. I've heard more than one player pining away for hair physics also. So, I'm more or less in agreement with Smallcorners here. I wouldn't mind at all if the team delayed new content to go through and update the existing materials with higher polygon count meshes and better textures. Will it make me rage and leave the game if it doesn't happen? NO, but I would get more enjoyment out of all the material with such a boost. It would almost be like starting over in a whole new game.
Reading through this thread, I have to say I love the concept of the updated original models. I would almost consider using them if you did decide to update them. But after 15 years of playing exclusively with SOGA I don’t think I can switch. I’m too used to how my character looks and if DGB/DP pulled something like SoE and removed them then literally that would be it for me, I’d never ever play the game again. One of the nice things about having someone else run the show was you folks are open to fixing not removing. It’s refreshing. SOE just used to use the old “this is a disservice to players so instead of fix it we will remove it altogether.” excuse. It changed the hoods of Qeynos and Freeport forever. Sadly that excuse also took down entire games that no one can ever play again. So I know I’m only one person (but not the only one)and it doesn’t make much of a difference but do me a solid and leave SOGA alone or update them alongside the old but don’t remove them entirely. Or give the option to have updated models faces that look like the old soga but a little better looking, on the newer skeletons like ttobey wanted (SOGA and original on one skeleton)
I've never cared for the SOGA designs myself, with the exception of the Ogres. THAT said, I can respect that after a decade and a half of them being there, some players would want to keep them around. Completely agree on the remove instead of repair mentality also. SOE isn't the only guilty party with that practice either. I still say update both sets and flush the originals. How many players are REALLY still playing on a Pentium 4 where we need to worry about new models not being able to run? I suspect 95% of the player base at this point has a machine that's got the game settings completely maxed out.
Hm, interesting feedback from ya'll. Keep it coming, keep the discussion alive and healthy Let's put things into perspective: Original npc model slightly enhanced here and there = you decide. Versus Which reminds me of: The Ring - click here to see a demonstration AION MMORPG (asian themed mmo) Lineage 2 MMORPG (same as above) Lineage 2 MMORPG (same as above) Which fundamentally leads to: Anime cuteness So, keeping all of that in mind: Since the Soga models were meant for the japanese market, back in the old days when we were still SOE, how much of that market still exists nowadays? I switched to the Soga models earlier and I really tried to like them, but I just can't. I have the EQ franchise as a western medieval journey inspired by the likes of Chronicles of Narnia, Lotro, Dungeons and Dragons and more in my mind, which is also what the original Artwork is all about: And then I realised that: if I use the original models, someone else is not seeing me the way I want to be seen and instead they're watching a random soga model that I never customized one bit which in turn kinda breaks the immersion and original setting / art / lore especially when comparing with newer npc models that are more western in their looks (resulting in somewhat of a mishmash of varying quality imo) are difficult to deal with from a dev point of view (skelletons and more) costs the dev team unimaginable manpower to maintain as mentioned by toby, manpower that could be distributed elsewhere if we only had a single set of char models I mean, it's not like all of the original models look unusably bad. Female elves and the new races look alright tbh, they only need a small facelift and new hair to be beautiful again, but some of the old chars are really showing their age (humans, dwarfs etc.). New NPC models look so much better, which makes sense since they were added to the game much later. Just take a look at how awesome this vamp looks: Now that's more like it. So sticking to the original art style and updating it + adding more char customization features to the character creation screen (or ingame barber) = the best of both worlds if you additionally allow for char cust options that feature a few japanese characteristics for our Soga community - while still focusing on the original art because, well, because that's what it was meant to look like in the first place. All in all, I agree with a previous poster, would love to see a proof of concept / demo of what we could potentially be getting from our art team, IF we were to go through with this idea, just if. That way we can all see it in motion, which might help visualise the possibilities a bit easier. There is so much potential here, so much. Sure, EQ3 would be nice too, but who knows how that will turn out to be (previous approach was a bit too cartoony for my taste): Personally, I very much prefer the more "semi-stylistic-realistic" tone of EQ1 and 2 (if you can even call it that considering it's a magical world full of fabulous wonders and creatures).
I'm glad i amused you, but i wasn't trying to be funny. So many of the character model graphics are horrible by 2004 standards let alone 2022 ones. Give us eq1 barbarian, human and dwarven models as a substitute then. These models suck.
So just to be sure, you want the EQ1 barbarian model to replace EQ2 barbarian models? Luclin or original?
