Breakfast Topic: New race or new models?
The Throne of Thunder is chock full of trolls, and the majority of them have new, stunning, detailed, gorgeous models. Now I do know that there have been plenty of people wondering if these were new character models for players -- and that is most definitely not the case. Most of the new models are specifically for bosses in the new raid zone. But we also know that new models are on the horizon at some point in the nebulous future, even if that future doesn't happen to be during Mists of Pandaria.
We also know that Blizzcon will be making its return this November, and if the pattern for Blizzard holds, we should see a new expansion announcement. But this made me wonder, as I was looking at these nice new models from patch 5.2, what kind of new race we would get, if any. And that led me to wondering -- do we really need a set of new races at all? What if we just had new character models instead?
This is something I've been pondering for months. For curiosity's sake, I fired off the question on Twitter late one evening last month, and was surprised by the resounding stampede of agreement. Think about it -- it takes time to develop the models and animation for a new race, time to make the armor look decent on the model, time for all of that. What if instead of taking all that time for making a new race, Blizzard threw in the time on creating those new character models instead?
Yes, it would be more work than simply creating a new race. But most people that I've spoken to have been overwhelmingly for the idea of having a main that matched the rest of the world, rather than a new race that only served to highlight how old those original models really are. So I figured I'd throw the question to a larger pool of people, and see what everyone here thinks about it. If you could have either a new race or new character models next expansion, which would you choose? Would you be happy with new models, even if there meant no new race? What if it meant no new race or class? How important is a model update to you?
