feral-forms
Latest
Shifting Perspectives: Honey cat don't give a ...
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our DPS edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. This week, we gem +10 in awesome. With apologies to Isaiah Mustafa ... Take a look at your cat. Now look at me. Now back at your cat. Now back at me. Sadly, your cat isn't me, but if you stopped playing that silly rogue and switched to feral, you could have a cat that looked like me. Look down, back up -- where are you? You're on a boat with an armored cat, the cat your cat could look like. What's in your hand? Back at me. I have it -- it's a clam with patch notes declaring ferals to be epic. Look again; the notes are now the tears of all the classes who wish they could look like me. Anything is possible when you roll feral. Forget horses; I'm a stag. Yes, I was tempted to end the column right there --but we've got so much good stuff to talk about. Armored cats A few weeks ago, Ghostcrawler mentioned that Incarnation would have specific art for cats, bears, and moonkin; in the latest patch, a datamined model showed us what is likely the first example of that. At first, I wasn't too sure about the idea of putting armor on a feral form, but it's really grown on me over the last couple of days. It's obviously difficult to do cosmetic effects for a class that revolves around shapeshifting, but I'm grateful that Blizzard's continuing to add something for forms. I can't wait to see the bear and moonkin armor. (Do moonkin even need armor?)
Old Druid bear and cat form models removed in patch 3.2
This is no surprise, but the new bear and cat models (which you can see in the gallery below) are going to be the only bear and cat models as of patch 3.2. You won't be able to keep the old models even if you want to – Zarhym confirmed it in a post from last night. Complaining aside, I don't think many people will mind too much (although a few surely will). The new Night Elf cat forms are not my favorite, but I do think they're better than the old one. I wouldn't use the old one if it was available (I'll be Drama Club Cat, thank you very much). And the old models would look incongruous next to the new high-detail ones. Thus a long era will end, as we proceed into the round-pawed future. While we try to forget our hideous forever-open mouths, remember the lessons of Alamo. Durids is very storng, and durids is must always halp eech other. And ultimately, every1 is like a fun time durid!! %Gallery-65216%
Night Elf cat forms coming tomorrow
We've already seen the graphics for three out of the four new feral forms we know are coming for druids in patch 3.2: Tauren bear and cat forms, and Night Elf bear forms. This only leaves Night Elf cat forms left to be seen. (They might be redesigning moonkin and tree forms too; they're being cagey about that when people ask. My guess would be no.) I've been anxiously refreshing pages all day to see if the Night Elf cat forms would come. In vain, apparently, as Zarhym has just posted to let us know that the forms in question will be unveiled tomorrow "later in the day," which probably means mid-afternoon (PST) sometime. In the mean time, we've got the other three sets of forms in the gallery below. What would your ideal Night Elf cat look like? %Gallery-19003%
New Tauren cat forms revealed
As you probably know by now if you play a druid, new feral form graphics are finally coming in patch 3.2. Druids will have their choice of five different versions for each race and form (bear/cat); what form you get corresponds to your hair color for Night Elves and your skin tone for Tauren, both of which will be changeable at the barber shop. So far we've already seen the bear forms for Tauren and Night Elves. Today, Blizzard unveiled the replacements for the much-maligned Tauren cat form. You can see the results above. My initial reaction is that they're still a bit ugly, but way better than the previous Tauren cat form (which is marked "Old Cat form" above). Here's what a few of our staff members thought: Elizabeth: "A million times better. Still not as cool as night elf, but better." Allison: "The eyes are way too small. Still going to be glad I play a bear." Lesley: "Those horns are evil." Alex: "I'm gonna roll a Tauren Druid so I can play that black one with the grey mane. I'm going to RP an old grizzled war vet Druid." What do you think? %Gallery-19003%
Notes from the BlizzCon 2008 Art panel
Greetings from sunny Anaheim, California! One of this years WoW-related BlizzCon panels focused on the process and inspiration for the creation of the art for various aspects of Warcraft. There were a total of 7 people on this panel, lead by Chris "The Intern" Robinson, the Art Director for WoW. Also on the panel were other representatives from the various art teams, enough that there was some confusion as to where they were all sitting at first.Before we get into the whole thing, I should mention the most important part: The artists all but said that giving visible armor to Druid forms is in the works!
New bear animations for eating and fishing discovered
Everyone knows that bears are actually pretty good fishermen, but for some reason Ferals have to shift back out of form and use a pole like everyone else. That may be changing, however. Andrige, the same person who bought us the new data-mined Hairstyles, has discovered the animations showcased in the above video, which point to the possibility of more life injected into the old Druid Feral forms. One animation called EmoteEat shows the bear bracing a piece of food against the ground with his paw while tearing off a chunk with his teeth, while another is a fishing animation where the bear looks to be pawing at the water, waiting to slap out a fish. The other exciting thing in the video is the possibility of a closed mouth on my bear! Do you know how many flies he's caught with that constantly open mouth of his? I logged onto my Druid on the Beta servers to check on the status of the animations. While you can now eat, drink and use potions in Feral forms on Beta, there are still no animations associated with the act (You simply sit down while eating). In addition, you can't fish at all in Feral forms (Trying to cast my line put me back in Night Elf form). Unfortunately, the fact that these animations haven't been implemented yet does lead me to a bit of pessimistic thought: They simply be meant for bear mobs, and not for Feral bears at all. Blizzard's been adding a lot of cool little idle animations to mobs, such as mama beasts who flush out critters for their cubs to chase and eat, so this may simply be one more set. Still, since they exist, they could easily be added on to the Feral bear's animation list in a future patch even if they aren't originally meant for Ferals. Here's hoping we see them there!
