There used to be really epic artwork showcasing the main units for each commander, but now they’re just standing there. Menacingly.
Particularly in the cases of Swann (just a lumpy dude) and Nova (seriously though, her artwork is way below the average), it’s so much less epic than it used to be. Why the change? Put it back (and fix Nova because… yeesh).
Nova: Do you guys like my new face?
Are you talking about banners?
When coop missions load, there’s you on the left and them on the right. There is your commander in all their glory, backed by all their powerful units… but oh… not anymore. Now they stand there alone; awkward and sad - apparently because whoever drew the background art was upset it was covered up and was related to the project manager (or something… who knows).
He’s talking about the art that used to accompany the commanders on the loading screen. Surely you guys haven’t forgotten about them already. They generally showed units or things that were specific to the commander. The Hyperion and a Marine for Raynor, and a Thor and the Laser Drill for Swann. You can see them on the wiki for what they used to look like.
They removed them in order to not obscure the new map loading background screen, since I guess they thought players would be more interested in relevant information like that.
Interestingly enough, they still made old-style art for Mengsk even though he came after the loading screen changes, so you can only see his old-style unit art (Flame Trooper and Shock Division) in promotional materials outside of the game itself.
I believe he’s talking about how the loading screen art used to include some of the commander’s units behind them. Artanis would have Zealots, Zagara would have Banelings, etc. I found an old video that shows an example of this (at 0:23 if the timestamp doesn’t work):
Yea, the art work is awesome. I wonder why they removed it. Probably because of foroum whine.
Are they available for download anywhere on Blizzard’s site? Would be cool to use outside the game.
Thanks for adding the detail. It didn’t occur to me that people might not know what I was talking about.
As for new map loading screen, I actually don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s never been anything in the background I cared about more than the art they removed.
I see. Yeah I almost forgot that was how it is before.
it caught my eye on the wiki. It looks amazing. It needs to come back
Yeah and I see that only Han & Horner seem to lack this type of art; even newer commanders have some version of it. Looking back on some of the old videos, the commanders definitely looked cooler with them.
Han and Horner used to have good art too: Ok, forget it. I can’t post links apparently but just look up Han and Horner in DuckDuckGo and image search and you’ll find it pretty quickly
I remember when the artwork was first released, I thought to myself, “I don’t know who that is, but it doesn’t look like Matt Horner.” His hair and face looked so different from the portrait.
Agreed Jorge, it was pretty stylized, but at least it was still believable that it was him. Nova though… yeesh.
I want them back too. Why the hell did they remove them?
I doubt there was a good reason. it was likly a political thing - some manager making a bad decision to feel like they contributed to something they had no other control over.
It won’t. Blizzard is becoming lazier and lazier each passing year.
I believe it got removed around the time they introduced banners. The UI ended up being adjusted, and for whatever reason they removed the background art. It would be interesting to hear their rationale.
It would also be interesting to check in the Editor to see if the relevant files exist for later commanders.
If enough people contribute to this discussion, maybe we can convince them to bring it back. It’s a long shot, as they’ve never fixed any of the numerous bug reports I’ve made over the years, many of which would take seconds to fix (and for many of which I did so myself in the Editor) – but who knows.
H&H had a set of Battlecruisers flying behind them in the background at a trio of Hellions in the foreground racing forwards.
Yeah, looking at it, it looks like every commander following had them, Tychus had Sirius and Cannonball, Zeratul had an Ambusher and an Enforcer, Egon had a Hydralisk and Ultralisk, and Mengsk, as mentioned before, had his Shock Division and Flame Trooper.