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2 things:
1st- people can have differing opinions (and a variety of opinions) about the difference of what appears cartoony, gritty, realistic, etc.
2nd- reforged is not finished and especially the terrain has a lot of work to be done as you can tell its not been improved yet
Instead of worrying about others opinions, just make a list of whats important and post about that. Many people would agree that Arthas doesnt look good in the previews but luckily, its not finished 
2 Likes
it seems like you just found out about this game and dont have all the answers to your questions, which can be found by watching videos on reforged. like they already said there will be options for new or original audio
as for the art direction if you dont like blizzards graphics for reforged, then I would suggest looking into this
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/warcraft3/t/i-think-the-graphics-from-aoa-is-better
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check out my other post on control groups 
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/warcraft3/t/pre-set-control-groups-in-options
Its weird ,if they want experiment that much i would say this : its more logical wow and diablo goes realistic . About dark atmosphere thing wc3 having it, i must laugh. Probably he mistaken it with Diablo.
Oh Diablo 3, which went super cartoonie graphics - for mobile games. Ridicilous
Going photorealistic for game like wc3 is insane. Also going pure Hots as units would be stupid too (even that MOBA game , is way more advanced than what we saw in Reforged demo)
They must find some golden mean
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shrug
While I prefer HOTSā stylized graphics as a proper representation of what I view as the āWarcraft styleā, what we have in Reforged is a step closer to the style of Warcraft represented by the cinematics.
While I donāt fully agree with all of Reforgedās new look, I am interested in seeing how the style carries on with every creep and every unit. While some humanoid characters look like their heads are too small or their shoulders too big, weāve also seen some really nice models like the Dreadlord, which IMO looks better than HOTS Malganis.
I think this is an interesting take on WC3. The change in style actually opens up more choice, and gives a good reason for us to use the old graphics for more than just the purpose of nostalgia. I mean with remasters like Halo Anniversary or SC:R, thereās little reason to go back to the original look.
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Wait wait . I think we must seperate some things and thats this :
1.Textures (realistic Reforged alike OR Handpainted wow bfa new style)
2.Sculpt (realistic -with more details Reforge alike, OR cartoonie - less details and more flat : Hots is best example )
3.Proportion (base proportion and armor proportion)
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Type of unit we talk about
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Engine
1.I personally would pick handpainted realism, probably with processed textues.
But certainly NOT with this as Source :
What i would do is next . Take textures from this model and process, if that is needed at all ?
Cause its question for developers.
Anyway maybe engine effects may do the job .
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For sculpt details I would go dreadlord face ( which sadly totally differs from original wc3,including color,what a shame) , but ye i must give good example to describe .
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We shouldnt allow 1st camera shooter game proportions for Reforged.
Its an RTS, i hope Samwise post is not fake about that issueā¦
Also going marshmellow armor is bad idea too, its derivate is Hots directly,and a bit wow influence.
Generally new kid generations like marhmellow armors , which is not my case.
The problem could be solved if they went more musculated,stronger BASE proportions with downsized armor for some models. Can preserve āstrongā visual look.
What they did is thiny ballerine Uther base body, with marshmellow armor and dress until the ground . It ended up with villager being Arnold Swarceneger, and even him with only T-Shirt look stronger than this Uther.Totally wrong .
You moded wc3,i am friend with modelers too . We talked about some stuff.
Some didnt understand and they went wrong proportions for āpromoteā screenshots.
What i was always telling is next : When you finishe model , you must check it ingame from wc3 air view , remember portrait is very important too.
Cause honestly, imagine you never saw whole model of Reforged on any cover or any video,picture etc, and they just give you to play-test them ingame ?
What are 2 main things you cant escape from ?
Its portraits - which is constantly interacting with you, and it is how model looks from air view (not on some cover magazine).
Its called warcraft 3 RTS game. Those are basis , comon guys.
- Unit we talk about. Lets say tinker (yellow one) for example.
Wanna go photorealistic tinker with rusty metal , on a very funny unit ?
With lolipop red-white lines T-Shirt and suspender pants ?
With realistic goblin face, gremlins that scare kids ?
My point is : Kids may love clowns right ?
Kids love tinker from wc3 right ?
But would kids love this realistic clown xD , constantly interracting with it xD ?Got me xD?
- Which finally answers a mystical and weird posts about people saying Reforged is too much cartoonie.
What they wanna say is they put anime faces for Arthas, or hots hulked parts, or asian roofs on some human buildings with unneceserry disney alike parts which can be describe as toy shapes .
And they use 1 word for its to much ācartoonieā .
All on that using āphotorealisticā textures ?
Which lead us to : Scary clowns thing. Those things dont go together.
Imagine cartoon industry make scary clowns toon for babys?
Handpainted realism (very stylized) is real thing. The witch you saw, and she can be done even better (she has no 3d eyes or tooths) .
- People say whole warcraft 3 feeling was more cartoonie . This is kinda true.
No metter who prefers what . We should be given option in graphic settings to pick which effect we want .Every copy-paste wc3 dota modern MOBA engine has it , they use names as vivid, contrasted etc.
Cheers & Goodluck
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Well we have to regard Blizzardās resources when regarding this remake.
- This is handled by the Classic team, not Team 1 or the HOTS team. They donāt have an army of internal artists remaking every model in spectacular fashion. Thereās 400+ models needed to be remade; even more than originally considering they play to give new models to units that were simple recolors; as well as add alternative Hero skin options.
Thatās a lot of work, so outsourcing is the best plan of action. Yet the quality is obviously not going to be as consistent and as highly maintained as say the Heroes of the Storm models and skins. Those are internally made, and honestly they take months to create each. HOTS has the benefit of releasing at most 15 characters a year, compared to 400 in a year. The quality difference should be obvious.
- No one has the benefit of time or money to wait for a remake project that would last 5+ years just to have the art be more consistent or stick more closely to WC3. The decision to go in this direction is beyond us, but I figure a guess that itās because itās closer to a style that the outsource company is capable of providing. PBR materials, high poly sculpts with āsuperheroā proportions, the telltale ārealisticā facial sculptsā¦ Whatever the actual reason, this is the style theyāve chosen to stick with and weāre stuck with it as well.
Is it perfect? No. But as a modder, I have no qualms with it because I can swap out a head model or resize shoulders or completely make my own model and just use their animations as I please. Thatās what I did for WC3, thatās what I did for SC2 and thatās what Iāll do for Reforged; given that they release proper tools to us.
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The art is not complete. Look at original Warcraft 3 models; so much was scrapped and replaced like the Druid of the Talon, Shaman and Knight using scrapped ArchDruid, Spirit Walker and Crusader hero models. Starcraft 2 almost completely changed all of its art from a bright cartoony look to a more rendered, ārealisticā look now. Unfortunately, we have no control over this and we must rely on blind faith that they will have the ability to fine-tune the art to something more befitting of Warcraft, and less like a generic Asian ARPG.
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Thereās no point in trying to provide feedback on art, consideringā¦ Well when was the last time youāve seen any Blizzard game art changed because of some forumerās suggestion? Yeah. Even Arthasā proportions in Heroes of the Storm hasnāt been updated and people still talk about it. This is a bittersweet truth. We can discuss it but I doubt it will influence the actual art much.
In Culling of Strathlome of RoC, that mission had a darker atmosphere, it was night time I believe and it was rainingā¦ the mission we saw in Reforged looked a lot brighter then thatā¦
And yeah he was right about that particular mission. But other then that, Wc3 had a lot stronger and lively colors, which is something that the alpha version of Reforged lackedā¦ 
But if they realize that. Then can easily make it more colorful and vibrant and less bleached out as it was in alpha.
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Well, they kinda will stick to PBR.
There is 1 dimension that every modder forgot.
it doesnt metetr that modding community (both the 1 who were trying to be loyal to wc3 and pure wow mappers,going wow custom models) - they both use wow or hots parts for their projects ???
Now, lets say modders loyal to wc3 look will finely rest and hit play button .
But what will happen with wow guys? What when people start creating maps and mix rusty tinkers with wow goblins , and a bit hots xD .Its going to look like carnival.
And maybe someone who want create some wow characters will mix PBR with wow parts on same models ? Did you know those persons exist.
On the other side we will have hive , which will understand this and they will go wc3 parts mixed with wc3 as they did for custom models(and it look awful cause models are old), and now they will mix HD reforged parts with HD reforged parts to get custom model.
Now hypotethical question ? How to make Anduin from Reforged parts?
Probably Arthas face , shoulder parts maybe captain+arthas,chest maybe knight ?
Anyway, modding community will stay inside wc3 .
This will give a limit look, and there will no new things , and that will make some fan (who even dont know wow characters or hots one) to easily recognize what crime was done. A so called āuniqueā feeling will be lost.
Cause until Reforged came out, parts were used from a sea of blizz resources = which are mostly handpainted right?
There is another way : Finishe WAA or Chinese-Storm is coming all units. Mix handpainted only with handpainted ,and force every wow map creator use those mod as default units .
Which aint possible. People will do crazy and stupid things - except old traditional hive.
I am sorry noone see this coming.
Well itās no different than how SC2 is a mishmash of models and styles, or how WC3 itself has a lot of mods that are a mishmash of models taken from other games. Inconsistency is the nature of mods, and is also a gauge for what we consider āqualityā.
Diablo 3, HOTS, WoW and WC3 models are all used in SC2. Some of these mods look cheap for using WC3 models alongside SC2 terrain, but that is what it is. We will have to wait and see how open the WC3 retooled engine will be and whether we can opt to turn off certain effects or not.
SC2 uses normal maps, and any model without normal maps tend to look out of place. WoW, D3 and WC3 all lack normal maps, and so they all have a certain look to them that sticks out. If the map flattens out the lighting, then WC3 and WoW models usually look fine.
With PBR materials, thatās really only a setting. If you insert a black Metalicity map, youāll have the same flat look as you would in WC3. Itāll be interesting what all the reforged models might look like if they had all their normal maps and specular maps turned off.
I know, and mixing going to happen. I was talking for wc3 modding where handpainted were mixing with handpainted , different styles.
But modlers kinda found a way to equalize parts from different games.
Now there will be pbr mixed with handpainted , and there will be bunch of noobs doing that without equalizing or editing . I can assure you that .
It will be mixing donkeys with elephants.
Until now we had some humanoid engeneering that kinda could work .
I am not arguing, i know your work, and i know you are way more advanced than me in this area (not even a modeler) but i am sad to see this coming, and i cant tell from your comment will you silently let this future phenomena happen like its not in our power, or you will rebel it at least on forums xD ?
Wait, Reforged will have dif/spec/normal maps for textures ?
Think of PBR as a texture setting. This is oversimplifying, but it seems you think it is something more complicated than it really is.
So WC3 basically uses one type of map - Diffuse (Color). Everything is flat, everything is āhandpaintedā. This look is also used in early WoW, and mostly in D3.
SC2 uses 3-4 maps. It also has Diffuse (Color), but it doesnāt paint in all the shadows. The color is a map that works with other maps to provide depth. Specular map adds shinyness, making metals and plastics have a shiny reflection to them, or making things look wet. Normal map adds fake 3D details. All these add together to make a unit look ā3Dā. If we want it look like Warcraft 3, we can turn off Specular and Normal maps and the look will be flat.
When we create Specular maps, usually we have sliders dictating how shiny or how flat a surface looks. Rubber is more flat, stone can be flat or wet-looking and shiny, metal is shiny, etc. The maps can control what color is being reflected. As an example, most Zerg units have a very strong Blue spec map that gives them an eery slimy blue tint to their highlights, adding depth to their natural brownish-orange and purple colors. But this method generally isnāt very realistic for metals, since metals are typically difficult to replicate. You can tell by Terran vehicles that they donāt look very much like real life meta.
PBR shaders are ānew techā that automatically uses shader settings that replicate something closer to real life rather than sliders that simply say āmore shiny less shinyā. The reflections look closer to metals and plastics. So yes, they will need their own maps since they donāt use the same setups as regular spec maps (though you can still use regular spec maps; you just might not get ideal results every time).
Think of it like baking a cake using different ingredients. You can add chocolate powder or bakers chocolate to make a chocolate cake; but depending on what you use the taste and quality can be very different. Chocolate powder will do the trick if you donāt have actual chocolate, just donāt expect it to be the same quality as using the right recipe, if that makes sense.
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Dude, tnx for very detail response. But now my mind is blown , i couldnt understand everything. I saw PBR materials , yes speucally on artstation .
So as i understood, they dont need seperate spec/normal maps cause technology renders diff and give all 3d details automatically (but not always sucefully), thats why they will have some own type of pbr textures . Ok
Now theres only 1 thing that worries meā¦ 99.99% textures connected with pbr materials i saw on artstation are weak, i can compare its quality with windows 98 paint.
But the final result of āballā material is like they were passing trough own gaming engine.
And funny i found a good looking one on guys page we both know i guess xD
What i wanna know is this : 1.Will final wc3 texture QUALITY will look like this substance ball renderd in marmoset (but squarish shape ofc 512x512 resolution or 1024x1024)
- Or its quality will look like on bottom of page ?
x_https://www.artstation.com/artwork/99mzQ
A) I cant get how technology works . is it taking some Low Quality maybe even generic texture, rendering it to get all 3d effects , and then at the end you got very good looking one.
X_https://i.imgur.com/gSyhQno.jpg
X_https://i.imgur.com/7Ma1LJo.png
Cause i am afraid Reforged is doing this,looks way more cheaper than paying artists to handpaint , then render again with smaller amount
B) Or its extracting texture from physically render material . So the texture alone look not very good quality , but engine will read those PBR kind of texture very HD ?
I need those answers using numbers and letters as i question. Sorry i harras you xD
TBH the most straight forward answer is we wonāt know until we get the tools and the game in our hands and test for ourselves. We can only base our knowledge on screenshots and the look of the demo; but like I said the graphics arenāt complete yet so thereās no way to really know what the final result looks like.
I mean look at SC2 and then look at HOTS. HOTS looks way better just because of the way the style they use, even though itās the same rendering engine.
Hots is an advanced game,looks very good specually environment. Ye i know its engine derivates from SC2.
But Samuro face in Hots for example and WAA wc3 in sc2 ( custom model with wow parts) look way more realisticā¦Even they both use handpainted textures and similar enginesā¦WoW is more realisticā¦
Trust me i dont hate HOTS graphics generally ,maybe ppl think it it cause i just prefer handpainted realism, with all bonus tweaks that rednering texture or spec/normal maps or engine can point them to look more alive and realistic.
The irony of old warcraft 3 engine was next : Dota 2 models from air view looked way more better than mosst of wow models. If you opened dota texture,its windows paint (sorry for this irony,but they look weird) , and when you open wow model it has all of its details.
There was some cartoonie russian game and it has rly toy castle non wc3 looking alike. But modding community did a super awesome townhal/castle model, and that toy castle ingame reads better than super awesome castle/townhall (you know who i refer to xD)
ITS AN IRONY , A MYSTICAL THING . That only me and 1 man (friend modeler) understood it ā¦
Over the time, another guy thought i prefer LoL alike style etc. Which is bloody not true.
I used to tell,if you put super mario in hots or sc2 engine will look-read better than wow human in old wc3 engineā¦
I am mostly afraid of weak textures boosted with that PBR technology, a āplasticā or āclayā effect that i saw in Reforgedā¦
God, i wish i see just 1 texture from human unit and some race buildingā¦
Lets stop talking about bad things, to me this is well done,look very nice for human building.
And i dont know how texture looks alikeā¦
Goodnight
Simple really. The game would have looked like this back in the day aswell IF we had the technology we currently have.
Games/PCās/GPUās couldnt handle that many polygons back then, now they can.
You can have WoW models look like SC2 models just by making a specular map for them. I had a thread about this on SC2mapster many many years ago
xhttps://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/development/artist-tavern/166843-model-lighting
xhttps://img.photobucket.com/albums/v293/Triceron/DH_breakdown.jpg
You can see that the diffuse by itself is similar to how a WC3/WoW unit would look in game, but adding normals and specular would change it completely.
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because their lead designer thinks that the WoW Pandaria cinematic trailer is how the true vision of Warcraft is supposed to look like.
Of course for us who have played these games for literally over a decade, we know that isnt true and the WOW pandaria trailer was a weird jarring experience as if they were announcing a new RPG instead of something related to Warcraft
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Sure, but WC1 and 2 tried to go with a pretty realistic (for what was possible at the time) styles and the vast majority of old-school WarCraft fans dislike the art direction WC3 and WoW took (which is generally the majority of the playerbase minus all the WoW players that arenāt even really going to play WC when Reforged comes out).