I like it overall, but some specific units need changing, primarily to retain their original silhouette. The paladin, for instance, is a) proportionally too tall and lean, and b) too short compared to other units. Also, where’s his hero glow?
Some other units that bugged me: the blademaster’s head is too small, and the ghouls look far too muscular, especially on their arms and upper body. The Dreadlord’s face seems off, too. I couldn’t see clearly in the trailer, but he’s missing that calm intelligence he used to have. Looks too angry, perhaps. The footmen also look more like the intro-cinematic guy than actual footmen.
Ok, this kind of reads like I hate it. I promise I don’t. I’m just talking about what I don’t like because there’s not a whole lot to say about what I do. Overall, I think it looks really good.
i dont like the graphic for the moment but it is not the final version
even if i dont like the update, i will switch to the old graphic
I think Orcsbreath really nails a lot of my criticisms. I don’t mind the new style, but I feel many units and heroes have their appearances too altered. Tauren, paladin, footmen. Footmen look too much like cinematic models, they look good on their own but when used for the basic unit of a race en masse they are too noisy. In some of the screenshots heroes looked questionably sized, but in the Culling of Stratholme demo they looked right proportionally. They need to be really careful to preserve the character of each unit and hero. I also think the terrain textures and trees could use some work, but I assume thats coming anyways.
Same. The graphics don’t look good. I prefer the current graphics. The cutscene looks weird.
They’re kinda too good. WC3 had a huge custom model scene, 99% of them can’t make models on the same level as this.
I’ve compared the current WC3 graphics to the new ones, and I think I know why the new graphics look off.
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Too much detail and small things, compared to the old graphics that were cleaner, simpler, more cartoony.
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The armor in the current WC3 isn’t as shiny. The new graphics have too much armor shine.
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The current WC3 has more crisp and bold colors. The new graphics seem to have too much washed out color, and too much color variation within the same units.
Compare the new footman and the new. The old one has 2 colors: silver and team color. These colors were very crisp and differentiated. Compare this to the new footman, there the silver isn’t as crisp, and too washed out. and it has so much details and color variation, like on the shield and armor that wasn’t there before. As Grubby pointed out, the rim of the shield is very clear in the current graphics due to the crisp and highly differentiated colors, but it’s harder to notice in the new.
Another useful comparison: Old Dreadlord vs the new. At 0:41 Warcraft III: Reforged Gameplay Trailer - YouTube
You can see the wings of the old don’t have holes. The extra details of wing holes (from WoW?) don’t look right in WC3. And the old wings have very bold green team color over the entire wing, whereas the new is a washed out green, that is greener at the top and darker at the bottom.
The buildings have too much details, too many pointed corners, and minor things that weren’t there before.
I think the HOTS warcraft map would have been a better art direction to go. That looks and feels like warcraft. This feels like a civ game. The colors seem very dark and dreary whereas warcraft is bright and vivid.
Either hero need to be bigger or footmen need to shrink.
still hyped as hell though. keep up the good work!
I agree with that making the proportions and the models more realistic is a good thing. However I’m very happy that they aren’t changing the models too far from how they used to be and keeping the structures similar because what they don’t want to do is to take away the feeling that it is still Warcraft.
Which is why I’m not upset with blizzard for also keeping the WC3 engine (assuming they make improvements and adjustments) rather than risking making it just StarCraft with a new skin.
But with the risk of contradicting myself, I do also very much hope for the QoL changed you mentioned. Especially being able to control more then just a handfull of troops. Just like having the choice to just mindlessly send my maxed out orc army into a AI or outclassed opponent
I really like the new graphics!
Maybe have an option for people to change the graphics to the old version if they prefer a more classic feel.
HI all i really dig them.
I have criticism for the people slandering it.
1.Firs of all , its a Alpha build
2. the units look the art and the difference that they made for a modern game are need ad is amazing
3. lots of new players will come to the game , and they will expat good quality, not a block y 15+ year old grafic game , so ya , your in the wrong
4. NO , mor polygons are better, dont need a 4 poligon foot
5. if you dont like it just play wc3 , because this is a remake and it should be treeted as one
6. i hope they change some things in the campaign to fit the lore
7. i played trough the game at least about 60+ times, wc 1 was my first ever game that i played
8. i dont get you all entitled people, if you dont like it , play the older version , what did you think they would do ? Release old graphic ?
9. It still is cartoon y, and Why not have a footman more looking like from the art and cinematic ? Your logic is nuts
10. Ya all nuts if you have complaints about this , in a alpha version, take a brain scan
- Animation looks beautiful, no problems there
- Models look awesome, no problems there
- Skins I would agree are missing some of the original “pop” in color, which is going to be a concern for a lot of people in multiplayer. Veteran players after awhile won’t be paying any attention to detail, it will be all about those easily identifiable color distinctions between heroes and units.
Grubby in his stream gave a great example of this with the footmen I think it was, how they used to have a white outline around their shields, something the eye immediately associates with that unit, and now that’s gone.
I think someone on the classic team just needs to lay out all of the original heroes and units in front of them, and find that one key visual identifier that makes them stand out and find a way to integrate/maintain that in the new skins.
Other than that, if people REALLY don’t like the updated look, it does appear as though there will be options to simply toggle the original graphics back on for the purists who still want that. For everyone else, myself included, I’ll be playing with the new graphics because I think they’re doing a great job giving the game a more modern look.
People aren’t slandering it Lordstuba, I think everyone here wants it to look the best it reasonably can, including the development team. If you watched the events you would also know that they are explicitly calling for feedback, and not just patting their backs. Alpha is EXACTLY the right place to complain about this, if you complain about anything larger than a slight colour or animation change in the even the beta it likely isn’t going to be fixed as models are already being finalized. Also the point of a remaster/“reforge” isn’t to make a new game, its to bring an old game into the present, preserving its character but improving it for modern standards. Asking to keep a relatively similar artstyle is pretty reasonable.
Anyways I think the HOTS Alterac map does get a lot right with warcraft aesthetics and is probably a good place for the team to look to. I also agree that they have too much visual noise/clutter. Units need to have simplified shapes and smaller palettes of colour for ease of identification in gameplay. Heroes can have more going on, but again I think Eigenscape has the right idea. The new dreadlord has a little too much visual clutter going on all over, he looks like a cinematic model not a playable model. Granted he may be a special campaign variant of the dreadlord unit like Varimathras but I kind of doubt it, since he looks pretty much the same as the show off model on the website for dreadlords. I also really see what btlyger is saying about ghouls as well, they did not have very readable shapes, and even worse very unreadable teamcolouring during the video. Now the video didn’t have the same camera angle as actual gameplay will, so its possible they look fine from above but it is a little concerning.
Models I don’t think I would change:
- Buildings: In general I like them all. They need more in construction models but the final ones look great.
- Riflemen: Spot on. Captures the original rifleman appearance while bringing it into 2018. Animations look pretty good from what I’ve seen too!
- Blademaster: Almost perfect, I think the sword could be slightly thinner but thats kind of a nitpick. Also there was no bladestorm effect in the video, but I assume thats coming.
- Wolfrider: Kind of hard to tell from the promo material we have but everything looked good from what I saw.
- Troll Headhunter & Witchdoctor: Someone mentioned they are missing hindtoes but other than that A+. They look great, really capturing the feel of Warcraft 3 trolls.
- Abominations: These look great, someone else mentioned their skin could stand to be a pit paler, but I think they’d look good even without that. The War3 ones were pretty pink too, makes sense since they turn into an explosion of blood when dying to siege. (Hope that animation makes it into reforged too)
- Uther: Really looks like an experienced, older paladin while maintaining his identity as Uther. I like this a lot.
- Arthas: Almost perfect, hair looks weird in cutscenes and some of the hand motions but in game he looks great.
- Shamans: Very small glimpse of them but they look great.
- Kodorider: Looks good too, again not much to work with but more than shamans.
Models I would change just a little:
- Orc Grunt: I preferred the 5-O’clock shadow on the originals but the new ones look good too. To be honest something feels slightly off about them, but it may just need some getting used to.
- Necromancers: Again hard to tell from the promo material but things are looking good for them. Staff might be too cluttered, but I can’t tell at this point.
- Knights: Not nearly as bad as footmen, especially since they are tier 3 units. I’d say just to take off the red from their palette, its a little visually conflicting. I don’t know why it was changed from the gold in Warcraft 3, since gold isn’t a team
Models I think need some serious changes:
- Dreadlord: Looks fine for important named heroes but would look too cluttered for normal heroes.
- Paladin: Hair is all wrong, shoulders are too rounded, generally look far less heroic than their War3 counterparts. Especially weird since Arthas and Uther look so good.
- Footman: Again too visually cluttered and noisy. They need to be significantly simplified. I’d say keep the model around for named footmen or things like that. Just adding gold to the palette would make it look pretty good for captains.
colour it doesn’t clash on units nearly as much. Plus humans have a theme of grey, white, silver and gold. - Ghoul: It really doesn’t look right. Way too rounded, fingernails instead of boneclaws are lame, teamcolouring is hard to see (possibly okay in normal camera but I doubt it), hair being grey instead of dark green is also lame. Old ghouls look fragile but dangerous. New ghouls look like silly trashmobs.
- Tauren: Actually their main model looks fantastic. Its just their weapon being turned into a log with the bark still on it instead of a runecarved totemic weapon. Its a big disservice to the unit and to implied tauren culture.
- Tauren Chieftain: It might just be the render on the website, but he looks like there is way too much texture/noise on well his textures. It clutters his visual style and makes it just look like someone used the sharpen filter in photoshop. I think all his shapes, colours and details are great though.
- Batriders and Windriders: Putting them together because they both have the same problem. They look great except the wings look really odd they way they are strongly teamcoloured without much texture to them and turn into tattered bits.
Extra:
- Icons: I don’t like most of them, but thats probably just nostalgia. The TFT hero icons look good at least.
- Mortarteam: There is a render of them on the website standing there that looks pretty good. No idea how they look as actual units in the game.
- Spellbreaker: Looks odd and cluttered from the front. May look fine from above though. Don’t like the shade of gold on him either, doesn’t look warm enough. But it may be the render conditions.
- Nightelves: Obviously very little to work with here. Their silhouettes look a lot more savage though, which is an interesting change. Closer to their concept art. I’m looking forward to seeing them!
Edit: Formatting
I think Arthas looks a bit like an anime character he should be more manly, he should look like the original wc3 poster.
The crown prince skin form heroes of the storm looks good on the facial design but it need much more details.
While i like the idea of the remaster,
You have completely changed the art style! could you please just stick to the original Warcraft 3 models? maybe just update the old UI in a HD coat?
You made the game look like modern WoW/HoTs, which is very different from wc3.
p.s. i can’t believe you used that terrible excuse of an infernal in the cinematic, the modern infernal model looks abysmal.
Tbh, I kinda feel that the chest of most models are too proportionally large, so the head and limbs feel a lot smaller.
Also, Arthas’s hair looks super weird. And dreadlord’s ears are too big. The rest of the undead models look amazing, tho.
I really prefer for most parts the current version over the HotS. In HotS they just look way too cartoonish. I think the more realistic look is way better than the bloppy wax characters of HotS.
I think it looks like the remaster of age of empires rather than wc3. There is a certain sharpness to the models and colors compared to the smoothness and round the edges feel of the old models/buildings and color palette. I would have liked that they maintained the same art style but maybe it is like this because it is the alpha version atm and unpolished.
Have the same gripes with the animations but like I said they’ll probably feel nicer later in iteration.
A previous user clearly expressed what bothered me. Although the new graphics are stunning up close, they add too much noise in terms of gameplay like Grubby stated.
The enhanced realism gives the game extra cinematic impact but it loses the vibrancy that made classic unique.
Please focus on balancing graphics and unit/environmental clarity.
Other than that, I think this game is looking pretty good.
The models look great, but do need some tweeking with the sizes, rifleman look bigger than what they should be, and I think they pointed out heroes need to be bigger too.
My biggest problem with the graphics is probably the colors, the game doesn’t looks as vibrant. The armor on the human units is too dark compared the original WC3.
Overall, I’m very impressed with the environments, buildings, Orcs and Undead.
The Humans, however…? They’ve been made much too shiny for their own good.
Uther is particularly bad; his old practical yet weathered look helped emphasize both his humility and his experience, especially when standing next to the younger and naiver Arthas in his bright flowing cape, whereas now he’s just kind of a generic old goof.
Footmen get hit pretty hard too; Their role within the narrative is to represent “the everyman”; the simple soldier desperately trying to defend their beloved land from threats far beyond their ken, and that’s something that just doesn’t work with the ultra-bright armour and proud stature of the new models.
Oh, and Jaina needs her Aura back. Ideally pump up her size too; she fades far too easily into the background right now.