Specifically the males. I think blizzard did fantastic with the female goblin model updates. Clear improvement in every way. Let me show you what I am talking about.
Take a look at this. These goblins have that crooked unscrupulous look like male goblins should have. Sure their textures were lower Rez, but the design I feel did so much better for capturing the fantasy of goblins.
But now we have these. Problems:
Not as gritty. The face looks more streamlined, polished, but not as crooked and greedy carsalemanish.
Permasmiles. Funny how female gnomes had the opposite problem after their model updates.
Looks like too much plastic surgery. Too beefcake like.
Eyes look more uncanny. Less monster like. Which doesn’t jive well for me personally.
This is honestly very much like what happened when Oddworld developers came out with a new polished version of Abes Oddessy. They got carried away with making stuff new and polished and ruined what made the game so great in the process.
And the thing that really hurts is that at this point, it is probably going to remain like this for the rest of wow history. And this doesn’t seem like something that will be fixed with a few customization options. The problem is in the fundamental design of the new goblin model updates. Legit. Most new goblins I make these days are female goblins. Whereas I used to only make male goblins. I wish we had the option to use the old models.
I do feel they went a bit too cartoony with the goblins. Also their faces didn’t used to be all the exact same structure with different face lines/wrinkles, so that feels pretty awful.
Just look at this. You aren’t going to convince me that the new goblin models look better in this. Its so sad. I really loved the old look so much. Its hard for me to enjoy male goblins like I once did.
I know I agreed! They were sorta rough looking and it made sense being a goblin that blows things up all the time. They shouldn’t be all shiny and fresh looking. lol
Unpopular opinion maybe, but I do too. Goblins had a significant flavor/personality shift (visually and otherwise) in Cata, and the pre-Cata version is almost entirely unrepresented in modern WoW. It might just be the difference between Bilgewaters and Steamwheedles, but if that’s the case I want more Steamwheedle and less Bilgewater.
https://imgur.com/a/WmYrUAN
Now have a look at how it more a less looks on an “updated” goblin model. And remember. This we cannot go back to the old look and will probably be stuck with this forever. Though this doesn’t have the beard and hair. You get the idea.
Ever since the update I noticed that lady Goblins all have eyebrows that are brown, regardless of the hair colour selected. I hope this is being fixed in the Shadowlands customization.
The males also look like they took a shot of botox to the face, and much of their creepiness has been replaced. If I wanted to play as a fake plastic race I would have rolled a blood elf.
I’ve trolled or am in the process of trolling all my goblin classes to dwarf and vulpera now (started dwarves before vulpera became a thing otherwise faction changing all my stuff is a hassle.) But unless I cam cover the face I do not like any of my male goblins. You can look at Xvim on spinebreaker for an idea of the only transmog I’ll settle for. They removed most of the faces I used and none of the new ones jive I get you on that. Plus they all look almost identical to me.
I mean… I mainly play Blood Elves, and I can perfectly understand how the new models are too squeaky and polished. Not sure why they didn’t add a few brush strokes here and there to give that rough look.
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