What Happened To Spell Animations?

Why has, in the past 2 expansions, spell animations devolved into Warcraft 3: Reforged mobile game style? We used to have such beautiful spell animations, but now they all look overly cartoony and goofy for no reason.

And it’s not like those are all just new spells that got animated poorly, a lot of the current animations took the place of much, much better, older animations.

I can’t say exactly what was what for other classes, but for Paladin, I can give a solid few examples.

Divine Storm. It used to look so good, a tempest of holy hammers and holy lightning surrounding the Paladin. Now it looks like Fisher Price hammers popping in and out of existence.

Judgment used to be iconic in that it dropped a holy hammer on someone’s head. Now it’s a Fisher Price hammer being thrown.

Hammer of Wrath is similar to what it once was, a lightning hammer being tossed. However, it actually lost part of its animation, in whicb a small, quick, red, Judgment hammer would land on the target as the lightning hammer hit. But they took that out, for some reason.

Avenging Wrath, went from bright, elegant, strong, glowing and layered wings that gleamed power to droopy, sagging wings. The only good aspect of the new Avengibg Wrath is the Paladin’s whole body glows yellow. But the wings are just so, so dumb to look at it.

And that’s just four of the most glaring ones.

Like seriously, go look at Warlords of Draenor spell animations, or anything prior, and compare them to now.

Even Classic, with its limited animations, actually has better looking combat. It’s simple yet sophisticated and pretty. Retail just doesn’t have that any more.

I truly don’t understand how Legion was supposed to be the expansion all about “class fantasy”, and yet since Legion came out, I haven’t felt like I’ve been playing a Paladin. I feel like I’m playing something completely different. It’s so unreconizable.

Edit: Check out how beautiful and awesome spell animations were in WoD. Why did we ever stray from this? Was it to purposely upset fans?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=emb_title&v=_vh4b6KQWiM

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The vast majority of the current game developers lack artistic ability. They are game designers first, artists last. Old blizzard developers were the opposite.

The game lacks soul now in pretty much every way. The “updated” models, the “updated” spell animations, “updated” zones, they may have more pixels but they have completely lost the charm that hooked you onto this game for years.

This isn’t exclusive to WoW. This is a problem in almost every industry today: change for the sake of change. I’m looking at you, movie remakes. The problem is the people who made the original that was highly successful are NOT making the remakes or “updates”, resulting in something that VAGUELY resembles what made the original product SUCCESSFUL.

We are literally seeing our favorite pastimes being destroyed in the name of capitalizing off nostalgia. The irony is that you can’t change something and still expect it to be nostalgic.

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But here’s the irony, it was completely better before they decided to try to fix what wasn’t broken.

I can say, with absolute certainty, that I was in no way tired of the old style of animations. I loved how my character and combat in general looked and played in WoD. And I was never, ever going to grow tired of that style.

But this new stuff? I don’t even want to look at my character any more, like honestly. I don’t even want to play, because it’s just not what I enjoyed.

WoW is just not the same game, gameplay wise and just themetically wise, what it once was.

Sure, times change, and there were good changes and bad changes throughout WoW’s history. But it always remained the same game, with the same style. But with Legion, Blizzard tried to wipe the table and start anew, with a clean slate, and a completely new style.

And it just sucks.

I really want to like the changes, and enjoy looking at my character. But I just don’t. I don’t know who these animations were designed to please.

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The last set of Avenging Wrath wings were fit for a fly.

Or a circus, cause they were clown tier.

A single class’ visuals from retail are flashier than all of the classes from classic combined so I dont know where you’re drawing these conclusions.

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Blizzard listened to people who think more pixels/more flashy= better. It’s simply not true. You’re right, the entire look of the game changed around Legion and it in no way resembles what WoW used to look like. This was also the time of the mass exodus of high ranking blizzard employees. Honestly I think the company just changed, I think the turnover rate caused who was creating these visuals to just change.

That’s the bad thing about eternally supported games, they will constantly be changing and after a certain about of time will no longer be what made them great to begin with. It sucks and I keep hoping to see that spark of light that used to make this game great but as more and more strange changes are being made, the harder it is to remember that time of WoW.

My main character does not feel like the main character I created over 10 years ago. Honestly he looks and feels like he’s from a completely different game. It’s horrible

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Flashier, yes. But that doesn’t at all mean better.

Compare any Classic class to Retail’s spell animations, even if they are ever so minor, the Classic class beats the Retail’s.

And that’s not coming from me being a negative nate, or “Oh this is the worst expansion ever”, like how there is someone like so during every expansion. Because I actually want to like the game and its animations. I don’t want to complain for the sake of complaining. I want to get home from work, hop on WoW, and have a good time. And I want to have fun and think my character looks awesome.

But you know what? I don’t have a good time. And I don’t think my character looks awesome. He looks like he’s from a mobile game.

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I personally like the new Avenging Wrath animation. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.

Also, can’t you glyph it to look like the old one? Or is it only the butterfly butt wings that have a glyph?

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Classic’s spell animations were limp. No force, flavor, or flash.

Their only draw is nostalgic.

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I’ve found that I really like the resto shaman animations. For some reason, they look way better than any of the ones I see on other classes/specs.

But that might just be because I’m new to shammies. :grin: Though i do think that resto animations look better than enhance or ele there too.

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Art is subjective. I like the new spell graphics and animations better than the old.

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Yes Winged Vengeance, the four wings, glyph still exists. Thank God. But I seriously feel that the only reason it’s even an option is because it was there before the Avenging Wrath change, and Blizz just hasn’t bothered removing it.

But also no, you can’t at all use the old two wings.

No. This is incorrect. They were simple. And simple is alright. Simple, but good is better than overly animated mobile game style.

I enjoy casting spells and abilities in Classic. Even without a transmog my character looks better in combat than my Retail character. Because at least he’s not pulling a horse put of his butt in the middle of combat for 3 seconds.

I actually like most of the new animations, there are a handful that I don’t, but overall I think they were an improvement.

chaos bolt is an example of one that I think was better before, the dragon-y bolt of chaos was so cool before.

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I don’t think so. They like flashy just like they like gimmicks. They’re into style over substance, and the style is flashy gimmicks.

^ BINGO

/thread

They went some weird HotS route and I hate it. Warlock fire and shadow spells look like crap to me. It’s like some punk rock garage band street painter dude got a hold of some neon spray paint and splattered it across my screen into green, black and purple dots of confetti.

First time I used this after they changed it… the entire group of people in Stormwind testing their new spells out just turned and stared at me, then laughed. I was actually embarrassed for my character.

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Seriously. I like that my chaos bolt animation has that big wind up compared to how it used to be.

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Classic characters are only doing one thing because their simple animation was just that, the singular limp noodle swings.

Retail’s spells are all different, it would look and feel incredibly off if your character just suddenly gained 100% MS and nothing to show for it.

E.g. Death’s Advance. Press button, gain speed. Boring.

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I don’t believe you. I don’t believe anyone could honestly, and I mean legitimately, feel that this:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4GXjPXGufCo

Was an improvement over this:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ScNgv9slJhA

Not sure what you’re going on about OP.
Just sounds like a pile of negativity and unnecessary insults.

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There’s nothing wrong with negativity. Modern society’s constant need to be #POSITIVE only leads to willful ignorance and blind acceptance.

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