UPDATE:
New models have dropped. Details on that and lots of specific, gathered feedback here:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/worgen-model-feedback-need-to-be-taller-wolfish-males-more-customization/240093
Will someone switch the front and back teeth for the male worgen? The female worgen have accurate wolf teeth; the males still don’t. They still have the equivalent of buck teeth on werewolves.
We still sorely need more happening, here. The males need to be up to snuff with the females, and the females need eyes up to snuff with the males. The males should be bigger or at the very least stand up straight.
And can both of them have a lot more options for basically everything but especially some actual fur colors? That’d be so great.
ORIGINAL POST:
Let’s take another look at the worgen here, what with all the new (and ridiculously oversized, as far as the Kul’Tirans go) allied races and the upcoming new worgen models.
Firstly, I keep hearing about how the females will get revamped further to be “more wolfish.” What about the males? The males also deserve to actually look like wolves. Please don’t let the females look like these amazing werewolves and the males look like weird ambiguous monsters with noses like cats and ears like bats and muzzles like… well, frankly I have no idea.
The appearance reference for worgen should be wolves - more like what was used to design the Cataclysm alpha models, which was still the worgen’s best time period (even with the overly large manes on the males that made them look more like lions) - not whatever resulted in the models we have now.
In some ways, they look more like bats. In some, more like lions. In others, more like nothing except absolutely ridiculous and not even cool or fearsome. They should look like wolves.
Male and female worgen should look equally wolfish. The current worgen bear form actually looks more wolfish than the male worgen head in terms of muzzle shape, nose shape, and teeth placement, and that baffles me.
More thoughts:
MAKE THEM TALLER. With so many huge races in the game, especially the Kul’Tirans, who are considerably larger and taller than the worgen (especially the males), the Alliance’s MONSTER RACE should be among the biggest/tallest ones on the faction. Having a race of humans, descended from Vrykul or not, that are larger than the Alliance’s supposedly big, scary monster race of werewolves, is really sad and makes worgen seem pretty pathetic.
If nothing else, at least let the male worgen be as tall as the females. There was a tweet once from one of the Blizz devs that claimed male and female worgen are the same height; this absolutely is not reflected in the game. Male worgen need to be much bigger than they are in every regard, but please at least let them stand as tall as the females, hunched or not (though yes, I know sexual dimorphism is rampant among the monster races).
MORE CUSTOMIZATION, especially FOR MALE WORGEN. Please. Please please. I want my male worgen to have yellow eyes without his face looking terrible and having giant bags under his eyes. I want him to have actual black fur instead of just a slightly slate grey.
It’d also be great to see other colors of male worgen - brown, black, white, blond, the reddish like the females have, so many more varieties and patterns that are possible. And their manes should change color to match the fur, like taurens’ do. The male worgen are frankly the most preposterously snubbed race in the game when it comes to actual appearance options. Having multiple faces with the same eye color would be great, so that we could have come choice, and the same goes for more fur options and options in general.
GIVE THEM AT LEAST AN OPTION FOR ACTUAL WOLF EARS. This could at least be an option. Right now, all worgen ears are long and always in what’s generally a kind of submissive posture for a wolf. They don’t look fearsome. If they had upright, wolfish ears (much more like what the Cata beta worgen models had!), they could be so much more expressive and it would eliminate so many clipping issues as well. (Maybe even make that another clean-shaven human option, because I’ve gotten used to the wacky mismatched ears but it wasn’t because I wanted to -_-)
EXPRESSIVE, WOLFISH FACES FOR MALES AND FEMALES.
MORE UPRIGHT POSTURE FOR MALES. This seems to be arguably on the way, but this is just a reminder - with the upright option for male orcs, this redesign or at least option should become available to more races. Male worgen should at least have the option to stand upright, with some pride and poise (and so you can see the detail of their chest armor at all, that would be nice; right now it is completely crunched and looks horrible), except when in combat, in which they could become hunched and feral-looking. They are, after all, now controlling themselves - would they really walk around hunched all the time, especially if the females don’t, and if they want to try to take pride in their curse?
TWO CASTING ANIMATIONS FOR MALE WORGEN. Male worgen are one of the only races/genders in the game (along with female humans) without two casting animations, and frankly it’s just weird and kind of annoying.
TAILS OR TAIL OPTIONS. I know this is a pipe dream, but I really want it, so I’m going to throw it in anyway. It could be a customization option - you can have a tail or you can not have a tail; with so many new customization options for Allied Races (and with female pandaren having a tail option attached to fur options, which still isn’t ideal but at least the choice is there), is that too much to ask? Or it could even be a glyph. Just give us the option. Especially considering the skeleton for the worgen, namely the males, clearly could be easily made to have tails anyway, given the saberon and saurok.
MORE REDUNDANT HUMAN OPTIONS (and options in general). I’d love to give my worgen a different ear customization (especially if upright wolfish ears were added) and yet he gets to remain clean-shaven in human form. By “redundant human options” I mean let us be clean shaven without having these giant wacky mismatched chewed-on bat ears, for instance. Let us have multiple worgen options for some of the more popular human options. Plus, more human options in general (which would also mean more worgen options, which males especially need anyway)? More human hair colors, like white hair? Genn has white hair, but worgen players can’t. It’s weird.
ALL OF THEIR EYES LOOK LIKE CUTSCENE GENN’S (and with Genn’s spikier fur). You know - males and females have the brightly-colored eyes with actual pupils. And they look more like Genn’s model, who has fur spiking this way and that, making him look like a werewolf with a thick fur coat instead of just kind of having hairy skin. This, as I said, should count for females, too. Or else give us options to have the more normal eyes the new female models have or the more monstrous eyes the new males have, on either gender. But that’s a lot of options and I doubt we’d get that much choice.
DRUID FORMS SERIOUSLY NEED A REDESIGN. especially with the druid forms of the new races and how the worgen need some serious rethinking/reconsideration in terms of their druid form designs and usage (particularly considering the wolf tail the Kul’Tiran “cat” form has). When will we throw the cat and bear lore out the window and let worgen turn into giant wolves for tank and DPS, and why not travel, too? I know I’ll get stoned for that, but there it is anyway. The new races don’t exactly have “cats” and “bears,” and they get completely unique aquatic, travel, and moonkin forms, whereas worgen recycle from night elves to an extreme degree.
Or, if you want to be really crazy here, let us have a glyph of the worgen or something that just let’s us stay in worgen form while we are in “bear” form or “cat” form etc. Because we’re already werewolves. Why do we have to turn into bears and cats? Shouldn’t we be scary and powerful in our own right? (ignoring the fact that worgen were cut down like wheat in their starting zone, because I like to think we’re still scary/powerful at all)
FERAL WORGEN HERITAGE ARMOR.
EDIT: Yes, this was arguably addressed a little in the whole hiding armor thing, but what I’m referring to is some scary-looking, torn-up armor that maybe also makes the fur look spikier. Old writeup:
So the Kul’Tirans already snagged the greatcoat heritage armor - what does that leave worgen? Waistcoats? I sure hope not. The most obvious answer is let the heritage armor stand in for worgen who want to look like werewolves (and/or a lot of the worgen NPCs) and not wear bulky armor all the time and let the heritage armor be a feral worgen look. This would be so fantastic, even if it leaves the “why can’t worgen players use their claws like worgen NPCs?” issue unaddressed.
MAYBE even MORE CLASSES? I can already see the vitriol spewed at me for this one, but how about those Kul’Tiran shamans and Zandalari paladins? And the fact that they can both be monks?
Why are worgen continually denied the only class in the game that can turn into a wolf in any capacity (since they refuse to let worgen druids do this), the only class that fights unarmed (even if worgen monks would be using attacks that don’t involve claws, but the point still stands), and a class that uses the Light, which worgen priests already do?
Any lore aside (and honestly Blizzard is handwaving a lot of the lore at this point, so anything could be written in pretty easily, because they can really just do what they want), worgen can’t be two of the tanking classes in the game. To tank as a worgen, you must either be a heavy plate wearing warrior, a bear all the time, or else an undead worgen. Paladin and monk worgen would allow for more tanking options for the Alliance’s (tragically undersized) monster race.
Whatever happens, Blizz, please just treat the males and females fairly. I’d hate to see females get an amazing wolfish makeover like everyone wants, while the males are left to look absurd, have next to no customization options, and rot. They should look like they’re the same race, and they should be equally as fearsome without looking as frankly silly as they do now.
Bottom line, let’s get some proper werewolves, emphasis on wolves.
