The HD models would be more popular regardless of how they look because most people just see the options and select the one that says "enhanced", because ordinarily, why wouldn't you pick HD? AND it's the one on by default. So it's not really indicative of anything.
And why is sd better for the long term compared to hd? Im sure both sides can give valid arguments for why it should be their version but guess what, we get both!
Nah, everyone I know who plays classic and all my guildies plan on using them. It’s purely the Reddit echo chamber that doesn’t like them. Reddit does not represent the average player.
Everyone I know who plays classic and all my guildies have it turned off. It’s purely the Reddit echo chamber that likes them. Reddit does not represent the average player.
And I’m not saying that’s wrong. I think it’s great they have both options and it would’ve been wrong to not provide both. I’m just saying I think the HD ones will be more widely used.
I think people who aren’t super familiar with WoW forever details will choose “enhanced” because it sounds better without realizing the art style shift and how they don’t fit in the SD world.
There is no chance in hell that the majority of users actually use SD. I recognize that might not be a popular view here but the majority of people just dont care even 1/100th as much about basically any of this than we do; by having to go to a completely separate website -> subreddit for the game to chat about it, you’ve screened out the vast majority of players who just don’t care that much.
This leads to a looot of big echo chambers that aren’t that likely to represent the average players’ beliefs
People forget that this place is an echochamber. Half of this sub is ready to quit playing over the sharding, but the server is still going to be the most populated Classic release since 2019.
It’s 100% going to be the case, even most classic players I know between RL friends and guildies love them and plan on using them. It’s only the Reddit echo chamber that doesn’t.
Seeing as how an estimated 70-90% of all WoW players are retail players something tells me they're gonna lean towards what the modern WoW player wants visually while keeping it more classic gameplay oriented. I assume they're also going to lean that way because of cost of future updates, but who knows for sure
Classic andy’s literally cant understand that retail has 3x more players than all the servers for classic, sod etc combined- with an overlap between the two as well lmao.
And I guarantee (and no i mean like literally yes they do) Blizzard tracks ADUs (active daily users) for all different versions of the game.
And I can guarantee that outside of week 10 of a season where M+ is basically dead. Retail has more ADUs than all classic versions combined.
They know where their bread is buttered lol. This isnt to say classic isnt a revenue source. It absolutely is. They track if players play one or both. And im certain they make enough sub money off classic only players to justify its existence. But they absolutely make more off the retail only players. And the HD models cater to them.
EDIT: And you can just have it track whether that account has logged into retail or classic in the last 30/60/90 days or both. Have it export to a excel file. And have an intern pull the data together. It would take him an hour or 2 max. Now with AI tools you could get that data in a nice tabled PDF in 1 minute. They absolutely have all this data.
Well 100% of WoW players are subscribed without Forever being out. This is meant to draw new/returning subscribers who left. So those numbers don’t matter that much, even if they were accurate.
Yeah, the only people I see bitching and moaning about the models and textures and skeletons are dweebs on reddit. I don't think I've seen any negative comments in any of the guild/raiding discords I'm in, or from any the many friends I have that play the game. The only comments I've seen in my circles of actual players are "Oh, these new models are nice."
Like come tf on, let's not pretend most people don't zoom out to max distance so they can see shit better around them. I don't think I've ever really taken close up looks at people in the game.
I also have mild face blindness so, maybe that's just me.
Eh a lot of people who aren’t super into Classic are going to play forever, and they’ll probably use HD. And then even among players who ARE super into Classic, it’s still probably like 70/30 sd/hd.
Played OG 2004 launch, pservers, classic, anniversary classic, and I'll use HD. Not sure why people think just because we play classic it can't have a couple more polygons.
Well the models kinda look like shit regardless of polygon count. Lots of the graphical updates are well received by lots of the classic base. But I don’t think the models are.
it's not like we got the original models. The faces lack any sort of expression that was previously there and are still just blurry. I would've liked upscaled SD models but this is just awful. Looks like wearing a mask from the Halloween event.
Yeah that's what I think was shown in the polls too. I think SD enjoyers are under the impression they are the majority which is quite an odd bubble. I really hope we get internal results about it, but honestly I hope it's pretty even so they can continue to develop for both.
SD players when they realize they are 2% of the playerbase or less
(Actually they are copelords so im guessing they'll be like "the poll is wrong" or "it is so shit thats why, 99% WANT sd but they cant with how shit it is")
They really fucked it by saying flat out saying one is worse than the other in the text. It's true that SD has less polygons than HD, but they really should've said "Classic" and "Modern" because those are far more accurate descriptors. People who don't know won't care and just click whatever the new thing is, zero thought given before or after.
I'm fully expecting this to be the case, but with Humans being the most popular Alliance race, it baffles me that people would chose to be an HD model Human.
Default settings make that date biased and meaningless. So many people never actually look into their graphics settings to manually adjust things. I've known people that don't even know what resolution they're playing at, nevermind individual settings.
Most people are just going to select "enhanced" upon first login because it sounds better, and then never even think about changing settings so long as the game runs and is playable.
i keep seeing stuff like "cant wait till they announce 90% of people are using HD and they stop making things in the ugly old nostalgia art style", just pulling numbers out of their ass
Fine I'll chime in. I think the HD models look significantly better than the SD models. I have played WoW since 2006 and played pretty much every release in WoW since then on release day. While I played quite a lot of Vanilla Classic when it released (As well as TBC, WotLK, Cata, and MoP Classic after) I definitely consider myself more of a Retail player (Mythic raider since it first released in WoD - not counting the prepatch Siege of Orgrimmar Mythic version).
I think the HD models look much more expressive. I really dislike the "jpg slapped onto a head" look of a lot of the SD faces. Sure I have nostalgia from the game I played 20 years ago looking like that, but I also can recognize the good things about the new models and those outweigh my nostalgia.
The biggest problem I see with the classic community is the echo chamber is EXTREMELY loud. Even louder than most communities, of which all of them tend to have problems with echo chambers. Saying something like "The change is just the ugliest fucking character models ever conceived" is such a high level of hyperbole it's hard to even form an argument against it. And the echo chamber agrees, so they come to believe that everyone just hates this which couldn't be further from the truth.
EDIT: The result of this post has been the one person to respond has basically said "HD is objectively factually bad and your opinion is wrong" and then blocked me when I tried to have even the smallest conversation about subjectivity in the matter. And somehow people wonder why I complain about echo chambers.
This is what I mean by strawman. “It’s just nostalgia and an echo chamber” without even trying to understand how the WoD models change the vibe and atmosphere of the game, like being more disney-esque (with being more expressive part of that).
Also, you completely ignore how new HD models (instead of a lazy retail backport) could have stayed more faithful to vanilla and better fit into the game world, whilst still appealing to those that care about fidelity which was my original comment. It’s false dichotomy and feels so dishonest and bad faith.
I understand the argument completely. I disagree. That isn't a straw man, it's a disagreement. The echo chamber has told you to not even consider the fact that someone could possibly like the HD models. I personally feel no change to the vibe or atmosphere of the game when I have HD on. That is absolutely an subjective feeling, but you try to treat it as if it is objective truth.
You refuse to even entertain a different opinion, and you wonder why I complain about the classic echo chamber? I also never said that nostalgia was the only thing anyone likes about SD, but it would be the only reason I personally would choose it. My personal opinion is not everyone's point of view in the same way that your opinion isn't objective fact no matter how much you bury your head in the sand and try to pretend it is.
Complete insanity that people playing a classic-centric take on WoW want classic-centric models?
It’s already been stated a million times but people like you don’t seem understand that people don’t hate HD because it’s HD, they hate it because the HD models are just the ugly Disney retail models. If they faithfully updated the SD models to HD then this back and fourth wouldn’t be happening
You realize there are a portion of us who have played for the whole duration of the game that want Retail to be like Forever but with modern day graphics, right? Just because this is what YOU want doesn't mean EVERYONE wants it and the fact that a majority of people who play World of Warcraft play Retail I wouldn't be surprised if the devs lean the Retail way. I don't want the people that believe as you do to hate this version of the game but this isn't classic, it's classic+ the "+" means improving on the original while staying in that world. It's 2026 the game should look like its from 2026. Warcraft has ALWAYS had a cartoon-y theme to it and IMO the new models are superior to the old ones. Are they perfect? no but they look much better than the old
People act like we don't play retail because the UI and models are bad. No thats not it LOL I like the QOL retail brings so imm be using the new UI and HD models
For me, it doesnt make sense to use HD models when the world is still SD. Also, artstyle wise the Hd models could look a lot better than what we have now
Nearly all of those SD models have cleft lips on them. They look ugly. Their faces look flat and they have no definition to any of the features. The eyes are narrow and beady and I can't see how anybody thinks they look better than the right images.
But it is, taking the hair out of the equation, the faces still look ugly.
I have some good news for you though: you can just play with the SD setting on and I'll play with the HD setting on and neither of us will know about the other one, and we can both enjoy the game how we want to.
lol it's literal propaganda in terms of what they chose to represent for SD. Whoever made that picked the worst faces with the worst hairstyles and combined them into the ugliest combinations they could think of. No facial hair on any of them. Two of them are balding and two of them are using retail hairstyles on SD models which don't look right together.
Take two minutes to make a character that actually looks good and you'll have a result that looks better than both the SD and HD models provided in the image.
This is exactly it. There is not a direct 1 for 1 from SD to HD. Definitely a miss on their part. But, all of these HD is bad posts are making a character in SD and then toggling it and you get some goofy mismatch looking model. If you made the character from scratch in HD mode they look fine.
They absolutely do. But don't sit there and act like most of the posts saying HD bad aren't also cherry picked. I've seen maybe 2 posts that directly compare the same face and hairstyle from SD to HD.
The faces are all so bad. Why does everyone look like they are fighting for their life on a toilet after doing the sugar free Harbio gummy bear challenge?
Only reason im playing Forever is because I can play in HD. Looks better to me, sorry if I have the wrong opinion, but its my guilds opinion too, and we're moving from retail to Forever
I will probably use the HD models because they totally fucked up the SD models and they look like garbage. Do a side by side with a classic client and forever and you'll see the difference.
What I never see anyone discussing is switching back and forth, I use SD for my Human Warrior, I use HD for my Dwarf Shaman, I use SD for my Nelf Hunter, I use HD for my Gnome Rogue.
People don't understand that a lot of people dont mind HD modles, they just don't want ridiculous retail artstyle. I think a lot of people mean that when they say HD
Gotta love how for years now Blizzard has had the resources to literally maintain multiple different versions of the game simultaneously, several with vastly different art styles.
Yet despite having nearly a decade of evidence that they have the resources to support multiple separate versions of the game, the breaking point for Blizzards resources (according to this sub) will be maintaining two character art syles in Forever. That is simply not possible.
No, the point is that developing older art styles isn't as easy as "lower the resolution".
The older artstyle was a byproduct of technical limitations. When you are FORCED to work within limitations you tend to get much more creative with how to work around them. Those limitations no longer exist so matching the exact style that existed in 2004 is really not possible.
Thats without getting into the problem of technology and training. New developers and designers aren't using the old tech, they're using new tech that naturally smooths things out.
Dedicating a significant number of resources to developing wholely new content in the exact style that will prevent you bozos from crying is an impossible task and one they shouldn't waste their time on. You guys have already proven you won't stop bitching about it. I'd rather have them spend their time on the actual game.
And yes, this is coming from someone who first bought the game in Dec 05.
Just because it’s not “difficult” doesn’t mean it doesn’t drastically increase the art development workload. The SD models aren’t just a “turn down the polygons” nob, it’s an entirely separate texture. And if not applied perfectly this sub would have its third aneurism of whatever day someone pointed it out.
Framing is as “super easy” and not resource consuming (taking away from other dev tasks) is asinine and produces conflict and unrealistic expectations.
Decades of WoW and never heard anyone complain much about the HD models until Forever came out and now suddenly they're literally the worst thing ever apparently.
There were complaints back when they were originally introduced but it was more feedback on nuanced stuff like how animations felt very different because they were actually changed in some ways or how specific things looked compared to their actual 1:1 old counterpart.
Nothing like what you see on this sub where people pretend like the sd models are just outright better and the hd models look irredeemably awful even though the hd model is clearly an upgrade.
You’re trying to say that two completely different situations should’ve produced the same result.
If you love the HD models so much then idk why you’re so upset. You got what you wanted. The problem is that your hideous HD models are bleeding into the SD option, not the other way around.
We didn't get what we wanted. The HD models are missing over half of their customization options because we are being held back by the SD toggle with no equivalents.
99% of people aren't gonna look at your characters face, if it's nice for you that's what matters the most. If it's important then you should also make HD cosmetics you're happy with, I'm betting a lot of people will be on HD
A lot of people are talking about a poll and the mythical average player. But don't we have a lot of new and retail players? Won't they choose HD by default? I think that if many of them were properly re-educated they would realise that the SD models are cooler. Furthermore, I don't care what the average player thinks. I am not the average player.
I mean there was a polling thread a couple weeks ago, within this sub, about HD vs SD, and HD won lmao
Never listen to reddit about anything. There are people that unironically argue that classic tier sets , like T2, are better looking that their retail version.
Some people are just beyond any form of redemption or reasoning
I haven't seen many of the new retail sets, but i remember the castle of narnia expansion had a great plate set.
TBC imo had some of the next looking sets overall.. but t2 pally, rogue, and warlock are phenomenal lol, t3 paladin shaman and warrior too. T1 sets were ugly af.. although my favorite gear is the R13 ally set, what a beauty.
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u/Moogle_Messiah 4h ago
I play a troll. They look pretty good to me at least.
Then I transformed into a human from a trick or treat at an inn and got turned into a human female. Holy balls the face was a real Halloween scare!