Well, this happened:
I've been watching Angelika's videos for over a year now, and her focus on items such as clothing, art, style, and other things in MMOs and RPGs (mainly Elder Scrolls and WoW) are interesting to me. So, when she decided to focus on the standards of beauty in WoW (primarily WoW Classic), I was interested in her take on it.
The biggest takeaway for me was how she viewed Vanilla WoW through the lens of what was considered attractive and stylish in 2004, which was when the game released. I'll be honest in that I couldn't tell you much of what was considered "in" at the time, because our youngest was a year old and overall the years 1998 - 2005 were a bit of a sleep deprived blur.
Then, this morning, this dropped:
I haven't watched the trailer either (I haven't watched a Retail WoW trailer except for Dragonflight since Mists back in 2012), so I can't speak to it myself, but I found her critique very interesting in that Blizzard is basically "going generic" as far as the Blood Elf look. If you looked at Liadrin, you'd not know it was a Blood Elf from WoW. She just looks like an elf, not a Warcraft elf.
Of course, that's not enough, because apparently there's a big divide on the reaction to the trailer. People either adore or despise it, with not that many opinions in the "meh" middle. Which is pretty much standard for anything in Retail, but a lot of the hate is focused on Liadrin's look and how "masculine" she looks. The pictures I've seen of her simply don't look like her, masculine or not. Liadrin has a specific look to her that dates back to TBC, like Angelika pointed out, and Blizz moved away from that.
Oh well. Nothing I can do about that, but yes, the videos are worth a watch.
#Blaugust2025
Gotta disagree about the trailer reception, as my impression has been the opposite: that there are some who love it and some who hate it, but overwhelmingly, the reaction has been "eh", which by itself is unusual foe these cinematic trailers.
ReplyDeleteSo... basically a "meh" trailer. Not exciting, or just not Warcraft enough?
DeleteI think the fact that it feels a little off-brand is definitely a factor, but primarily I think it's just because the Worldsoul Saga being announced in one go meant that there was no real surprise. It used to be very suspenseful to see what the newest trailer would reveal for the next WoW expansion, but this time we already knew it was going to be about elves and the void, and then we got elves fighting the void. Okay.
Delete(Not to self-promote too hard, but I did write a whole post about it. 😋)
Yeah, Liadrin definitely doesn't look like herself from the art in that trailer. To me, she looks like a Peter Jackson elf. I think I'm okay with that in general, the turning away from the elf=sexy trope and all, but it *is* jarring for her to not look like quite enough like herself in this incarnation.
ReplyDeleteOkay, confession, I haven't actually watched the trailer yet, just seen the screenshots from it. I intended to watch it with my oldest, but then that didn't quite happen.
Considering that Fellowship will have been released 24 years ago this Winter, I guess the Peter Jackson elf has become the "default" these days. Considering some of the anime elven art I've seen around, it could have been much much worse.
DeleteStill, Warcraft has a specific look that you can see even in the reworked character models. (Although I do raise my eyes at how... Victorian and "rough and ready" the Human models look, and not just the Gilneans. The Human males look like they stepped right out of a logging camp in the Pacific Northwest or the Yukon.) What I saw of Lady Liadrin was a generic elf, not her. Even if you account for a generic look to the design, she has a specific haircut and look on her face. You can't miss her in game.