Quote Originally Posted by Cyrtip View Post
What problems were there with the older race models?
Specifically with the lalafell, Yoshi-P pointed out some polygons on their faces that, because of the downgrade from 1.0, resulted in a look that was uneven and bumpy.

Personally, due to my dissatisfaction with the new graphics, I'm inclined to think the issues were 'issues,' or artistic choices made for one reason or another (Could even be due to technical limitation) that players grew to love over the years, which are now gone.
Some of this is certainly part of it. I know that people complained about losing visible vertex edges (on an elezen I believe) in one of the older threads. That could be in the realm of technical limitation that some people liked. I don't think the artists should make visible vertex edges intentionally, though.

An example that could have been a technical limitation I personally miss is how <7.0 Au Ra limbal rings were just a hard edged solid color ring placed over the edge of the eye that followed the brightness of the eye, being dark when the eye was in darkness, and bright under light, while the new limbal rings are fancy gradients that are dark when light shines directly on them, but glow on their own when in the dark (Appearing to grow thicker in the process because the transparent parts of the gradient become more distinct).
I can see that. However they're doing limbal rings now is definitely different. They now do quite a lot to change the color of the eyes when they didn't before. I had to adjust the color on my au ra alt's limbal rings to get closer to the original look.

In any event, the devs wished to update the character models, and obviously, a lot of people simply wished they hadn't, while a lot of people are very glad they did. I think, with some things still outstanding that could be adjusted, the devs delivered on their promise about as well as humanly possible, given millions of players will never agree on anything so ephemeral as "impression". Humanly possible, not divinely possible. It's not slip-shod, lazy, lacking in quality, but there are still some things that can be tweaked. How do you think the devs should navigate the path between players who feel they failed to deliver on the promise regarding "impressions" and players who are more than satisfied with the delivery on those same "impressions"?

Maybe they'll do what some other games have done, and let players flip a switch on the models. They can't do that with the lighting, so the results might not be that great, and it would close the devs off from what they hoped to gain from standardizing the models, but maybe they'll do that.