Now given that you’ve both said what you needed to say, perhaps it’s time to let it go.

Go play Vanguard. Or, actually, NOT play Vanguard. Vanguard pretty much died because of they lacked the ‘laziness’ you attribute to Blizzard. Vanguard is unplayable on many high end computers, let alone something the average person owns. It is slow, laggy, and the video tears. Vanguard tried to make everything unique and over did the graphics as well. It means that this high performance game crashed and burned pretty quickly. Heck, I still remember before they put that game out how everyone said it was going to kill WoW. Almost two years later, and who’s the one who got slaughtered?

It’s part of why I don’t believe that Warhammer Online or Age of Conan are going to be mega hits. They’ve gone flashy and complicated. They’ve tried to make things very unique and put in high end graphics.

It isn’t laziness. Blizzard chose to make this game accessable to the bulk of the computer owners in the world. This means that the game is going to be less flashy, not as graphicly strong as other games out there. It means that there are a lot of animations reused or retooled. It means that the game is smaller and workable on computers which are, even today, running Windows ‘98. Some people who are playing this game are using computers which are, largely, a decade old. Blizzard made that choice. You can argue that it was the wrong choice to make, but it is not laziness.

Yes, I would love it if there was a whole new pet family to drool over, but that in and of itself would be problematic in a simple download. If you look at the most recent Patch to the game, you’ll notice that there are very few new and innovative skins being used. Most of them are repeats. The reason for that is also because space. Had they gone with new skins, new designs and new animations for every single mob class in there, the download would have taken close to four hours even on a cable modem.

There will be new pets and new pet skins in the expansion and there may even be entirely new pet families as well. However, Blizzard could either be like the guys behind Everquest and demand you fork out yet another thirty bucks just to fix the problems of the last expansion and add to the current game, or they can be nice, give us tiny expansions of the gaming environment while charging us no more than the monthly subscription. No matter how much you might hate it, though, patches cannot be too big with too much information or they won’t download in any reasonable time.

To answer Wolfington’s point, yes, it would be nice if they would correct the graphics on the Hyena and finish that pet out. I’d love it if they finally finished out the various pets.

It IS a pretty raven, at least a little different looking than the other birds, if not much.

A “signature look”? Someone needs to be shot for this one. I happen to expect more for the money I pay.

Ok, a totally new pet with a totally new look needs a new skin, model, and animations.

This pet’s skin is already in the program. The model is in the program. The animations are in the program. All it takes is editing the file which tells these three aspects to work together. Carrion Bird and Owl animations are idential anyway (and always have been). The only difference between this and an Owl or a normal Carrion Bird are the model and the skin.

I’m giving you the explanation that I was read when someone complained about the reuse of the various armor models and skins through out much of the game.

There are also stylistic choices which have been part of Blizzard’s set up since it started. It isn’t really that they need new artists since they do rotate a certain percentage of their staff out all the time. It is part of a signature look that you’ll see in Diablo and Diablo II as well as the other games.

This is what I’ve read, and this is what I’m passing along.

Nah…. the space thing just doesn’t quite muster.

It isn’t that Blizzard needs new artists. The unfortunate reality of any video game is that space is limited. It’s why there’s so many skins get reused over and over again not only on mobs, but on items. It is also why the requirements for space on each expansion increases.

I’ve talked it over with a few guildies I’ve had and we’re pretty sure that there’s at least seven different servers per realm. Expect that there will be another major server upgrade prior to Wrath.