WAR is not too cartoony really.

The whole cartoony comments usually mean:

a) High fantasy. While low fantasy and sci-fi aren't cartoony, high fantasy "seems to be for some people" since you can throw bombs filled with knives who speak and stuff that can only happen in cartoons.

b) Vivid colors. Unless you add shadows and brown into them, some people will consider those graphics cartoonish.

c) Deformed anatomy. In WoW, and also in WAR, some "knights in armors" look small and fat, instead of stilized like they would be IRL.

d) JRPG style. While this style is incredibly popular in consoles (devil may cry, certain characters in MGS, beat em ups and fighting games) many people will consider a game cartoony as soon as they wear something more than what they are meant to wear, some nasty hairstyles or some clothes with attention to the detail.

However, these comments are usually from clueless people who have no idea about art. The key is in getting away from reality as much as you can, while keeping it practical.

The problem with WAr's graphics is they arn't stylized enough to look great with a low tech engine and the tech graphics arn't good enough to get over the blandness so your jaw drops like Crysis. So I end up looking at WAR and thinking "ew look at these dated graphics" where I pick up AOC and think "these graphics are techincally nice" and WOW "I love the art style of this game they've done an amazing job with it".

The female Dark elves and the Orcs look really good but the rest of the races are abit "meh" specially the chosen which is ugly. Some parts of the world are really nice but most of it just looks like your generic fantasy mmorpg with dated graphics and zones like the chaos PVP zone outside the city is just a Barren bore.

WAR is a bad example or cartoon graphics. WOW is better here.

There are like a ZILLION of artistic styles,   so game developpers can chose betwen... TWO, because people is soo ignorant, than will reject anything else.  Maybe 3 styles, if you accept Darwinia retro 8 bits style as another one.

Realistic graphics is like EPIC FAIL, because to have these graphics, the game result on a empty shell..  and most people play these games (at release) at  30 FPS.

I say, lets accept a borad palette of styles. Lets see what artist can create. Don't have stupid preconceptions against style X, or style Y. 

Even Realistic somewhat worked for AoC. :/

The ironic thing in this post is Warhammer is a 20+ year old franchise.  WoW "borrowed" their entire style and look, and a whole lot of lore from it all the way back in the Warcraft days.

Games Workshop has spent literally decades developing a certain look, style and IP for Warhammer.  To say it's a clone of WoW is putting the cart before the horse.  The Warhammer IP just never had been pushed into an MMO directly before.

Personally, I think WAR really nails the look and feel of Warhammer.  It's exaggerated, but not to much so, and has a sort of dismalness to it that drives home that it really is a world on the verge of falling into darkness.

drtuba, I've seen Warhammer artworks and they look nothing like WoW. Mythic could have approached a completely different style while staying true to the franchise.

WAR looks like WoW graphically speaking, in terms of color usage, body proportions and shadowing type.

Originally posted by drtuba

The ironic thing in this post is Warhammer is a 20+ year old franchise.  WoW "borrowed" their entire style and look, and a whole lot of lore from it all the way back in the Warcraft days.

Games Workshop has spent literally decades developing a certain look, style and IP for Warhammer.  To say it's a clone of WoW is putting the cart before the horse.  The Warhammer IP just never had been pushed into an MMO directly before.

Personally, I think WAR really nails the look and feel of Warhammer.  It's exaggerated, but not to much so, and has a sort of dismalness to it that drives home that it really is a world on the verge of falling into darkness.

Looking at both of their concept arts and CGI videos I think Warcraft and Warhammer look nothing alike and I think Blizzard have taken more from asia than Warhammer in terms of looks.

Most definately they aren't exact, that would probably have resulted in a lawsuit in the past 15 years or so.

However, the basic tenants are there.  Exaggerated proportions, overwrought armor, heavy jowled greenskins and dwarves that look like barrels with legs wielding weapons bigger than their heads...  Now this isn't to say WoW hasn't advanced their own take on it, especially as more, higher level content made it's way into the MMO, as they've taken a decidedly more elaborate and  (for lack of a better term) fantastical bent.

But the general style itself was built upon the foundations that GW laid.  Of course this isn't a "bad" thing persay.  It's hard to find fantasy at all that doesn't borrow from it's predecessors, most notably Tolkien.  However, if you look at the history of fantasy artwork in general... let's use for example miniatures since GW got it's legs there... Ral Partha developed art styles that were more "conventional" in appearance, while GW's Citadel art was the exaggerated, almost humorous looking stuff that appealed to a different audience.

When Warcraft was released, it wasn't in the same vein as the artwork they used in, say, Diablo's franchise, so much as a departure into that style that GW for all intents and purposes, created.  I'll maintain that Blizzard did borrow heavily from it, and then added their own twists as they were wont to do, but I think their core style was inherited from the Warhammer IP.

As far as color and shadows and such that was mentioned, the Warcraft franchise was never built to be as "dark" as the Warhammer one.  Of course there will be differences applied in the rendering and color pallettes chosen, but the overall effect from proportionality to architecture is in most cases heavily borrowed, then lightened to fit the vision of the world Blizzard had in mind.

Again, if it was a direct clone, yeah the lawsuits woulda happened years ago.  I perhaps mis-spoke in that I meant the WoW franchise is more clearly derivative, not implying it was somehow "stolen".

People hating cartoony graphics already have THEIR game, its called Age of Conan. People have a choice.

Originally posted by drtuba

The ironic thing in this post is Warhammer is a 20+ year old franchise.  WoW "borrowed" their entire style and look, and a whole lot of lore from it all the way back in the Warcraft days.

Games Workshop has spent literally decades developing a certain look, style and IP for Warhammer.  To say it's a clone of WoW is putting the cart before the horse.  The Warhammer IP just never had been pushed into an MMO directly before.

Personally, I think WAR really nails the look and feel of Warhammer.  It's exaggerated, but not to much so, and has a sort of dismalness to it that drives home that it really is a world on the verge of falling into darkness.

QFT!

Originally posted by drtuba

The ironic thing in this post is Warhammer is a 20+ year old franchise.  WoW "borrowed" their entire style and look, and a whole lot of lore from it all the way back in the Warcraft days.

Games Workshop has spent literally decades developing a certain look, style and IP for Warhammer.  To say it's a clone of WoW is putting the cart before the horse.  The Warhammer IP just never had been pushed into an MMO directly before.

 

this

Warhammer IP may not be a ripoff of WoW, but the mmo is. Honestly I think warhammer is a better game for most people, because in wow only 5% actually do the high end raiding.

I did the high end raiding in wow, and I would rather never do that bs again. Pve raids are fun the first time, but after about a month it gets pretty lame. Now i havent done the RvR in war, but it has to be more entertaining than the afk fights in alteric valley.  I dont think this is the best endgame though, I think owning the stuff your fighting for is via guild or yourself is, not the faction.

Im sorry but to those who think WoW and War looks the same. You are either

1. Blind
2. Have no idea what the hell you are talking about
3. Trolling

Look at this following pics and you tell me if they look the same. The WAR pic is my toon:

Hell I even showed a picture of a "similiar axe." Now tell me....do they look similiar? Hmm?

I totally agree agree with Enigma , you guys are smoking some good stuff .

Some of you  haved played way too much warcraft and have never seen anything else but wow , first mmo maybe ??

I for myself been playing these game since dawn of everquest and dont understand all these reference to wow , anything that come out that new compared again to wow .

i get these posts about classes what do they compared them too ? , guess what wow again lol.

i used to play warhammer on PNP for years even before warcraft even existed so usiing wow as a reference is just plain dumb.

Those two screenshots alone disprove this whole "wowhammer" thing. Its a crying shame people give WoW credit for everything they can. I wish theyd stop, its very irritating.

Originally posted by MarL

Warhammer IP may not be a ripoff of WoW, but the mmo is. Honestly I think warhammer is a better game for most people, because in wow only 5% actually do the high end raiding.

I did the high end raiding in wow, and I would rather never do that bs again. Pve raids are fun the first time, but after about a month it gets pretty lame. Now i havent done the RvR in war, but it has to be more entertaining than the afk fights in alteric valley.  I dont think this is the best endgame though, I think owning the stuff your fighting for is via guild or yourself is, not the faction.

seeing as wow was an (intentional) ripoff of everything before it, and "borrows" from a ton of current/past movies/events/celebrities... your point is completely moot, even if it was accurate.

seeing as world of warcraft is based off of warcraft 1/2/3 and THOSE games are totally based off of the warhammer ip...  perhaps you should be complaining about why did wow rip off so much from the warhammer ip, PLUS all the things they ripped off from the plethora of mmos which came before wow?

hmmmm?

it's a good thing that wow pve raids and wow battlegrounds are not what rvr is about, nor what war is about.

i think making comparisons based upon stuffpresentedasfact, instead of factual information isn't the best way to bring home your opinion as an overly 'good' opinion.

WoWhammer... where do u guys get this n00b ideas?

doesnt matter who ripped off who, we have a 2008 mmo doing the same as WoW did upon release, pretty much the same skin just "tarted" up.

cartoons can be fun, but they are also associated with children. I know that all the ten year old boys in my sons class will be playing. I also read the statistics for warhammer website give that majority of visitors are under 16 yrs old. WAR will be a breeding ground for the playground types, eg those still in school.

warhammer is 25yrs old or so, those people that played tabletop 15 yrs ago will still have the kid in them today.

more like failhammer than wowhammer

Typical a uninformend Troll, that only looked at alpha screenshots wanting to bash a game he knows nothing abouth.

Gratz.