Forums » Pantheon Races

Character Models Feedback: Looking for Charm and Uniqueness

    • 19 posts
    July 19, 2017 11:51 PM PDT

    One of the things I liked in EQ1 was how much unique charm some of the playable character models had, in particular the Ogres, Trolls, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Halflings.  While their faces were partly where their racial quirks were expressed, what reinforced it even more was their body proportions and sizes.  Since their proportions dictated a lot of how they animated, everything about how they moved and existed in the world had a lot of character and charm.

    It gave the playable races a wide variety of tones.  If you wanted to play a more serious looking character you might pick something like a Dark Elf, Barbarian, or Erudite, whose bodies were sleek, strong, and elegant respectively.  If you wanted to play something that looked more lighthearted you might pick a clumsy Ogre or a shuffling Halfling.  Regardless of the amount of impact it may have had on how people chose their characters, it populated the world with races that looked and felt tonally very different from each other.

    In Pantheon, the different races seem to inhabit a much narrower range of tones.  They all seem badass-oriented to me, in particular in their body proportions.   Looking at the Ogre, Dwarf, and Halfling models, for example, I'd hope to see some racial exaggeration and quirks expressed in their proportions and sizes, and eventually in their animations.  From what I've seen so far, the Ogre looks like a strong human, the Dwarf looks like a stout human, and the Halfling looks like a smallish human, which feels like a missed opportunity in terms of establishing real look/feel differences between races.

    Note: This feedback comes more from wanting unique look/feel/tone aspects to the races than from wanting to match EQ


    This post was edited by vylo at July 20, 2017 2:45 AM PDT
    • 422 posts
    July 20, 2017 5:10 AM PDT

    I don't believe we have seen a halfling? Kilsin's rogue was human, the Wizard was a Gnome, the shaman(s) were Orge and Archai, and then the Dwarf. 

    In any case, I am loving the direction the models are taking. Remember that character customization will most likely add in some options to make the races look less "human clone-like". 

    I WANT the halflings to just be teenage looking humans. That's their lore. They used to basically be human, but they were from a different world from the humans on Terminus. They were only dubbed Halflings due to the curse that made them eternally young looking.

    Pantheon is taking the races down their own path. The orges in this game seem to look more like a traditional half-orge or half-orc. Very human like with features of each parent race.

    VR seems to be taking a rea;ism approach to the character models rather than a characture aproach or some weird stylised art.

    I like it. I am quite happy with what I have seen thus far.

    • 2886 posts
    July 20, 2017 10:06 AM PDT

    I'd agree, but as stated in this thread, the concept art we've seen was just a first pass and should not be treated as the final iteration, and also more importantly, not representative of 100% of the members of that race. It's not like every single character will look just like the ones in the lineup. That is just a tiny sampling. From Istuulamae:

    "So while the art we’re all referencing is accurate to a type of Halfling, it is not indicative of all Halflings. But you guys have one image to analyze, and I don’t fault you for constructing a broader picture from it."

    "The art and 'Lineup' of the new website was done as a first pass rendering of each race. One aspect that has already been reviewed internally is the relative height of each race as depicted in the lineup wallpaper..."

    "We will have race-specific sliders that will allow for reasonable and appropriate variance... I can't say whether or not the norms of the final iteration will be more to your liking, but I can say that we're not done tinkering with proportions, relative size and so on."

    (Source: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4909/more-different-than-gnomes ;)

    So I'd say you're not the only one - just wait... you may be pleasantly surprised with the final product :)


    This post was edited by Bazgrim at July 20, 2017 10:09 AM PDT
    • 595 posts
    July 20, 2017 4:06 PM PDT

    I would just echo Bazgrim's sentiments with this caveat; if you're looking for a complete overhaul of the character models to more closely reflect the ideas you've expressed then you may be disappointed.  The possible changes referenced by the team will remain within the existing framework they've worked all these years to build.  While we still may see changes to proportions, relative size, height, etc. it's extremely unlikely that there will be a complete paradigm shift.