[tree4life]

Breath-taking work, Andrige, especially the Trees of Life! I love them so much and made sure to download them for my NElf Druid. She looks so beautiful now!

[everisforever]

Originally Posted by Andrige

Thank you for showing the mail.
However, it seems pretty general... it mentions that you either used something to exploit the WoW economy, which can either be a glider or what not so I don't see why it's related, but secondly intended exploitation and going against the "essence" probably shows they found out something about you but I would ask you to say if you are using modeleditfix.exe as using that program from now on, will get you temporary banned after the latest fix; and if you do it again there's a risk it'll be permanent.

I'll remember this as a red flag though but in general I don't think the thousands of people using the pack will get the same result as you do.
We'll see if more reports like this keeps dropping in.

Hey i got this when i maild them =D

Greetings,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us regarding the World of Warcraft account you are using. We understand your point of view and have thoroughly reviewed this issue. As a result, the account action has been removed from the account and all involved parties have been addressed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

[WoTLKleaked]

dude, I love you, these are awesome

[VagrantEsha]

Thanks for these, Andrige.

I really can't get over Blizzard's attitude towards Druids though, because asides from a tiny upgrade to the Sealion (so they no longer looked like a lump of garaud-textured floating meat), the forms have stayed the same since late beta. All other classes get graphical improvements in some way or another... but not the poor Feral Combat Druids.

And since Druid is the only class I specialise in, I've grown so bored of that situation that I don't really care whether Blizzard bans me for it (they'd lose a community mod coder in the process if they did, and someone who's been with them a long time, along with the friends whose accounts I pay for, so it'd be their loss). So I'm glad the option exists to put some damn variety back into the Druids, even if it's not official.

I even dropped in the upgrade pack for the Shaman Ghost Wolf, which is the class I often quest alongside, and that looks absolutely wonderful, too!

Even better was that you freed me from the Nelflier (what I'd resignated myself to calling the 60% flight form)! I think that being able to turn into a bird and fly off is a grandly epic thing, but having to look like a Night Elf in order to do so feels so... wrong. Sorry to all the Night Elves out there, but Taurens do not have ears that look like growths. So I was glad of that, too.

And believe me, if I had any modelling skills worth speaking of, I'd help you with improving the Sealion form, because that really is the only thing left, isn't it? Though personally, I'd be happy with just a retextured version of the normal one, with its ears clipped. Perhaps then my Druid can use his form to travel through waters without mentally resignating himself to the nickname of Nelflipper.

So, long post short (too late!), thank you, Andrige. You rock.

[Andrige]

Originally Posted by VagrantEsha

Thanks for these, Andrige.

No problem and I appreciate that you treasure the pack so much, but I'm just going to announce that Blizzard is actually themselves revamping their forms (heard from someone who listened to the live-stream Q&A, I would had myself but had to go eat dinner in the middle of it so I must've missed it), so the packs days is actually dwindling.

I'll release the Furbolg (still Nightelf is going to be included) but there won't really be any more updates to the pack after this.
Possibly even removing the pack at time of release of WotLK, since this pack is as I said, only to compensate us as class for their lack of effort during the years.
Hopefully and most likely the new designs will be so good that there's no more reason for further access to download the pack, which is after all an illegal action to use.

[lithna]

thank you so much.

[mac2087]

I`m new here and I must say it's really a excellent work! ^ ^

[Thehunter01]

I even rolled last few weeks a tauran druid just to have some other skin on the cat. After i hitted 22 i found that one pritty retarded :P.

Now this modeling totally rocks. I really appriciate it thnx alot. Great work.

[Tengu]

You evil, evil man! My girlfriend just fell in love with you! =P

Awesome work on everything.

[companioncube]

I doubt that Blizzard will revamp the druid forms in as such good quality as what you have done, Andrige. So I hope that even after WoTLK comes out, you'll still find enough faults in the skins to continue making your own.

[VagrantEsha]

Don't underestimate your skills though, Andrige.

They might be good enough, but will they really be relevant and even-handed? By this, I mean that often when looking at the Tauren skins (versus the Night Elf skins), they've taken two routes. They've either created a model which is both lazy and ugly looking (Cat), or they've simply reused Night Elf models (Sealion, 60 per cent flight form).

They might revamp the Druid forms, but will it really be even-handed, or will we Taurens simply end up looking more and more like the Night Elves simply so it's easier for them to please the majority (Night Elves have the most players) whilst keeping maintenance easy on them. It might even come to the point where Tauren forms are all simply a recolour of the Night Elf forms. And whilst they might be good looking, they wouldn't be very Tauren.

That's one of the things I love the most about your work, Andrige. I look at them and I think that yes, these do look tribal. I see the feathers, the little frills, the facepaint-like fur dye, and I really appreciate little things like that. It feels good to charge into battle looking like that. My Bear, right now, feels like a Tauren Bear. And as a roleplayer, that's an eminently pleasing thing.

So at the end of the day, I value your skins as not only being better than what's there right now, but also more relevant.

What's there tomorrow might be better, but my question is; will it also be relevant, or will Taurens get the bad end of the deal again?

Tauren Druids shouldn't have to look like cheap-labour knockoffs of Night Elf Druids in my opinion, and that's how I used to feel before your pack. Hopefully, if Wrath leaves me feeling that way too, I'll be able to rely on your pack still to get away from that. Since unfortunately, I gather that the changes to the client then won't be compatible with your patches as they are right now?

Anyway, don't give up on your work just yet, Andrige. There's more to it than it simply being good.

[Andrige]

Originally Posted by VagrantEsha

Don't underestimate your skills though, Andrige.

They might be good enough, but will they really be relevant and even-handed? By this, I mean that often when looking at the Tauren skins (versus the Night Elf skins), they've taken two routes. They've either created a model which is both lazy and ugly looking (Cat), or they've simply reused Night Elf models (Sealion, 60 per cent flight form).

They might revamp the Druid forms, but will it really be even-handed, or will we Taurens simply end up looking more and more like the Night Elves simply so it's easier for them to please the majority (Night Elves have the most players) whilst keeping maintenance easy on them. It might even come to the point where Tauren forms are all simply a recolour of the Night Elf forms. And whilst they might be good looking, they wouldn't be very Tauren.

That's one of the things I love the most about your work, Andrige. I look at them and I think that yes, these do look tribal. I see the feathers, the little frills, the facepaint-like fur dye, and I really appreciate little things like that. It feels good to charge into battle looking like that. My Bear, right now, feels like a Tauren Bear. And as a roleplayer, that's an eminently pleasing thing.

So at the end of the day, I value your skins as not only being better than what's there right now, but also more relevant.

What's there tomorrow might be better, but my question is; will it also be relevant, or will Taurens get the bad end of the deal again?

Tauren Druids shouldn't have to look like cheap-labour knockoffs of Night Elf Druids in my opinion, and that's how I used to feel before your pack. Hopefully, if Wrath leaves me feeling that way too, I'll be able to rely on your pack still to get away from that. Since unfortunately, I gather that the changes to the client then won't be compatible with your patches as they are right now?

Anyway, don't give up on your work just yet, Andrige. There's more to it than it simply being good.

Tauren Swift Flight Form left I believe almost none disappointed, and this is most likely the route the new revamps of Dire Bear and this new Dire Cat form will take. But I know what you mean, it may not be consistent, such as they revamp the Dire Bear, Dire Cat but leave ToL, Travel and Moonkin. The Swift Flight forms that they gave us, did after all inspire this pack with the ornaments to some extent.
So the details you appreciate would, in accordance to Swift Flight form, be on Dire Bear and Cat.

One major thing however, is if we will have the distorted features of the humanoid faces as a remaining thing on our shapeshift forms?
Nightelf Dire Bear is nothing less than a freak of nature with that horrid face. Same goes for Tauren Cat Form, which has a sick amount of bare skin on its face so it looks like it has the scab.
They clearly went for the idea with Druids that they are still the original race behind it all, probably for other players sake so they can distinguish us from any other beast out there (at the cost of looking like we do ofc).

Also, will they actually move that far away from the original shapes?
They mention they'll revamp the 'Dire' part of our upgrades on the forms, but does that mean that the normal forms will look as it does now, and the Dire will just be an upgrade in terms of look from that default appearance?
What I mean is, from their statement at WII they mentioned along with the question about "gender specific forms" and "new skins" their strong response that when they changed the stealth animation for rogues, they realized things must be taken slowly and therefore they are cautious with this kind of thing.
So, it could end up that the graphical upgrade will just be a shy and poor attempt of making it less ugly but still remain in the foundation; what we've had for all these years now.
This is something I'm a bit afraid for, they really need to make a complete overhaul, but as always I can see their reasoning since I for one believe the forms could be COMPLETELY different, but this is not going to be the case for everyone else.

However, I must honestly say if the forms do get revamped, but end up not being really that great, I will most likely not fling myself in this whole ordeal again of working with the skins. At least not to this extent, if anything, as the DoA project has been.

Thanks for the comment.



P.S about patch compatibility there's not going to be an issue, they might change the file-tree structure for everything but I can very easily just
align the pack for the new file-structure if so. And I doubt that models and texture files from before WotLK release will suddenly stop working.

[Defilerwyrm]

Thank you. A thousand times thank you.

The forms' fugly default skins have been the one thing holding me back from rolling a druid for years now. I've always liked the NE cat form but loathe nelves and Alliance, and I like tauren but their druid forms look like mouthbreathing idiots. These re-skins finally make druids look like the primal badasses they should be.

In fact I was so excited about how awesome your work here is that I got a good chunk of my guildmates to install them as well, both druids and shaman alike. We can't stop crowing about how much better things look – in Ventrilo, of course.

I have to say, though, that seeing all the prairie wolves in Mulgore as purple-blue and covered in chains is quite amusing.

[VagrantEsha]

I felt as though I should make one more comment on this.

First of all, I have to admit that in all my time I never levelled a Druid far enough to use the Swift Flight Form. Only since using your pack have I cared to go that far. In previous efforts, I got as far as the Cat and just thought to myself "No, just... no." Every previous effort to roll a Druid has ended up transforming itself into a Shaman, because even the default Travel Form for the Shamans is just... eminently better than anything Druids get. Hell, they even got their dances long before (beta) we did (Burning Crusade). So this pack opened the Druid up for me... but still, I hadn't actually seen that new form yet. But after what you've said, Andrige, I do look forward to seeing it!

As for the forms being completely different, I actually agree with you on that. If I could be so bold, for a moment? The issue with Druids is that we've been stuck with the same forms since beta, someone really needs to drum this fact into the heads of the devs there. It means that anyone who had a level 60 character in 1.0, and a level 70 character in The Burning Crusade, is going to have seen the same forms for the entire time, barring the new flight forms, of course. This is why the things they talk of are so desperately needed in Wrath of the Lich King. I'm a firm believer that if they don't provide these aspects, a lot of Druids will be jumping ship for Guild Wars 2, to be able to play the Norn (whose forms look eminently prettier). So this is something they need to do in order to keep their Druid playerbase interested. Will they do it? Only time will tell.

As for stepping back a bit... I understand. I hadn't really thought of how much of a burden upholding a pack of this size would be on you, and all the player demand surrounding it. I've worked on a few big mod projects in the past (I won't link myself to any though as I don't want people jumping on me about them), and at their height of popularity, I've had to just step back and fade into the shadows because things have gotten too much for me, it's simply too much to deal with. Considering this, I admire your dedication to your work so far, Andrige. And I really appreciate that you've kept the project alive this long. So really, I understand your sentiments and I'd stand by any future decisions of the sort you'd have to make. Considering that you're currently running a project bigger than anything I could ever have comprehended, I can only empathise.

If it is necessary in WotLK, I do hope you (or someone else) will make the change to the patch files to maintain compatability, as it won't be a big one. But considering that the worst parts are already taken care of: Night Elf Bear, Tauren Bear (the skins at least), Tauren Cat, and Tauren 60 per cent movement Flight Form, there's nothing reallyy more to do. The only thing that really still stands out is the water-movement form, but believe me, I can live with that and I won't pressure you to include anything of the sort in your pack. Really, I would've been happy with just the Cat, as the Cat has been the only stopping point for me.

We can hope though that Blizzard will stop sitting on their hands and really come through for us with Wrath, as I think that if any class are owed some kind of graphical attention, it's the Druids. We've always been so ignored, and considering the huge contingent of Druids on every server (and I have checked the numbers in this case, they are massive, on both US and EU servers) I don't think they should be overlooking this part of their playerbase, considering that it might be the third largest part of the layerbase full stop (right after Blood Elves - Any Class and Night Elves - Any Class).

So here's hoping you won't have to do anything else Andrige, and that the new Druid forms will really suit race, and possibly even gender (the mind boggles!).

Still though, once again, thanks for all you've done thus far. If nothing else, you've brought Druids out of the woodwork where otherwise there wouldn't have been. Druid always was my favourite class, and I was getting tired of playing Shaman instead.

[PoloDude]

Really love your modeledits and i think i speak for the most of us when i say it will be bummer when you stop with this pack
Can't wait for the Alliance version of the furlborg moonkin though

Keep up the great work in the meanwhile, and then i mean the backgrounds and everything else too, i just love em!