Is the Warclaw just a reskinned Griffon?

[MithranArkanere.8957]

No. They share a base model rig, but they definitely must have different sets of animations. Warclaw do not have flying animations, they do not need them, so they probably do not have them.
So they basically just share their 'bones' and several animatios, but everything else is different.

This is pretty common. For example:

• Krait and wraiths have the same base rig and share most animations.
• Kodan share lots of animations with male norn, but when we used the koran tonic initially, it was missing many animations, showing that they are not the same exact animations, but a copy of the male norn animations with the animations kodan won't use stripped from it.
• Treants, minotaurs and gorillas have the same animations too.
• Spark elementals, cavern scuttles and young karka are a pretty obvious rig share too.

You'll see it in tons of other games too, it's a pretty common trick to save time and resources.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

I personally love that slothazar is a reskinned quaggan. Make me smiles everytime i kill him.

[JustANoob.2798]

@"Rubi Bayer.8493" said:"Reskinned" isn't quite right, but you're on the right track in that it's the same rig! We did talk some about it on last week's Guild Chat, but if you want a more in-depth discussion on the topic, we did a Guild Chat back in 2016 with one of our Game Designers and one of our Animators about creature design. We get into a conversation about building creatures from existing rigs

. Ben uses behind the scenes footage of some existing in-game creatures to explain why it's done this way.

I remember this. You showed that you used the "frame" for a Quaggan to make the Bristleback. It was actually kind of cool to see how it was done.

[Cuddy.6247]

@Danikat.8537 said:In the sense that it's a quadruped? I guess you could say that.

But it doesn't move like the griffon, has different abilities and of course it can't fly, so it's highly unlikely they actually used the griffon model as a basis for it.

Uh...they run the exact same way.

[Michram.6853]

Well, you may be surprised that the Dwarves from Thunderhead Peaks were actually Norns at first, so they are just very short norns. :D

[gateless gate.8406]

I'm surprised yet unsurprised at the apologists in this thread. What if the jackal, griffon, and raptor all had the same run animations? That would make them much less interesting, and would certainly not impart the sense of quality that those mounts currently do. Animations are extremely important in infusing a creature/character with its unique personality. Additionally, re-using animations for something as "in your face" as a mount (ie, a creature you're going to be staring at for hours) indicates corner cutting/a lack of investment from the studio. And we haven't even touched on the poorly "clipped" animation loop in the warclaw's run (there's a very obvious and jarring cut or jump in its run cycle).

This problem exists on a sliding scale. The more corners that are cut when developing content, the cheaper the game begins to feel. No, this specific corner cutting on the warclaw will not be the death of GW2, obviously, but over time, all the little ways that the studio cut corners begin to add up. There is no reason to defend this practice.

[ROMANG.1903]

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:No. They share a base model rig, but they definitely must have different sets of animations. Warclaw do not have flying animations, they do not need them, so they probably do not have them.

So they basically just share their 'bones' and several animatios, but everything else is different.

This is pretty common. For example:

• Krait and wraiths have the same base rig and share most animations.
• Kodan share lots of animations with male norn, but when we used the koran tonic initially, it was missing many animations, showing that they are not the same exact animations, but a copy of the male norn animations with the animations kodan won't use stripped from it.
• Treants, minotaurs and gorillas have the same animations too.
• Spark elementals, cavern scuttles and young karka are a pretty obvious rig share too.

You'll see it in tons of other games too, it's a pretty common trick to save time and resources.

But all these are random mobs in open world. ANet used us to having near perfect quality and original models when it comes to mounts that players will use every day, and the way it looks just shows how off this model is for a feline mount (which as I said, is even more obvious on the Outrider skin).

@"gateless gate.8406" said:I'm surprised yet unsurprised at the apologists in this thread. What if the jackal, griffon, and raptor all had the same run animations? That would make them much less interesting, and would certainly not impart the sense of quality that those mounts currently do. Animations are extremely important in infusing a creature/character with its unique personality. Additionally, re-using animations for something as "in your face" as a mount (ie, a creature you're going to be staring at for hours) indicates corner cutting/a lack of investment from the studio. And we haven't even touched on the poorly "clipped" animation loop in the warclaw's run (there's a very obvious and jarring cut or jump in its run cycle).

This problem exists on a sliding scale. The more corners that are cut when developing content, the cheaper the game begins to feel. No, this specific corner cutting on the warclaw will not be the death of GW2, obviously, but over time, all the little ways that the studio cut corners begin to add up. There is no reason to defend this practice.

You sum it up perfectly.

[derd.6413]

@ROMANG.1903 said:

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:No. They share a base model rig, but they definitely must have different sets of animations. Warclaw do not have flying animations, they do not need them, so they probably do not have them.

So they basically just share their 'bones' and several animatios, but everything else is different.

This is pretty common. For example:

• Krait and wraiths have the same base rig and share most animations.
• Kodan share lots of animations with male norn, but when we used the koran tonic initially, it was missing many animations, showing that they are not the same exact animations, but a copy of the male norn animations with the animations kodan won't use stripped from it.
• Treants, minotaurs and gorillas have the same animations too.
• Spark elementals, cavern scuttles and young karka are a pretty obvious rig share too.

You'll see it in tons of other games too, it's a pretty common trick to save time and resources.

But all these are random mobs in open world. ANet used us to having near perfect quality and original models when it comes to mounts that players will use every day, and the way it looks just shows how off this model is for a feline mount (which as I said, is even more obvious on the Outrider skin).

rig, not model. get your terminology right. and the only reason mounts don't share rigs (if they don't) is because they're more intricately animated and not because it increase quality to give everything a unique rig, because it doesn't

[Balsa.3951]

@Kondor.2904 said:The issue is not that the new mount is just a reskinned griffon. The issue is that the half-dead gamemode that gets close to no updates at all, aside from some basic QoL changes which take months to arrive, finally gets one and instead of a unique healthy feature it gets another slap on the wrist. And this slap takes form of a reskinned pve mount which not only brings nothing healthy but actually dumbs down the gamemode and appears to be nothing but a cheap no effort money skink. That's the issue i think ;)

Funny it’s almost like Anet need more ppl show interest in wvw before they invest more money....

To bad they tried with an mount and it worked on me

Came for the mount stayed for the roaming fun with mount and so did many other

[MithranArkanere.8957]

@"gateless gate.8406" said:I'm surprised yet unsurprised at the apologists in this thread. What if the jackal, griffon, and raptor all had the same run animations? That would make them much less interesting, and would certainly not impart the sense of quality that those mounts currently do. Animations are extremely important in infusing a creature/character with its unique personality. Additionally, re-using animations for something as "in your face" as a mount (ie, a creature you're going to be staring at for hours) indicates corner cutting/a lack of investment from the studio. And we haven't even touched on the poorly "clipped" animation loop in the warclaw's run (there's a very obvious and jarring cut or jump in its run cycle).

This problem exists on a sliding scale. The more corners that are cut when developing content, the cheaper the game begins to feel. No, this specific corner cutting on the warclaw will not be the death of GW2, obviously, but over time, all the little ways that the studio cut corners begin to add up. There is no reason to defend this practice.

When I mention "saving time and resources" I don't only mean developing resources. There's also system resources. There's a reason why minis are hidden when there's too many people. There's only so many animations they can keep on memory, specially on lower end machines.

If the model can be made different enough that it's hard to tell the difference, it's preferable to reuse rigs and animations. And if it's possible to reuse the same model without making it noticeable, it's preferable to reuse it, like when building a forest out of a few trees repeated with different orientations and scaling sizes.

One mount may not be that much, but it's usually a better practice to reuse as much as possible, and every little bit counts.

[Randulf.7614]

@"gateless gate.8406" said:I'm surprised yet unsurprised at the apologists in this thread. What if the jackal, griffon, and raptor all had the same run animations? That would make them much less interesting, and would certainly not impart the sense of quality that those mounts currently do. Animations are extremely important in infusing a creature/character with its unique personality. Additionally, re-using animations for something as "in your face" as a mount (ie, a creature you're going to be staring at for hours) indicates corner cutting/a lack of investment from the studio. And we haven't even touched on the poorly "clipped" animation loop in the warclaw's run (there's a very obvious and jarring cut or jump in its run cycle).

This problem exists on a sliding scale. The more corners that are cut when developing content, the cheaper the game begins to feel. No, this specific corner cutting on the warclaw will not be the death of GW2, obviously, but over time, all the little ways that the studio cut corners begin to add up. There is no reason to defend this practice.

They've been re-using assets since the beginning. There are very few new rigs ever created in an MMO. This is isn't a sign of anything other than standard efficiency in a gaming studio.

[gateless gate.8406]

@Randulf.7614 said:

@"gateless gate.8406" said:I'm surprised yet unsurprised at the apologists in this thread. What if the jackal, griffon, and raptor all had the same run animations? That would make them much less interesting, and would certainly not impart the sense of quality that those mounts currently do. Animations are extremely important in infusing a creature/character with its unique personality. Additionally, re-using animations for something as "in your face" as a mount (ie, a creature you're going to be staring at for hours) indicates corner cutting/a lack of investment from the studio. And we haven't even touched on the poorly "clipped" animation loop in the warclaw's run (there's a very obvious and jarring cut or jump in its run cycle).

This problem exists on a sliding scale. The more corners that are cut when developing content, the cheaper the game begins to feel. No, this specific corner cutting on the warclaw will not be the death of GW2,

obviously

, but over time, all the little ways that the studio cut corners begin to add up. There is no reason to defend this practice.

They've been re-using assets since the beginning. There are very few new rigs ever created in an MMO. This is isn't a sign of anything other than standard efficiency in a gaming studio.

If you're not going to argue in good faith, please refrain from replying. It just gets tiresome. I emphasized 1) we are talking about a mount, not a random critter, and that 2) all the other mounts have unique animation sets.

When quality is kept at a certain level, and then suddenly deviates from that pattern, it is not something to be celebrated by the consumer.

[Ulyssean.1709]

@"gateless gate.8406" said:I'm surprised yet unsurprised at the apologists in this thread. What if the jackal, griffon, and raptor all had the same run animations? That would make them much less interesting, and would certainly not impart the sense of quality that those mounts currently do. Animations are extremely important in infusing a creature/character with its unique personality. Additionally, re-using animations for something as "in your face" as a mount (ie, a creature you're going to be staring at for hours) indicates corner cutting/a lack of investment from the studio. And we haven't even touched on the poorly "clipped" animation loop in the warclaw's run (there's a very obvious and jarring cut or jump in its run cycle).

This problem exists on a sliding scale. The more corners that are cut when developing content, the cheaper the game begins to feel. No, this specific corner cutting on the warclaw will not be the death of GW2, obviously, but over time, all the little ways that the studio cut corners begin to add up. There is no reason to defend this practice.

It's good to see someone else that has standards. It's not a Norn or a Skelk or a Reef Drake, it's a mount. It should have it's own persona at the very least and not just be a wingless griffon."Just reskin the griffon we are too busy making mobile games that are about to get canned.""hi-5s all round those suckers will love it and then pay for extra dye channels."

[Randulf.7614]

@Ulyssean.1709 said:

@"gateless gate.8406" said:I'm surprised yet unsurprised at the apologists in this thread. What if the jackal, griffon, and raptor all had the same run animations? That would make them much less interesting, and would certainly not impart the sense of quality that those mounts currently do. Animations are extremely important in infusing a creature/character with its unique personality. Additionally, re-using animations for something as "in your face" as a mount (ie, a creature you're going to be staring at for hours) indicates corner cutting/a lack of investment from the studio. And we haven't even touched on the poorly "clipped" animation loop in the warclaw's run (there's a very obvious and jarring cut or jump in its run cycle).

This problem exists on a sliding scale. The more corners that are cut when developing content, the cheaper the game begins to feel. No, this specific corner cutting on the warclaw will not be the death of GW2,

obviously

, but over time, all the little ways that the studio cut corners begin to add up. There is no reason to defend this practice.

It's good to see someone else that has standards. It's not a Norn or a Skelk or a Reef Drake, it's a mount. It should have it's own persona at the very least and not just be a wingless griffon."Just reskin the griffon we are too busy making mobile games that are about to get canned.""hi-5s all round those suckers will love it and then pay for extra dye channels."

I don't quite understand the need to call us "apologists" or "suckers" or "lacking in standards". If you disagree with the direction or the implementation, then fine. But why hinge a lot of the argument on a cheap pop against sections of the community? All it does it kill the argument stone dead.

At the end of the day, they chose to re-purpose the rig for whatever reason. It worked out just fine in my opinion. I think players are already annoyed the thing got added anyway - anymore time spent on it would likely only compound that side of things (for the record, I enjoy the mount and I enjoyed getting it).

[Lion.6590]

For a reskin it has an awesome quality.

[Bloodstealer.5978]

@ROMANG.1903 said:I just had the same reflexion. It's obvious after a few minutes messing around with the mount. I'm gonna be harsh but that release has been disappointing on almost every aspect compared to what ANet used us to. When I first saw the raptor, I was absolutely amazed at how real it felt, with its movements. This had remained true for every new mount, until now...

The Warclaw is a re-used model (It's way too bulky to make a beautiful feline, which is hidden by the armor but is absolutely obvious on the Outrider skin. A real new model crafted from scratch would've looked so mutch better...), it has poor animations (it's not nearly on the same level as any other mount, the head doesn't move at all except for the eyes, making any unarmored skin ugly).On the utlity side of things, the mount does nothing except making WvW unbalanced for people who don't own PoF.

Seriously, it is usually obvious that ANet puts all their hearts and efforts into a big release like a mount, but this one? It looks very poorly crafted and once you've seen that it's a reskined griffon, you can't unsee it, making it look even worse.

And that Outrider skin just looks ridiculous.. my old puddy cat has more menace about it. That aside the thing just looks so poorly proportioned, just looks wrong to me.The branded looks ok, much of a much as far as branded skins go but so, so.The Embermane looks nice but imo the eyes are just way too much, it spoils the faceThe final 2 skins, the Assault and Vanguard are just the same thing except for the mad kings face on the circular armour parts.. it's as if they ran out of time and just plumped a copy paste.Sorry I wont be spending the 2k gems on the pack, not much that appeals for the price.. just my opinion, just not for me.

[Karnasis.6892]

For anyone complaining that the Warclaw should be wholly unique and no reused assets should be used for anything..... should just stop playing video games all together. EVERY studio out there uses reused assets at some time or another because why develop something wholly new when you have art assets, basic animation, models, rigs, meshes or anything else behind the scenes that can speed up or allow you to finish a project a little faster and for less money. It happens. A lot. Publishers and studios love it when you can finish a project under/at budget AND it works and looks good too.

Honestly, it doesn't bother me they used some assets for the Warclaw from the griffon, it makes sense as someone else posted as they are very similar cat like creatures, however the Warclaw DOES have of it's own animations (like Battle Maul for example). It doesn't need to be a totally different mount from the other 5 mounts in the game because those 5 mounts can't be used in WvW.

When quality is kept at a certain level, and then suddenly deviates from that pattern, it is not something to be celebrated by the consumer.

Except the quality is still there, just because they used a previously existing asset didn't mean they didn't take great care in this mount. Not only did they give it a unique engage skill animation, but they added a new animation for the door pull (not that many folks are using it since it isn't supply efficient for the effect it provides, as intended), and I think even the idle animation is different.

I think the argument is that some folks are looking for totally unique animations need to look harder at their game. If you are upset that the Warclaw has reused assets, you might not want to look at this youtube clip

.

[Sirius.4510]

Re-using rigs doesn't matter. Not enough attention to detail on the new animations that use those rigs, on the other hand, does. Re-using "good enough" animations instead of creating new ones might matter, depending how picky you want to be.

[wickedkae.4980]

Of course it is a reskin. They are not adding new stuff anymore. This is where even the optimistic of you players begin to see how the game has fallen.

[devious.4605]

@"Rubi Bayer.8493" said:"Reskinned" isn't quite right, but you're on the right track in that it's the same rig! We did talk some about it on last week's Guild Chat, but if you want a more in-depth discussion on the topic, we did a Guild Chat back in 2016 with one of our Game Designers and one of our Animators about creature design. We get into a conversation about building creatures from existing rigs

. Ben uses behind the scenes footage of some existing in-game creatures to explain why it's done this way.

Just curious how long the Warclaw took to develop. Was this something that has been in the works for the last year or something that took a month to do.

[Shiv.5781]

I don't see how this is an issue, various people stated that it was clearly told beforehand that it'd be too much to remodel a whole new mount, so they used Griffon Skeleton, and made a new mount which is pretty good. I honestly don't know if you play WvW or not, but its worth it there, and since its the only mount in WvW and its abilities are totally different, then yes it is "unique" in a way.

[HisElysium.9721]

@"Shiv.5781" said:"unique" in a way.

Should not be acceptable if you are giving a company your time and money.

[Dondarrion.2748]

Are we actually arguing the base rig of a new mount as opposed to being happy we got a cool mount for WvW and rather focus our attention on mechanics of it in this game mode?

Sheesh... it's like some people just can't get enough of complaining...

And seeing as a griffon is part lion (feline) it's maybe not so odd it shares for example its running animation with an actual feline mount.

[Chay.7852]

I like the Warclaw, even though i agree that it's quite similar to the griphon. But - as already mentioned here - it looks like a feline since the griphon is a feline as well and I'm ok with it.

As for Skins.. i didn't get the new ones (wanted to buy 1-2but i don't need all 5 for now) I will most likely get some in the future. The first skins we got for the other mounts were not necessary the best (IMO). I'd like to see the Stardust and Primeval skin - would buy those for sure if they look so good on the warclaw like they do on the other mounts.

Nonetheless neither the griphon nor the warclaw will ever top my raptor - this buddy is so perfect ^^ . I think he even got an update last year in september, with the fourth chapter - "A Star to Guide Us" of the current LS. Since then, he looks so curious around when u go to new places and its sounds have an echo in certain places. Or am i the only one who saw those - for that time - new features?

[Randulf.7614]

@"Chay.7852" said:I like the Warclaw, even though i agree that it's quite similar to the griphon. But - as already mentioned here - it looks like a feline since the griphon is a feline as well and I'm ok with it.

As for Skins.. i didn't get the new ones (wanted to buy 1-2but i don't need all 5 for now) I will most likely get some in the future. The first skins we got for the other mounts were not necessary the best (IMO). I'd like to see the Stardust and Primeval skin - would buy those for sure if they look so good on the warclaw like they do on the other mounts.

Nonetheless neither the griphon nor the warclaw will ever top my raptor - this buddy is so perfect ^^ . I think he even got an update last year in september, with the fourth chapter - "A Star to Guide Us" of the current LS. Since then, he looks so curious around when u go to new places and its sounds have an echo in certain places. Or am i the only one who saw those - for that time - new features?

I noticed nothing new about the raptor. Those animations were in from the start I believe