Earth Eternal has head and torso images of its character models (16 races * 2 sexes). I think they are mostly rather good, and certainly different from what you find in most titles. Well, a lot of games have a few anthropomorphic animal races, so about half of these are similar to something out there, but I cannot recall seeing goat- and badger-people before. Did you know that you can make a boar look feminine with the right eyelashes and hairdo? You can scroll down to see some of the villain models.
Matt Mihaly has some comments on releasing the (partial) screenshots and subsequent commentary. I recommend avoiding the Kotaku thread: it starts as a train wreck and goes downhill. If you feel the need to post “furries suck,” you can join the poo-flinging there. Three comments:
- I like the frog and lizard headshots.
- I had a poor reaction to the concept art, but I think these turned out well, even though they track the concept art closely. That could be because these are just head and torso shots, so I do not have the odd limb length ratios to squick me out.
- They don’t have any furries on staff for this project? Isn’t that like making a Barbie game without any women on the development team? That seems like a huge pool of expertise (?) to be missing. Maybe there are enough in the community to give them input, but there is an entire subculture already devoted to answering questions that must have come up at meetings.
: Zubon
I’m always glad to see people try new things, but something about the concept art and model art just seems “lazy”. Like, stick an animal head on a human type body. I know it’s easier, but it feels like they didn’t know if they should go realistic or stylized, and have some weird mish-mash of both.
I’m going to go on record here, give me a Watership Down MMO. There used to be a PnP version, and it was pretty neat. Have real looking animals, a new motivation other than “kill, loot, skin, level”. Probably would bomb, but i am pretty tired of the same old same old mmo, even though i play several. :P
Every single torso looked the same to me, with just a different head. Just me?
No furries on the team? If you’re a furry, you should know very well that you don’t need to know you’re a furry t be one. There are many definitions to “furry”, but it’s obvious enough for all of us to know that furries are people, who crave a little difference in the world, other creatures than the slick & sluggish humans, who look all quite the same, act the same look the same and make a lot of stupid things. We want to see walking and talking bi-pod rabbits, dogs, iguanas, manats, dragons, gryphons, ants and whatnot. Acting differently, looking differently, living differently. We want more flavour than the human world has to offer and hit the wall. That’s why we draw, sculpt and draw the fairytale land we long for. That makes us what has come to be called “furry”. We are not sexual perverts or a bunch of morons concentrated around a anime-themed hobby. The whole furry phenomenon was here from the beginning of human history, we just never before felt the need to unite as a fandom and call ourselves the way we did. We are simply people with a stronger inner-child, which still believes in fairy tales. Being such, we draw cartoons, write fantasy books, make up mythology and design computer games. I assure you that the guys, who made the characters for the game are 100% furries.
As for the game itself… As a furry I’ll say the designs and concepts are decent, as a CG I’ll say the graphics are too toony (but that’s just a matter of taste), as a game developer I’ll say the game play will be too cliche. And a personal notice: since it’s just another world, why do all the races’ names have Latin origins? It takes a lot away from the feel the game would have if the creators would try a little bit harder.