Artifact previews

[Marduk]

Despite being a pretty ravenous consumer of WoW infoz, I somehow missed this (until now!):
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/artifacts/

WoW's art and lore are some of my favorite parts of this game and I had a great time reading about all 3 weapons in the Death Knight Artifact preview. I'll continue reading about the Artifacts for all of the classes because I eat this shit up.

Wanted to share with everyone to make sure they caught it too.

[eclecticlife]

Druid bear forms: http://imgur.com/a/nCphD
They look amazing!

[Rasereda]

Sabertooth bears? Well, I guess I'm at least not always snarling/baring my teeth anymore, but...sabertooth bears? Man, I don't think I like the Night Elf bear models at all >_<. The colors are ugly, the snout is longer than usual which I don't like, and what is up with that mask? It makes their whole face look disproportionate, or maybe it just overall is...I think I prefer the Tauren bear's snout shape more cause it seems shorter and more normal looking (it's the bear with the braids I think), and it's overall look and colors way more than the Night Elves. What are those glowing spikes that I'm guessing Worgen bears have represent? They are still better looking than Night Elf bears though >_<, cause at least their spikes are cool, despite not knowing what it represents for their race. Is the Troll bear at the bottom? Horde get all the love =*(. I don't like the stinkin' neon Alliance bears >_<. Gimme the Tauren bear model if anything please.

[eclecticlife]

I don't think any of these are faction specific. I believe they're all just skins tied to the artifact.
The fangs do seem a bit strange.

[Rasereda]

You mean race specific? All cat and bear models are typically race specific. You won't be seeing a crescent moon designed piece of armor with the Night Elf colors and designs on a Troll for instance, it doesn't make any sense. Just like Night elves aren't known for their huge long back of hair and frontal braids like Tauren are known for, or their bone based armor with tribal markings like Trolls are. Not to mention, just look at the ears for the Night Elf and Worgen bears compared to the Tauren and Troll, they are longer and pointier. I'm fairly certain these bears are race specific, and by proxy faction specific. The only ones I'm unsure of are the rock based ones, maybe that is their stone form ability look for a defensive cooldown? Kinda like our current change for our Incarnation: King of the Jungle?

[Marduk]

I think you're both right. There will continue to be models tied to race (ex: what you look like before you get an Artifact) but there are also many new Bear/Cat models that will be tied to the Artifact.

Example of Artifact models for Bear/Cat:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/19950403/

Also, a couple people on Reddit make the same claim (Feral/Guardian Artifacts will change Cat/Bear appearance):
https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/3 ... t1_cxaj50z

[Marduk]

Also, I personally think most of the new Bear/Cat models look pretty cool (though I agree that a couple of the color combos don't look good, but that's why each appearance has a bunch of color options).

MMO Champion has several videos where you can see Artifact weapon animations and I think every spec has at least one model that is pretty cool.

[Rasereda]

Perhaps it'll keep your race look while the artifact just changes things like color and perhaps a few addons. At least most of the ones they showed in the first post were race specific because of the obvious traits except maybe that stone one. That other post seems to link that glowing spikey bear to the Worgen Guardian Druid look, while the Night Elf Feral Druid seems to have a Night Elf looking cat form because of the crescent moon armor. If they made one that was neutral for all races, I can see a lot of complaints in things like PvP where it'll be difficult to know the race of the bear or cat form druid which would be important because of racials and such. The same can be said if they could switch their "racial" look.