Thephrase "Starvng artist" is a misconception that is tossed around a lot. On that note I have ultimately seen it tossed onto the painting community, I have never really heard the phrase being applied to the 3-D community, or even the animation community. On that note, I say it was a misconception because around the time that phrase started springing up, a lot of artist simply tried to make money off their painting, in this day in age it is not the case seeing how an artist can easily get a part time job, while trying to get their name known in whatever world they want to be in. Even with that said there are thousands of factors that can be influenced that so so called starving artist really, it could be anything from the fact that they have literally ruined themselves in the art community, to the point where there work just isn't meeting a standard. There are even techniques and lifestyles that veteran artist have written to help young artist come up to avoid the "Starving Artist" Cliche.

Of course you don't need to be making money to call yourself a artist? Many people have different views on what it takes to be a artist. Alot of people just thinks its painting/drawing what you feel. I for one don't go with that, as you know and understands the theories behind creating whatever piece, whether this be naturally or technically, you are a artist. With this said, everyone knows how to draw, we are all just on different levels, you don't learn how to do it, because you never forgot in the first place.

I do not want developer time wasted on photo realism. I do not want my system resources wasted on photo realism. Or anything close to it.

WoW has always been easy on my eyes. Guild Wars too, although very different style.

Sorry to be the barrier of bad news, but there is nothing wrong with photo realism, in fact its easier for the audience to sympathize and be on the same level of a photo realistic character than a stylized one. Especially in this day and age when stylization has become nothing but either A. the same graphic anime type where every sing character has the same4-5 body types and nothing realy changes, or B muscle anatomy is exaggerated beyond belief.

Not necessarily fantasy stuff though.  I think HOMM2's stylized graphics look better now than HOMM3's "realistic" graphics.  Fine for a shooter, but I don't see why "totally realistic" applies in a fantasy setting.  Especially since photo realistic one day is ho-hum the next...

Best regards,
Steven.

Wait, what the hell are you talking about? Whether fantasy or shooter, sports or whatever whether it is stylized, cartoon, or photo realistic as long as there is a good story and DECENT GAME PLAY WTF would it matter anyway? The difference between me and you right now is you are only looking at games, I am looking the whole entertainment art populace.  One of the many purpose behind stylization in the first place was because it was easier to animate, and even in the world of 3-D this remains to be true. One thing I respect photo realistic fantasy games for is the fact you have to create what doesn't exist and make the players believe that the creatures anatomy is so believable that it could exist. While this is not always true in stylization there is nothing wrong with a game being made in either, nor a film for that matter. The thing i can't stand about 90% of fantasy games, the majority are stuck in this Celtic ....European, or whatever you want to call it world where it revolves around the same crap. Elves, mages (i love all forms of spellcasters and dragons), and all that other stuff like thats the only fantasy in the world.  Now you can counter argue that sci fi fantasy doesn't follow this trend, while I will emit I am not a sci fi fan, I still see the same trend it follows, especially art wise. I can actually go into it but I have spent too much time not drawing already.

Let's just agree that we have differing viewpoints.  I expressed my viewpoint and you started to get narky.  Anyway, Elemental's art-style is not likely to change, and its gameplay is improving, so I guess that what's really important.  I'm looking forward to further improvements.

Best regards,
Steven.

I've gotta say that I agree with Steven here- I like the art style. But, I do wish my Sovereign's avatar wasn't so thick around the waist. Food is supposedly hard to come by, but my guy looks like he eats McDonald's twice a day!

Because fat cartoony Yetis are easier on the GPU. And Blizzard wants WoW to be accessible both to kids with homemade supercomputers AND their abbacus-wielding grandmothers. And everyone else copies whatever Blizzard does.

I recall playing Everquest 2 when they brought out this massive models revamp. They were called the "SOGA" models, presumably for the company they commissioned to make them, or for what they named their venture to push the game to asian markets more heavily. (This was a while back).

So yeah. To "appeal to the markets" in asian places (specifically korea I think was mentioned), they had a whole different set of models you could see all the non-animal based races as.

Basically, they stripped away all notion of body hair (including facial, except a few mentions on humans and dwarves... although no bearded females!). The skin tone was changed from actually looking like skin texture, to this flat, one-tone, no complexion look. And of course, massively pointed ears, and spiked hair being literally the only option. Oh, and only the barest of scars for add-ons.. some races lost all mention of jewelry or tattoos.

It honestly looked like half the people were going super sayan with the hair they had... never a curl or up-do or any real hair styles other than massive amounts of gel induced waves hanging a foot off the head, or spiked straight up.

What they did to the Ogres' faces was a complete disaster, too.

The models also looked pathetically anemic. To the point that you could see clipping errors where the two poles that were thighs meeting shins were missing a knee completely. A female human went from having an ass, and proportions, and running like she had some weight to her... to this stick figure turned 3d.

When I saw this, and then WoW came out not long after... I knew this was a trend we were going to see for a while. And it made me sad.

EQ2 is one of those games that I'd still go back to if I ever decided to kill myself socially again. Dungeons and Dragons Online is still installed on this laptop for a similar reason (decent free to play and it still lets me play in a non-eye wrenching environment).

Elemental's world seems drab becuase the colors are mostly 'boring' earthtones... just like a desolate, dessicated landscape would be.

Would be nice if reclaimed land (or/and  cursed land)  became more colorful, and the buildings, etc were, too.

Yeah, I like the style of Elemental but not the colors. The tan UI does no favors, either. Sure, brighter colors with no adjustment of anything else would probably make it look more "cartoony", but I. Don't. CARE.

I believe Blizzard initially went for the "cartoony" look because that requires very low polygon game models, consequently enabling a wider range of customers since everyone can run the game, not just people with top rigs.

Since then, the style has caught on, not in the least because of the massive success WoW enjoyed. Developers (or at least managers of publishing companies which pay their salaries) seem to think that if it looks like WoW and plays like WoW, some of that magic will rub off and there will be plenty monies to be had.

Yeah, you do that.