Breakfast Topic: Awesome Animations
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Mar 28th 2009 at 8:00AM
So hot on the heels of the best mob noise in game discussion, I thought I'd ask another question: What about the animations? We probably don't think about it too much, but the sounds and animations of PCs and NPCs alike probably end up making a lot of atmosphere we take for granted. It fills out the world and makes it feel more immersive, more real.With that in mind, the noise topic got me thinking of what animations I really like. There's a lot of them that at least deserve a mention, from the howling of Coyotes to the nervous skittering of the Silithid. In the new animations, we get stuff like Stinker's escapades and the wildlife of Grizzly Hills going on with their every day activities.
Beyond that, even PC animations can have their awesome looks, such as a Draenei twirling a Polearm to attack or a male Blood Elf dying with Shakespearean dramatics. Ethereals also have some pretty graceful moves overall, even in the way their bandages move and their energy pulses.
What animations and graphics have you encountered in WoW that have made you stop and say, "Hey, that's pretty neat?"
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 6)
Eamara Mar 28th 2009 8:24AM
The Draenei female idle animation is a nice little addition to flesh out their characterisation a bit more.
The sea giant animation makes me lol. :D
But the best animation by FAR is Kil'jaeden rising up out of the Sunwell. Most epic thing ever. That said, it is closely followed by his fall back into the Sunwell.
Eva Mar 28th 2009 8:37AM
Undead female idle animation is awesome :D Such panic and paranoia!
dpoyesac Mar 28th 2009 12:18PM
I have sooooo many female UD toons, just because of this animation.
Helps that the rest of their animations are so kick-ass too. I'd love to play trolls or tauren or female orcs... but none of them has anything close to as much character as female Forsaken. Trolls in particular are extra clunky.
Veras Gunn Mar 28th 2009 8:42AM
I play a Tauren warrior, when I first rolled it it was male. After the recustomization came out I decided I wanted to recustomize my character, I couldn't find anything that particularly struck me as interesting on the male model, but I found myself interested in making my character female. So I paid for the recustomization, made my character female. I noticed that while tanking my character did something it never did as a male.
As a male the Tauren stands there, and kind of wiggles in his place. Sword out, shield out, blocking this and that, swinging at the enemy, boring stuff. The female animation was a bit more different. Still a humanoid cow, wearing a good 40 to 50 pounds(perhaps more) of plate armor, carrying a sword and a shield, but instead of just wiggling in place with the feet cemented to the ground the female animation gave an interesting little flair. I noticed my character spinning around occasionally. Be this from dodging, blocking, or just using something like revenge, didn't really matter, it caught my attention and I found it rather awesome.
The fact that the gender made such a difference between a lumbering meatshield wearing a lot of metal, and a very skilled, elegant, adept warrior wearing the same amount of armor just made me smile, still does. Makes for all of the people making fun of me for getting the character sex change somewhat worth it if only because my character isn't so amazingly boring anymore.
SaintStryfe Mar 28th 2009 8:48AM
very similar thoughts along the lines of the Draenei. It's one reason I get really annoyed when people bring up the "guys playing female avatars" thing. I like how my character looks as a female more then as a male. That's pretty much it for me. If male draenei didn't look like they would topple over, I'd have a guy.
Karilyn Mar 28th 2009 9:25AM
As a female warrior, I can tell you that the spin is the special attack animation. Most yellow attacks cause that animation. Heroic Strike, Revenge, Devastate, Cleave. Any yellow attack which deals damage with your weapon, not your shield.
You know what's a fun thing to do? Get a really fast weapon, one of the mainhand fist weapons with 1.3 attack speed. Here's an easy to pick up one.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44641
Equip it on a fight with near infinite rage like Patchwerk 25. And after you get initial threat, switch to the fist weapon, and just spam devastate and heroic strike as fast as you can.
If you are lucky, you'll NEVER stop spinning for the rest of the fight. You get to be like one of those whirling dervish mobs you see from time to time.
Matthew Rossi Mar 28th 2009 12:18PM
As a proud player of a male tauren warrior...
The male tauren special animation is a huge overhand chop attack. They jump up in the air and with both hands bring their weapon crashing down. It looks astonishingly cool.
I *like* being a plate clad behemoth who thinks he's a rogue, personally. Not saying you're wrong, because of course it's all subjective, but male tauren are the perfect blend of animations to suit their actual build in my opinion. Female tauren are what, half our size? They'd have to be comparatively graceful, it's the difference between a gazelle (still a big animal, but much more lightly built) and a moose.
Karilyn Mar 28th 2009 4:59PM
@Mathew Rossi
Male Taurens may be bigger. But female Taurens are actually taller. True fact. If you don't believe me, go stand back to back to a female tauren.
hehealme Mar 28th 2009 8:45AM
Undead female DW attack all day, everyday.
Flip, flip, flip!
Wulfkin Mar 28th 2009 11:20AM
Seconded!
This animation is utterly awesome. I spec DW on my DK despite it not neceessarily being a great idea, just to see my beloved undead chick leaping about like a ninja on crack. Pure win!
SaintStryfe Mar 28th 2009 8:45AM
The Lich King's idle animations. Especially thrusting Frostmourne into the ground, then adjusting his gauntlets. I love that so much.
RetPallyJil Mar 28th 2009 12:50PM
Yes, even standing around, he finds ways to let us know how much cooler he is than we are.
Leelad Mar 28th 2009 8:48AM
Kil'jaeden's disapearing back in to the sunwell amimation is awesome.
Not seen it on live and had to fudge a version of hogger with 100million HP on a private server to actually get it to play but it was fucking amazing and thinking about it a massive waste.
SmokeTheBear Mar 28th 2009 8:49AM
Sapph's creation from a pile of bones is amazing. I think that's probably the single most impressive boss spawn (and possibly the most impressive animation) in the game.
As for things that made me think, "That's neat!" the first thing that comes to mind is the draenei hunter gun shooting animation; the shotgun-flip-reload animation, that is. Awesome.
Aaron Mar 28th 2009 10:39AM
I always found Quagmirran in slave pens (or mobs with the same model) to sniff their fart and shake away the smell with their arm animation to be quite amusing.
Aaron Mar 28th 2009 10:40AM
That wasn't meant to be a reply to a reply, my bad
Agravaine Mar 28th 2009 5:50PM
Yep, that comes from Terminator 2... who in turn, got it from John Wayne.
Arjen Mar 28th 2009 8:53AM
Dwarf female 2H weapon animations.
sphynx Mar 28th 2009 8:56AM
The various bog giants in Underbog sniffing their armpits. It surprised me so much when I first saw that :)
Andrew Mar 28th 2009 8:58AM
As far as PCs go
-UD Female DW animation
-BE Male 2H animation
-Draenei Crossbow/Gun Animation