The absolutely most major change to come!

[Rickpa]

Halfling females will no longer run hunchbacked!!!!

/stands by for a flurry of protest posts against the halfling female running nerf.

[Kalari]

Seriously? if this is true I may reroll my halfing wizard god I hated watching her run I deleted her just because of it lol

[Aurora1979]

Seriously? if this is true I may reroll my halfing wizard god I hated watching her run I deleted her just because of it lol

this!!

not a wiz tbh but any halfling i have rolled gets deleted within half hour coz the run drives me mental.... the human run is cack too but not quite as bad.

yeah for the halflings.

[lazyninja81]

So much for my hunchback of notre-dame build idea.

[Cernunan]

But...
Thats why I like my halflings, they look like little monsters. My gremlins won't be the same anymore

[Myrddinman]

I always thought the running was kinda sexy

[psychokitten]

It looked horrible yesterday, now it looks like the human run animation... why? Why are the devs messing with my favorite animation?!?!?!

When I play my halfling monk, I want to look like I'm in a full tilt RUN, not jogging. There are plenty of people that have voiced similar opinions on this subject (the thread is on the third page I believe).

When a cosmetic feature, like an animation, is liked by a sizable portion of the community, you don't change it under any circumstances, even if they aren't the majority. Why? Because it's possible the people that aren't satisfied with the old animation won't like the new one either, and most of the people that liked the old one won't like the new one. Right there, you've probably pleased half the people you were trying to please, and ****ed off everyone else.

The best thing for the devs to do is to not touch the animation until they've come up with the functionality to allow players to select how their character runs. Then they can add all the gimpy jogging animations they want, and players can choose how their character looks when they run.

[azrael4h]

The best thing for the devs to do is to not touch the animation until they've come up with the functionality to allow players to select how their character runs. Then they can add all the gimpy jogging animations they want, and players can choose how their character looks when they run.

While this would be the best solution for the players, it would be horrendously expensive to add multiple running animations for every race. The biggest single chunk of the development budget pie is graphics, and animation a large chunk of that. The fact that the halfling run was reviled enough to cause the devs to invest in changing it is surprising enough as it is, even if they are using a human animation. It's also a good indication that they got a lot of complaints about it.

I personally hated the monkey walk, and never played my Monk because of it. Finally deleted her, and created a name holder instead. However, there must have been a ton of complaints, as I can't see them changing it for any other reason (they don't get to charge people for the change, so that's out. Not like all the respecs that they'll make money on by reducing TWF dps to being not worth the expense in feats and build points).

[donfilibuster]

lol, i always tought the halfling hunchback was kind of cute.
Is still odd enough to allow improvement so the change is fine.

[Rauven]

We just need a Chris Crocker picture with the caption "LEAVE HALFLINGS ALONE" to make this thread complete.

[HumanJHawkins]

<cut>When a cosmetic feature, like an animation, is liked by a sizable portion of the community, you don't change it under any circumstances<cut>

Two things on that:

1. Hardly anyone liked it.
2. DDO's graphics and animation are pretty poor overall. The low budget of the early days really shows when you look at other 3D games. Given the recent success and potential profitable future of DDO, it seems like it would be well worth giving the game (especially character models and animation) a full makeover.

The only thing I wouldn't do is peace-meal it... Don't do halflings now and dwarves later. That will just extend the pain and hide the benefits. I would ramp this up and roll it out with half-orcs since they will necessitate some new modeling.

Yeah, there would be plenty to dislike because everyone has something they like. But on the other hand, there would hopefully be plenty of new stuff to like. And it really would modernize the game.

[RequiemVampie]

I believe it also goes for the males as well. It had taken me a few seconds to notice, but ti will not affect my game play in the slightest. Just an animation we'll have to get used to.

Just like the new jump animation.

[sephiroth1084]

I always thought the running was kinda sexy

Some alert SVU, we've got a live one here...

[REALb0r3d]

I believe it also goes for the males as well. It had taken me a few seconds to notice, but ti will not affect my game play in the slightest. Just an animation we'll have to get used to.

Just like the new jump animation.

I know you guys love your old jump animation... but with how much less glitchy the new one is... I honestly don't care.

Now if they can only fix abundant step in the same way, maybe we can fly across the room doing the splits or something.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

I rolled a halfling rogue... Didn't make it to L2 before I deleted and rerolled as drow. Couldn't stand the run animations, hopefully the new one is better.

[Angelus_dead]

I rolled a halfling rogue... Didn't make it to L2 before I deleted and rerolled as drow. Couldn't stand the run animations, hopefully the new one is better.

The new one is worse. It has arm motions that are simply stupid.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

The new one is worse. It has arm motions that are simply stupid.

/sigh

Guess i'll never roll a halfling lol

[Quinton]

Two things on that:

1. Hardly anyone liked it.
2. DDO's graphics and animation are pretty poor overall. The low budget of the early days really shows when you look at other 3D games. Given the recent success and potential profitable future of DDO, it seems like it would be well worth giving the game (especially character models and animation) a full makeover.

Was there a survey done at some point? Everyone I know likes it for one reason or another, I always thought it was far cooler than any of the other racial runs especially the hideous elf prancing. (On that note, I don't have any desire to see that prancing changed since there may well be plenty of people that already like it).

I can see improving the quality of the animations, but that's not what they're doing. They're essentially taking the boring human run and porting it over to halflings. That's not improving something, that's just taking away a cosmetic option some people like. If they took the current feel of the halfling run and tried to improve upon it I'd probably feel differently, but again that's not what they're doing.

[Angelus_dead]

They're essentially taking the boring human run and porting it over to halflings.

Nope. To copy the human animation would be better than what they're doing, as explained in the main thread.

A human running with two longswords holds the blades in front of her body, while the new halfling run animation wave the blades around her head.

[Ganolyn]

Nope. To copy the human animation would be better than what they're doing, as explained in the main thread.

A human running with two longswords holds the blades in front of her body, while the new halfling run animation wave the blades around her head.

Soooo, they run like a chimpanzee?