Anyone remembers old artstyle?

[Transfermium]

[sarcasm]We should just use the unit sprites as portraits instead, nobody can argue with their artstyle, no?[/sarcasm]
I actually prefer the Current portraits. Except perhaps Li'sar (and a couple more characters) might need a bit of tweaking. Not being the 1000s of other vaugely-8-bit-with-anime-portraits indie game (the likes which you can find on Steam, App Store, or even as webgames) is what makes the art style stand out.

[Dugi]

[sarcasm]We should just use the unit sprites as portraits instead, nobody can argue with their artstyle, no?[/sarcasm]

You think you are funny? You are. Intensively mocking yourself.
FYI, there were some efforts at generating missing portraits from sprites, it wasn't a big success, it was usually worse than no portrait. The sprites are made to look good with the number of pixels they have, any scaling ruins them.

Not being the 1000s of other vaugely-8-bit-with-anime-portraits indie game (the likes which you can find on Steam, App Store, or even as webgames) is what makes the art style stand out.

Did I ever mention an indie game? Indie games are totally irrelevant here, their visuals usually don't differ from mainstream games like Diablo 3 or Final Fantasy anyway. It's simply that they cannot afford modern quality 3D graphics so they aren't even trying.
It also matters that the games you're speaking of aren't indie games, they are mostly simple games with unusual idea behind them, made mostly to earn money from players buying various half-mandatory in-game bonuses. Their art style is usually limited by budget and lack of concern about a need for creativity behind it. They come by mills like Zynga Games. Their problem is not the style, it's the mass production without substance, where lack of ideas does not slow down anything. Indie games are something different, they are usually formed around some unusual idea that fuels crowdfunding - the art style may be mainstream because the core idea doesn't have to pertain to its art.

[LordBob]

From this discussion, I am getting a feeling that historical accuracy, realism and logic are only a tool to aid to defend the decision, not what the decision is built on. The new art style is more about trying to reject mainstream at all costs, regardless of logic, beauty, realism, coolness, historical accuracy, expectations... Wesnoth's art is not painting on canvas where you can fill a gallery with failure. The work of many other authors depends on it, so it cannot afford wild experiments. It has its job that it should do reliably.

That's a twisted view of the situation. Yes, we try to avoid the more clichéd aspects of mainstream games and film, and aim for a healthy dose of realism. This is the design decision "new" artwork has been founded on for the past 8 years. Historical accuracy and logic are tools to help achieve that, nothing more. They're guidelines to which we may or may not adhere depending on the requirements of a given scenario.
Then again, we're a game in a medieval fantasy setting that tells stories about men, elves and dwarves going in an adventure, with wise old wizards, bloodthirsty orcs and cruel undead. It would be preposterous to claim that we're not mainstream. If anything, I would say we're merely a different blend of mainstream.

Within this tight set of boundaries however, we do try to offer characters and a game experience that still feel unique. Not because mainstream is bad or some dumb ideological posture: we do that because it's what we like. As a creative person I want to be able to communicate my vision to people because it's what I enjoy doing in life, and making games whose aesthetics are market-driven takes the fun out of it for me. Players do not have to adhere to that vision and we're not forcing anyone to play.

[Dugi]

Well, it doesn't need many changes to mean what I meant above.

That's This is a twisted view of the situation. Yes, we try to avoid the more some randomly selected clichéd aspects of mainstream games and film, and aim for a cover it with healthy some dose of realism. This is the design decision "new" artwork has been founded on for the past 8 years by a few people. Historical accuracy and logic are tools to help achieve justify that where it suits, nothing more. They're guidelines to which we may or may not adhere depending on the requirements of a given scenario.
Then again, we're a game in a medieval fantasy setting that tells stories about men, elves and dwarves going in an adventure, with wise old wizards, bloodthirsty orcs and cruel undead. It would be preposterous to claim that we're not mainstream. If anything, I would say we're merely a different blend of mainstream. It makes no sense that we don't accept it.

Within this tight set of boundaries however, we do try to offer strive to make characters and a game experience that still feel unique at all costs. Not because mainstream is bad or some dumb ideological posture: we do that because it's what we like about what a group of people once decided that it is an amazing idea, any resistance is futile. As a creative person I want to be able to communicate my vision to people because it's what I enjoy doing in life am paid for, and making games whose aesthetics are market-driven people would like takes the fun out of it for me. Players do not have to adhere to that vision and we're not forcing anyone to play, as this game was never made to be played or attract new developers.

In short: It is our decision, take it or piss off.

[ahmannar]

I'm not one to normally get into conversations like this one but, in this case, i'm truly curious about one aspect that i think is not being considered at all, despite the fact that it the conversation is going like there's no absolute truth other than that.

What i mean is the following: there's the view that the developers don't value the opinion of the players because there's people that have said here already that they don't like the direction the new portraits have been going on. Regardless of the taste of each one of us, there's something that doesn't seem to be considered: this direction has been going on for several years (probably more than half of the existence of the game?) and things like design and general feel of the art are aspects that cannot truly be changed now.There was a time to voice concerns and disapproval of the style of the art, but that time isn't when a huge amount of it is already done.
Changing that would require either 2 things: to redo the existing portraits to match that view or just to draw a whole new set of portraits. Seeing as the people that are doing this "lose" a great amount of time on the art, it doesn't seem reasonable to act like they are not willing to please us. In fact, they own nothing to us players, they simply wanted to give the game and the community something and they did it.
Maybe there could be the argument that the style of the art was defined before many of us were in this forum and didn't have a word in it, but in a game with an ever growing number of issues to be worked on (revision of campaigns, more animations, balancing, bug fixing, etc) there's probably a list of priorities the developers have and, regardless of the opinion of some of us, undoing a huge amount of the work done in here doesn't seem something that would ever happen.

I'm not saying this to try to take any kind of side in here. I just think that, regardless of the views of each side, there's truly nothing possible to be changed on the art because of the reasons that i told previously. Obviously there can be disappointment, but there's no way that the work of several years is gonna be remade when the problems presented are not of objective quality (in that, the portraits aren't wrongly made), as it took this long to get the number of portraits in the new style we have now.

[vultraz]

This discussion has gone on long enough. We do value the feedback of the players, but this thread has just fostered antagonism and trolling. As ahmannar pointed out, the art direction can and will not change due to the time, money, and effort put into it, and, most important of all, we like the direction in which we chose to go.

This thread is now locked.