Do you think Guild Wars Skill Art/Seriousness has gone downhill?

Cool. Now lets see you do that with the other 1500 skills available ?

I think youre overreacting. :P

I hate the new skill art in Eye of the North. Huge style difference, and makes me want to keep 'em all off of my skill bar. And I'm not talking PvE skills, I'm talking ranger or warrior skills from Prophecies/Factions to EoN.

[skill]counter blow[/skill] to

It's pretty gross.

I like the new more homogeneous skill icon colors.

I just wish they updated the old ones, there are slightly different from campaign to campaign, and some paragon icons have similar colors to some warrior icons.

Different artists did different skill icon sets.

Look at the difference between Luxon and Kurzick skill art styles.

But coloring should be homogeneous.

Some monk skills look almost green, when they should look white and blue.

Don't really care about pop culture references. I didn't like the deviation in art for the icons either. But if you use skill icons instead of words, one very useful thing is that it's easy to see which campaign a skill is from just based on the style, which means you can narrow it down if you don't recognize it at first. For example, if it looks plain, boring, and uninspiring, it's probably from Factions; if it looks similar to Prophecies but with a certain twist then it's probably from Nightfall; and if it looks cheap, amateurish, and stands out like it doesn't belong, then it's most likely from EoTN

I think the appearance of pop culture references in skill names may just be due to the number of skills. They may have gotten sick of naming a bunch of skills that revolve around "migraine" or "dismember", so decided to start having fun.

Not sure if OP was making a veiled post about the good old days...but I'm sure there are people who may say that when Anet had to start getting cute with skill names, is when they should have stopped adding skills.

I don't think half the people in this thread have played the game, they act as if none of skills from any of the earlier chapters followed the same route, they all have pop culture references.

as far as the art goes, fine, people that say they can do better? go out and get a job and make it happen, its funny how the people that say they can do better know little of what they speak of and have no job where they would have to make such things

this is also why most developers don't do EVERYTHING the community asks them, cause everyone "thinks" they have a good idea

so please, go design several hundred skill icons that all look good, can be understood what they are at a small size, and that can be differentiated from all the other icons. THEN we'll talk

Prophecies: Awesome.

Factions: Cheesy 3D renderings, smoother.

Nightfall: More 2D stuff, but with more outlines in a more drawn style.

GWEN: Same as NF, but colors are a bit different.

I don't mind the differences that much, but I wish they looked a bit more consistent so I wouldn't go blind having a variety of skills on my bar.

At least HALF of all WoW icons/sounds are from WarCraft III. Nice job Blizzard, you really know how to make things from scratch.

I like the skill icon art for the most part. The incessant pop culture references are really getting annoying though, and imo have taken the place of original creative thought; Although in all fairness Grind of the North was such a wretched abortion of a game we dont have much right to expect better......

Well it is the World of Warcraft. I don't care as long as it fits with the skill and it looks good. You can tell a big difference between where Guild Wars was originally headed in Prophecies and then it got kinda confused in Nightfall & EotN.

Thats why I worry about Guild Wars 2. It looks like the developers are headed in this direction in Nightfall/EotN.

What do you want paragon's to shout?

Still waiting on the "All Your Base" shout here...

Well, um, yeah, WarCraft is essentially Warhammer Fantasy Battles with a few alterations. Blizzard are the masters of ripping off their betters and of recycling predone work. (Though with EotN I think ArenaNet stole their place as far as recycling stuff goes. Blizzard still keeps the ripping off part though.)

No, I don't think the icons/skill names have gone down hill at all. I think that through all 3 games and eye the north the skill icons/names have consistently been good.

The different icons helps if you want to know what campaign something is from.

If the icon looks cheesy 3D, it's from Factions. If it looks 2D and hand drawn, it's from NF. If it looks 2D and hand drawn but the colors are kind of...well, I cannot really explain, I guess, more...monochromey? Then it's from GW:EN. Though I don't care, I must admit that GW:EN's look more amateurish and those who oppose GW or are seeking a first impression on GW will find these things a lot ickier than the original Prophecies icons. The Prophecies ones looked like awesome crosses between 3D rendering and stylization, GW:EN's look like screenies of people ingame pasted on a generic crosshatch background, and with some coloration and outlining.

Some of GW:EN's icons look fairly normal though (I'm thinking Deldrimor PvE skills and the skills from non-core professions). It's kind of odd really. Compare the styles between Warrior and Ranger skills.

Oh well, that was always kind of done. Back in Proph even, lots of Ranger skills used silhouettes and whatnot of people, whilst Warriors had lots of 3D people.

I hope for GW2, that all skills in the Game will have an identical Style of Art made by 1 Artist...

Nothign is worser, as more then 1000 skills with douzends of different Skill Icon Styles endign up in a Style Chaos. That looks just stupid and unprofessional, when a Game as Skill icons from different Artists, when the styles look then so heavily different, that any noob can see the differences.

Oh god would have been this a childish ugly Icon... alone this vision of this Icon lets me wish not to know, how you would create the over 1000 other Icons oO
*sarcasm* I'm sure, you would then make for "Flare" a red/orange Ball Symbal with a burning "F" in right >.> or for Lightning orb you would surely take the Flare icture, just color reverted to a white/bluish way with a "LO" in it... needs only 1 L more and we would have then our LOL-Skill rofl *endsarcasm*
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About Skill Names:

Yeah, I hope really, skill names in GW2 will receive more style and won't sound so often like childish Skill Names from Digimon or YuGiOh or so.
Also very much skill names sound in GW somewhat of dry, as if thought out by old people - hopefully not again in GW2


Example Skills I would rename:

Throw Dirt > Mud Throw
Run as One*
Rampageas One*
Heal as One*
Strike as One*

* Those would be all "Gemini-Skills", so Gemini Rush/Rage/Strike/Heal

Penetrating/Sundering Attack (such a stupid name for a Bow Shot -.-) > Drilling Arrow/Shot

Heket's Rampage (such skill name are stupid, when they have names of creatures it it, such skill names are only good for monster only-skills) > Animalish Rage

Melandru's Assault (really I personally would expect from a Skill name like this alot more, than only a silly animal attack oO) > Etherial Assault

Zojun's Shot: OMG, nothing sounds more childish and stupid, like Skills being named after persons and boss creatures, please anet, never do this anymore for GW2

Comfort Animal/Revive Animal > Companion Heal/ Companion Revive.
Skill names which start with verbs are stupid and sound so extreme dry ...

*lots of following terrible translated Skill Names*
Example:
Broad Head Arrow > German: Stahlspitzenpfeil
Correct would be: Breitkopf-Pfeil, because Stahlspitzenpfeil would be "Steel Point Arrow"

Quickening Zephyr > Not much people know, what is meant with Zephyr, to much such things better understandable, the Skill name must explain it better ... > Winds of Zyphyr < such things are for nature spirits an exception

Called Shot > Sonic Breaker Shot

Magebane Shot > on english the name is short, but on german the name is so extreme long, never do this anymore in GW2, find translations, which are in the size similar, even when its not correct translated, not everything must be ever correct translated, when the names become uber large through it and sound through it totally silly. On German this skill is called "Verderben des Magiers-Schuss", what would be translated on English again > "Doom of Mages-Shot"

Ranger alone had lots of good examples ,how to give Skills childish/stupid/senseless names and the other professions have also lots...

please anet, give GW2 more stylish Skill Name, which fit to the Skill Icons, but also more important, fit to the Skill's Effects.

When I see a Skill with the Name "Earthquake", then i personally expect some HEAVY skill effects, that the ground is really heavily shaking and that the ground receives many cracks and rifts....

When I see a Skill with the Name Ether Phantom, then i expect, that a phantom will appear, which attacks the foe or does something els, other then seeing only, how my foe suffers in an instant on a life degeneration.

When I see a Skill with the Name Life Drain, then I expect of the Skill Effects, then I can see the connection between me and the foe from which a drain its life - a visual connection and not only, that i see, how i get soem life regeneration and the foe degeneration, beign show by a little skill symbol for a second.

GW2 needs Eye Candy ^^, stuff, where people's mouth will fall down and will moan only "woah how cool"

Skill Effects in GW1 simple suck, because Anet had not btw. has not the ressources for better skill effects which look more epic, but i hope, in GW2 that will be not so, with new better graphics engine and so on, they should be able even with low resources to give the game better looking skill effects, than GW1 has/had

Phoenix I would say that most of your skill renames sound worse than the originals.

QFT.

The eye candy is the general imagery around me as I play the game, the terrain and effects for example. Not the tiny little icon at the bottom of my screen.