The Trolls Scare Me

Blizzard released some new artwork for the trolls today, which I believe basically finishes off what we can expect to see outside of some more touch up work, and I must say that the male trolls are, in a word, disturbing.  Lets take a moment to look at them.

Is that a banana on your face or are you just happy to see me?

The noses on the trolls are just out of line in my opinion but none more than the one we see in the lower right hand corner of the image above.  As soon as I saw it the first thing that popped into mind was Malcolm McDowell from A Clockwork Orange.  Have you ever seen A Clockwork Orange?  If you have not I would highly recommend it.  It is a fantastic movie on many levels but it can be a bit disturbing at times for some people, apparently just like the male trolls.

There is a scene in the movie where the boys break into a house wearing masks that look like they have a giant penis on their face.  Ladies and gentlemen, the troll in the lower right hand side of that image has that mask on.  That is not a nose, that is a penis.  No ifs, ands or buts about it.  A funky looking flapping one made of rubber just like the masks the boys in A Clockwork Orange wore.

Is this really the intended design?  I know blizzard has a lot of hidden sexual innuendo in game and there is nothing wrong with that.  It has its place and at times can be quite humorous and even more so for the teen boys that laugh at anything even remotely sexual.

Does anyone remember the dailies for the Hodir in wrath?  The hidden innuendo with the dailies like polishing the helm, thrusting hodirs spear, blowing hodirs horn, and the like.  So it is not the first time there were penis jokes in game but this is the first time there was a penis joke on the face of one of the character models.

For as much as I love A Clockwork Orange and I love a good play on words like polishing the helm, this is going just a tad bit too far even for a game intended for teenagers and older who would, or might, get a laugh out of it.  Unlike the hodir quests however which were a passing joke this is on the face of our characters and I do not want that.  A joke is a joke but if I have to walk around with that joke on my face I really will not want to play a troll.

The thing is I love trolls, always have.  They are my favorite race or at least tied for it.  Perhaps that is the reason I am so upset with the change made here because it feels like they are making a joke at the expense of a race I like to play.

The thought came to mind that I will just make all my trolls female but then when looking at the females, while not as bad as the males, I am still left thinking where are the options?  You get to choose between, ugly, uglier, horrible and downright frighting.  Is that a choice?

Babysitter for hire:  Babies taste good.

Call me weird but I always found the female trolls the most attractive of the horde females just the same that I always found the troll males the most attractive of the horde males.  It is why I liked playing trolls.  The looked okay, they were a decent height that made the game feel as if it were designed for them and armor looks good on them.  Even if the artwork does not matter to me, so to speak, for the very little I see it I don't want it to look horrible.

Blizzard really did a number on the poor trolls.  They went from one of the better looking horde races to one of the worst.  Thank goodness for goblins or they would be the worst looking horde race now.

Just take a look at that one in the lower right hand corner here.  Would Thrall let her baby sit?  He would come home and walk into his hut saying, what smells good, and she would say, orc stew, want some?  This looks like the type of person that would eat your children.  Not only is it beyond ugly, it is scary ugly.

The top right one and the middle right one made me think of blood elves, not in appearance of course, but of the joke that there is only one sex of blood elf, female.  Well, looking at them it seems there is only one sex of troll now, male.  With the exception of the one in the middle that seems to be the most direct update from the old model, they rest do not even look female.

For me I can see myself having to spend a fair deal of cash on race changes or sex changes and if I did do the sex change all my trolls would have to end up with that one female face in the middle because the others are just downright frighting.

I was against the character remodels from the beginning and I have made it no secret.  I believe that they have done a fair job making them look better but over all seeing the end results and measuring it against the amount of time they spent on it, it really does not equal the results.  They are not as good as they could have been and in the end will be looked back on the same way I look back on the old world redesign in cataclysm, a complete waste of resources that could have been used to release the game faster.

I have said on more than one occasion that I love warcrafts artwork, it is one of the things that keeps me attached to the game.  It is simplistic, easy on the eyes, and no bad looking even if slightly dated, but it was good.  I wonder why they decided to change so much and lose the feeling they originally had.  I have read so many posts on so many blogs and in so many threads on so many different forums with people all saying that the new designs do not look like their characters.  I never so much minded personally because I do not really care much.  At least I never cared much until they presented us with the troll male model with a giant rubber penis on his face.  Come on blizzard, you can do better.

Added for Bonus Fun:

Check out this video of Steve Martin from the Movie Roxanne where he talks about his big nose.  This is the second thing that came to mind when I saw the troll nose.  Link here.