The Alistar and Maokai updates are great... but what are the implications?

dialMARK4acti0n·12/10/2014, 2:20:49 PM·7 votes·2,301 views

I mean... The Maokai and Alistar updates are cool and awesome and absolutely better than nothing! But, I'm afraid of them becoming more prevalent than full-on visual remakes of a champion. Maokai and Alistar change a few animations, but they don't make everything perfect or add what is now considered standard. For example, recall animations. Another thing is the VO. Alistar's VO and Maokai's VO are pretty lackluster compared to Kalista's for example. Heck! They're even lackluster compared to Rek'Sai for crying out loud.

What I'm trying to say is this: I hope that these smaller updates don't make Riot neglect the full updates or stop them from updating said champion further in the future.

13 Comments

junglerboy1612/10/2014, 3:12:48 PM10 votes

These are sort of like band aid VUs that are supposed to deal with really ugly old models. Riot has said this over and over, but these are not all they plan to do with most of these champs. Think back to Heimer's VU, his kit rework came out at one stage, then the VU, then the new VO. They are just hitting the worst parts first, and right now, that is mostly Visual issues (hence the numerous texture rebalances and small scale VUs). Right now Riot is trying to just get a baseline for visual quality across all of their champs, so that they aren't such eyesores on the new rift.

Siachi12/10/2014, 2:38:36 PM2 votes

I'm kind of disappointed that Alistar doesn't seem to be getting a new VO; I don't play him, but even so, from what I've looked up, he has only FIVE lines for moving and attacking. in comparison, Rammus has SIX lines. The only difference is that Alistar's is separated (three for moving, two for attacking).

I know I'm not counting joke or taunt lines, but that's still just a pathetically small voice line to have in this day and age, especially when compared to Rammus, who's SUPPOSED to be quiet and not very talkative.

Personally, I'm hoping that they give Kassadin an updated VO whenever they get around to him: He still has two lines that references the Silence he doesn't have anymore, and despite being anti-Void, he has exactly ONE line that uses the word 'void', and it's not even 'The Void'.

Plus, there's a good amount of potential for interactions (Taunts to specific void champions, lines for killing a void champion, a lot more taunts to Malzahar, hell he could have a line for when he manages to interrupt Malz's ult with Null Sphere! That'd be awesome!)

HeresyUntoFedex12/12/2014, 6:39:32 AM2 votes

The non-updated VO is definitly what bothers me the most too. I'd be perfectlly fine with accepting Singed and Alistar 's mini VUs as 'modern' if I didn't have to hear:

Singed : Mix mix swirl mix

and

Alistar : You must follow

every three goddamn seconds.

Killer of Poros12/11/2014, 5:00:42 AM1 votes

They say that they're taking care of the worst offenders but we haven't even been shown an idea for taric or mordekaiser.

Baron Von Bangin12/10/2014, 7:47:26 PM1 votes

Yea, its pretty obvious that Riot would rather not pay for a professional voice actor to come in to save some money. Which really sucks since Singed has a grand total of 9 lines and is likely to never get any more.

The lack of back animations is pure laziness though.

Diahane12/10/2014, 4:08:14 PM1 votes

I don't think this kind of approach will be a reason for them to neglect them in the future. It's just a way to have them in decent shape until they finally find the time to do the remaining work on them. It's not a matter of choosing whether to do this kind of update or doing the full one, it's a matter of choosing whether to do this now and the full treatment one day or to just do the latter at some point. That is, they wouldn't update champions like Maokai and Alistar at all for a long while if they didn't do this way and we would have them in bad shape for a too much long period of time. This way instead they can work on doing large scale project and meanwhile in the free time in between them or even in some breaks from them they can pull out this sort of low risk, good reward stuff.

Owltears12/11/2014, 12:26:43 AM1 votes

I wanted Maokai before the update, and when they updated him I was super surprised that he actually looks WAY better. His death animation makes sad cause his bomb --baby child spawn thing-- cuddles into his dead hand and I like that it makes him have some personality. I love Maokai's new laugh. I find it very cute and silly for a grumpy mad Treant.

I do wish he had more lines, because the only difference to his old ones are like bark/tree noises. I hope one day that they get the Treant Treebeard's voice actor from the LOTR. I think his voice would suit Maokai a bit better, even if they added the tree noises.