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Is a new Ragnaros skin likely any time soon?

I've got Ragnaros to level 19.9 and I'm afraid to play any more with him and get the 20 chest in case I get it, then they announce he's finally getting a new skin that's not his launch ones and I miss a chance for it to drop (except I know the actual chest will end up containing the skin I currently use and Legendary Hero: Ragnaros).

But the question is, while the new development cycle seems to be restricted to a slower schedule of new heroes, events with skins and balance tweaks (maybe a new map at some point?) will new skins ever include the mammoth undertaking that is Ragnaros and all his vfx, Molten Core version, Lava Wave, fancy leg-skirt, Submerge effect etc. I can assume that if there WAS a new skin it's be something extra special as it's so much work, so I keep waiting, but also wonder if it's just beyond the current scope of the game?

  • KinaBREW
    Posted 4 years, 10 months ago (Source)

    We do not have a Ragnaros skin in the works currently. We want to do one and there are frequent discussions on where we could fit the titanic amount of work it would require to get Rag a new skin. So you can level that 20 chest and try to get something awesome. Thanks for playing!

  • KinaBREW
    Posted 4 years, 10 months ago (Source)

    Please make at least a new tint for existing skins. Green, Blue, Purple would be awesome!

    We see this request a lot. The amount of work that it would require to do a Fel version, water or some sort of arcane color variation we might as well just do a new skin. The work load is close to equal for the parts of the pipeline most impacted. In before someone says "All you have to do is change the color." There's a lot of art tied to him and it's not as simple as changing the color. Some work looks easy to do but they're just not. We have some new tools that might make things a bit easier to implement color variations for more complicated characters like Ragnaros but we would still have to do the work to go through each one of those assets and update them which again isn't an insignificant amount of work.

    Thanks for the request!

  • KinaBREW
    Posted 4 years, 10 months ago (Source)

    How about the already existing red Medivh skin that AI have? Us humans are very envious! Any chance we'll get our hands on that one?

    I will check into it for you.

  • KinaBREW
    Posted 4 years, 10 months ago (Source)

    I understand completely.

    On the other hand, couldn't you just squeeze in an "easier" skin for him that doesn't require changing his color palette and effects drastically? I'm thinking something in the same vein as "Brightwing with a hat", you could change his weapon or put a few knick-knacks on him? Or that wouldn't work because of the pixel-count limit (I understand there's something like this but not the exact details)? Just a rare skin to appease the fans a bit while waiting for something more monumental. Does that make sense financially for you, or not worth it?

    It is my understanding that he's gone so long without a skin that if we released Rag with a hat or a more simple skin with no fx changes a lot of people will be disappointed. I may be wrong and and would like to see discussion on that.

    Aside from that I'm unsure we would be able to do it for this reason. If I remember correctly there isn't any space on his texture sheet to be able to squeeze a hat or whatever on there. Which means we would have to rework the model anyway to fit the extra bits on the texture. We don't usually add extra bits on a character that requires a new texture to keep the games performance good on low settings.

  • KinaBREW
    Posted 4 years, 10 months ago (Source)

    I see, thanks for the reply. Just one more question, if you may.

    What is the reason behind some heroes going for a very long time without getting a new skin, and I'm particularly interested in heroes who don't seem to have a lot of moving parts or more difficult silhouette, like Tassadar, Thrall or Medivh for example? With Medivh I could think of extra work for his bird form, but other than that, he doesn't seem to look very unorthodox (I could be totally wrong here though).

    Some more complex ones like Falstad, Rexxar, the Vikings or Hammer also haven't received anything for ages. Just to put it in perspective, roughly how much more work do these require for a new skin than an easier character? That's actually one more question, my curiousity will be the death of me.

    We have a very long list of things we would like to do. All of those things are on it. Aligning complicated heroes with a schedule is hard work and more challenging that one would think. Shout out to our producers who organize all these things. They really have a thankless job. Our aim is to get to all those Heroes.

  • KinaBREW
    Posted 4 years, 10 months ago (Source)

    any chance to see Thrall skin ?

    he is one of my fav character's and he did not get any skin for almost more then 3 year's

    We were talking about Thrall yesterday. We are not currently working on a Thrall skin but he's on our minds.

  • KinaBREW
    Posted 4 years, 10 months ago (Source)

    Hey, any chances we might see a certain Jaina skin before the year is up ? :)

    Even if you just say a Jaina skin is planned it would be fine.

    Not this year. We have one in mind but we are not currently working on a Jaina skin.

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