How has fantasy changed in your opinion over the years? Do you like the direction it's gone?

Is that bottom one supposed to be Everquest as well? Why did they change the characters so much if so? I mean I don't give a fucking shit about skimpy outfits, and several in the second pics have them as well. But the dragon and orc in the second pic look literally ripped from Warcraft.

At least the top pic tries to be somewhat classic fantasy. Second one looks like it's just carbon copying Warcraft and D&D.

>first pic has blacks
>second pic has furries
looks like fantasy was always shit

The top illustration has basis in reality and shows the artist is proficient in illustrating human anatomy. The bottom is comic/video game bullshit.

The top is official artwork from EverQuest, the bottom is a spoof of the same image reproduced in the style of World of Warcraft.

The top picture of "middling quality" is a Keith Parkinson (RIP) orginal you philistine.

Fantasy hasn't changed much.

Fantasy art has changed.

I'm 36 years old. Everquest came out when I was 19 in March 1999. Really makes me feel old seeing so many changes to fantasy, vidya graphics in 17 years. Aesthetically I like the 1980s dare I saw Old School art better.

the top dragon could use a bit of the other dragons flare in design but otherwise the top images art style looks fucking sick against its competitor

The question is stupid. "Fantasy" can encompass all fiction. If you want to be more specific, then its just fiction with a fictional setting. Oh boy.
There's still anything and everything from Pratchett to Tolkien to Martin to Barks to Clarke to Rowling to Ende and so on ad infinitum. Trying to give fantasy descriptors is like trying to give descriptors to humans other than the most definitive biological descriptors.

>Global center of art, science and technological progress
>Foundation of modern mathematics
>Primary place that preserved Greek and Roman insights for the Renaissance
>Overblown

>that bottom pic
>underbite retard dragon
>boxy Blizzard armor
>strongk wimminz cuz they're in armor

>top pic
>nigger

Both have problems desu.

Aren't you bored of conventional racism yet?

I mean, is it still funny to you?

How many times can you murmur the word "Nigger" under your breath, glance around to make sure no darkies can hear and giggle madly to yourself at being such a naughty boy?

It's a one-dimensional attempt to offend and enthuse, neither new enough to be interesting, nor unexpected enough to be shocking.

Either get better at racism (You wall-eyed rice farming slope), or move on to pro-incest bait or something that still makes people irrationally susceptible to trolling.

>Aren't you bored of conventional racism yet?
Absolutely not.
>I mean, is it still funny to you?
Nigger culture continues to be, yes.
>How many times can you murmur the word "Nigger" under your breath, glance around to make sure no darkies can hear and giggle madly to yourself at being such a naughty boy?
>Implying I don't call a spade a spade to his face.

When you stop worrying about "darkies" and what they're going to think when you throw their own racial hypocrisy around, you'll be better off.

I appreciate your concern though, thank you.

20 years later the booty still be getting checked out

>Nigger culture
Oh right, that infamous wizardry typical for Nigger culture. It's the skin colour you've got a problem with.

>Primary place that preserved Greek and Roman insights for the Renaissance

Oldschool fantasy art will never not be completely badass

That dark skinned elf looks shit in both, but at least she's fighting a fit bitch in the bottom.

Yes, the bottom picture was everquest next. They did a early access scheme where you got to get into land mark, where you would help create shit for the game.
Then the game went belly up and they took everyone's money and cancelled the game.

Which, as a huge everquest fan, I'm actually happy with since that bottom picture is the abortion of an idea they were taking the art design. It was basically wow mixed with guild wars with an everquest label.

The funny thing is the dindu race in everquest are shunned to their own island for being dindus.

>Call a spade a spade to their face

You must have a very disjointed nose from getting punched so damn often.

Unless you only feel confident enough to belittle people who don't look like they'd fight back.

I don't actually believe you do or say shit, you don't even talk a good game

>conventional racism

Top: Everquest, a game that still produces expansions and has a fan base (albeit no where near the old days)
Bottom: Everquest next, it's supposed next step, that got cancelled in production and was literally muting people in its reveal stream for anyone that said literally anything negative

Lesson to be learned? STOP. FUCKING. TRYING. TO.
BE. WORLD OF WARCRAFT.

How the fuck have people not learned this after the string of failures of mmos for the last fucking decade?

All I fucking want is an original mmo that focuses entirely on mmo fans and appeasing its core user base and maintaining a sense of community, how is this so fucking hard?

look at this cry baby crying about racism

Are you the faggot that lets his wife have a "secondary" or the one that lets her strip in front of his friends?

>giant sword in one hand
>bow in the other
...was she going go shoot the sword at people with the bow? I love how she looks photoshopped over the background.

>if you're not a racist, you're a cuck

Please go back to /pol/ with your cancerous ideology and "dank memes".

While I indeed was just memeing, the two guys I referenced in my post have actually been Veeky Forums posters I saw mention their wives' sex life at some point in the last few months.

Spooky shit lad.

You're not even good at it.

It's so fucking hard to say the word "Nigger" isn't it?

Nigger Nigger Nigger Nigger.

Look how clever I am.

Tell me what god forsaken 'tard hole you inbred dog-fuckers crawled out of and I'll show you some real home grown prejudice.

Point is, you're boring.

Your racism is not shocking or offensive or funny, it's just repetitive.

Like a special ed student bashing his head off his desk.

>Implying I was him
>Implying I'm not paranoid as fuck about using the n word even here because one day my career might get ruined because of it
>Implying I even enjoy repetitive racism other than the occasional "remove kebab"

I'm baiting you because you're paying attention to shit that would just disappear if you'd leave if alone. But you don't because chastising pretend-racists online makes you feel better about your slave-owning grand-grandfather.

>just disappear on its own
kek 8/10

I sincerely wasn't that guy desu

My Ancestors were mostly gypsies, back street abortionists and chain makers with a smattering of soldiers and thieves.

My dad was in the National Front and he was twice the racist these boring cunts are.

Ever notice Muslim store clerks will go to great lengths to not touch your hand when they give you change?

It's because you're unclean like a filthy animal.

Now THAT is racism, real practical racism.

it got a different kind of camp

>My Ancestors were mostly gypsies
Oh look, a fellow Romanian

Found the cuck.

If you want to get Technical, Roma are closer to Pakis than Romanians.

You kinda missed the point of my meme

But since we're here, didn't gypsies originate from mainland India?

A little north of current day India, closer to Pakistan, hence when I say "Pakis" I do specifically mean Pakistanis, not just all varieties of poo-in-loo person.

I wasn't the guy you replied to either, you just sound like a tool.

I see Germany still has an active presence on Veeky Forums

>y-yeah it's stagnated
>gotta, uhh, mix things up
>Like, pshh... I dunno, maybe work a little more Islam into your setting?

The North American Pavement Ape is a pack hunter and ambush predator. Rarely can they throw a decent punch and when confronted alone or in small number, tend to flee.
Call one a nigger and they'll recoil. Call one a nigger among his fellow groids and you'll get jumped by the other two you didn't know were there...

you can always make them the villains

Shoulderpads, anime, magical realm and faggotry.

No sir, I dont like it

BUT what elements would you adopt into fantasy?

Yeah, people kept reading and shit but what was so cool that you liked?

>golden age of Islam

I don't remember the history very well, but didn't they pull a Liberia?
>escape persecution and slavery
>settle in a distant land
>immediately enslave the locals

Peace be with you.

Why does mentioning an era of Islam that wasn't absolutely fucked trigger so many people? It's not really a statement about the Islamic world today.

Then you won't mind if I continue, you buck-dancing coon.

It's still generic 90s fantasy art.

Because it means that western civilization and intellectual history owes something to the middle east.

Translated: It means that white people's knowledge was touch by filthy arab hands. This makes the stormweenie shit his pants in confusion, so he spergs out and demonstrates his complete lack of knowledge on the subject. Pre-Mongol invasion Arabia was honestly one of the better places to live on earth at the time.

>mfw I found out that the arabic name for Aristotle is literally "The Greatest" they thought he was so cool.

Which fits with EQ, being the generic fantasy MMO.
EQ is to MMOs as Tolkien is to Fantasy.

I mean all of this as a positive.

Much like the special ed teacher I am obliged by my investment in your safety to ask you to stop even as I smirk uncontrollably.

Addendum, "Buck Dancing Coon" is at least more original than "Nigger" though, that's a quality bit of racial abuse.

Because people who mention the Abbasid reign are almost exclusively revisionists who don't know a fucking thing about how horrible the time actually was (easily one of the most oppressive slave-trading racist group of people prior to modern times), what their artisans actually achieved (not anywhere near as much as mentioned ITT and their best work was actually in the field of medieval medicine) and just want to push their favored political bullshit of the month.

There are settings who did the orientalism schtick back in the day quite well like Empire of the Petal Throne which most people don't play because, get this, it's hard to get players to relate to Mughal India with a smattering of the Byzantine Empire and most people in the West haven't heard the term "baksheesh". (the kind of people who really want to push what they consider exotic would scream "racism" at the top of their lings if you include basic facts of life as they exist outside of the Americanized conception of the "West" for that matter)

What's more what you'd call "European" fantasy is never actually historically European but a fiction/anglo pastiche. (this includes those horseshit "realistic" attempts to make it grimdark or an exaggerated take on English feudalism which bears no relation to the rest of Europe at the time)

When you look for it fantasy still has good novels. They're just harder to find. As much as I dislike Sanderson's writing his fantasy is still pretty original.

It's still as boring an uninteresting as it was when Tolkien first penned the bore fest 'Lord of The Rings'.

>Hurr durr, I hate fantasy

Then move along, friend

Lord of the Rings was the peak of fantasy originality. His children's book version (The Hobbit) was better fiction. Sadly modern fantasy is all derivative from LoTR and its silly balck and white world view.

Yes, because most of the mideast at that time was ruled by Muslim conquerors but still majority Christian and other religions. It's only recently (last few centuries) that Muslims have wiped out all other religions in the region. Which is why the mideast is such a shithole now.

>this includes those horseshit "realistic" attempts to make it grimdark or an exaggerated take on English feudalism which bears no relation to the rest of Europe at the time
So very much this. It's not even English feudalism, it's a cartoonish parody of what the English saw in French feudalism with a tiny dash of their own system.
Ironic, because the political systems in Lord of the Rings were explicitly pre-feudalism Anglo-Saxon era stuff.

>Peace be with you [in the grave], says the Muslim.

>Lord of the Rings was the peak of fantasy originality.
LotR is a lot of things, but the 'peak of fantasy originality' is not one of them.
Hell, The Broken Sword was published in the same year and that had warring armies of elves and trolls.

Hah, I almost missed that.

Where the fuck have you been for the last few years? Modern fantasy is ALL about muh moral greyness.

...

test

fantasy used to have a mythic flavor, a diverse, semi-historical cast.

now, it's all MtG / WoW clones

i've gone full Sci-Fi.

tech...tech never changes....

I think this guy is on to something, sandniggers or no.

One of the best ways to freshen up D&D is to keep the standard medieval setting but move away from Western Europe. Go north and makes things more viking. Run an Oriental Adventures campaign.

One of the coolest campaigns I've played in a while had an ancient Hawaiian theme.

Remove elves. Racial profiling should not be a substitute for characterization.

>HURR WHITE HUMANITY FUG YEA
no, you are shit

>lotr was peak originality
If you mean taking all the creatures and races from Norse and other mythology as original ideas, sure.

I hate it. Wizards are too powerful, magic shouldn't be able to do everything. Dragons are faggots who strike up friendly conversation with folks and fuck women to make half-dragons. People whine about always evil races and treat horrible monsters in the same way a first world human treats another first world human of a different ethnicity. People only want to play as a super powerful magic badass that wipes out their opponents instead of as a brave human pushing themselves to face actual danger in the world's dark corners.

I only got into tabletop a few yeas ago and have been in two different groups but this shit has been prevalent in both. Has it always been like this? It's like some kind of horrible moeblob fantasy where nothing means anything.

Not really. I feel that magic would be less powerful in anything that isn't D&D, that is assuming you play it of course. Try looking at anything that isn't D&D.

>People whine about always evil races and treat horrible monsters in the same way a first world human treats another first world human of a different ethnicity.
More detailz, please. Why do you dislike this?

It's all over the place. Now you have grimdark and grimderp next to each other, silly lighthearted fantasy sitting next to silly (but totes serious, I swear on me mum) fantasy and everything in between. This is both good and bad.

Good in that you can find whatever, bad in that much (if not most) is shit either due to it being rehashed tropes or people trying (and failing) to present their game/setting well.

With regards to tabletop RPGs, the loosening of restrictions for playing different fantasy races led to their "domestication" wherein they somewhat lost their uniqueness. State bonuses and racial powers provide incentives for non-human play, but role-play is no longer regulated by penalties and alignment/class restrictions, so people are led to play a dwarf for instance, but tend to play them as they would a human. From my experience, this has a negative effect on the fantasy atmosphere.
In fantasy itself, this can be seen in the application of a realistic moral system on a fantasy world. Part of classic fantasy's invigorating feel was due to its black-and-white morality in emulation of myths and legends, and I feel like the sentiment is lost in a current trend to inject realism into a purposely unrealistic genre.

Because my party keeps making friends with mind flayers and snake men and fiends instead of killing them and they act like some kind of noble progressives while they do it. The GM doesn't even depict them as "good" or bettered versions of their races, the players are just eager to be contrary to the expectation of "holy shit dude that's evil you've gotta kill it" and bask in how not racist they are.
When non-humans act like humans and get treated like their violent murder rape race is just a different culture whose customs should be respected it destroys a chunk of the fantasy vibe for me. No hero in their right minds should be sparing mind flayers, let alone getting buddy buddy with them.

>everything in the bottom image is just shitter

And it didn't backfire? Like, a mindflayer making the party its marionettes, snake men backstabbing and eating them?

It hasn't backfired yet. I'm really hoping it will but I don't think the GM is going to do anything.

Found the nigger.

Hmmm. Talk about this with GM, maybe. GM may be clueless about your attitude to this stuff...

You missed, mr. /pol/lack, I'm a Slav

Not him, but treating fantasy races as just different shades of funny-looking humans is tiring. Monsters should be monsters - they serve a purpose. They're basically sentient predators like lions or tigers that threaten the human position as apex predator. You don't need to make every enemy sympathetic (also hate the villain with a sob backstory cliche too).

I feel that's a tough question. Do you mean fantasy games? Pretty much the same. Fantasy novels? Aside from prose they aren't much different. Most are awful, some are good, just like in Tolkien's time.

Your pic tells me you're talking about fantasy aesthetic though. That has changed. It's gotten a lot more cartoonish, and there's always so much visual noise. I think the art design for Pathfinder iconics is one of the biggest offenders. Every character is strapped with a bunch of pointless bullshit, to the point where none of them have any real silouhette. I blame the popularity of vidya like WoW and Final Fantasy for this, mostly.

I liked the old school art like up top a lot more, just because I subscribe to less is more philosophy. I dunno, I just really love that 80s/90s Ultima aesthetic for fantasy art style.

While I do like other parts of the world, trading your poorly-understood interpretation of Medieval Europe as a setting for your poorly-understood interpretation of [Insert Non-European Region] will not automatically improve anything.

Branching out to other sources of inspiration is a good idea, but just understand reliance on European tropes is not the crux of the genre's issues.

Golden Age of Islam is literally the most boring thing you could pick even if we're just going for the middle east.

Okay now how do you build a fantasy world on those things?

Now im depressed they canceled ever quest next again.

No, the bottom one isn't a spoof. Look at the copyright. It's new art that references the general idea of the old art, made for a reboot of Everquest.