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Yeah, the art certainly is different. I actually like Moira, Sasha, and Vanessa's new looks. Ian is the one that's outta place for me though because he doesn't have that scraggly humble-shop owner look anymore, after I was getting accustomed to it...I like the addition of Louie, but I wished Natasha was updated, too. I wonder how this is going to affect the manga (if and when they DO update those. They've got a lot of costume syncing to do throughout the whole site, actually. They JUST redid the front page layout and Moira's still got her old hairdo and clothes).

The thing I'm most concerned about is that I'm REALLY hoping that shop updates= MORE GOLD SHOP ITEMS. Because it'd be pretty pointless to revamp almost half of the shops and then not get any newer items to go with it, to help further distinguish the kinds of shops each are supposed to be. Without updates, who's REALLY going to be looking at them?? I'd hate to see it ignored after the new look's been implemented.

Personally, I don't mind that they moved items around between the shops, although I can see where you might find that annoying. (I found it a bit annoying that I couldn't easily tell in which shop to look for a specific item, since the placements seemed so random.) (It didn't help that they would split up sets, presumably so that they could pretend they were updating all the shops. If you're doing a set, keep everything from that set in one shop, consarn it!)

Anyhoo, a random thought I had about the NPC updates: does this mean we'll finally get new costumes on them for Halloween and Christmas? That would be nice, since they haven't updated them for, like, three years. (Well, okay, Ian got a new Christmas picture last year, but only because he got a new look; presumably, though, that should mean the updated NPCs will get holiday updates as well.) Unfortunately, it probably also means the NPCs who didn't get updated won't receive new holiday outfits, either. (And the ones who never had holiday outfits probably won't get them at all.)

All of which is a long-winded way of saying: are we still going to have to see Sagatha...? gonk

One of Rufus' quotes now is:


So... it's Rina's fault he looks like that...?

Then why do they look so F*ing horrible and different now? stare

The NPC art DOES look very much like they were experimenting with new styles across the board than trying to make each character one easy-to-understand style. Ones that kept their character flush with what you see in the manga or any other place on the site...

It seemed rather sudden to me, 'specially since they JUST changed some things (landing page) with the old styles.

It VAGUELY makes sense to me. It's like a send-off of the old styles of art, and all this...So you can say "oh this is what they had back in 07-09" or whatever. (If Gaia'll be around that long anyway) But that doesn't justify the fact that it was a pretty odd move. I generally agree with you.

Except for Rufus. Since they didn't dare change his fur color or something. (I'm not particularly FOND of his new art though but oh well.)

((...Wasn't it all they did was take the uber expensive cat ears and tail, then recolor them and give them out, though?? Sheesh.))

Also, bigger ears.