The characters look like Disney refugees, and those shoulder pads on the box cover are insane.

What happened to Jesper Ejsing? Unless I'm mistaken, he's done every other Terrinoth cover and really gave it some continuity.

I prefer the new art.

I would have to agree with your threat title, I do believe you're the only one who hates the art. I enjoyed the art from the original game but with new game mechanics and style, I feel new art helps keep the game fresh as well.

Well, Shoulder Pads are Error

But rest of the artwork is not that bad. And you can always reprint your cards with new graphic if you dont like it.

No you are not the only one. You never are btw.

I do like the tiles (what I've seen of it anyway), but I am not too fond of the character artwork. Oh well…

Personally, I the think that the artwork is just fine. Sure, it might be a little cartoonish, but who cares. The only thing I think that will look funny is using the old artwork from the first edition with the new artwork from D2.

Hate is such a strong word.

Here's a fun exercise: Put five people in a room and pose the question - What defines good/great art?

See if you can get a straight answer out of any of them, let alone similar or unanimous answers.

I definitely prefer the old art to the new art, but I wouldn't say that I hate the new art. I'll get over it.

So far, the only thing about 2e that makes me nervous is that Tomble guy in the newest preview. I swear to God, he better not be a gnome. If he's an onoit, that's fair game, but I still don't want to see too many of them… =P

Steve-O said:

Racist.

Steve-O said:

Are we talking about hating the "old school, dumpy gem chaser" gnomes from D&D 2nd edition, the "kender wannabes" from 3rd edition, or the "almost a fairy" ones from 4th edition?

Bleached Lizard said:

Fantasy-racist, perhaps. My bigotry is firmly restricted to fictional realms, I'll have you know. =P

Besides, if it's only gnomes, that's really only like half-racism. =P

Proto Persona said:

Actually, the 4th ed gnomes were pretty bad-ass, I must admit. Of all the gnomish incarnations I've seen in various high fantasy games over the years, that was the first one I could see myself respecting enough to occasionally use in a game. I liked the all-black eyes they had going on.

Aside from them, though, all of the above. My reasons for hating them so are many and varied, but the primary reason I dislike gnomes is the propensity for them to introduce technologies that have no place in a medieval fantasy world. Flying machines, bombs, guns, etc. The fact that they usually have ridiculously long and stupid-sounding names doesn't help, either. Most fantasy worlds treat them as an entire race of comic relief monkeys rather than a serious culture I can use for telling compelling stories with, that's about the bottom line.

Tomble Burrowell (sp?) is a reasonable name, I think. Like I said, as long as he's a halfling, it's all good. Halflings are usually cool in my books. There is a difference.

Steve-O said:

Is that a short joke?!

Steve-O said:

My guess is halfling, there's already precedent with that Okuluk on wolf hero.

Doesn't do it for me. Prefer whomever does the WFRP art work.

+1 for WHFRP artwork… it is very, very nice…

I am not intimately familiar with the old artwork, but I am a fan of the new. I like the cartoony style…love the box art especially.

Columbob said:

Yes, there is. Technically, they're called Onoit (onoits?) in the Terrinoth setting. I suppose they could still be referred to as "halflings" by most people and the term "onoit" is their native name from up north or something.

Pete C said:

I recently picked up Tomb of Ice expansion and the artwork reminds me a lot of the Talisman artwork back when I was playing Talisman 2nd (or 3rd, don't recall) about 15 years ago.

Like I stated before, I love the new art style. It really brings the game up to date and with the times. I do a lot of web design at my job and that includes re-skinning out dated websites and the art work certainly needed a revamp. Don't get me wrong, love the old art style but that was D1e.

I've only played a couple games of Descent 1.0, but am familiar with the FFG proprietary fantasy world Terrinoth and own Dungeonquest, and this seems to fit well with that - but more modern, refreshed, clean etc. Keeping in mind this FFG fantasy setting has always been characterized (at least to me) by the use of mostly clean, bright, primary colors. IMO, the characters look the same as in 1.0, but with more dimension; they look equally 'cartoony' to me - just with more light/shadow contrast - kind of like they have a japanese anime style influence maybe? I've always felt they decided to go with an aesthetic that a younger demographic would relate to…why not try to reach a wider audience i guess

that being said, i've never really liked their aesthetics and prefer something like Rackham's Aarklash universe much more, with its dirt/grime and less saturated colors.

I'm curious. Where did you get this info?

Steve-O said:

This info, that is.

The Dread Polack said:

I believe that they got it from Runebound: Frozen Wastes expansion. If you go to the http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/Runebound/rb_fw_rules.pdf you will just have to type in the word and it will do the searching for you. I hope that this helped.

I like the new cartoonish depictions of the heroes exempting the backgrounds, which are just blue, yellow, etc. behind the hero. In the original they actually looked like they were questing in a particular setting and were more in action. Also do not like the lieutenant drawings. Not menacing enough.

This artwork gripe is in the similar vein as my original gripe with Wiz-War's art, which ends up being an unimaginably fun game to experience. So long as Descent 2e is so much fun to play, the art as it is now accomplishes its job.

The Dread Polack said:

Ravenstorm nailed it, at least as far as this particular discussion is concerned. The name "onoit" comes from a culture of halflings described in the Frozen Wastes expansion for Runebound. The fact that Okaluk and Rakash is (are) a hero from Tomb of Ice forges a thematic connection to the northlands. Also, it can't just be coincidence that the only halfling hero in D1e has a wolf for a companion and the Frozen Wastes talks about how the Onoit have forged a symbiotic relationship with a race of sentient wolves named the Ulfen.

A while back I sat down and milked all the games in the Terrinoth setting for every drop of fluff I could find and compiled it all in a single document. The onoit are just one of the fun things that dropped out. That document is currently available on BGG, if you want to take a look at it.

I'm still debating on whether I should incorporate the new fluff from D2e into that document or start a new "2e" document. Lots of things are changing now, but then again, lots of things also changed with Runewars and that didn't cause me to reboot the fluff docs. =P Fortunately, that's a decision that can wait until I actually own 2e to be made.

Steve-O, I know for one that my OL would love all of the fluff info. He is not the best with just coming up with campaigns, so he likes to have some more background info to aid him.