My baby druid Zahre ( I like Z’s ) is level 31 now, and yes despite the uglyness of the new tree form. She is resto, and will probably hit 80 before Cata since for now she is shiny and new and interesting, and even a bad LFG and repeated runs of SM Graveyard is better than the time it takes , and all the frack arounds of a bad ICC pug.
So how about those new tree forms eh…
Larissa said that they look “aggressive and masculine” and Zelmaru from Murloc Parliment calls its a “not-tree” and Sarindre’s from Through the Eyes of the tree quotes her husband as calling it a “leafy golem” and Keeva from Tree Back Jacket says ” It looks very masculine, complete with leafy Goatee” Kea from Dreambound says ” They’re still grumpy old tree men” Analogue from Looking for more says “this is abominable”
check out Looking for More’s mini comic on the new form too Warn your Gnomes
Where is the love? Though apparently you are able to Gylph it back to the old form.
I shall make a general observation. Most Resto druids I know have been female. ( this is mainly resto druid raiders as I have not been in a social only guild for years) This doesn’t mean all girls play druid healers, or only healers, but I believe that it is a general consensus that female players have leaned strongly towards healing classes, I am sure there are plenty of exceptions. Though It’s already been noted that most of our resto druid bloggers are female .
This ugly change – and while I have yet to put it through the new Ugly test on the Iphone, I don’t find appealing at all. I dread when I shall be shifting in it, when I play my druid I want to feel nature connected, graceful yet powerful. Not a unweldy chunk of wood and foliage. It is odd that they chose this model considering that studies like the Daedalus Project have shown in Our Virtual Bodies, Ourselves that “women are more than twice as likely to prefer the attractive choice.” Why change a relative gender neutral form into a an undeniably masculine one that is not attractive at all, especially when it seems to most certainly be a female preference. I personally think it looks like someone has slapped a Halloween – over exaggerated featured face mask on it.
Is it to make it more appealing for males to play? Does a more masculine looking druid form make you feel more manly and powerful, and therefore want to play such a class or spec more. I wasn’t expecting the new form to be wearing skirts, and I know a lot of the druids have wanted a change from looking like Ents, but still. Please make it prettier, because as shallow or as gender sterotypical it sounds. I like pretty.
Tree form. The Mans Tree
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Pugnacious Priest's Warcraft Blog 
I haven’t changed my opinion of the form at all, though I’m halfway to being ok with Tree as a cooldown, having run ICC and had a great time popping tree for emergencies. But that glyph? So getting it. Just Say No to ugly tree.
I’d like to nitpick.
Just because most druid are bloggers does not make them the vocal majority. They’re just the vocal minority since bloggers as a whole are still the minority.
Personally, I am one of the people who thought Tree Form was retarded. I hated it, and graphics aside because I do think the current tree-form is hideous, I love the new change.
I am a healer by nature, but the biggest thing stopping me from raiding as a Druid as my main during Wrath was how restrictive Treeform was compared to being a Discipline Priest or Holy Priest.
Heck, the new changes to Priest keenly highly why Treeform was restrictive.
Treeform hid my beautiful gear, and boy did I love Tier 3.
Treeform also made me want to be in feel treeform and felt severely punished if I wanted to drop form and cast wrath, moonfire, starfire or even faerie fire.
I am the type of player who had two characters in cutting edge gear. That’s right, my guild at the time (Exodus) had us raiding with two mains so we can do half-main/half-alt raids and gear-up mains twice as fast. I played Priest and Druid, and dear god did I detest the restrictions Treeform had.
Priest represented freedom.
but your a boy! your not as concerned ( according to the study) as females are to the attractiveness of the form. They made a massive change to the model and the form’s application all at once, and while bloggers may be the vocal ones – I doubt the majority of other players would find the form appealing. I will never get to play tree as a raider pre the changes so I can’t comment on the downside of the form pre change so I will take your word for it. Argueably, the restrictions you’ve said have been non healing activities were they required often?
I’m yet to experience any great differences in healing styles so far and I am still a bouncey night elf. Saving all my innervates for myself though and though swiftmend is awesome – and shall be even more so once I have worked out my power auras better
I have two trees in high level gear. The gear is ugly. The ‘restrictions’ don’t slow me down at all. And the new form is ugly ugly ugly. If they had not put in the glyph I would have dropped my resto spec. I might just drop groups if I run into trees in that form. Just say no to Pedotree.
I don’t like the new treeform. Like others have said, it doesn’t have that natural, graceful, im a tree hugger (okay so not that), but I don’t feel the druidic in touch with the land that I sort of get with the old tree.
I think I understand part of why they changed the model, but I think updating the old model with some new foliage and maybe some flowers blooming or something might have been better than the new monstrosity they produced 😦
Personally I would say that I don’t mind the change. For me it was always a little bit sad that you never saw your gear while you were in tree form. Granted, beeing a boy and playing a male tauren druid might not be the “prettiest” choice of characters but only seeing the gear one has collected when standing around in the cities was a bit strange.
So I would argue that this is actually a shift to make the chosen character stand out more. And given that you should be able to keep the old model with the use of a glyph makes it a win win for me.
I agree that the new treeform is very masculine, I don’t understand why they couldn’t make 2 models for it to correspond to the either male or female nightelf playing it. it’s another obscure blizzard design reasoning (or simply being cheap?).
On the other hand I still like this new model better than the old tree – I also wonder if the old treeform was really more ‘neutral’ looking, it certainly wasn’t very female either.
I guess restodruids will never see their ideal wish come true regarding treeform. at least with the changes now they won’t have to look at their bearded hunchback self constantly.
I hate to say it, but to a tiny extent this discussion reminds me of the real id thing, where the only ones who didn’t have a problem were the young guys named “John Smith”. Obviously this change isn’t nearly as urgent but I really wonder if they have any women on the design team at all. Because I just don’t see how it could get past a woman without her saying, “Wait, so where’s the female version?”
I think the sad slightly-wilted-ness of the old tree form might have been part of its appeal. I could identify with it – it had personality, somehow, and I could say “that’s me” just fine.
Sure I never saw my armor, I’m a freaking druid, my husband doesn’t complain that his bear hides his gear. I don’t actually like our armor anyway (other than Trauma, my Epic Feather Duster, which I’ve rather enjoyed carrying around the last week). I don’t really like night elf models, if I could be a gnome druid I’d be much fonder of running around in humanoid form all the time.
I’m a guy, and I have two resto druids. One of each faction.
I think the gender neutral tree form we have now was the perfect compromise. If you’re going to force both male and female players to have the same form it shouldn’t lean too far in either direction for the sake of gender identity. So from that perspective I agree that the new model is too masculine, and should be changed.
I can see why they wanted to update the models (have you ever zoomed in close? the model is very pixelated… definitely needed some love). I can’t say I really like the new model, but then again I’m not terribly attached to the old model either.
The truth is I like the druid class for its flexibility. My horde druid is MS tree OS boomer (male); my alliance druid is MS bear OS tree (female). The class is fun to play, and has a huge toolbox for just about any situation.
A rose by any other name is still a rose. I think the same can be said for the forms. They may be ugly, but I would still play them for their versatility. If I cared that much about appearances I wouldn’t have half my stable of horde alts.
I agree that the new tree form is very masculine, but I still thinks it’s a vast improvement over the old one. I think it’s pretty, but I’d really appreciate the removal of the beard and facial hair (or leaves, I guess).
It appears that they wanted the new tree of life form to be similar to the Ancient Giant Tree which walks around the Night Elf starting zone. Of course they updated it and gave it the hippie soul leaf(patch) cause all druids must be hippies since they are in touch with nature.
As for the male or not male debate, you should look at it from a lore perspective. Since the model is clearly favoring the Night Elves, you must remember that it was the men who were the lay about druids because the women were too busy protecting the lands as warriors. So it makes sense (from a lore base) that the tree would be masculine.
I wouldn’t say I’m in love with it but the old model was terrible in my opinion. But hey that’s the beauty of art, we each get our opinion. Best part of the glyph is how you can accessorize your tree form to match the seasons. New form with it’s vibrant colored leafs for spring and summer and old form for late fall and winter!
I heard they were looking for a female Ent form to model off but someone lost all the Ent-wives and no-one can remember what they look like…
Pay that. I just re-watched LOTR 1, 2 & 3 and I remember that line very clearly.
They never quite finished that plot line though didn’t they, went more into in the book
Love those movies – they might even make the hobbit before I’m too old to enjoy it.
My 68 Druid won’t even notice the loss of tree form tbh – I only remembered to shift into it 1 run in 3
Ps moar Aussie bloggers!
So.. Does this mean your back….
Maybe a little bit at the edges 😉
Blogging again too?
Poor Ents. No more sapplings.