Thanks for the replys guys. And yea, maybe I was taking the title of the post a little far, there are many good animation games out there, and I really hope thats dev's will start putting more "umph" in the character animations of online games. I myself am a huge mmorpg gamer, and one thing I have been wondering about for quite some time is why dont game dev's let you chose from 3 or 4 body languages for your char, I mean now a days you can customize pretty much everything on your characters to express yourself through them. Why not let the gamer decide weather his character walks like a proud paladin, or hobbles along the ground like a sneaky goblin?

As for your comment ASK_Story, I think your right on the stretch part, I went to a school for animation once and the first thing you learn is the "Squash and Stretch" principal of objects, sadly this side of animation has been shot in the foot after 3D became the norm. I cant wait till the day they can make the animations auto-scribt the squash and stretch and pre-made animations fade out more, let the animatiors make basic run and jump animations, and let the physics of the digital world do the rendering when a huge orc bashes a hobbit on the side of the head with half a tree. Mass x velocity + clubsize = fun fun fun.

Rimstalker

Hey all

Just wanted to voice my concern on the matter. I think it is amazing how much game dev's are being lazy when it comes to game animation, I mean most games being released these days have eye burningly great graphix and ear drum bursting sounds tearing at your senses! But what about the animation? Take World of Warcraft for example, your sneaking along with your X-lvl rogue, slowly creaping up on a unsuspecting monster, SLASH! You backstap it and it swings around and then..... your character just stands there, looking at it... then you swing your blade again, waits.... swing.... swing.... There is no dynamic action, ok at higher levels it speeds up but even then. And dont even get me started on the big-giant-troll-swinging-WAY-over-your-head-not-hitting-anything-but-hurting-alot issue, hehe. What happened to the great animation we saw in Never Winter Nights? when your character was fighting he/she would circle, hop, skip and move around. If you managed to parry a blow, you could see your opponent's weapon bounce off yours, when you pulled back the string on your bow and let fly, you could see the weight of the shot push your character forward a little, it looked awesome! The graphics on games today are mind blowing, but its like the game Dev's dont care about the animation looking like its bugged, great job on the ragdoll, but come on, I want more scripted, varied animation if I am to keep playing any came for long, at the end of the day its what you remember, when you pulled off that amazing move and sliced your foe in two, thats what makes you turn on the computer before the kettle when you get up in the morning ;)

Sorry for the rant

Rimstalker