That’s because it actually is the exact same image
Whoever wrote this article messed up and pasted the same image twice for the Au Ra race, which is the first one shown here. The actual before and after shots are pretty obvious
Edit: this is not true, I was recalling a different event. Links are down the thread
I'm not sure if the image has since been updated, but the horn-y boy before/after isn't the same image twice despite looking very similar. The left image has light-colored areas on the horns and some other similarly minor differences which are more noticeable when flicking between them but kinda hard to spot in a side-by-side.
Ah, I do see what you mean upon closer inspection. You have a keen eye
However, this is most likely due to the author grabbing the two images from a different source which subjected them to different compression artifacts. They definitely both are the same model, even if the actual image files are not 1:1
I play the game and have followed these updates as they came out, so I was able to tell very quickly from looking at the hair and eyes. But don’t take my word for it: I quickly tracked down the actual before/after shots. Sorry for reddit link
It is the same model, but the difference is in the horns and scales. Those pics don't do a very good job of showing it, though. From the paragraphs right above the pics:
Following community feedback after the announcement of the graphical update back at the fan festival event in Las Vegas, he shared an update of the Au Ra race, whose updated horns and scales had been initially revealed as looking very reflective but a little too much like enamel.
“This reflectivity looked very high quality so it was good for showing off, but it didn't really match our vision of what we wanted the Au Ra to look like from our original design back in 3.0, so we continued tweaking,” Yoshida admitted before sharing a new headshots of a male and female Au Ra where their horns look less reflective and more natural. “This goes for all of the updates for the other races as well. What we showed in Las Vegas wasn't the final product but a work in progress.”
It’s all a bit tangled up now, but the second set of pictures in the article shows the current in-game models and then the remade models, where you can clearly see the difference in the hair. The first set (the one in question here) shows the remade one, and then the remade-remade one with the muted horn texture.
I remembered this particular Au Ra from the slideshow about 4 months ago, so when I noticed the distinct hair being the same in both and found the original slides I tunnel visioned on that. But in truth, what we are seeing is a second pass after player feedback from the event I incorrectly believed the shots were from.
I apologize for not being as in-tune with the game’s news as I had assumed. I do not play an Au Ra myself so I had been kind of tuning out the drama around the scales and their luster. But it (and the changing of the glowing eye rings) has been an ongoing pain point for many. People get really attached to their look
As someone who has put countless hours into various MMOs (including FFXIV), I totally get people getting anxious about their characters looks potentially changing. I remember when WoW had their character model update as the feedback from players then. Blizzard resolved the issue by adding a client-side option to toggle between old and new character models.
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