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Will WoW ever get a graphics overhaul?
Imperator101
Member Posts: 131
Blizzard plans on making 3-4 more expansions. They will all be released in 2014-2018 I assume. The graphics are starting to show their age though, they really need to update them. I hope with the next expansion, the character creation system and graphics will be re-done. Do you people think its likely? I think they have no choice, they have to since they wanna keep releasing more expansions while competing with other MMO's that will have better graphics.
Comments
Nope.
I doubt they would do that since it's pretty much a sinking ship.
Most of their efforts are going to be concentrated on their 'Titan' MMO.
^This
EVEonline was the onyl game that I know of to ever get a Engine update. most mmo's are designed as non updateable peices of hardware you use once and then trow away once you burned all chips on it to push the max out of it
for wow panda land is about as good as it gets untill they finaly close it to make people play their new game
Did they "up" the number of expansions they are doing? I thought the "planned" number was less.
Like other big entities relying on consumers, they will change only when revenues significantly drop. When Wow drops down a huge amount, to say 8 mil, or 6 mil .. then they will do changes. Blizzard isn't getting much income from China (the majority of their customers, but China pads their numbers), so the western population has the weight here. Perhaps around 3 million western customers hold their strings.
Until they need money to stay afloar, it's business as usual for Blizzard. Don't expect changes.
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Will it increase subscriptions? No
Effecting subscription retention? No. Panda sold 2.7 mil copies on release
Add to revenue base in any way? No
Starting? You are kidding aren't you because they were outdated when the game released. The dated style and graphics haven't hurt them so far so why should they spend the time and money making a major update now?
They've made improvements to the graphics, but nothing very big. I'd suspect they'd keep the same strategy. Their cash cow is getting weaker as time goes on, and they know that the millions of dollars it would take to revamp anything to a reasonable magnitude would not pay back as well as one would hope. It's better to just keep releasing content hoping to keep the existing subscribers as long as possible.
Honestly, how much effort do you think that Blizzard needs to put out to maintain their existing player base?
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I suspect Blizzard is comfortably set to milk this one as long as it lasts. They haven't even plumbed the depths of SOE-style minimum maintenance costs, yet.
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I have played just about all high end mmos graphic wise, but I prefer WoW's look. Sure it is cartoonish, but I like it.
All the animations are very smooth and the armor very colorful. The landscapes can be breathtaking at times.
I wouldnt change a thing. Just keep the content coming, that's all.
the announced number is *two* more planned
http://www.gamespot.com/news/next-two-world-of-warcraft-expansions-planned-6367729
but i think we all know that WOW will probably outlast Everquest and its 19 expansions
EQ2 fan sites
Well they better redo all the character models with the expansion. WoW can still look like a great game if you play on high settings with the graphics enhancing macro and possibly a graphics improvement mod. The only thing that looks dated in comparison with other MMO's is the player/mob/npc models, they all need to be updated. I want a character creation system where I can actually change my facial features, something detailed like Skyrim.
But most people these days fill their Interface with tons of crap using their custom Ui's numbers all over the screen and clutter everywhere, just takes away from the beauty of the game. If I go back to WoW I will make sure I find a simple UI mod.
eeer...
they just made a new character creation system with MoP.
And yes, they have announced many times that they are working on updating the character models but it is a tricky business. EVERY time they updated a model, there has been MUCH whining from people that wanted to keep the old one, see Druid cat/bear form and the tree form too.
So when they make the new models, they need to make sure they are not pissing their paying customers off with it.
"so let's put it in as an option so who wants the new model can use them and who doesn't cannot" you say. And yes, it sounds great... but then think about it and you will realize this would mean you would have a world filled with old and new models going around. As the models are probably radically different skeleton wise, that means you now have to model each and every goddamn piece of armor for twice as many models as you did before (the old ones and the new ones).
You can see the progression in engine updates by comparing the graphics of the races and environment from an expansion to the other. Just get a human and a pandaren next to each other or compare Elwyn Forest to the Jade Forest and you will see the progress. It is quite noticeable but of course it is not like passing from Doom to Crysis.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
Yeah, WOW would have at least a million, maybe two million subscribers if they only had done graphics like AOC or the Secret World. You would think that WOW would look at the success and gameplay of those successful games and try to copy them.
WOW´s graphics are good. The animations are fast, gameplay is fast, and most importantly the synch between your keystrokes and your characters movements is perfect. I think people need to understand the difference between graphics and artistic style. WOW doesn´t want to have realisitc graphics, they want more cartoony graphics with brighter colors. Everyone raved about AOCs graphics, which were a perfectly done with every drab brown, olive green and dirt tone possible. AOC looked perfectly realistic... like kansas in a drought.
Every expansion they have been updating the graphics, adding better textures and lighting systems.. but they are never going to move away from the cartoony look and make everyone look ´realistic´. The environments in MoP are drastically better than the old ones before Catacylsm. Character models for the new races also. And has been mentioned, updating the older races is a risky business since a lot of people like the old system. My main is a Tauren, there is probably like a 50% chance that if they upgrade the textures for Tauren, I will like the old ones better. That is a lot of risk for not a lot of reward.
I'm sure they've made a lot of tweaks to the engine under the hood over the years, but those don't necessarily give you clear "before and after" differences in screenshots.
If you want them to redo all of the textures and character models, that would be very expensive for not much benefit. Even for a game as popular as WoW, that likely doesn't make economic sense. You can redo a few that you later decide are particularly bad, but not redo everything.
i actually like the graphics wow has.
always have always will (most likely? xD)
but on a serious note, i havent played much MoP but when i get the chance i will soon and give a more conclusive comment
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I believe DAoC recieved a graphics overhaul iiiiin... Trials of Atlantis? Maybe it was Catacombs...
The "better looking" MMOs all aged HORRIBLY.
Look at Warhammer now (ugh... just ugh), AoC, even Rift is showing it's age.
"Realistic" graphics only mean they'll look awful sooner. That's it.
Besides, none of those had anywhere near as fluid movement/animation as WoW had even at launch. They were all clunky messes in hi rez (for the time - now they all just look SAD).
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You think WoW fluid movement? Well when I watch pvp it looks like the guy constantly moves from side to side swinging their sword and running at the same time when watching a Warrior, doesn't look so great.
Characters in WoW are ugly and there's not much variation. All humans look like they are 50 years old, except female human look like they're 30+. More variation in age,body type and hair styles, ears, lips..
Those games don't make as much profit as Blizzard does with WoW. Blizzard could have upgraded WoW a few years ago with new action combat, dynamic content etc, but instead they keep the same old shit and don't give a fuck about what players want.
Lets look at this logically... WoW exists out of nostalgia, that's it.
If, WoW 1.0 were to be released today, EVEN WITH the latest graphics engine et al, it would last about as long as any new title being released today. There's absolutely nothing in WoW that isn't in all the other games... the difference is people don't have as much investment in the other games... not by a long shot. We're talking 8 years of WoW versus maybe 1 year of game X. It makes sense that when people are bored, they'd spend their time dinking around in what they've played for years as opposed to the new guy.
Let's be honest here... they're basically dinking around... not really "playing" the game at all. People will dink around until expansion X or Y is released just as they have done since WoW 1.0. WoW doesn't need a graphics overhaul because players aren't playing the game because it is new, but rather because it is old, predictable, comfortable, and requires minimal effort on their part. It's like that old worn teddy bear you dragged around the house for years as a little kid. You didn't want a new teddy bear, they old familiar one is all you really ever cared about.
Well blizzard has talked about redoning the textures for awhile now but I think they're worried about chaseing away lower preformance users.
The Pandaren seem to be a trial run of the new textures.