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When do you think a graphical overhaul will come?
Lydon
Member UncommonPosts: 2,938
OK firstly, no...I am not a graphics whore and I don't have a problem with WoW's graphics at all. I think they're efficient and could look much worse.
Now on to my question. I've been browsing through the gallery section of this site quite a bit as of late and have noticed that people tend to bury WoW screenshots automatically. I take it that that's largely because for some reason the community of this site hates WoW in general, but in many comments sections I've noticed people mocking the graphics and comparing them to other popular titles, saying WoW's is inferior.
That got me thinking about how awesome WoW could actually look with a complete graphics overhaul. Something along the lines of what CCP did with Eve Online. They have the normal graphics client and the premium graphics client. Players can choose between each one depending on their system specifications. I, for one, would love to see WoW looking more like the cinematics (yes, I realise a graphics update would put it nowhere near CGI quality, but the feeling of immersive would definitely skyrocket). WoW has some awesome areas that would look amazing if the graphics were upped.
So do you think WoW will ever see such a graphical upgrade? In my opinion Blizzard will eventually go the route of the upgrade in order to ensure that they stay competitive in the graphics department as the newer MMOs have some pretty neat stuff going for them in the graphics department. Hopefully that day will come soon...maybe within the next 2/3 years.
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I don't think they will. The timeframe you are talking about their new MMO will most likely be ready to release already. WoW is fine for what it is and the stylized graphics make it so it never really looks too dated unless you're a particular stickler about technical grapics and pixel counts on your armor. I think they will stick to small upgrades.
That is assuming, of course, that the new MMO is a massive hit. If it is and most of WoW's players migrate to it, I can see them leaving the graphics as is, but if it stays popular for years to come I think they'll consider it.
Take Anarchy Online for instance. It's receiving a huge overhaul next year.
That is assuming, of course, that the new MMO is a massive hit. If it is and most of WoW's players migrate to it, I can see them leaving the graphics as is, but if it stays popular for years to come I think they'll consider it.
Take Anarchy Online for instance. It's receiving a huge overhaul next year.
I honestly don't think it needs a graphical upgrade. Because of the art design, it seems a bit timeless. Far different then if you looked at Diablo as compared to today's games.
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well with people being as cheap as they are and havnt upgraded their computers for 6 years i doubt it. people still play ultima online with its graphics out of date so i doubt this game would do anything about it. now i believe wow will not be on the top of the mmo list because of games like darkfall coming out but it will never die it will just become like ultima online, its still there but noone really cares.
Well, Wows graphics are nice for 2004 but it is starting to look old now. However it seems like Blizz are putting the work into their next MMO instead. If that MMO will fail to take most of the players from Wow they will remake the graphics, otherwise it is more likely that Blizzard will make a Wow 2.
It is a lot of work because they will probably have to change the whole GFX engine in doing this, the technology they use for zooning can't really takes that much memory as the graphics from games like AoC today, that is the reason that AoC is instanced. They could of course change the size of the zones by cutting them in half but that is hard work too.
Also, the genius who programmed that from the beginning, Jeff Strain, has quited from Blizzard, he did that long before launch even so they will need someone as good to remake it. Not impossible off course and they have the cash for it but after reading the intreview with Morhaime from Blizzcon ,y bet is that right now Blizz are making "World of Diablo" and they expact it to take over after Wow.
Wow will of course still be around for many years as a smaller game after that but blizzard are no fools and they can't expect Wow to be the leading game for more than 5-6 years. Right now they also have loads of cash and to me it sounds like they think they can pull this one off another time. The future will show if they are right, it will probably be tougher this time since there are more companies on the market, and both Bioware and Bethesda will be hard competition so the next game better be great
But hey, I can be wrong and in that case they will do it for the next expansion, that should be in around 2 years from now.
Come on, you can't believe a niche game like darkfall to take the players from Wow... I can understand if you would believe that games like Guildwars 2, The old republic online, World of darkness online and whatever Bethesda are working on (Fallout online?) can take the crown but DF are not aiming to do that at all.
No RAIDing takes away many players. No PvE servers, full looting, that takes away a lot more.. DF can possibly take the PvP players but that would not even be half of Wows players and I doubt DF will pass 500Kplayers, not because it wont be good but becuase it is not aimed for everyone, Wow is.
Well Ultima Online did have a graphical upgrade...
Well, here's my two coppers worth.
I honestly think they won't even attempt a graphics upgrade until they start loosing people over an extended period of time simply because even improving the graphics slightly can start cutting out parts of the player base.
Even if they loose 10% due to compatability issues with an upgrade, that's 1.2 million or so players. Also, the smoothness of the graphics in combat is one of their sterong points. With a major overhaul, it causes a bit of load on both sides and they would have to re-adjust the timing on alot of things. If you have been to any other boards and see how critical people can be about animations and lag, the upside of a graphics upgrade is nowhere near enough to offset the downside right now, in my opinion of course.
Right now, the game is still growing so obviously the graphics are good enough to both retain the current players and not stop new players from signing up. Until these two things change and be directly due to the graphics, there's honestly no reason to improve them at this point.
Have a good night folks
I remember on the PTR for patch 3.0.2 they changed the face models for all of the avatars to make them more realistic looking and a lot of people complained, but I forgot why Blizzard said they weren't going through with the change.
I'm not sure if they will ever do an overhaul or offer two versions of quality, but I do know that they have steadily been adding little things to improve the graphics, and that the better your computer is the better WoW can look
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FFXIV, TERA, LoL, and HoTS
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The graphics in WotLK are like 4 times better than the graphics in vanilla WoW. The whole "can be run on 6 year old computers" comment no longer applies.
Blizzard is subtly enhancing the graphics in the new areas for the expansions. So, by the 4th expansion the old world will still be the same but the new lands will be take a hefty rig to run at 20 fps. But you wont really notice unless you go directly between them and actually look around.
Blizzard has also stated a few times that updating the old graphics would take a lot of time and money that could be better spent on new content.
WoW doesnt need a graphics update yet but it will need one eventually.
I think the graphics are good but it comes down what your settings are. I run on the highest res and maxed out settings so it looks very nice. imo.
And if they were to go the dual-client route? So once could choose between the current graphics and new graphics?
From what I hear, blizzard is slowly bringing graphical enhancements to the game. With Wrath of the Lich King, they have brought a few new things, and worked on others.
I could actually tell the difference in the graphics the day the pre-expac patch came out.
I'm hoping they do go back to the original content and give it a bit of a facelift. Lord knows it needs it.
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No it doesn't... going back and touching up on the graphics would ruin the game IMO. Thats like taking the smile off the mona lisa. WOW is more then a game its a canvas of art. and doing anything more the the look or feel of the game would ruin it entirely.
I have played wow sence release, and when i got WOTLK i couldnt get my rogue past 71 and my mage pst 75 and soon started looking for something else to play. the graphics had nothing to do with it. 4 years of the same thing did =P
I don't think they'll ever re-do the early areas but they have made an effort with WotLK. They made a small effort in TBC and allot of the armour, mobs and spell effects had more polys in them and in WotlK the armour seems very sharp - but only stuff you get in northrend.
It's a shame really as it's the only real thing that dates it, the game play is still good (asside from the horrifc interface which they rely 100% on thrid party addons to make playable).
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I don't know when, but I hope when they do it they rework all the old continents to allow full use of flying mounts.
Well i like an option to play WoW with better eye candy.
By next year it will look dated with more DX10 games coming out.
WoWs not going to move up to DX10
Each expansion, WOW has bumped up the graphics a bit.
I think the biggest thing WOW excels at is getting the most out of their polys... and doing an incredible job with animations. WOW characters move very realistically and seamlessly. When you cast an instant-spell, your character moves quickly.
AOC takes great screenshots, but the characters 'glide' along the ground when they run, and they look terrible when they climb. Warhammer's graphics are worst of them all.. the screenshots are almost as bad as wow, but the animations are bad and the timing of most abilities is all messed up. When you play warhammer, the buttons you press has no impact on the motions your character makes... its kinda like foreign films when the mouth move while sounds aren't coming out.
Take a look at the videos of darkfall as another example of a 'screenshot' game. The screenshots of the game look pretty good, but the animations are terrible. The running animation is the worst I've ever seen in a game.. it's like the entire top half of the characters don't even move.. just the legs 'run' and the character glides along the ground.
Depends of what you mean by "graphic engine". If you mean low-poly items and characters, then it's not related to the engine itself, but to the design, and the need to keep the game running on small configurations. A graphical overhaul will certainly never touch what has already been designed, they would be crazy to spend ressources to update 4-year old content, better of doing new content for a new game.
But, in the meantime, the graphic engine is in constant and subtle progress. Look at weapons, armors, their poly-count is vastly better than vanillia wow' ones. Same for buildings and terrains in WOTLK. Same for Draenei and Blood Elves vs all other races. BTW, I believe the only redesign they might do in a future xpack would be to increase the poly-count of the classic races. And maybe redesign some mobs (murlocs?) if they're to be reused in a future xpack. But it will never be more than that.
Apart from that, they added increased view distance, shadows, terrain engine improvements, some nice terrain shaders, and we wil probably see some small new graphic features in the future xpack, maybe fog ? somme better lighthing ? Time will tell.
Everybody agrees that the art direction is the main value of wow graphics, I would also add that they're very apt at choosing exactly the right amount of technical improvements needed to make the game look better, without shouting "hey look at my DX10 extra zillion-poly shading real-time game".
Northrend is gorgeous, and whatever the technology used, it's all that matters to me.
well no matter what there not going to go DX10 because a large amount of people that play that game are running DX9.
For those that don't think Blizzard has made any graphic improvements I have to ask what sort of hardware they are running. Blizzard has done a wonderful job at scaling performace so the game will run on even the lowest spec'd systems. However, while running at 1920x1200 with all the settings maxed, it's a night and day difference when I port from Northend back to the old original areas like Goldshire. It's easy to see the improvements that were made. Maybe those puttering away on the 4 year old family computer with the settings on low to medium don't see the improvements, but they are there. WoW may not be the king of the graphics hill, but with Wotlk it actaully does look pretty good - if you have a system that can run the high settings.
WoW deosnt need a graphics overhaul its great the way it is graphics wise.
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They won't update the graphics for years. The low system requirements are one of the reasons the game is so big, anyone can run it. WoW will run on just about any computer made in the last five years plus, including laptops.