Are WoW's Graphics Good Enough For You?

A total overhaul of the graphics would be great. However, a setting for the way things are (or w/o needing to upgrade a PC) would still be needed. If I recall, Legion called for some increased graphics demand (at least for optimal enjoyment) and people were not happy. It was similar to the required (later suggested) use of a SSD rather than a HDD.

Every game I play is cartoon like. Just what I like

i do think wo need to drop the cartoony look and make it Moren look
after 20 years it needs a face lift

thank you for your introspection

Ah ya bugger

Didn’t see the 10 month gap

Yeah, I love the art style of wow. The modern/realistic stuff looks so soulless and generic.

nah it’s aight, I do the same thing lol.

I would have to disagree on realistic graphics looking outdated.

It really depends on a lot of factors. Things like the original half life definitely didn’t age well in terms of graphics.

But at some point the realism became “good enough” for a lot of old games like Halo 1 or Crysis. Both of which are ancient by 2022 but still retain their realism surprisingly well.

When I log in and see Elwyn Forest, it looks like 2010 vomit especially when you compare it side by side with BfA zones.

I definitely do think the old zones need an update.

To me, the graphics are part of the games charm. You can see a screenshot and you KNOW its WoW. These other games all look alike.

2 Likes

Thr artstyle does help it, but it shows its age in a lot of areas that the artstyle just can’t cover, so the game could definitely look a lot nicer for sure while still keeping that cartoony look.

If they bumped the upper limits of settings up and added some technical bells and whistles, like raytracing for lighting (currently it’s only for shadows), I’d welcome that. Poly count and texture rez boost would be fine too.

Don’t screw with the art direction though. Don’t make it more Hearthstone-Disneyish, and for the love of Uther don’t make it anything like Arclight’s artstyle. The current style is fine.

Halo 1 does indeed look amazing, but it’s also a game, in my opinion anyway, to be pretty focused on style, especially anything covenant related, kinda broke away from most of the shooters of the time of duller colors so it really gave it more flavor (pretty much always gotta use the OG graphics while playing MCC)

Dunno about the crisis one though, that things looked like it was beaten in a bag at this point.

But thinking about older zones in wow, there are some that don’t look nearly as nice as others, even back then to be honest. Elwyn forest was a pretty basic forest and no real fantasy poured into it but then you’d get to a zone like dun morogh, teldrassil, or even stranglethorn and see they all kinda aged noticibly better cuz they went with an more catchy idea or look

1 Like

Yes. never paid attention to the graphics in this game that much anyways.

A few zones oddly got worse looking with time, despite technical improvements. Like compare Elwynn in any flavor of Classic to Elwynn in retail – even though the retail version has moderately improved trees, textures, etc, the original manages to look better because it has a cozy warm hue to its sunlight while the retail version is weirdly cold and blue.

Other zones like Eversong and Ghostlands would look incredible with just bumping up model poly counts and texture resolutions.

That’s a really good point.

I also think part of the reason why Halo did so well is specifically because you don’t really get up and personal with humans and all their faces and eyebrows, etc.

I think, for example, if they showed Master Chief’s face in the original halo it would have probably had the same graphical fidity as the G-man’s original model. Which would just take you right out of the illusion if I am completely honest. They know where the game is visually strongest and mediate some of the weaker parts by minimizing them.

I think, in my opinion, that’s also a big part of why the story in WoW was so controversial these past few years.

Take the scene where Sylvanas kills zelling, for instance. They used the in-game animations to try to move them like a puppet and visually looked very unnatural.

I just can’t help but think, how much better it would have been if this scene didn’t get a cutscenes at all? That it would have been a lot more believable to see if it was just regular in-game dialogue where you read the chat bubbles, and then possibly suplimented by voice acting.

I think this is really an issue with the uncanny valley phenomenon being present in both cartoony and realistic designs and animation.

If something is just not appropriate for the medium, it pulls you out instantly.

1 Like

If you are looking for them to be super uber ultra hi rez to equal real life then you are playing the wrong game.

Yes

Wouldn’t mind full screen coming back though.

Yea they honestly did a fantastic job, you spend so little time looking at humans with weird rectangle heads and muppety mouths that look jarring, and instead look at predator mouth aliens and stuff which are unnatural so they can’t look bad the same way

Legit would have preferred no cutscene, those early on use the in-game model cutscenes always look so wrong, the mouths just flail around and their bodies just kinda bend weird at times. Flat out woulda been better if we just had it happen in-game with them just doing a bow auto attack and be done with it

Really is knowing the minimizing the weaker parts as you said

1 Like

No, the older zones need a texture upgrade badly.

The trees especially look very unnatural.

2 Likes

Even Cortana, the one “human” you actually interact with on a semi regular basis, is a translucent hologram. You don’t really get to see where the polygon / animation qualities negatively impact the realism because they’re simply not there. The way they did it is just brilliant to me.

Although if you beat the game on legendary, you do get to see a cutscenes where the covenant gropes a human as they say goodbye to each other and then you kinda realize just how old the game is lol :laughing: