So I logged into the stress test server today and went to Stormwind again to see if the Keep was fixed because I saw the game get a micro-patch. I’m in the Valley of Heroes*, and I look over the ramparts and I see the towers you’re supposed to see on top of the Keep from the bridge leading into the city.
“Cool, that’s a good sign,” I think to myself.
But then I actually approach the Keep and the towers you’re supposed to see above the entrance blocking the view of the throne room ceiling are still missing… and that’s when I figured it out.
The same tech that Classic is using to do the “movie set” thing with the Cathedral is messed up when it comes to the Keep. The Keep’s towers are being hidden when they shouldn’t be.
Photo proof:
LINK_https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/hh540/SMBComix/0/f62f109f-763a-4d75-a3a2-5ce4905e0d84-original.jpg?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds
As you can see here, right through that arch, you can see one of Stormwind Keep’s towers just over the ramparts. It’s not Old Town; Old Town doesn’t have anything like that.
LINK_https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/hh540/SMBComix/0/14b6ab19-c350-4b7a-b323-79d8ead5b458-original.jpg?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds
Here’s the image of Stormwind Keep’s main entrance I took last week. Figured I might as well use it since nothing’s changed. Here you can see that the towers are completely missing, and you can see the throne room ceiling from the bridge I’m standing on.
EDIT: Accidentally said “Valley of Trials” instead of “Valley of Heroes.” Every damn time, I swear…
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It looked like 99% of NPCs were removed to help handle the extreme load on servers. That’d be my wild guess.
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Nah, I’m pretty sure my theory’s correct. The movie set tech is hiding the towers when it shouldn’t be.
The towers were missing during the first stress test too. And I’m guessing on the beta servers as well… I can’t really trust anyone currently on beta to notice or care about that.
Stormwind’s sky and ceiling has always been messed up though. Its one of the primary reasons for the Cataclysm changes because the city is actually under the Burning Steppes at the back.
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Yeah but I don’t remember ever seeing Stormwind Keep so jacked up before, even prior to Cata.
They should fix it.
View distance probably had something to do with this. I think I remember reading that Stormwind keep used to phase out as it wasn’t really fully modeled, or something along those lines.
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It had nothing to do with it.
The Valley of Heroes bridge is much farther away from the Keep than the bridge I stood on to screenshot the missing towers. I could see the towers from there.
It’s entirely due to the movie set tech being borked.
You should post screenshots to show exactly what you’re talking about.
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It’s tough to get a good angle of the towers from the Valley of Trials but I’ll try if the server is still up.
EDIT: Updated the OP.
If you could ever get a camera above Stormwind, you’d see the city all messed up when looking from behind. Sometimes you could get into places where the perspective was able to show the ‘flim-flammery’ of Stormwind too.
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Fair, but they had tech in place that would selectively hide backdrop pieces like the several different versions of the Cathedral.
The tech is working properly for the Cathedral, but it’s NOT working properly for Stormwind Keep’s towers. Stormwind Keep’s towers should be visible at all times.
Thank you, my friend. If you find it’s different for you, please post a screenshot.
I want to believe this is only stress test related.
Nope, same issue on PVE Beta as well.
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Then that confirms it. Thanks for helping out, dude. ![:slight_smile:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")
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Blizzard should limit view distance to the max available in Vanilla. (and when I say “max available”, I mean what you could see in Vanilla with the graphics slider at max. Not using a console command to extend view distance).
The super-short view distance was such a core part of Vanilla. It’s a shame to not have it in Classic.
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It IS at the max vanilla view distance lol
And you can’t change it, either.
Like I said, this issue has nothing to do with the view distance. It’s entirely a bug in Blizzard’s movie set tech.
I have max cam addon turned on, but that wouldn’t cause that.
I’m running completely Vanilla Classic.
It’s the movie set tech. It’s gotta be.
I just wish Blizzard was listening to stress test bug reports… could you do me a favor and bring this up on the beta forums if you haven’t already? We can’t let this slide.
See if you can post on beta forums, Link_https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/c/in-development/wow-classic-beta-test
I noticed some stress test people have been able to do that today.