First off quick apology, I am typing this on my phone so I am sure there will be plenty of mistypes. Anyway, I just found Classic Runescape on the apple store and thought I would give it a try - never played it before but of course have known about it forever.
After an hours of playing I probably won’t continue. Not because the game mechanics are bad but because the game looks terrible.
I bring this up because it got me thinking about classic WoW. As most people on these forums, I am super excited to play and can not wait for its release - I even built a new desktop in anticipation ( not because the game will require that kind of modern gaming power but just so I could enjoy the game to its fullest ( new desktop is super quiet- old laptop I was playing on had the loudest fan).
All this is to say, that I am totally excited to play but I am curious for those people who did not play originally, what their perception will be. Will they have the same experience I did with classic Runescape? I assume that community really pushes hard to keep everything old school and for the hard core fan base they are probably loving the game. But I don’t see it grabbing the attention of newer players, expanding its base.
What do you guys think will classic wow appeal to the modern gamer or will it be off putting? Is it even meant to appeal to a new generation of gamers or simply try and stem the tide of dwindling WOW subscriptions?
I imagine your average modern gamer is more likely to go for BfA rather than Classic. I can’t see Vanilla era design having the same appeal to the modern gamer that it did back in 2004. Things have changed way too much, and the current craze is battle royale games rather than MMOs like WoW kicked off 14 years ago.
Personally I never understood why people care so much about visuals. I mean, they’re nice to have but isn’t the gameplay the main draw to playing a video game?
Classic will appeal to the attended genre. We will be ok with the game and graphics.
There will be tourists from other generations that will find a home with classic wow.
In the scope of the topic, I don’t feel graphics were ever a defining aspect in world of warcraft.
to a certain point i agree. however i think quality of graphics and what people expect to see can depend on the type of the game (single player fps/rpg/mmo/etc) i can easily go back and play lands of lore 2 guardians of destiny but i expect more from an online multiplayer game.
For me gameplay or story depending on the type of game has always been most important.
I’d expect some progression as time goes on and if given the choice I’ll take the nicer looking graphics, but what I don’t get is the mindset that people drop a game simply because “it doesn’t look good”.
The most important visual aspect of a game to me is whether or not can I tell what the hell is going on. Can I see opponents/other players or whatever is relevant to that type of game? Is the UI intuitive and readable?
Unless the graphics of a game are so low-fidelity or poorly created that it actually takes away from the gameplay I don’t care.
Blizzard has always been great at this. Even going back to their earliest games. Frankly runescape doesn’t have 1/10th the artistic talent that WoW did.
I was still playing Asherons Call until a couple years ago from time to time. Graphics to a point mean nothing to me. it has and always will be gameplay.
lots think the same lots think its story lots think it’s graphics. just a matter of opinion.
I think classic will have a very limited appeal to people who didn’t play vanilla or at least BC. While I’m sure a lot of people will try it they’ll quickly realize that a lot of the design ideas like horrible class balance just haven’t aged well.
OSRS is the bomb! Its extremely grindy but is also very evergreen. I have played OldSchool on and off for years now (since it came out) and it feels exactly the same as it did when I left it. That’s what Im hoping classic will be like. If classic players jump ship after naxx like they do on pservers…well I will be super disappointed in the community.
To put this into perspective for you about graphics. When WoW was released in 04 there were a few other high profile MMO’s that released very close to its launch, namely EQ2. EQ2 had a much higher graphics requirement for optimal play when compared to WoW. A lot of people couldnt play the game effectively and switch to a game they could play such as WoW. At the time high end graphics cards were not like today. Cost was also a consideration. It was also clunky and full of bugs (namely because it was rushed). You could argue that this simple element is what helped make WoW incredibly successful vs the other MMO’s that game out around that time.
Graphics are not everything. Sometimes you just want to enjoy the game and its mechanics!
When World of Warcraft launched the graphics were already outdated. But what wow had was an incredibly masterful and coherent execution of it’s artistic vision. They created an unbelievable game world. This is one of the reasons that things like the water vs. jello argument can become very heated for some people. The original water looked and acted like real water. It had slightly too much of a silvery cast, but it very much fit the world it was put into. And none of the “improvements” ever fit as well. Wow had a visual appeal that transcended any graphics setting.
For myself graphics are hugely important. Part of the reason I like huge open world games, like world of warcraft, is that I enjoy the exploration aspect of the game. When I first went into Stormwind I spent several hours just exploring, going into every shop, looking at paintings on the walls, reading graveyard placards ( I played only horde from vanilla through Mop so my first experience with Stormwind came during Cata).
Originally world of Warcraft graphics were offputting to me. I had been playing Guildwars ( the first one) when a friend and I decided to give WoW a try. I was not impressed and after an hour or so went back to Guild Wars. Probably took another 6 months for me to try it again and get hooked. Now I love the graphics, even the original vanilla ones.
All that said, for myself graphics are hugely important. I cannot play Path of Exile because the graphics for me are not appealing. Of course graphics are a hook for me. If a game looks graphically appealing I will try it, but if the mechanics are not there, I won’t stay.
Old School Runescape has ~100,000 concurrent playing at any given time. That’s likely more than many new, popular games like Path of Exile and Warframe. When Old School Runescape launched on mobile, it quickly reached 1 million downloads and became the top mobile game in many regions. On Twitch, Old School Runescape is often in the top 10.
Gameplay>graphics.
Furthermore, Classic got a graphics update over original vanilla WoW. If you turned everything to max in the demo, the graphical fidelity looked about as good as modern WoW, but the demo didn’t have the overly cartoony models and over-saturated color scheme that retail has. Classic looks great, in my opinion.
I don’t think Classic’s graphics are going to be an impediment to its success at all.
I actually think this is an open question, and the whole topic of graphics is secondary. Retro gaming is a real thing, and has been for a while. Retro gamers are not just Generation Xr’s and millennials trying to recapture their glory days; people of all ages are into it, like my 13-year-old son, for instance. Classic WoW has the potential to appeal to this wider niche community of retro gamers in the same way that OSRS has. We can only hope it will be as much of a hit as OSRS.
Now on the topic of graphics: IMO, vanilla WoW’s graphics were pretty nice for its time. You have to crank everything up to Ultra to see how nice it really is. I’m happy with the whole look and feel of vanilla/Classic and I know the target audience will be, too. There will be people coming from the modern game who will be put off by it, I’m sure. It is what it is.