I was looking at some of my old footage from the old client (pre 3.0), and comparing that to the modern client. I much prefer older graphics to newer, not just out of nostalgia…it seems more realistic and less cartoony ( though the degree of cartoony of WoW is another topic all together ).
One large example I noticed: in Teldrassil there is a fog covering in the distance, and trees have more loose rendering in the pixels. So , it’s more blurry but better for the imagination in a sense. It feels more like a rainforest.
Modern Teldrassil: no fog in the distance, you can see clearly very far, and trees are ‘bushy’ and, the result of being more detailed, more fake/cartoony.
Anyone else prefer old graphics to new, and not out of nostalgia?
Everything being covered in fog is more realistic? You can’t see miles off into the distance in real life?
Older graphics are less cartoony? Have you compared the old trees to the new ones in BfA? Have you compared the level of color saturation? I don’t think you’ve done an honest comparison at all.
I don’t care if you like the old graphics better. If you claim that the old graphics are more realistic because you can’t see 100 yards in front of you, then you’re just being dishonest.
This doesn’t make sense. I didn’t argue that graphics are better, I said they’re more realistic. More detail and pixel resolution does not equal realism.
I like both and only a fool would say current wow’s art style is bad (not that im saying OP said that). My problem is combining both, ie. new water and old textures. Yes its true that even current wow has the new water in the old zones, but in the new zones the new water fits much better.
Vanilla tree models and grass textures on the right, BfA on the left:
If I asked 100 random people on the streets which was more realistic, I’d be willing to bet they would say the graphics on the left are far more realistic.
No, that’s literally an opinion. He’s speaking for himself and asking if anyone else feels the same way.
To be honest, I agree with him. I think that the slight overlay of haze in vanilla gives everything more muted colors and therefore a more realistic effect. They removed this in Cata, and all the colors have been bright and showy ever since.
There’s nothing wrong with preferring one over the other, is there?
Altitude and water vapor density as well as actual fog or low cloud cover directly impact this in RL.
Hase in the distance is a very real thing at lower altitudes. It doesn’t take much distance either when it’s a warm humid day.
The world of Warcraft game is a hyper compressed world, meaning the distance and size of things are often exaggerated in one way or the other to give the world that Wawarcraft 1,2, &3 feel.
Artistic direction is way more important than the supposed “quality” of graphics. Modern game does have some nice looking zones (looking at Suramar) but generally speaking, they look too cartooney and washed out.
Atmosphere in general was much better done in vanilla, the lightning and weather effects contributed to it.
I’ve definitely noticed that the old graphics have different shaders, the surfaces of rocks and even blades of grass look more shiny in Classic WoW, for some reason Blizzard abandoned those shaders in the later expansion, probably to push higher resolution models and textures into a really old engine.
Whoever remembers Dalaran back in Wrath knows it lagged on any hardware due to the engine, they started to remove some of the reflections on surfaces in favor of lag free post process effects that just cover the whole screen.
Yes we have better textures and foliage now, but at the cost of less shinyness across the world, you only see it on water and ice now, it used to be everywhere, on all the mobs even your armor, remember when swords used to be shiny? Now look at the warfront rewards, they are just bare textures.
Trees have more realistic foliage, ground has more clutter, more focused/details objects in general? Ok.
Still, it doesn’t equal to realism when the entire game is based on imagination in a fantasy world. If we were going for a replication of what the Amazon Rainforest looks like, for example, we’re still way off.
My point is, in the WoW world… in that environment, I like the older graphics better because it felt congruous with the world. Whether due to graphic limitations, draw distance, whatever. I felt the world was more realistic.
Here’s some pics (1 is from the old client and 2 are from new):
I’m not trying to sway anyone, because people like what they’ll like. But from those pics, I personally find one of them more realistic than the others, even though there is obvious differences in graphics capabilities.
![:laughing:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/laughing.png?v=6" ":laughing:")
