Throughout my career doing software development for large computer companies I continually heard this question asked. The answer always comes back to the same question, “Who is going to pay for it”?
You are probably talking about two expansions worth of development to get all that working.
Not only does everyone NOT know this, I have yet to see proof of it. We don’t have access to the WoW source code. What evidence do you have that it is not layered software with clear APIs written with at least 3rd generation structured programming constructs?
Do you really think the code is full of GOTO instructions? Without that you don’t have spaghetti code.
The simplest way of putting it:
Have you tried just replacing your entire skeleton with metal bones? Not just a finger or a hip but the entire skeleton, skull included.
It’s easy to say but doing it is much harder.
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I fear things like this. One of the best things is I can play wow on lower spec hardware and still have a good time. I would hate it if that changed.
They literally do update their engine and core software.
Go and play Classic WoW, look at how the game feels, how it plays, the animation quality, the visuals of the zones, etc.
Then go and play Retail WoW and compare.
The huge differences between both versions are because of engine upgrades and core software upgrades. Advancements and updates are what have allowed Blizzard to implement Dragon Riding (something that would have been impossible on the classic engine). Player housing is another thing that is only possible now because of engine advancements and upgrades.
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I mean, yeah it can’t be that hard to replace your entire skeleton with metal.
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How does updating the engine make money? Does not updating it lose them money? There’s your answer.
Activision only cares about one thing.
Correction, Stock holders (i.e. the owners of corporations) only care about one thing.
The people who run corporations have to do what stock holders want them to do or they won’t have a job.
I believe Bellular had a video discussing this recently. My understanding the code is being updated over time, as a complete rewrite is too massive of a task.
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The WOW engine is actually fairly modern now as far as MMO engines go.
The problem isn’t the engine, it’s people expecting the kind of visuals you can get from a single player game on a 5080 on an MMORPG. That is not and will not ever be possible in an MMO.
The engine is a problem, as it isn’t very well threaded, CPU side. It has nothing to do with visuals, and everything with FPS tanking when everyone is going ham in content with a crapload of players on the screen. Hence why AMD’s x3d chips fair better, compared to Intel and AMD’s non x3d chips, as the extra cache helps alleviate the issue. WoW has never been very GPU dependent, and always very CPU heavy.
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Limitations can come with advantages. Without all the fancy shading of an engine like unreal wow has to learn hard into stylization. Perhaps in time they may come with their own innovations and stuff like that.
I think that eventually they’ll start WoW back up with a new story and everything on a new engine and the old game on the old engine will be partitioned out and available to play if anyone wants.
I think this’ll happen at the end of this trilogy we’re on, when Azeroth is born.
They’ll start WoW over on a new engine and everything.
All management. The people who sold out in the first place. All the devs who enable it. None of them care.
The WoW engine (creatively called the WoW Engine) has undergone many updates and improvements. Important large improvements apparently started happening for Wrath and have continued with each expansion, along with undoubtedly continued tinkering at various times. It was designed specifically for WoW and has been very successful and adaptable over the years.
Could they replace it? Yes, of course they could, if they were prepared to lay out a very large $ number. Would they replace it? It’s not terribly likely.
They’re constantly updating it, though.
Like, every expansion has updates to the game engine.
Midnight will also include updates to the game engine. So will the Last Titan.
What the OP actually wants is for Blizzard to rebuild the game engine completely, from the ground up so that the foundation of the game isn’t spaghetti code that is limiting future development and so that it performs better, especially in environments where there are a lot of players in the same place at the same time.
That is something Blizzard will not do, simply because of the amount of work and financial resources required to do it. They’ll keep doing what they’re doing now, fixing issues that they can and making upgrades as they need to.
“Updates” like how the character models were “updated,” sure.
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Updates like that, yeah. But also updates that allow for greater visuals, higher view distance, new and improved systems, etc.
Take the Garrison, for example. A system like that would have been impossible to create using the engine that Blizzard started with in 2004. Dragonriding and Skyriding is the result of another engine upgrade. The greatly increased view distances that we have now? Also because of an engine upgrade. Player housing that’s coming in Midnight? Yep, engine upgrades have allowed that to exist.
Hell, even small things that you might not think are a result of engine upgrades just are. For example, you know the Professor Putricide fight in Icecrown Citadel? How his second form has tentacles on his back? Those tentacles are riding him using the same vehicle system that got implemented in that expansion for us to use. And that system only got to exist because of engine upgrades.
Isn’t the Engine updated already with the New Expansions and HD Models of everything?
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Yep, exactly. Every expansion updates the engine, allowing Blizzard to create things that would be impossible to make on earlier versions of the engine.
What the OP wants is a full rebuild, from the ground up, so that Blizzard isn’t building the game on spaghetti code foundations from the early 2000s. But that isn’t feasible; it would take an extremely long time, and some of the current systems only work because of that spaghetti code. Removing it would essentially break those systems.
The game engine is fine?
I’ve never seen anything more stable in an online game of this scale.