World of Warcraft Graphics Upgrade?
Written by Simon Barker on September 10, 2008 · Filed under Games
Do you think that a World of Warcraft graphics upgrade is needed? I was recently talking with a friend about the potential requirement for this and thought that this would make for an interesting discussion here too!
He was basically saying that having looked at the other major MMORPGs on the market, most of them have had graphical updates to their game engines in the last year. By doing this the developers then hope to extend the life of the current game by keeping existing players and potentially gaining new ones off the back of the improved graphics, however I wasn’t convinced that Blizzard would be taking the same approach with World of Warcraft.
WoW has a very distinctive, stylised look to it’s graphics engine which is quite possibly one of the reasons for the huge number of subscribers that are currently playing the game – around 10 million people the last I heard! Those are huge numbers, an awful lot of which I’m sure are playing because WoW runs perfectly well on their older computers – playing WoW actually saves them money because they don’t have to upgrade their computer to play it! Plus it means that you can easily play it on your laptop when you’re away from home or even on your HTPC like I have recently done – sit back on your sofa and play WoW on the big-screen TV!
Before I started playing WoW, I used to think that the graphics weren’t very good – they couldn’t have been…surely, the game had been out for 2 years when I eventually started playing – however, once I did get talked into giving the WoW trial a go (by the same friend I mentioned earlier) I really started to appreciate the really, rather cool looking style of the WoW graphics. I’d played Everquest 2 just before that and more recently Age of Conan, both of which have pretty demanding photo-realistic graphics engines, which means you need a “beast” of a computer to play them and they just don’t have the same ‘fun’ element and character that the WoW graphics have.
Having read that Blizzard will be improving the graphics over time, but in their own way, I think this approach will probably be for the best, rather than having a huge overhaul which could take huge amounts of development time and resources, by doing it in stages with their expansions they can focus on ensuring the gameplay doesn’t suffer from them being distracted by going back and changing the entire games graphics in one go.
If you read the recent articles over at VideoGamer.com, particularly the Wrath of the Lich King preview interview with Blizzard in which say that a graphical reboot of WoW may never be necessary. You can definitely tell that Blizzard like the fact that their game has relatively low computer system requirements and see that as a strength, so as much as I’d love to see WoW graphics that look just like the cinematic intro videos, I don’t really think we’ll be seeing that kind of upgrade any time soon. In the meantime I’m still looking forward to seeing minor improvements in terms of lighting, textures and shadow effects that will be contained within the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.
You can compare the quality of the in-game graphics as opposed to the cinematic intro sequences for yourself by taking a look at the Wrath of the Lich King trailers. If you are interested in getting this expansion, here’s the best WoW: Wrath of the Lich King pre-order price I’ve found.
How important are graphics to you in a game? Particularly an MMORPG such as World of Warcraft? Do you appreciate the fact you can play on a system that doesn’t need to a state-of-the-art high-end gaming system?
I have been playing on my old computer, it is hard to believe such good graphics comes through.
Blizzard really have been clever with their system I think, I was reading about the upcoming Everquest 2 and Lord of the Rings Online expansions and I really don’t think that they look any better graphically in terms of style, technically they probably are though.
They could always do what CCP did with Eve-online, just make two version; one a “premium graphics pack” , the other just basic for the lower end systems…. but I suppose if you are a company making that much money every month, why bother… ?! Sit back and just let it roll in
The only graphic updates i think WoW ‘needs’ is a few minor things. Here’s some examples. The capes on some races tend to have your weapon go thru them. doesn’t effect game play, but it’d be nice to see it fixed. Maybe have it so when a human’s knee cap doesn’t go flat when attacking, or at the very least, make it so when a character model wears a robe, you see more than just the foot under the robe. Even if it was just up to the kneecaps and black above that or something, it’d be a nice improvement. Small things like that wouldn’t make the game run slower i wouldn’t think, at least not to the point that it would become a major problem. Having played FFXI for 6 years and now coming to WoW, i do enjoy FFXI’s more “realistic” character models and movements, but like others have said, WoW has it’s own unique style which i do enjoy. So yea, i guess what i’m saying is making the movements a little more accurate, and giving us robe wearers some legs. That’s all >.>
I think blizzard just don’t know other options, they either ignore em or cant be bothered fixing things. think of how much income streams in millions of dollars for a basic engined game. they gain this from gameplay above all, but im sick n tired of playing a cartoony game. crysis, farcry, eve online – all HAVE yes they HAVE graphics settings to lower them to be playable on low end machines, blizzard think everyone wants to play on high? so they wont change it? cmon there’s OPTIONS! they refuse to change anything. That’s fine but i wont be playing it.
I just wish the game had support for better graphics cards. I upgraded to a 4870×2 to keep up with other games. After I spent a good half-hour putting on the heat sink and water blocks and then another hour running the tubes for my system, I found out that WoW does not work too well with new ATI cards. Now, this is my fault for not checking (and once I did I found out many others were struggling) but I don’t think I should have to game on another computer just to play WoW.
I also blame the incompatibility on ATI’s slow-and-steady driver development.
Oh well. We’ll see what happens.
Yh, the wow graphs have an own style and thats nice! but on the other side, they could use a little make over. Shadow, textures, shading, water effects, a little bit smoother, … it wouldnt change wows style and it would make wow lots better! They dont have the best graphics and thats nice (strange… =) but thats what wow makes so awsome!!
grtzzz
I wouldn’t mind having to pay a little bit extra to have better graphics but then my machine can afford it. They should have more options for people who want them.