The WOW for all CPU argument is flawed.

[Deleted]

Although i'm pretty sure that you needed a good CPU to play WOW when it was released, i could be wrong?
Every now and then Blizzard comment questions if they are going to update the graphics with nonsense like "we want everyone to be able to play WOW". My four year old CPU can play WOW in ultra setting, although perhaps not as smooth as my high end CPU. Heck, even my 8 year old computer can play WOW at 1024x1080 at high, smooth. I mean, i can't think of anyone playing with a much older computer than my 8 year old CPU, really! If some people are to poor to buy a second hand CPU for 200$ that can easily play WOW very smooth, they shouldn't even pay the subsciption fee in the first place.

I'm not sure which amazes me the most. That ppl seem to play with stoneage 486, or that their CPU that are possible older than most users on MMO champion, are still up and running.

[Zer0shift]

I was running wow with a p4 3.4 ht on and agp hd 3850 and 3 gigs of ram, ran wow on ultra except for shadows and water and it ran amazing in world and in 10 man raid, 25 man was un playable tho ran at 1 fps. I rebuilt my comp the other day now im running an amd 8 core fx proc 64 bit, gtx560ti pci e, and 8 gigs of ram now i can run any thing lol

[Emane]

I only have a laptop that is 5 years old. I run on everything on medium except somethings on low. 10 mans I get like 10-12 fps from... in non-aoe situations. LFR I get somewhere around 2-3 in non-aoe situations. Upping the requirements for WoW, will mean that it would be unplayable for me. And I also know ALOT of people that have 2-3 fps in a 10 man non-aoe situation.

So upping the textures and polygons, even thou it will look nice, will take away ALOT of players, it will probally take away more players than what improved textures will bring in.

[Deleted]

Textures aren't that importatn WoW. It has a comic look, which work great because it feels timeless. Ofcourse they can do some polishing from time to time, but I don't think it's worth to program the game's graphics around the higer end CPU's. If you like more realistic and high graphic settings, you better look out for Guild Wars 2 I guess...

[Emane]

Textures aren't that importatn WoW. It has a comic look, which work great because it feels timeless. Ofcourse they can do some polishing from time to time, but I don't think it's worth to program the game's graphics around the higer end CPU's. If you like more realistic and high graphic settings, you better look out for Guild Wars 2 I guess...

Agree, I was looking forward to try out SW:Tor, I even preordered the Collector Edition. I got a beta invite, got a message saying that my computer couldn't play it, so I couldn't even install it.
I took away my preorder after that. So they lost one costumer, and probally alot more with catering to the people with a high end computer.

[traen]

Although i'm pretty sure that you needed a good CPU to play WOW when it was released, i could be wrong?
Every now and then Blizzard comment questions if they are going to update the graphics with nonsense like "we want everyone to be able to play WOW". My four year old CPU can play WOW in ultra setting, although perhaps not as smooth as my high end CPU. Heck, even my 8 year old computer can play WOW at 1024x1080 at high, smooth. I mean, i can't think of anyone playing with a much older computer than my 8 year old CPU, really! If some people are to poor to buy a second hand CPU for 200$ that can easily play WOW very smooth, they shouldn't even pay the subsciption fee in the first place.

I'm not sure which amazes me the most. That ppl seem to play with stoneage 486, or that their CPU that are possible older than most users on MMO champion, are still up and running.

Uhm... no, you can't realy play wow on 8 years old computer. Not raid at least. I mean, real, 25man raids.
You can quest on pretty much any computer ofc.

And yes, wow is really CPU-dependent. Even on best gaming PC you will not be able to get even 80fps just standing still in Orgy on loaded server. And its not about your GPU, its about game client that is not able to use more than 3 cores of your CPU.

I think that anything below 60fps is laggy, so I think that wow is really unoptimized and laggy application that can be run only on top end computers.

[Deleted]

Every now and then Blizzard comment questions if they are going to update the graphics with nonsense like "we want everyone to be able to play WOW". My four year old CPU can play WOW in ultra setting, although perhaps not as smooth as my high end CPU. Heck, even my 8 year old computer can play WOW at 1024x1080 at high, smooth. I mean, i can't think of anyone playing with a much older computer than my 8 year old CPU, really! If some people are to poor to buy a second hand CPU for 200$ that can easily play WOW very smooth, they shouldn't even pay the subsciption fee in the first place.

On the one hand, we have the above quoted anecdotal evidence of one player.
On the other side a respected game developer with billions of data about their customers computers.

Who shall I believe when it comes to knowledge about what can and what can not be done?
Hmmm, this is a tough one, for sure!

[Blackmist]

Updating the models would be good, but the main issue is with the clunky animations. Get some mo-capped cut scenes going. Some decent voice acting, some cinematic flair. It's 2012 for crying out loud. We may have been on dodgy Playstation era games when WoW was started, but we have Mass Effects, we have Uncharted, we have Arkham City and Skyrim.

It's nice that they've made an MMO that takes in tons of money, but I sometimes wish they'd spend it on something I can see.

[Mad_Murdock]

If some people are to poor to buy a second hand CPU for 200$ that can easily play WOW very smooth, they shouldn't even pay the subsciption fee in the first place.

I'm not sure which amazes me the most. That ppl seem to play with stoneage 486, or that their CPU that are possible older than most users on MMO champion, are still up and running.

A good chunk of my guildmates play WoW on their laptops. Most are within 4 years old, but Laptop systems aren't as powerful as equally equipped desktop systems. Of the ones that play on said laptops, most have the generic video card that came with it. In 25 man raiding, most of them talk about dropping down to slide show video speeds. I remember it was common during the whelp phase on Ony for about 4-6 of the people to DC or be frozen in place untilt he phase was over.

You understand that this applies to just about every video game made . No one is going to produce a game that only 20% of the playerbase can handle. Sure I'd love to see WoW running with BF3 style graphics. I just don't think the masses could handle such a demand. You have to remember, for a large part of the masses, Video games are a part time hobby. You might consider dropping 2K on a PC nothing. I have guildmates that scoff at spending more than $50 on a video card. sure they wouldn't mind having the $500 card, but they have other more important to them things to spend that money on.

It would be cool if Blizzard released information like Steam does, on what their users are using.
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

[airea]

The graphics are so horrible because WoW's graphics engine is complete and utter garbage. You wonder why SWTOR and GW2 can play on 4-5 year old PCs without issues? It's because of the graphics rendering engine. Blizzard is completely capable of using a new engine, but they're just too lazy. As long as Blizz is getting subs for the junk they're spewing out, it'll never get better. As long as they're making money off what they do already, they won't change.

[Puissance]

I played wow on a p4 2ghz from vanilla to early wrath with no problem even in 40 man raid. That till the day i ran into dalaran and it took 5 minutes to load while i never had a fps drop in bc shattrah while full

[Emane]

The graphics are so horrible because WoW's graphics engine is complete and utter garbage. You wonder why SWTOR and GW2 can play on 4-5 year old PCs without issues? It's because of the graphics rendering engine. Blizzard is completely capable of using a new engine, but they're just too lazy. As long as Blizz is getting subs for the junk they're spewing out, it'll never get better. As long as they're making money off what they do already, they won't change.

Well as mentioned above, I can't even install Swtor. So guess who gets my money? GW2, I'm pretty sure my computer will commit suicide if I took that box infront of it.

Better graphic != better games.

[Zanno]

Honestly, if you can't get with the times, these game developers are not going to wait for you.

This is the information and technology super age. Stop living in the dark ages. I know that some people cannot afford to buy new computers. Those people have no right to complain. The game is made with a certain minimum system requirement in mind. If you can't meet those requirements, you don't get to play. It's that simple.

Adapt or die.

[Deleted]

Better graphic != better games.

y u say that??? we all want kewl grafix cuz better grafix == better game, amirite?

Seriously though, the most people I see who cry and complain about graphics, are the ones who never played older games and/or think they are entitled to better graphics, just because they pay for the game and/or other games have better graphics...

I doubt many of those complaining are old enough to have appreciated games before graphics became an issue.
Oh, the good-old NES 8bit era

[airea]

Well as mentioned above, I can't even install Swtor. So guess who gets my money? GW2, I'm pretty sure my computer will commit suicide if I took that box infront of it.

Better graphic != better games.

Well, okay, maybe I'm over exaggerating a little. You should be able to play GW2 though, Arena Net has confirmed they can play the game on very old computers with parts which can't even be bought anymore. Point is, it's not about just making better graphics, it's about the engine.

Let's say I wanted to bake a beautiful pie. I wanted it to taste and look absolutely fantastic. Now, I could either pick from a reliable, high efficiency oven, or a 7 year old gas oven with a door that doesn't close all the way and a broken rack. I could technically make my wonderful dessert in either oven, but it'd be much more difficult to do so in the older one, so I'd push myself much harder, and probably get frustrated.

In other words, if you want shiny graphics on an older computer without making it spontaneously combust, you need a good engine to render them for you, so your system doesn't work as hard. Blizzard has the money for a new engine, they're just too lazy to apply one.

[Emane]

y u say that??? we all want kewl grafix cuz better grafix == better game, amirite?

Seriously though, the most people I see who cry and complain about graphics, are the ones who never played older games and/or think they are entitled to better graphics, just because they pay for the game and/or other games have better graphics...

I doubt many of those complaining are old enough to have appreciated games before graphics became an issue.
Oh, the good-old NES 8bit era

I was exicted when SNES came out! Better graphic must equal better games right? No.. I went back to my 8 bit nes ^^ I still try and beat Ghost and Goblins from time to time.

But all I can say, most kids are spoiled today with good graphic, and then complain that the game suck, because they don't look to other things. Like gameplay and such.

---------- Post added 2012-01-17 at 05:05 PM ----------

Well, okay, maybe I'm over exaggerating a little. You should be able to play GW2 though, Arena Net has confirmed they can play the game on very old computers with parts which can't even be bought anymore. Point is, it's not about just making better graphics, it's about the engine.

Let's say I wanted to bake a beautiful pie. I wanted it to taste and look absolutely fantastic. Now, I could either pick from a reliable, high efficiency oven, or a 7 year old gas oven with a door that doesn't close all the way and a broken rack. I could technically make my wonderful dessert in either oven, but it'd be much more difficult to do so in the older one, so I'd push myself much harder, and probably get frustrated.

In other words, if you want shiny graphics on an older computer without making it spontaneously combust, you need a good engine to render them for you, so your system doesn't work as hard. Blizzard has the money for a new engine, they're just too lazy to apply one.

Well, it's not as easy as just changing code "Using (BlizzardOldEngine);" with "Using (BlizzardNewEngine);". Animation needs to be fixed. On EVERYTHING, everything needs to pretty much be remodeled. Everything needs to get textured.. AGAIN, in some cases some new textures might be needed aswell.

There's a ton of stuff to fix. Sometimes it's even better just to REDO it all, instead of trying to use the old things. So I'm happy that they don't do it. As that meens we would pretty much get an expansions work or in worst case a new games work, in getting the same old world that we have today.

What you have noticed thou, is that they have started to fix alot of things, like water and such. It's better to fix one thing at a time, than to fix everything at ones. Because stuff bugs out less by then.

[Pottsy710]

i run a amd phenom quad core 3.2 ghz with a gtx 460 and i'm lucky to break 10 fps during aoe stack up phases in 25 mans... i've read that WoW is mainly CPU bottlenecked, and i know the cpu i'm using is a middle of the road cpu, but it's less than a year old... this is on high settings...

however, even downgrading my settings to average/medium doesn't cause much of an FPS increase... any idea what individual settings would be best to adjust in order to see a smoother game even during intense AOE situations without dumbing down spell effects so much that I have a hard time seeing boss mechanics?

[Spaceshaman]

Adapt or die.

And guess who will die. Me or the game dev....... lol.

Just look at Warhammer Online last 2 remaining servers. Piece of shit work was done on the code. Game died.

That's why I always said Bioware should absolutely concentrate on optimizing SWTOR. Of course I have no problem with catering to the corei7 and 580gtx crowd, it's just means I won't play (and pay for) their game.

I just hope ME3 won't suffer because of SWTOR.

[Deleted]

On the one hand, we have the above quoted anecdotal evidence of one player.
On the other side a respected game developer with billions of data about their customers computers.

Who shall I believe when it comes to knowledge about what can and what can not be done?
Hmmm, this is a tough one, for sure!

What's this?! Common sense! A nod to the fact that a company that collects information on their clients (and actively asks them questions about what they want) would use that information in some way to work out what they should / shouldn't be working on?!

You ain't from round these parts are ya boy!

Blizzard has the money for a new engine, they're just too lazy to apply one.

This is the kind of thing I expect to see, over simplified 'just' arguments, because making an engine is just that simple, because putting everything you've done into that new engine is just that simple.....

No I mean everytime they release a new version of anything it's always rebuilt from the ground up right? and of course if you've got a problem the best solution is always to throw money at it, money makes everything easier and quicker....right?

[Weerra]

I only have a laptop that is 5 years old. I run on everything on medium except somethings on low. 10 mans I get like 10-12 fps from... in non-aoe situations. LFR I get somewhere around 2-3 in non-aoe situations. Upping the requirements for WoW, will mean that it would be unplayable for me. And I also know ALOT of people that have 2-3 fps in a 10 man non-aoe situation.

So upping the textures and polygons, even thou it will look nice, will take away ALOT of players, it will probally take away more players than what improved textures will bring in.

Mine is even worse. I'm running everything on absolute lowest setting for that kind of FPS.
My old 25 man in Wrath also had a lot of people with very low FPS in it.