Why are WoW's graphics so sub-par?

[SodiumChloride]

Fair setting ... can't even maintain 30 fps on a 2 year old laptop.

Water doesn't' even have specular highlights - seriously what kind of water is this, anyone who has lived knows water is shiny.

Then we have things like GTA V ... a bloody miracle on aging console systems on their last legs.

Both multi-billion dollar companies. What gives?

Edit: Is it too much to ask for water that looks like this without clogging down my GPU?

[KCguy]

Fair setting ... can't even maintain 30 fps on a 2 year old laptop.

Water doesn't' even have specular highlights - seriously what kind of water is this, anyone who has lived knows water is shiny.

Then we have things like GTA V ... a bloody miracle on aging console systems on their last legs.

Both multi-billion dollar companies. What gives?

WoW uses an older engine and they do an amazing job with what they have to work with.

[Buttfear]

IDK, since directX11 water looked real to me.

[lukec1996]

WoW's current engine is based off of the Classic WoW engine, which was originally based off the Warcraft 3 engine. Considering the roots of WoW's current graphics engine, its damned impressive that they've made as much of it as they have. I don't know what you've seen of WC3, but it isn't terribly good looking, however for a game made in 2003, its up there with some of the best.

[SodiumChloride]

WoW uses an older engine and they do an amazing job with what they have to work with.

Maybe it's time they spend their billions and make a new more efficient engine that doesn't choke rendering low poly scenes.

[Darsithis]

WoW uses an older engine and they do an amazing job with what they have to work with.

This. It's an older engine and would require a whole new one (or a lot of time to rewrite good portions of it) in order to support more advanced features. As well, it would cut out a section of the playerbase still running WoW on older systems...

...though honestly I think they should. My friend has a shitty laptop that runs WoW at 5fps at lowest settings...it's high time he upgraded!

Maybe it's time they spend their billions and make a new more efficient engine that doesn't choke rendering low poly scenes.

And all you'd hear is people bitching how they failed to deliver XX content because of it.

[Deleted]

Fair setting ... can't even maintain 30 fps on a 2 year old laptop.

Water doesn't' even have specular highlights - seriously what kind of water is this, anyone who has lived knows water is shiny.

Then we have things like GTA V ... a bloody miracle on aging console systems on their last legs.

Both multi-billion dollar companies. What gives?

Ehm then I will have to say your laptop was never very good to begin with, cant compare that to a console streamlined to play games on. My computer is about 3 years old and Im running at 90-120 FPS, On ultra... So yeah. Besides I prefer these graphics, realistic graphics are the most boring shit ever, its just as grey and brown as RL

[Deleted]

'Why do they look so sub-par'

Answer, they don't. It's art style hath ascended to thine heavens, above yonder mortal struggles...of 'reel graffics'.

[SodiumChloride]

This. It's an older engine and would require a whole new one (or a lot of time to rewrite good portions of it) in order to support more advanced features. As well, it would cut out a section of the playerbase still running WoW on older systems...

...though honestly I think they should. My friend has a shitty laptop that runs WoW at 5fps at lowest settings...it's high time he upgraded!




And all you'd hear is people bitching how they failed to deliver XX content because of it.

I'm not asking for new features. I'm asking for an engine that doesn't suck - which WoW's engine by any objective measure does.

Seriously? Water that is non-shiny? Even Mario Sunshine a GameCube game has better water! And the GameCube is over 10 years old!!

[Pejo]

So your're telling me that a brand new game created on fixed hardware looks better than a 9 year old game that has to run on at least a million permutations of hardware - this is clearly enlightening.

WoW receives a graphic update every expansion and as has been stated, their dx11 updates do look nice.

[SodiumChloride]

And all you'd hear is people bitching how they failed to deliver XX content because of it.

Because programmers work on content ... right ...

Edit: Sorry if I come across as condensing. A bit grumpy at the moment.

[Gurushock]

I LOVE blizzard graphics. They look awesome. And I don't know about anyone else, but the water looks pretty freaking real when I play...

[lolcats121]

I agree, with the graphics wow has I should be able to run it on max settings like its nothing but I cant. Although they might not be realistic the graphics still look pretty good, there is a difference between realistic and good, and I don't think realistic would fit wow very well :P

[Bigbamboozal]

Op drives a beater car with square wheels and complains the road is bumpy, news at 11.
No really, I have a reasonably old desktop, with a budget video card, and I still manage 30fps ON THREE SCREENS with settings to ultra and shadows turned to good, multisampling x4. And the water looks good. Like really good.
I think it's a LTLG issue, or 'learn to let go' issue.
As in, as much as I revel in using a computer as long as I can, sometimes we just have to accept it's past it's due date, and it's time to get a newer one.
Sorry to report, that time for you , OP, is now.

[lukec1996]

I'm not asking for new features. I'm asking for an engine that doesn't suck - which WoW's engine by any objective measure does.

Seriously? Water that is non-shiny? Even Mario Sunshine a GameCube game has better water! And the GameCube is over 10 years old!!

Again, going off my own experiences, but other than D3, none of their games are well optimized, you could have the best computer in the world and still lag in big battle in SC2 on medium or high settings and lag in a 40m raid on high/ultra settings in WoW. It's actually a relatively large flaw in Blizzard's master plan and seems to be there in most of their recent games. Dunno how their older games played, only started when WoW launched and didn't get into the SC universe until Wings.

[Palmz]

The graphics are pretty spectacular on Ultra+. Bright colors with a splash of cartoony style doesn't make a games graphics "sub-par".

[SodiumChloride]

I agree, with the graphics wow has I should be able to run it on max settings like its nothing but I cant. Although they might not be realistic the graphics still look pretty good, there is a difference between realistic and good, and I don't think realistic would fit wow very well :P

Again I'm not asking for new graphic features. I'm not asking for realistic graphics. I'm not asking them to change their art style.

I'm asking for an engine that doesn't choke to death rendering what is clearly low poly with little to no fancy shader effect graphics.

[heltvild]

why would blizzard spend 2-3 years and ALOT of fucking money/manpower to make a new engine for a game that will be dead by the time the engine is done?

[mitbrandir]

You cant get Battlefield like graphics in an 2004 engine, unless you would change the entire engine, which blizz isn't going to do, unless they make an completely new, seperate game

[lopk]

As already stated, it's a really, REALLY old engine. It's disappointing though, that the fps I get on ultra GW2 isn't that much different than Ultra WoW.