Do You Think WoW's Graphics Are Bad?

[Yig]

The word here is "timeless" people should be making note of whenever addressing WOW's graphical quality. And as timeless as WOW will always be, I'd kill to see Vanilla WOW remade with all the style and personality of the Heroes of the Storm's graphics or Fable's or inevitably a Pixar movie. But as good as it can always get and be improved and still be timeless and simple, the original vanilla WOW used clever origami like approaches to their models to make it forever timeless.

Just imagine 2004 WOW created in paper. If you saw that you would not say it looked terrible. It would be fucking charming, or you have no heart and eat kittens. I am open to changing my mind, but I don't want to.

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Things like adding dynamic simulated wind and ever more dynamic stylized weather and animal behavior and sophisticated stylized shaders and lighting FX will make WOW's beauty forever immortal and relevant for it's timeless approach.

Imagine that sentence sung by a beautiful woman.

[Itisamuh]

They aren't fantastic or anything, but they're fine. I don't honestly care about graphics much at all. As long as it doesn't hurt my eyes, it's fine.

[PenguinChan]

They aren't fantastic or anything, but they're fine. I don't honestly care about graphics much at all. As long as it doesn't hurt my eyes, it's fine.

But your eyes must bleed before you can truly enjoy a games potential.

The graphics are alright, what Blizzard gets away with when it comes to very little usage of modern day shaders or rendering methods -- just textures and polygons is pretty impressive.

[Deleted]

I for myself never cared about graphics, as a proof I play almost fully low even thought I can run high-ultra. Game play that suits me is far more important to me.

[magiktorch]

For a 10 year old game the graphics have aged very well. Looks good to me

[Aethrysa]

For their time, no, they're not bad at all, and they've managed to hold up pretty well.. But they're definitely starting to show their age. I think the new character models are long overdue.

[Deleted]

I for myself never cared about graphics, as a proof I play almost fully low even thought I can run high-ultra. Game play that suits me is far more important to me.

if you're running at "fully low" you're not going to see a lot of spell effects so gimping yourself

[Deleted]

It is very easy to skew that comparison by picking and choosing screenshots that agree with your argument. Both are cartoon games, the style is very similar. One is SF, one is traditional fantasy. They both have "cute races", and not so cute races. They both have brightly colored zones and darker zones. The main difference between WoW and Wildstar graphics is that Wildstar has a newer engine and uses more polygons and larger skins.

One is drawn to be cartoons in motion and 3D; the other seems not. It's fine to argue your point the way you do, if that pleases you. It doesn't hold water for me, who, very so often, requires real evidence. (Addendum: look up 'composition fallacy.')

[Sainur]

Graphics are fine. Yes it may not look like ESO or anything, but for a game that is 10 years old, its good enough for me.

[Theatre]

I don't like WoW's graphics or its art style to be honest. These new "meet the warlord's" shorts really serve to highlight the huge disparity between its awesome "heavy metal" styled origins and concept art... and the actual game looks like something I would expect from a Pixar film. For a long time now it feels like Warcraft has an identity crisis, not knowing if it wants to look hard and gritty, or soft-round-and cuddley.

[Shinrael]

Honestly the graphics are fine. Too many people these days care about cosmetic stuff over the important things like exciting gameplay. Look at all the newer MMO's that have better graphics and have failed. SWTOR looks way better than wow yet because boring gameplay and other awful things about it, it failed miserably. They spent a truckload of money doing voice overs and while it was cool for a minute it got real old fast. People don't hang around because how a game looks or sounds.

Actually I play the game exactly because of it's graphics. And no, not because my shitty PC can't run GW2 or Tera or Skyrim ( it really can't, but that isn't the reason ) but because I LOVE WoW's graphics. This art style will never die. I play this game for it's beauty primarily. I rarely happen to enjoy the gameplay but the beauty has been enough to keep me playing for 8 years now. That's why new zones, mounts, armor and weapon models is all that I need to love a new expansion.

[Hanto]

Dated? Yes. Bad? No. It's its own style. Just because you can't see the pores on a character's skin doesn't mean the graphics are bad.

[Master Guns]

No.

Anyone who says the graphics are visibly bad is just a hater who is looking for attention. The game on Ultra is NOTHING to shake a stick at; I can't even run it on Ultra with my entry leveling gaming laptop.

[Thimagryn]

Outdated? Yes. Bad? No.

You can have a game with outdated graphics that isn't necessarily bad. 8-bit games are easily outdated, but some still look good today if you're willing to accept the medium for what it is.

To me, WoW is like a virtual board game, and most of the time I'm spending time staring at cast bars, health bars, buffs and cooldown timers. Graphics aren't even an issue.

That being said, I still appreciate character models being updated since that's the one thing you're staring at 100% of the time you're playing.

[Deleted]

Constantly I hear that this game's graphics look "outdated" "old" "crappy" etc.

I honestly think this game aged considerably well, I mean yeah it isn't triple A imagery here, but I think this game surprises people in its ways of still looking great.

What do you guys think?

I voted no, because the "comparison quality" of a games graphics, read: How do its graphics look compared to other games, say very little about quality. Its what the game does with the graphics, what context, and so on. Minecraft too has very outdated visuals, yet its a much much better game, and vastly more popular, than most high-end FPS games.

[Sesshou]

No, not really. Especially in the newer zones. Lots of people confuse aesthetics with graphic quality.

Aren't you one of those people? I would agree with you that aesthetically, WoW looks fine. The graphic quality on a technical level is in fact bad compared to recent AAA titles.

Now some people will probably have issue with comparing WoW to recent AAA stuff, but if the comparison includes newer wow content (like WoD zones), then its only fair to compare it to things being made around the same time because blizzard has constantly been improving visuals.

[Deleted]

As someone who plays a lot of new release AA games on ultra, I see a lot of top graphics and obviously that's never going to be WoW. I would say WoWs graphics are dated but decent. Most people will equate dated to bad, but I also play pixel games, 10 year old games, and a lot of indie games and as long as graphics have aged well then it's fine.

Some games you play that are old, end up looking blurry and badly optimized on todays PCs, but WoW still looks good - it has its own art style, but the graphics have aged well, and the updates they've managed to do over the years have kept the graphics relevant. It's also a game aimed at the lowest denominator, not at the worlds best PCs, so considering the specs required, I think it looks pretty decent.

I actually attribute the classic/timeless look that they chose for WoW to a big part of the games success in lasting so long.

[Ajay]

It's not about the graphic capabilities, it's the art style of WoW that drives what we see in game. Some people still just don't understand... Their loss I guess.

[l33t]

No, actually I believe WoW's graphics is amazing, as well as art style (Though Blizzard are well-known for their lazyness and recycling old stuff).

To be honest, I don't think graphics is important, as soon as you can differ a tree from a horse. Gameplay matters. Look at new games with so-called "good" graphics. ESO? Awful gameplay. GW2? Same stuff. Firefall? Don't even make me start on it. I believe photorealism-like graphics hurt gaming in many ways; mostly it steals too much money at development stages, and leaves no work for our imagination as a result.

[Acelius]

Yes, WoW has bad graphics, it can not be denied. However it is stylish which compensates a little bit. But overall the graphics are really bad compared to present day capabilities.