Why are WoW's graphics so sub-par?

[Clrg]

I dont care about graphics, but since lich king the game is demanding more resource and the graphics are kinda the same, i can see this a reason why a lot of people dont raid in 25man anymore. In lich king i was able to raid in 25man everything in high with an dual core 2.0 and a an ati serie 4000, Today i have a geforce 560ti, 6gb of ram, i5 2500k and in 25man with everything in high i only get 20-30fps, while in games like bf3 in 64 players map i can run the game in high at 50fps+

[resonance7982]

WoW's texture quality and such actually seems much better than most other MMO's, not as many smooth, shiny textures that just look nice from far away, but are really bland. their older stuff looks bad, because yeah, it's old.. of course they won't compete with a console game that JUST got released, consoles don't have to worry about peoples systems running the game, they're all the same. and they have far more updated tech. they can't simply get a new engine or write a new engine, it'd be a massive overhaul of the game, and would be so full of bugs the state of the game would decline greatly

[mistahwilshire]

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.

Honestly your machine sucks if you're struggling to run WoW on any settings.

[frumper]

CoD uses the same engine now as when they started 10 years ago. The wow engine, like the cod engine, has been updated many times. If you're having trouble, get a desktop, laptops suck. Laptop specs aren't equal to desktop specs.

[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?

The fact people are posting trying to tell the OP the answer to his , what can only be called, rant, is hilarious in its own right.

The argument is weak, and pretty much unjustified, considering he/she expects his water to shine on fair quality graphics on a 2 year laptop.
Although the 2 year laptop should be able to cope with more than 30 fps on fair quality - Id take a stab in the dark to say the graphics are not dedicated on the system therefore would experience a dip in performance.

I use a laptop which is approaching its 1.5 year mark, I get 80 fps on Ultra - Water shines and ripples when I swim too.
I do reduce to lowest settings for raiding just to be safe from major graphical lag when 25 people are all using skills left, right and center.

I have no problems with the engine whatsoever and it does not need updating. Perhaps models could use a little updating but Blizzard have shown what they can do over the years and will continue to do so.

They could easily update the engine with ease - however it would be counter cost productive and would not necessarily bring more subs.

[Veyne]

As far as performance goes, perhaps your laptop was just terrible from the get go? Just because it's only 2 years old, means it's powerful enough to handle something like World of Warcraft.

As far as graphics quality, it's and old ass game running on an even older-ass engine.

[Barnabas]

Please refrain from making comments like this if you don't know what you're talking about. Some poor guy is gonna see this and immediately start dicking around with his GPU voltage in ignorance, then come crying when he fries his video card.

GPU voltage in and of itself has no bearing whatsoever on framerates, but instead on system stability. If you're overclocking your GPU, raising the voltage can help stabilize more ambitious clockspeeds at the expense of increased heat and power draw. Touting it as a framerate panacea is both wrong and irresponsible.

If someone fries their gpu then that's not my problem. A solution that has worked for myself and many others doesn't deserve a comment like "Please refrain from making comments like this if you don't know what you're talking about." Maybe you should take your own advice. Have a nice day.

[Veyne]

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.

That majority of bottlenecking in World of Warcraft isn't because of polycount, but object count and the gratuitous amounts of particle systems on screen in a raid setting.

IF your system has trouble with anything other than those, then sorry, you bought a terrible system.

[SodiumChloride]

if your gonna blame wow and say the graphics are sub par guy why dont you upgrade the garbage equipment on your end first.
Don't blame wow because you cant go above fair settings nor can your graphics card support the higher functions. This aint a console which has 1 set piece of standard equipment that plays any game up to the consoles graphical limitations.
Stop being king of trolls and coming on here and posting dumb things like that when your equipment is at fault.

Lastly the games engine for graphics was updated already once it brought a lot of nice things. Unfortunately at the time My video card wasn't that great and wow forced me to upgrade.(I think it was around lich king) See what Im getting to is if you want to see awesome new graphics and you cant upgrade. You think by them doing more to the game engine graphic which has been upgraded once already would be awesome well guess what your laptop the junk that it is now wouldn't be able to handle the next upgrade to a wow game engine, And no blizzard wouldn't do that they like ur money.



My thoughts equipment wise Titan will not have a fair setting it will either be High or ultra high or Sorry for your luck you cant play it. Which means nvidia 700 series or higher. Most likely.


One last thing
Watch this video in hd settings and leave ur non shiny water baloney at the back door.

http://youtu.be/4aoTuGL8IXw
pause at 2 seconds tell me what you see in the water...

cuz I see it shiny in some parts I see it muddy in some parts I see the reflection of trees in the water.

Thats just water the background and everything around it is pretty damn awesome graphically wise.

LOL. Wat?!

I'm not the billion dollar corporation here. And why should I have to upgrade to see such a basic feature of water?

Secondly, even on Ultra the water doesn't have specular highlights - too diffused for a highly reflective surface like water. I mean you have seen water right?

Kind of ironic that the old animated texture water actually had specular highlights - fake ones, but there nonetheless.

[The Glitch]

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

dunno what settings you have wow on, but my water looks shiny o.o.

I love wow's graphics, they have a certain charm, and the massive progression in terms of quality since vanilla through to MoP is amazing. I also really dislike real life looking games.

[dashflash890]

I'm not sure if its just fanboyism to WoW for some people or what but I'm a current WoW player and every single MMO in the past 5 years has had waaaayyyy better graphics than WoW at ultra. Go compare GW2 water vs WoW water if you say WoW water is better and more realistic you need a new monitor.

[Carlosdanger]

realistic water in a game that is built around cartoon graphics. u alrite m8?

[Xs]

I'm not sure if its just fanboyism to WoW for some people or what but I'm a current WoW player and every single MMO in the past 5 years has had waaaayyyy better graphics than WoW at ultra. Go compare GW2 water vs WoW water if you say WoW water is better and more realistic you need a new monitor.

I wouldn't say every MMO, SWtoR had pretty shocking graphics for its release period

OT: Gotta say, if you just want to play games for their water you may as well watch a video of some real water? Would certainly give you a better view of it than an amazing spec description of "a 2 year old laptop", which is probably a dell integrated graphics box or something. If you want real water, stop playing on a laptop and play some single player games that don't have to load vast areas of open world, and as such can put a lot more work into making things look pretty.

[SodiumChloride]

realistic water in a game that is built around cartoon graphics. u alrite m8?

Is it so much to ask for that WoW's water look like this?





And Mario is as cartoony as you can get.

Those are gifs, go watch a high quality Let's Play video to see it at a better quality.

[cuafpr]

I dont get this engine choking thing.. as I run on ultra and never miss a beat, before my current system it was on high with shadows turned down and never missed a beat, and the water is some of best I've seen in a game. Sounds to me like its your system not WoW's engine.

[Mawnix]

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

Considering the ENTIRE engine and expansions are built around that engine, they'd need to create and ENTIRE new game to use the new engine.

TL;DR We need WoW 2.

You made a post about stuff like this before.

And, once again, everyone is going to answer the same as they did in the past:

They can't unless they make an entire and separate new game.

[Martinczo]

LOL. Wat?!

I'm not the billion dollar corporation here. And why should I have to upgrade to see such a basic feature of water?

Secondly, even on Ultra the water doesn't have specular highlights - too diffused for a highly reflective surface like water. I mean you have seen water right?

Kind of ironic that the old animated texture water actually had specular highlights - fake ones, but there nonetheless.

LOL, Wat?!

I'm a billion dollar corporation. And why should I have to spend it to upgrade such a basic feature?

Secondly, on ultra the game looks fantastic for being 10 years old- especially on a desktop meant to play it. I mean, why would anyone play it on a two year old laptop without decent graphics card and complain about it?

Kind of ironic that we already spent so much money making the game better for less capable systems and people are still complaining - shitty computers, but capable of playing nonetheless.

~Not actually Blizzard
(btw, whether I play on Fair or Ultra I have no complaints. The game is enjoyable whether it is at it's best or worst. I'm just glad I am able to play it on a laptop)

[Mawnix]

LOL, Wat?!

I'm a billion dollar corporation. And why should I have to spend it to upgrade such a basic feature?

Secondly, on ultra the game looks fantastic for being 10 years old- especially on a desktop meant to play it. I mean, why would anyone play it on a two year old laptop without decent graphics card and complain about it?

Kind of ironic that we already spent so much money making the game better for less capable systems and people are still complaining - shitty computers, but capable of playing nonetheless.

~Not actually Blizzard
(btw, whether I play on Fair or Ultra I have no complaints. The game is enjoyable whether it is at it's best or worst. I'm just glad I am able to play it on a laptop)

TBH the Water Quality increase in Cata is actually really nice.

I dunno what more he's asking for.

[Lastlivingsoul]

Blame the community that is a as rabid as a pack of Star Wars Fans. The moment Blizzard gives us new models you have the loudest idiots flaming forums with "OMG THEY SUCK, I'M QUITTING FAIL BLIZZ." There is still a post alive sine Cata about Worgen models for crying out loud.

Sorry but its all your fault peoples.

[Akaena]

OMG super mario sunshine one of my favs! As much I make fun of the WoW of its graphics when compared to the newer MMO's, Iv'e gotten so use to it since I've been playing this dam game for so long so it doesn't really bother me. I mean if I was a newer player coming into WoW just now yeah I would be like wtf is this old crappy engine. /shrug