Is WoW graphic style too... "cartoonish"?

[Daetur]

In a word, no.

Warcraft's current style is so intrinsic to its identity as a MMO, in my opinion, that it wouldn't be the same if it changed to a more "realistic" style.

You know what other two MMOs I've enjoyed, stylistically, recently? GW2 and Rift. You know what I enjoyed most about them? The more "cartoonish," very brightly colored landscapes and races.

"Realistic" graphics don't age well at all, and they tend to look very... uncanny. I don't care for them. I don't care for the look of things like Skyrim at all, I assume that's what we're going for when we say "realistic?"

[Deleted]

there was a thread like this in 2004. I am not kidding

[Worgoblin]

WoW still has the best graphics of any MMO. So many of them try to be "realistic", and they look just plain ugly to me.

[Chult]

I like the Comic styled art. When games try too hard to be gritty and realistic, they often fall short of that goal. Additionally, more "realistic" games tend to show their age a bit more quickly.

[bals]

there was a thread like this in 2004. I am not kidding

Yup and people said no one would play wow cause the graphics were made for kids

[Ethas]

Yes it is cartoonish and the decision to make it so was very correct. I think this was and is one of the major advantages of WoW.

WoW still has the best graphics of any MMO. So many of them try to be "realistic", and they look just plain ugly to me.

So true.

[Skorpionss]

The cartoony graphic style means that it's more hardware friendly then other MMO's. The more gritty/realistic ones get blurry quick due to less color differences.

except it isn't more hardware friendly... sure you can play it on a potato with everything on low... but if you go on High or ultra it'll shit over most computers ... something that doesn't happen in a game like tera or rift(at least for me)

[Elixr]

Well

In fact, pre - pandaria style was perfectly fine, cartoonish but not exagerated.
IMO pandaria is a little bit more cartoonish and not only pandaren...

[schwarzkopf]

Interesting fact about human perception, the more real something is - the harder it is to 'ignore' the flaws.

Suspension of disbelief is required for that emmersive experience, that doesn't work if something looks too real as the brain gets tricked into thinking it is meant to be - so when something odd happens BAM - you complain.

For example - in WoW, we can walk straight through any movable object (think of it as a law of physics on the WoW world). If we had realistic looking characters, the brain would reject that notion, as it stands - we just take it for granted.

[Sand Person]

sorry OP. realistic is craptastic. gimmie my cartoon! you want real, play every other "WoW killer". they're all plenty realistic!

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Yup and people said no one would play wow cause the graphics were made for kids

yea, some of those dummies never knew that that was the style of the warcraft rts series. that's why it is good even now. they stayed true to the style since orcs vs humans.

[Height]

I actually am okay with WoW's stylized graphics and think it helped it age better than games that came out around a similar time frame (EQ2). I don't play WoW anymore though and that isn't because of the graphics.

Everquest Next seems to be going down this route too. I don't really see those graphics aging as fast.

[hrugner]

I like the cartoony style, but sticking with their old format makes it so much of the attractiveness of their concept art gets lost in the final model. It's sad really, and is probably frustrating to work on.

So I guess I don't agree with either option.

[Zenny]

Awwww hell no, the art direction in WoW is fantastic. It's what makes my Pandaren Monk look more appealing looks wise then a fully kitted out character in Rift. Even though poly-count and such might be lower.

Exaggerated armor effects for the win!

[DeltrusDisc]

There are far more cartoony looking games that have far newer graphics engines.

WoW has a very unique look that I personally love... and so too, does a good 90% of the playerbase, it seems, based on your poll. lol

[Locruid]

I thought it was cartoonish back in Vanilla....

[Xalzel]

Let me tell you, Stylized > Realistic.
Something MAY look good atm with realistic graphics, but stylized can stand the test of time. Every "great game" that people adore and continue to play uses stylized graphics.

[Aensland]

Absolutely not.

The issue with a 'realistic' graphical style is that it very quickly expires as technology improves. A good artistic design always triumphs over graphical power. Look at a game like RIFT that blew WoW out of the water, graphically, when it first came out. Compare the two of them now. The fact of the matter simply is that realistic graphics age much faster, and that is a bad thing.That is the only reason World of Warcraft has been able to continue to look decent, despite being run off of an engine that is at least 11 years old.

Agreed. Just like how 2d games age a lot better than 3D. Go play an older 3D game on the PS1 and it'll hurt your eyes.

Also the more realistic looking MMO's look their best when the camera is zoomed close enough to where you can see all the little details. But when zoomed out, it looks more bland/less colorful.

[Flaks]

You know we always hear about how this game or that game was using that graphics engine but now their developers are using this one etc.

Why don't we hear this about Blizzard? I know/have heard that WoW is still running on a now-heavily-modified version of the Warcraft III game engine but what are SCII and DIII running on? Both those games look pretty damn good.

Not that I'm implying Blizzard should rebuild WoW using those assets but I think if it really gets THAT bad (I doubt it will) they could end up settling for them.

[Auloria]

I far prefer the cartoony style.

[ManjiSanji]

I think I would like some of the models to be a bit less goofy, but overall I think the style fits Warcraft's overall feel well. In particular, I think the colors work greatly in its favor; I've gone to other MMOs and realized I missed the diversity and brightness of color.