So my understanding is WoW used WarCraft III as a base when it was first made

[Aurabolt]

...Or rather its source code to be more specific.

I've always wondered why Blizzard never just remade the game's source code and more so almost 10 expansions later. I feel like at this point it's time for that big a change. I get the whole "Don't fix what isn't broken" point but what if the fact that WoW uses the WCIII's source code is limiting how much and what kinds of changes to the game that could be made? This is something I've thought about ever since I heard a few years ago that WoW uses WCIII's source code as a base and still does now as far as I'm aware.

If Blizzard decided to remake the game's source code and stopped using WCIII's, I think it could lead even more possabilities. I think the real reason we are so limited in a sense is because WoW is using WCIII's Source Code. I know it won't be easy or worth the likely years worth of time that would need to be undertaken to make new code for a 16-year old game from scratch.

You remake the source code, you need to also remake the code for all content and that would be quite a massive undertaking to do unless they figured out a way to streamline the process. Of course they probably would have done it a long time ago if they actually did feel that way. Cataclysm, WoD and BFA were the three best times to have done something that groundbreaking IMO. All I can do is imagine the possabilities if Blizzard felt it was worth it.

Since I'm going into pure speculation at this point, here's my short list of stuff I think would be possible if Blizzard redid the game's source code from scratch:

• MUCH Bigger Azeroth: I'm just gonna put it like that. I mean in the sense the world is much closer to Lore in size and scope. Imagine Jade Forest 4 times bigger than it currently is for example. Player Housing could also actually be much easier to justify adding to the game since Azeroth will be much, much bigger than it currently is.
• Player-Made Outposts, Villages and Towns: I feel like Cata and BFA would have been the the two expansions to introduce this though it is true we got an outpost in WoD. How about being able to build an Outpost and Village (Horde) or Town (Alliance)? Outposts would be single-player controlled while Villages and Towns would be controlled by a Guild or a group of players. Both types would have NPC Guards and be fully customizable.
• New Professions - Logging and Quarry: You can now make use of the world's natural resources by harvesting and processing resources to make building materials. More can also now be done with all existing professions as well.
• New Profession - Farming: With your own land, you can now manage a farm! Hunters, Shaman and Druids will have a few additional options available to them.
• Create Spell or Skill: What if you could create your own abilities? Imagine a Protection Warrior being able to equip two Shields and suffer very little damage. A Warlock can Summon and Control ALL of their Minions at once. Shaman can literally terraform the world itself. These are just a few of the many possabilities!
• Multi-Casting: What's better than casting one spell? Several! Imagine to either cast the same spell several times at once or a few abilities at the same time. A Mage can open Portals to several places. A Priest can cast Resurrection or 2 or more party/raid Members. Hunter's Mark can be applied to several targets at once. Just a few ideas.
• Spell or Skill Save: This would come in real handy against bosses and in PvP: You que a Spell or Skill to use it a little later.
• Skill or Spell Upgrading: The more you use your skills, the more powerful and potent they become. Not just in numbers but they actually evolve and become more powerful. For example a Mage's Fireball can be upgraded to take longer to cast but exchange it will do more damage and stun the opponent. A Death Knight's Raise Undead can be upgraded so they can summon and control several types of Undead. A Priest's Smite Spell can be upgraded so it does splash damage with a knockback effect to the main target. Stuff like that.

Just a few things I literally just thought of just now. LOL. Of course, I know most of these would never actually happen even with new Source Code.

[Katie N]

Why change what already functions?

[ablib]

What are you talking about, OP? This thread makes no sense, and you're clearly not a programmer.

The features you're wanting, can already be put into the current game.

The game has been totally re-written since release. The client and server infrastructure is totally different than what was released in 2004.

[Biomega]

WoW has indeed received numerous engine and infrastructure updates and redesigns at its basic level. It's an iterative and ongoing process.

Whether or not they'll at some point release a version with an entirely new engine is a big question. WoW has become more graphically sophisticated, but the base design etc. is largely as it was 15+ years ago. It's conceivable that they could come out with an entirely new engine to effectively port the game to the current generation, but whether or not that's actually feasible is a different matter. It may be too much of an investment for an already over-aged game, and could just not be worth it for the company. Or it could, depending on how they do it. Very tough to say.

[WaltherLeopold]

WoW in its development, as in REALLY early utilized the WC3 engine. It stopped very shortly into the development of pre-alpha though, the entire premise of your OP is false.

[shade3891]

WoW in its development, as in REALLY early utilized the WC3 engine. It stopped very shortly into the development of pre-alpha though, the entire premise of your OP is false.

This indeed, and if Blizzard ever does a complete engine overhaul they better call it WoW2.

[Tommi]

WoW in its development, as in REALLY early utilized the WC3 engine. It stopped very shortly into the development of pre-alpha though, the entire premise of your OP is false.

This. The very early version of WoW used the WC3 engine as a base. If you look at super early promo pics, it's completely different to what we now have.



Which developed into





These are super super early WoW development. Even the 2001 WoW video show's it used assets and PART of the code from WC3, but the final engine was custom developed from using the WC3 engine to start development. So whilst there is some code from WC3, it's as close to WC3 engine as Windows 10 is to Windows 3.1.

[Nevcairiel]

Your entire premise is flawed. Most games will start with something as the base, some engine, either in-house or external. But after 15 years of continuous development, there is not much left of the original either way.

If you think that is holding back feature development in WoW, then you are surely mistaken. They will, and have, re-do parts of the core when its needed to support new features they want to do. Nothing in your list of "wishes" is something that would be impossible or "held back" by the engine. Most of your ideas are just bad for game design.

Obviously you are not a developer, because if you were, you would realize that re-making "the source code" for a game evolved over 15 years would take years in itself, years in which you would get zero content. And just "remaking" anything doesn't necessarily make it better. Beforehand you need to figure out what it is that you want to make possible. You can't just remake something and then its magically awesome and allows all the things you can dream of. Thats not how development works, or how the world works with anything.

[Irian]

It's so weird to me that to this day WoW doesn't have any kind of legitimate housing system. It's such a basic and really enjoyable part of other MMOs I've played and it seems like such an obvious thing to get people immersed in your world, to literally let them own a piece of it (instanced or otherwise).

[Hellobolis]

its not so much "don't fix what isn't broken" as it is "why buy a new Ferrari when your old one still works", that stuffs very expensive.

but even if they did everything perfectly and cut no corners whatsoever back then, it's been 20 years since they started work on this game so stuff would start to show it's age no matter what.

[OokOok]

It's so weird to me that to this day WoW doesn't have any kind of legitimate housing system. It's such a basic and really enjoyable part of other MMOs I've played and it seems like such an obvious thing to get people immersed in your world, to literally let them own a piece of it (instanced or otherwise).

It's called WOD Garrisons, they did try, and they flopped hard. Once they try something and 90% of the playerbase hates it, the chances of them reworking it and bringing it back is really slim.

You must of started in BFA.

[Delekii]

The one thing that will perpetually keep WoW on top of its competition is performance. Specifically, control responsiveness in WoW has never been matched by another MMORPG.

Their engine is perfect for what it is. They've screwed up sometimes and it has caused immense trouble, so why on earth would you want them to change engine?

[SoundOfGuns]

You can not rewrite a games source code. That's not how engines work. You can only add to it to which there are limits. If you keep cluttering it you get fancy things like Bethesdas fuck ass broken creation engine or the massacre that was every late NS-Core Windows with the exception of XP.

So, to go on with the ongoing comparison it's neither "Don't fix what is'nt broken", nor "Why buy a new Ferrari when the old one still works" and much better fits to trying to replace the breaks while going 200 miles per hour. At this point the effort required and the level of disruption that would cause... are probably more something for a new game entirely.

The changes you suggest do not really seem like something that would need changes to that degree tho. But its still a significant workload depending on how WoW is set up internally.

Like im not sure people are aware what level of fuckery must be going on, that Blizzard does add a single extra slider to character creation that allows eyecolor changes, to the point that im not sure if this is actually what they will be doing or if its not just a "fake slider" that lets us pick different versions of the skin we are using that has different eyecolors (like the Bloodelfs got it for example).

[Seratox]

It's called WOD Garrisons, they did try, and they flopped hard. Once they try something and 90% of the playerbase hates it, the chances of them reworking it and bringing it back is really slim.

You must of started in BFA.

To be fair, the WOD garrisons were very VERY VERY poorly executed. But the major issue that happened with Garrisons was in the stacked layers that did nothing but cause shit tons of lag and transfer aborted instance not found errors when trying to hearth to it.

[Verdugo]

It's called WOD Garrisons, they did try, and they flopped hard. Once they try something and 90% of the playerbase hates it, the chances of them reworking it and bringing it back is really slim.

You must of started in BFA.

Garrisons were, in their words, "their own twist on housing". Turns out, Blizzard shouldnt be twisting anything and just add it.

[A Blue Smurf]

To be fair, the WOD garrisons were very VERY VERY poorly executed. But the major issue that happened with Garrisons was in the stacked layers that did nothing but cause shit tons of lag and transfer aborted instance not found errors when trying to hearth to it.

Not to mention they were nothing like what was presented and promised at their announcement.

[Stormspark]

Garrisons were, in their words, "their own twist on housing". Turns out, Blizzard shouldnt be twisting anything and just add it.

That's got nothing to do with the engine though. Blizzard could certainly add real player housing if they wanted to. They just don't want to. All of the "ideas" the OP listed could be implemented if Blizzard wanted to, there is nothing about the "engine" stopping them. They are all absolutely horrible ideas and would be terrible game design, though.

As far as logging and quarry, guess the OP never played in WOD where those existed. Not quite as secondary professions, but they were there.

[Steelcryo]

This is the same problem a lot of people have with Bethesda and their Creation/Gamebryo engine. A lot of people think that the same engine means the same tech, which isn't true. Game engines are constantly being worked on and developed while retaining the same name. WoW started on the WC3 engine, but quickly development basically overhauled the entire thing to allow the game to do new things that WC3 never could.

Since then, WoW has been overhauled, recoded and patched over and over again. The only thing is, we never really see it. Unless you're a code monkey looking into how things are coded, chances are you won't notice things like the ways spells, mobs and items are categorised has changed because to the user, they appear the exact same way, while on the back end, their entire database has changed.

It was one of the big issues they had with getting Classic to run with the modern software. They have to change all the old databases to be compatible to the new stuff just to get a snapshot of Classic to run, let alone all the bugs that it caused because the game engine has changed so much since Vanilla. Even when vanilla launched, the engine was massively changed from WC3. By now, I'd be surprised if there was a single line of code that's still the same.

Are there limitations on what can be done within this current engine? Yes of course, but that doesn't mean solutions and work arounds to those limitations can't be created and developed later. All of those features you've mentioned can be implemented into the current game, it's just whether Blizzard deems the time required worth it.

- - - Updated - - -

That's got nothing to do with the engine though. Blizzard could certainly add real player housing if they wanted to. They just don't want to. All of the "ideas" the OP listed could be implemented if Blizzard wanted to, there is nothing about the "engine" stopping them. They are all absolutely horrible ideas and would be terrible game design, though.

As far as logging and quarry, guess the OP never played in WOD where those existed. Not quite as secondary professions, but they were there.

To be fair, logging and quarrying in WOD was one of the worst implementations of it that could be done. I actually like some of the ideas OP has, especially the farming. I played LOTRO for a short while and loved the farming profession in it, far more enjoyable than the crappy farm system we got in MoP. Personally I don't think OP's ideas are bad, I just don't trust Blizzard to implement them well. It's why I don't hold much hope for player housing.

[huth]

Are there limitations on what can be done within this current engine? Yes of course, but that doesn't mean solutions and work arounds to those limitations can't be created and developed later. All of those features you've mentioned can be implemented into the current game, it's just whether Blizzard deems the time required worth it.

And it's not like those limitations would magically disappear with a different engine if that engine wasn't built to not have them.

[Swnem]

The code is not the reason why you don't have those features.

Also, i don't know how much of it really applies. WOW is a big game, a huge code. Changing things in the "root" is a big project because it risks breaking the game.

So, i know that blizz has been updating that code slowly with time. I expect they will continue to do so. But, the reason you don't have those features are creative decisions.