Why are WoW's graphics so sub-par?

[FraterN]

It's because while Xbox 360 was released the same year World of warcraft was, the Xbox was built to play games at a specific level of intensity and game companies never had to worry about anything below that. Warcraft on the other hand, had to make sure that computers older than 2005 could play it. Essentially, Blizzard prides themselves on World of Warcraft being able to be played on a toaster. If you have a decent graphics card, with everything at ultra settings it doesn't look that bad.

[SodiumChloride]

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?

Wow, I can feel the optimism in your tone.

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

Given the game has been a massive cash cow for them over the years ... I think they own everyone at least that much.

[Zogarth]

Game is old, so of course the engine is too. And to be honest, it is not holding up that well. But then again, optimization has always sucked in WoW.

Also, developing a new engine, would mean that they should pretty much recreate the entire game which, even with all of Blizzards billions, would not be a good investment. Especially not with the game in severe decline. And no, better graphics will not bring millions of more subscribers...

[Ateista]

the engine blizz uses allows for many variety of computers, whether they be low end to high end, to be able to play wow. if they just up and went full on top of the line would cut a huge amount of players out of being able to handle this game.

i have friends whose computers can handle 10 man on low settings, but crap out hardcore in 25's.

[Pancha]

WoW is 9 years old, working on software that is beyond 10 years old. You might be surprised, but it isn't just flipping a switch to go from one engine to another in order to improve the graphics. Oh, the engine you're running has a lot to say. GTA V is running the latest engine obtainable for the latest generation of consoles. The GTA V graphics isn't 'spectacular' either, but it is good considering what you have to work with. The same goes with WoW.

Console engines are optimized for a set piece of hardware, whereas a PC engine has to take into account the fact that there's millions of possible hardware combinations. What I'm trying to get at here you have an old game, running an old engine which works rather good despite the fact that almost all of its players has different hardware and software combinations.

[vesseblah]

What gives?

You're comparing apples to oranges, that's what's wrong. Single player game vs MMORPG is the biggest difference.

Also the graphics are not sub-par if you put all settings to max in MoP zones like for example Jade Forest.

Also2 console games cheat the visual quality up in various sneaky ways, GTA5 included.

[Martinczo]

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!!

Mario Sunshine isn't an MMO. With WoW there are many dfferent creatures, spell effects, environment effects, players and probably many other things I can't think of. It would be better if you compared a WoW to another MMO that is just as old, is better graphically, that also has as many players and such as mentioned above, and that you can play on your laptop without issue.

[Barnabas]

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

That has nothing to do with their engine. Any stuttering or fps issues can be fixed by adjusting voltage for your gpu. This works not only in wow but other games as well.

The graphics in wow are intentional. They are designed to be cartoon like and capable of running on older computers. If they suddenly changed them to something more extreme it would break a lot of things. The big and most worrisome is just how fluid the characters move in the game right now compared to other games with fancy graphics.

[Nakotsu]

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?

sounds like your computer is a piece of garbage... maybe time for a upgrade. My water has specular highlights it ripples when I swim in it and shines when the sun bears its light on it in certain spots even has shadows from the trees or objects if there are any around red ridge. then again I play on ultra settings with a decent computer that gives me 120-160 fps constant non raid and 60-90 fps in raid....
Its a bloody miracle that you with ur 2 year old garbage laptop that cant even maintain settings above fair can say that wow graphics are sup par.

I bet you haven't even played wow in 3d yet... Boy let me tell you thats something your missing.

Yet you say that your computer is up to par because you are using fair settings for your graphic options which is what your computer / video card can handle.... must be wow.






Your xbox360 must have better equipment then your precious laptop... Maybe you should look into it.

[Darsithis]

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

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

It's not a point that they do or don't. It's the public's assumption that if content they wanted wasn't delivered when they wanted it, the first thing they'd lambast is the new graphics engine...even if a different team worked on it.

[mickybrighteyes]

WoW's graphics in certain areas look amazing... dial it back to outland and compare to MOP or even Cata stuff and you'll probably make a face like the "mother of god" meme.

Carefully look at the original race models that are still used and it's more than a little dated in it's appearance.

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It's not a point that they do or don't. It's the public's assumption that if content they wanted wasn't delivered when they wanted it, the first thing they'd lambast is the new graphics engine...even if a different team worked on it.

In that case, who cares what the public think... they're going to bitch and moan regardless of the outcome.

[SodiumChloride]

Game is old, so of course the engine is too. And to be honest, it is not holding up that well. But then again, optimization has always sucked in WoW.

Also, developing a new engine, would mean that they should pretty much recreate the entire game which, even with all of Blizzards billions, would not be a good investment. Especially not with the game in severe decline. And no, better graphics will not bring millions of more subscribers...

They don't need to create a whole new engine, just the graphic subcomponent - unless Blizzard's programmers are really that bad that they didn't modularize the whole game engine.

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sounds like your computer is a piece of garbage... maybe time for a upgrade. My water has specular highlights it ripples when I swim in it and shines when the sun bears its light on it in certain spots even has shadows from the trees or objects if there are any around red ridge. then again I play on ultra settings with a decent computer that gives me 120-160 fps constant non raid and 60-90 fps in raid....
Its a bloody miracle that you with ur 2 year old garbage laptop that cant even maintain settings above fair can say that wow graphics are sup par.

I bet you haven't even played wow in 3d yet... Boy let me tell you thats something your missing.

Yet you say that your computer is up to par because you are using fair settings for your graphic options which is what your computer / video card can handle.... must be wow.






Your xbox360 must have better equipment then your precious laptop... Maybe you should look into it.

Yes, it is a piece of garbage. Why do you think I'm asking for a more efficient engine?

[The Kao]

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?

My, that's like comparing an SNES with a PS4. OK, so although WoW's engine has been updated several times you need to know that there are hard limits to what can be done without building the game from scratch. In terms of technology WoW's engine is several generations behind. The game's closing in on its 10th birthday and usually the engines of such large scale projects are already out of date by the time of release. To extend that, it's actually not only the graphics engine that makes WoW look "old", it's also all the old textures and models (not only player models, but all structures, objects and NPC throughout the world) that make it feel outdated.

All this stuff would have to be updated as well to make the art fit a modern engine, however that would also mean a notable change in style which is not a good thing for a game that ran that long already. Also, seeing how long Blizz takes to redo player models alone this would be an immensely time consuming task for them, and at that stage they'd be better off creating a new game. With overall player numbers growing back every expansion there's hardly any justification to go any further than player models in fact. I know you folks commonly like to think of WoW as a never ending game, and it's probably still long before Blizzard will actually think about a successor, but there is a lifespan even for this game.

[wych]

It simply makes no sense for a massive upgrade at this point in it's lifespan.

Blizzard want to maximise their audience.

Increasing the requirements reduces the number of potential players.

Is this number of players lost from increased requirements lower than the amount gained from a better graphics engine?

Probably not

[Deleted]

The reason is * variation*.

Look at games with * good * graphics, they can display what? 5 nearly the same characters on the screen before the lag starts?
There's a reason all the battlefield soliders look the same, big reason in so many games why all the people look so similar.
Same models, same animations, same this same that.

Were as wow can do hundreds of people in different gear, different sprites, textures, models and animations.

Its a trade off between being different or being clones.

[F1reheart]

Because of this.

Also, I run WoW at 120 fps on a 120hz monitor on full ultra. 40-50 fps in a 25 man raid.

[SodiumChloride]

My, that's like comparing an SNES with a PS4. OK, so although WoW's engine has been updated several times you need to know that there are hard limits to what can be done without building the game from scratch. In terms of technology WoW's engine is several generations behind. The game's closing in on its 10th birthday and usually the engines of such large scale projects are already out of date by the time of release. To extend that, it's actually not only the graphics engine that makes WoW look "old", it's also all the old textures and models (not only player models, but all structures, objects and NPC throughout the world) that make it feel outdated.

All this stuff would have to be updated as well to make the art fit a modern engine, however that would also mean a notable change in style which is not a good thing for a game that ran that long already. Also, seeing how long Blizz takes to redo player models alone this would be an immensely time consuming task for them, and at that stage they'd be better off creating a new game. With overall player numbers growing back every expansion there's hardly any justification to go any further than player models in fact. I know you folks commonly like to think of WoW as a never ending game, and it's probably still long before Blizzard will actually think about a successor, but there is a lifespan even for this game.

I know the graphic engine is old. That's why I'm asking for a rebuild of it.

I don't really mind the old-ish textures and models - of course if they improve on it I won't object - but ... the water. Maybe it's just bad taste on their part ... Seriously? Non-shiny water?

I don't know what is going on with the water. The old tiled texture water was shiny. The new procedural one for some reason isn't. I run at Fair so the only benefit of the procedural water is that it doesn't repeat ... but water in Mario Sunshine doesn't repeat either and it runs on the GameCube, a 10+ year old system /w 24MB of RAM that doesn't even have real pixel shaders.

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It simply makes no sense for a massive upgrade at this point in it's lifespan.

Blizzard want to maximise their audience.

Increasing the requirements reduces the number of potential players.

Is this number of players lost from increased requirements lower than the amount gained from a better graphics engine?

Probably not

Except I'm asking for a more efficient engine ... which can only increase the number of people capable of running it without it looking like utter crap.

[Issalice]

It isn't fair to compare the capabilities of the PS3 to WoW's near 10 year old engine. WoW also has a cartoony look to it, it isn't meant to be realistic. I do think it needs an overhaul. It's age is really showing, especially with Mist's release. Pandaria is simply gorgeous, it makes me sad running around old Azeroth sometimes seeing all the blocky polygons and flat trees lol.

But I do decent FPS on ultra, high 60's on average. My boyfriend gets killer fps , 130ish on average. So I guess I can't complain much. A couple of friends of ours get 30 on average, and it isn't bad at all. I could totally play it that way without thinking twice, but that's just me.

[Azutael]

It's kinda become it's own "style" I would say, and I for one could not imagine playing WoW with so-called "realistic" graphics. Wouldn't be WoW anymore.
And of course, having less requirements means more people can play it.

Besides, they keep updating things here and there. And the game looks great IMO, with new character models it is going to be awesome.

[Nakotsu]

They don't need to create a whole new engine, just the graphic subcomponent - unless Blizzard's programmers are really that bad that they didn't modularize the whole game engine.

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Yes, it is a piece of garbage. Why do you think I'm asking for a more efficient engine?

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.