Old weather effects

[cozzri]

http://web.archive.org/web/200408052...PageNo=1&Set=0 enjoy

wow.... looking at that old website really takes me back. Thanks for that. I remember getting accepted to the beta.... the client used all my harddrive and I played at like 5 fps on the lowest graphics but I loved it.

[rogueMatthias]

I was watching some old vanilla video's on youtube this morning and I noticed how much better and immersive the old weather effects were. I was wondering if we get them back in classic as I'm not sure if weather effects are part of the engine or the classic graphics.

Does anyone know? I would love to have the old weather effects back in classic.

Snow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWWnSs_6voI
Rain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BmXZfY-dW0
Sandstorm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHv84mm1zkw

I also would love to see the dark vanilla nights back:

Duskwood used to be so atmospheric in Vanilla, as it was always so dark and practically the only lighting was from torches.

Maybe a midnight brawl, where everyone can just see within their own torchs light would be fun too.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Classic nights were amazing. The weather effects were better too. I always found it odd they went away from these things.

[huth]

Classic nights were amazing. The weather effects were better too. I always found it odd they went away from these things.

The weather was pretty hard on machines back then, so that one is understandable, though sandstorms still look pretty much the same. They restored the nights, so it became a nonissue there.

[Master Factician]

http://web.archive.org/web/200408052...PageNo=1&Set=0 enjoy

Amazing link, thanks for posting. Now, let's compare the screenshot of Lakeshire there:

To this one I took on BfA (view distance is turned down):

and to this one WITH the Inky Black Potion on (view distance still turned down) to dispel this myth that the potion makes the game as dark as Vanilla was:

Now before arkanon comes in to troll, claiming I'm editing these screenshots; there's a real simple way to check this out yourself. Log into the game and go to Lakeshire.

[arkanon]

Did you try the Arathi Brawl in the blizzard? The massively reduced visibility makes it much more fun and, somehow, even the Alliance teams always end up working together and calling incomings etc.

oh god i forgot all about that! the brawl, it was AMAZING. completely changed how i played the entire BG. I haven't really pvpd at all this expac because i just dont like how the classes have evolved. or devolved. But that Brawl was amazing. It made really boring nodes like GM suddenly really 'scary' to defend. would be all quiet, then you would see a player slip into view, then slip back out. you knew they were there, but just couldn't see them. Really enjoyable!

[Rapti]

Both points i have already raised - trash in trash out - we cannot draw a conclusion from some 360p video that CLEARLY has non-default settings. And the same goes for all the screenshots. The fact this is difficult at all for people to understand is mind blowing really.

Well, I do know on what settings I was playing back then and these are from my own collection.

[huth]

Well, I do know on what settings I was playing back then and these are from my own collection.

Should be pretty obvious from behaviour that we're dealing with somebody who outright refuses to acknowledge any evidence that does not fit the pre-existing narrative and makes absurd demands to justify that stance.

Of course we can draw plenty of conclusions from all the evidence around, and the resolution of the video has no actual impact on the brightness. Somebody just doesn't want to deal with the possibility of being wrong even though it would be much less trouble.

[Awelon]

I remember wow had something like Full Bloom effect... Dont remember when they've taken it out, but it made wow... More beautiful i guess?

It was back in the day when bloom was overused in practically every single game. It really made the Stranglethorn feel more moist and heavy to breathe in as well as some of the desert areas perhaps better, but it was... too much. Way too much.

[Alkizon]

Factsbeforefeelings
--- snip ---

First picture is much more contrasting (and vivid, but "soft and warm") and not looking at that it's dark there, but moon presence gives certain direction of light (shadows and lighting). In fact, you can distinguish each of objects. And everything merges into one dull patch - hodgepodge in last two pictures, we don’t talk about any light source here, besides colors themselves aren't contrasting, but rather faded, smeared out, whole picture is covered in glossy/filter (private settings?).

ps. I'm not trying to argue that this how it was or how it is, just describing what I see in proposed pictures. You must consider light sources and time of day/night for adequate comparison. Yay, how charming looks water in moon light at first picture. Also it's look like US have some alike thread (with pictures, also revived one; they slipped a little to models discussion, which is inappropriate, since there is nothing to compare there, they completely don't match each other in style or performance, but if we discard this part).

huth
Besides, what you're mentioning makes the vanilla shot less realistic.

Never said they're

By the way, I have never really touched directly environment in previous discussions, only about fancifully exaggerated cartoony absurdity in appearance and behavior of new models. As for environment, it never tried to look realistic in my opinion, rather much like fairy tale, but this was precisely the essence of balance: fairy tales often kind and cheerful, but never dumb, which is often much more characteristic for a cartoon. And this where I see difference between classic and current art version: environment/models = if old version was exactly centered in both parameters (and therefore didn't cause feeling of discomfort, inconsistency between this and that), then new art already is overly tricky/saturated for first parameter with various processing systems, and stupid to absurdity, being cut off from reality, oversimplified for second one (as if for children (that f@cking toggle $hit again )) clownery (and quite naturally, that they're very badly combined together).

Also this:

There is another problem around this theme:
- do we talking purely about plot or also cinematic's stylistics?.. because this particular style is the one to which I appeal, when talking about certain game's one degradation: without looking at fact of 3D animation, I don’t dare to call it “emphasized cartoony”, in contrast to disgrace that is happening in game now - environment doesn't look like "if even qualitative, but emphasized artificial", models don't look grotesque/isolated from the world, "toy-ish" (geometry/texture interaction with lighting and shadows/palette used), simplistically unnaturally animated, etc.

One of my friends recently, when he saw new pre-SL video, asked - You was kind of playing this game. Looks not bad. Tell me more about. - I said that video has nothing stylistically to do with what is happening in the game. He didn't believe it, watched couple of "game" scenes and we didn't return to this conversation anymore.

...and, speaking of this, I'm very inclined to blame precisely "if even qualitative, but emphasized artificial" for fact that “old” style aged bad, it began to look like something altered, details spoiled everything, they began to emphasize what was supposedly possible, but it wasn’t obsessive, didn't go beyond limits of each's personal perception, everyone was free to think in framework of their own imagination... there is no such thing now.

All this for me now, after I formulated more or less what I thought, began to resemble unacceptable situation with classes' design (excessive "detail" of specs, especially moment with obsession and limitation of player’s imagination/fantasy, its oversaturation by fettering gimmicks, besides, and with influence on overall design, its inappropriateness within framework of overall picture). Don't know what to say

Speaking about current game's situation, I can be quite tolerant to the plot...
- - -
On one hand, I have never really shared their desire (recently) to impose plot, I don’t find it appropriate for MMO projects (there could be plot, but only within - "go in that direction, and it will be seen there, how's going", but never like - "now we will tell you in detail every step you take from beginning to end"), no-no, I have already spoken about this several times. But on other hand, everything has already been mixed up so much and they have been doing it for so long, that plot now isn't really perceived for another reason - it makes no sense to follow it because "our future has ceased to be important, since it's not known what our past will be tomorrow". Retcon-retcon-retcon. There only stays unpleasant effect of "train" organizing of quest component - I never liked it and never will.
- - -
...but art style is something I won't (also agree with this).

I have voiced my views on local environmental design many times already, and we even talked about art-styles separately(I'd venture to suggest that new location doesn't look alien for similar reasons, that ghoul from last link - scary, it just can't). So I'll repeat again briefly: modern design (even if don't touch most new models that are absolutely disgusting for me, however, to a greater extent because of their discrepancy with original) looks unnatural, artificial, cloyingly licked, toy and implausible, and I'm talking now (and before) not only about OPs video.

Take, for example, more recent similar projects. And if their problem is that terrain and other little things seem to be "generated", similar to each other even in all little things, not only within the game, but also in places (there are some unique locations, but this doesn't change essence in general), then modern WoW looks like this, as if this is kind of toy story... and I won't even stutter here separately about plot component after that.

Maybe it's "over-licked" textures, lack of "dirt and chaos", maybe it's "high resolution", which doesn't give freedom for imagination, but my eye is much nicer with "old blurry textures" now (with cracks, stains, random drops and broken pixels ). Not literally, of course, but figuratively, simplicity and modesty with sensible mapping/path organization is something that still favorably distinguishes old locations from both "their colleagues and competitors" (not all of them, there is good stuff in some places, and this is reason, why I usually refrain from criticizing locations' design in general), this is probably another reason why I hate perturbations like Cataclysm.

[huth]

First picture is much more contrasting (and vivid, but "soft and warm") and not looking at that it's dark there, but moon presence gives certain direction of light (shadows and lighting). In fact, you can distinguish each of objects. And in the last two pictures everything merges into one dull patch - hodgepodge, we don’t talk about any light source here, besides colors themselves are not contrasting, but rather faded, smeared out, the whole picture is covered in glossy/filter (private settings?).

ps. I'm not trying to argue that this how it was or how it is, just describing what I see in proposed pictures. You must consider light sources and time of day/night for adequate comparison. Yay, how charming looks water in moon light at first picture. Also it's look like US have some alike thread (with pictures; they slipped a little to models discussion, which is inappropriate, since there is nothing to compare there, they completely don't match each other in style or performance, but if we discard this part).

That's kinda beside the point, though. The topic at hand is brightness, not clarity.

Besides, what you're mentioning makes the vanilla shot less realistic. It's too colourful, contrasting and vivid for what's supposed to be night. You can make out colours on things that shouldn't be getting enough light to see anything.

Also, distance fog is present in the newer shots which is the cause of some of that fading and smearing.

The gloss is due to some change to how textures are rendered. Many old textures are far to glossy now. It makes the old "realistic" weapon models look really weird too.

[Izalla]

Well, I do know on what settings I was playing back then and these are from my own collection.

I already linked him a post from MMO Champion reporting the news that they added back darker nights and he went on about settings and shit rather than admit he was wrong, that people aren't editing their screenshots to look like the world gets dark at night now, after he was told that the bright ass picture of Redridge is no longer what the zone looks like at night... good luck.

[munkeyinorbit]

Well, I do know on what settings I was playing back then and these are from my own collection.

Sure you do buddy. I really can't believe the extent that someone would go to get the approval of others on the Internet.

Doctored "Screenshots"? Check.
Claiming to remember settings from 15 years ago? Check.
Putting your self worth into the hands of random strangers? Check.

[huth]

Sure you do buddy. I really can't believe the extent that someone would go to get the approval of others on the Internet.

Doctored "Screenshots"? Check.
Claiming to remember settings from 15 years ago? Check.
Putting your self worth into the hands of random strangers? Check.

Making up shit to dig out a 2 month old thread and crap on somebody? Check.
For all you know, Rapti could just have written down the settings. The whole "get approval" thing is in your mind. The doctoring is merely an unproven claim.

[enigma77]

Have we ever gotten an actual explanation why real nights were removed from retail WoW?

Casuals complaining they can't see in the dark? Lol.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Nights are weird right now. It's dark but objects seem to still be lit. May be a bug, may be "old nights" were already gone by 1.12.

- - - Updated - - -

Have we ever gotten an actual explanation why real nights were removed from retail WoW?

Casuals complaining they can't see in the dark? Lol.

Most likely same reason everything is removed randomly with no explanation. Either it was a bug, or it was broken by fixing something else.

[Razzako]

Soo now that the beta has begun, are the weather effects in the game? I know dark nights are a thing but I'm still wondering if the weather effects are in.

[lonely zergling]

Soo now that the beta has begun, are the weather effects in the game? I know dark nights are a thing but I'm still wondering if the weather effects are in.

They are in. https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/...aysafe_stream/

Just more rare than on fake servers as it should be.

[Razzako]

They are in. https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/...aysafe_stream/

Just more rare than on fake servers as it should be.

Nice! Thanks for sharing, looking forward to that

[Nattwenny]

So much animosity in this thread over such a trivial thing.