Old Graphics vs New Graphics

[username993720]

Just realized how much the foggy view distance impacted the atmosphere.
For example, walking through Un'goro Crater and encountering a Devilsaur just a few feet away.

[Luck4]

Your comparison here is literally dark places vs bright places
The only real difference is the draw distance and having more stuff to see at farther away distances
Also wtf u mean "more realistic vanilla style"? It's literally the same cartoony artstyle

Exactly! Val'sharah is one of the best-looking maps in years. I wish Ashenvale and Feralas had the same level of quality...

[Dismayxz]

Seeing the debate over Hogger's new model has made me think... over the years the game had become more and more cartoonish in contrast to the more realistic style vanilla had.

Which style do you prefer better, the more realistic vanilla-style graphics or the more cartoonish, modern graphics?















I, personally, prefer the old style of graphics. It felt more immersive, especially when there were weather effects.

I literally can not see the difference in style, outside of.. pixel count. These two are the same thing, one's just old as shit and makes WoW Grandpas feel great about the old times, the other actually looks somewhat alright for the current day. Also, comparing very very dark old zones, that.. also ironically received some updates in the case of Darkshore, since then, to very bright zones from the newest product in the pipeline is the worst comparison one can draw. Even the new-ish Darkshore literally looks just as dark and gloomy as it did back then.

Answer here isn't one is better or worse. Objectively, one is clearly better and more advanced. Subjectively, it's whatever floats your boat, but show me one time judging something based on personal bias has ever brought forth the "best". A good mix is healthy, which we are getting.

We are getting the old style in a more modern-ish fidelity.
But to say that these are different -styles- is a good statement to tell people that you need your eyes checked without directly telling people that you need your eyes checked.

[Myradin]

Of course the OP avoids places like the Maw, Revendreath, Maldraxus kind of, most the blood troll stuff in BFA, most the argus stuff in Legion, honestly all of wod was pretty metal, even panda-land had its dark crypts and places.

WoW is not, and never has been, a grimdark settings. The zones are designed as deemed apropriate. There's not much need for edgy dark zones in dragon place.

[Snowfunk]

That different angle literally looked exactly the same with no difference at all in the general vibe or appearance.

Yea, this looks really good, in my opinion anyways.

[richardhuntr]

I have a 3080, and it just increases the gpu load without changing very much, maybe I just am looking for the wrong things.

[Ichab]

Lol, calling the 3 skeleton 200 textures realistic, over the 1500 skeleton, 2.000.000 textures cartoonish.

Oh noes, they changed the irrelevant gnoll that was literally 3 square textures for a face to a proper face, there goes 1 raid tier, WoW is dead.

I get repetitive but this is why some of us do not take posters on here seriously anymore, why cant you do a basic google research as to how graphical textures and design work, or watch any of the Blizzcon videos of the last 15 years where they explain this also before making such posts.

We had the same discussion with the change of Orcs years ago "OH NO, THE 5 SQUARE TEXTURES ORC FACE IS MORE BRUTAL THAN THE PROPERLY MADE 1500 TEXTURES NEW ORC FACE" yeah, it is not.

I can't believe anyone preferred the old orc textures over the new. Messing around with them in classic all I can think is "I wish I could play with the updated model." It just looks so bad.

[Relapses]

I can't believe anyone preferred the old orc textures over the new. Messing around with them in classic all I can think is "I wish I could play with the updated model." It just looks so bad.

::Old Thrall stares indiscernibly in your general direction::

[Relapses]

He looks ass.

Hey, watch the tone buddy... that's your Warchief!

[Tobeh]

People can argue over which style is more "realistic" or "darker" as much as they want, but I personally prefer the atmosphere of vanilla zones over modern ones. There's no argument to be made that modern WoW is an objective improvement over that

How can you say there is no argument to be made? This thread is bizarre if only because the styling has not changed AT ALL. Graphics improving is not a dramatic change in the styling and design of the game. It has always been cartoonish.

My opinion, which I will not state as fact, is that the game looks so much better in retail. When I went to classic for awhile, the visuals were noticeably worse in the vanilla zones.

[Gurg]

I love the unique art style in wow, but I can't see any difference with RTX on, I have a 3080 so I'm very equipped to enjoy ray tracing, however turning it on in wow just seems to bump up gpu load without changing anything visually.

3080 here as well. I honestly never tried WoW RTX on nor i was ever planing to do simply because how they marketed it.
However i use Reshade with Marty McFly's shaders and made something similar to this video but a bit less colorful and vibrant. Ofc turning it off in M+ and Raids.

Note that this is not my video, just showcase what you can do with a bit of playing around with Reshade:


I like a bit darker and grittier art style of older expansions, however i prefer the quality of the textures in latter expansions.

While i understand the need of details to uppen up the quality of the textures and overal presentation i dislike how excessive they can be to the point that they actually overtake the texture and make it oversaturated with details thus, for me, making it actually distracting - hence ugly.
I prefer simplicity and cleaner, a bit darker models so for me visually sweet spot was Throne of Thunder and majority of Ally side of BfA.

While both styles are cartoonish by its design, for me newer style just brings it out a bit more due to oversaturation with details and design.

One of the easy examples. Lets take new ProfessionUI - while i completely agree that old UI was starting to be clunky and way overdue for a rework both visually and functionally and i like the simplicity of new UI i dislike how colorful and saturated it is. Its just.. A lot of colorful details for UI that i will probably use a lot. Just distracting to the point that it actually bothers me.
So ill slap 2-tone ElvUI on top of it and, add a bit transparency to it and it will be right up my alley.

Now, dont get me wrong, i love new forest zone and as Ion hopes that one they there will be no need for PTS i hope that old zones, specially forest ones, will have visual overhaul.

Will any of that stop me to play the game IF i think that its good and jiggles all my bells? Ofc not.
I will just spend less time in zones that are not to my taste visually and set heartstone where i like it even so it means few extra mins of fly time to get to where i need to be.

Ofc this was my opinion, i respect other peoples opinions no matter how different they are.
This is one of those topics that will be eternal debate, we all prefer different things, art styles, design options.

[Tziva]

WoW has always been colourful and cartoonish; that's part of why I actually really like the art style compared to every other game that aims for a degree of realism and ends up with the same green/brown/grey colour palate for everything. You're comparing darker old locations with brighter modern ones, when there are plenty of the opposite for both. This is slightly aggravated by the fact that they sort of "broke" nighttime and it never gets as dark as it used to if you're not using the potion, and some of your screenshots were probably taken at night when the game doesn't get that dark innately anymore.

New graphic quality is handsdown better. The only thing I miss is how particular characters I had looked since I think they missed the mark on some of the appearance translations, and some of my characters I was particularly fond of. (I also wish they'd make nighttime a setting slider rather than a special potion similar to how weather effects used to be, but that's another issue)

[Gurg]

--snip--

New graphic quality is handsdown better. The only thing I miss is how particular characters I had looked since I think they missed the mark on some of the appearance translations, and some of my characters I was particularly fond of. (I also wish they'd make nighttime a setting slider rather than a special potion similar to how weather effects used to be, but that's another issue)

Completely agree with you on this one.
While some of updated modes are spot on flawless upgrades few of them missed mark by just a bit, but again enough to partially disconnect me from them.

After all, some of them are almost two decades old.

[rrayy]

People can argue over which style is more "realistic" or "darker" as much as they want, but I personally prefer the atmosphere of vanilla zones over modern ones. There's no argument to be made that modern WoW is an objective improvement over that

An argument absolutely can be made. What you are really saying is that "my opinion is fact therefore, you cannot argue agasinst my opinion". That is not how opinions work. Everyone absolutely can argue against your opinion and I , for one, think that modern WOW is an improvement over that.

[Jester Joe]

Hey, watch the tone buddy... that's your Warchief!

it's more immersive. Orcs having painted on teeth makes more sense since they're more likely to have knocked out all their teeth by adulthood.

[Skirdus]

An argument absolutely can be made. What you are really saying is that "my opinion is fact therefore, you cannot argue agasinst my opinion". That is not how opinions work. Everyone absolutely can argue against your opinion and I , for one, think that modern WOW is an improvement over that.

There's no argument to be made that something is objective because opinions are inherently subjective. How do you not understand that simple concept?

[rrayy]

There's no argument to be made that something is objective because opinions are inherently subjective. How do you not understand that simple concept?

BNot what you said. YOU literally said that no argument can be made that Modern WoW is an imporvement graphics wise, over vanilla WoW. YOu absolutely can make an argument that Modern WoW is an improvement.

[Orby]

Let's not forget that when WoW came out in 2004 and when pictures were shown of what the game looked like, there was complaints the game looked cartoonish. And was a big no sell for a lot of people. Even people like Madseason and PlatiumWoW have mentioned they they didn't get into WoW at first because of the cartoonish art style.

I am older enough to remember people complaining about Warcraft 3's art style for being too cartoony and blocky (despite the fact that that graphical style was very common at the time). I remember being one of those complaining on the old battle net message board/forums... good times. I miss those old forums.

[Master Factician]

Anyone who mostly prefers the older graphics has to at least admit this frog model is a significant upgrade.

[Segus1992]

Calling WoW realistic, is like calling McD gourmet food....

Your former genius of a president probably would, and half of your voting population thinks he's the messiah.