Why are WoW's graphics so sub-par?

[Doktor Faustus]

PS3 and 360 ar enot 'on their last legs' but their manufactururers have convinced you so.

For me, gameply is paramount but theagain I have played games since the mid 80's so truly understand basic graphics.

[Deleted]

Is it even possible to update whole engine?

[SodiumChloride]

Rather limiting your market if you only have the people with the best pcs on the market able to play. most people struggle to run good fps on 25 man as it is. cut that in half again and thats alot of subcribers down the toilet......

Omg. Do you people even read the threads you post in or do you just assuming you know what it's about?

I'm asking for a more efficient engine. Mario sunshine can do amazing water on weak sauce GameCube hardware using by today's standard primitive graphics techniques. Why does WoW's water use so much resources but look like mud?

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Is it even possible to update whole engine?

They just need to replace the renderer.

[Marxman]

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.

Visually? The WoW engine is average to below average. It has it's moments, but yeah, it's an old engine. It shows it's age often.

As far as the engine itself is concerned, it might be the most polished engine ever as far as gameplay is concerned. It's about as buttery smooth and responsive as it gets. See: SWTOR as to why that is important.

[Hubbl3]

I agree that water in WoW doesn't look like water at all, even under the highest settings. It looks like oil (in some cases) or like mud (in other cases). I also don't get why Blizz removed the reflection on water from things like most doodads and spelleffects (which were present in Cataclysm Beta). Player models are reflected... some times and some times are not (the times the player model reflection works, it's looks VERY stupid). Yes, the water looks better than the texture we got before, but the new water is not like real water at all.

The aesthetics of WoW are very outstandingly good, on the other hand.

[SodiumChloride]

Visually? The WoW engine is average to below average. It has it's moments, but yeah, it's an old engine. It shows it's age often.

As far as the engine itself is concerned, it might be the most polished engine ever as far as gameplay is concerned. It's about as buttery smooth and responsive as it gets. See: SWTOR as to why that is important.

Responsiveness is excellent, but that's not what I'm whining about.

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I agree that water in WoW doesn't look like water at all, even under the highest settings. It looks like oil (in some cases) or like mud (in other cases). I also don't get why Blizz removed the reflection on water from things like most doodads and spelleffects (which were present in Cataclysm Beta). Player models are reflected... some times and some times are not (the times the player model reflection works, it's looks VERY stupid). Yes, the water looks better than the texture we got before, but the new water is not like real water at all.

The aesthetics of WoW are very outstandingly good, on the other hand.

I have no problem with WoW's style. But water has "sharp" specular highlights not diffused and this crappy looking water cost is how many GPU cycles I do not know.

[Aleksej89]

I don't understand what you are asking.

WoW is a very old game (year 2004.) and blizz is adding graphical improvements to it with every expansion.

It is also quite well optimized, especially compared to other MMORPGs like SWToR and GW2 who are just immensely inefficient with their engine.

If you can't play WoW on at least medium graphics - i think that the problem is most definitely with your PC's age or poor configuration.

If you are playing on a laptop, the most common issues are overheating and lack of a dedicated GPU (integrated GPUs like Intel's are very weak).

[serravenger]

Fair setting ... can't even maintain 30 fps on a 2 year old laptop.



Edit: Is it too much to ask for water that looks like this without clogging down my GPU?

so your thread should be "is my 2 year old laptop and GPU sub par"

[Mikael123]

If Blizzard made wow require a high end computer, they would have far less customers. WoW can be run well in most situations, on almost any computer and that is part of what ensures a large playerbase. As it is now, most players can't even run a 25 man raid at a high framerate during bossfights.

[cmats4020]

Responsiveness is excellent, but that's not what I'm whining about.

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I have no problem with WoW's style. But water has "sharp" specular highlights not diffused and this crappy looking water cost is how many GPU cycles I do not know.

Wait, so is this just about the crappy looking water? It's an old engine! I'm actually surprised that they made it look this good for how old the engine really is!

[Afrospinach]

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.

Yeah, a friend of mine pointed out that before outland the engine could not render vertical terrain. Outland has lots of cliffs but vanilla is all rolling hills. I also remember one time logging in some time in vanilla and noticing that everything was really shiny, I am assuming they did something to the lighting. They are always tweaking the engine.

The pertinent point here is would an overhaul bring people back to the game? imo it would never be worth the effort and they have their minds in the right place. WoW still runs on old machines quite well.

[SodiumChloride]

Wait, so is this just about the crappy looking water? It's an old engine! I'm actually surprised that they made it look this good for how old the engine really is!

The water is part of it. I feel the engine is inefficient in general.

If it's because it's an "old engine", maybe it's time they created a new one. Seriously, WoW made them how much money? They could not even make the effort after 8 years to replace the repurposed Warcraft 3 engine currently in use?

And Mario Sunshine has an old engine and it has never been updated like ever. Still better water than WoW.

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The pertinent point here is would an overhaul bring people back to the game? imo it would never be worth the effort and they have their minds in the right place. WoW still runs on old machines quite well.

It certainly won't be helping attract new players I can tell you that - yes, people are superficial; that why AAA games spend so much on the latest and greatest graphics engines.

[Inval1d]

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

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

It's about allocation of resources. Blizzard would have to invest heavily to make a whole new engine from scratch that doesn't deviate from the current style too much, alas less resources for content.

[Mirishka]

Super Mario Sunshine had *amazing* water for its time.

Also, for as old as the engine is (14 years or so) I think WoW looks pretty damn nice. Give us updated character models and I'd have no complaints really.

[vesseblah]

They just need to replace the renderer.

Wrong.

WoW's graphics in TBC zones does not look like 2004 because of renderer. It's the low polygon count in models and low resolution textures. Just look at MoP zones with higher quality models and you see the renderer can handle 2012 graphics just fine.

[Deleted]

The water is part of it. I feel the engine is inefficient in general.

If it's because it's an "old engine", maybe it's time they created a new one. Seriously, WoW made them how much money? They could not even make the effort after 8 years to replace the repurposed Warcraft 3 engine currently in use?

And Mario Sunshine has an old engine and it has never been updated like ever. Still better water than WoW.

It certainly won't be helping attract new players I can tell you that - yes, people are superficial; that why AAA games spend so much on the latest and greatest graphics engines.

Throwing in the money "argument" is pointless. I've said it before: if Blizz wants to spend all their money on hookers and blackjack that is for them to decide. Money is probably also the last factor to weigh in on decisions like updating a gfx engine. For both low and high-end systems the engine is still doing its job and doing it pretty damn well.
The game really wouldn't benefit that much from a new engine. The shine would wear off in no time since the game play would remain unchanged (just watch what will happen when the new skins are released).

So the water doesn't look as good as it does in some other game, so what? The special effects in Watchmen didn't look as good as in Avengers. Emahgerd update Watchmen! No. Still good entertainment, still watchable. Still a better movie imo.

What if I told you I actually like WoW's water style?

That and .. we're talking updating a gfx engine over water, in a game where 95% of gameplay takes place on dry land.
How fucking irrelevant is that? xD

[frumper]

There is problems with the engine, WoW is the worst performing game i play.
I have a i5 4670k at 4.2 ghz and a GTX780 at 1100mhz that will run almost every game i have on ultra settings (Crysis 2, Tomb Raider, Farcry 3 etc) vsynced at 70 FPS on Ultra, yet wow drops down to as low 50 FPS every time i turn, raids are even worse unless i turn alot of stuff off.

It's gotten worse with MOP as well, i rememer back in the days with my i5750 at a HD5850 during Wrath breaking 300 FPS, the engine is just now pushed to breaking point and performance is degrading as a result.

Single player games aren't good comparisons. Also, not sure why you'd run your monitor at 70 Hz, but whatever. Honestly, something seems odd with your setup, maybe drivers or a particular setting your card isn't handling well. My iMac from 2009 can keep it at 50+ at high settings @2560x1440.

[Deleted]

WoW's graphics are so subpar because their rendering engine is from 2004. If they wanted to change that, they'd have to rewrite it and it would break a lot of things.

Not.

The graphics in WoW look like that because this is the art style they go for. Ever looked at how they prepare the textures (which can easily be photorealistic) so that they looked like oil-painted?

Sure, in some areas such as TBC they have low poly count or such - but that's a matter of either redoing the area or working on new content. However, the general style (and not having it look super realistic like other games) is intended. They go through a lot of work to make it look like that.

[SodiumChloride]

Wrong.

WoW's graphics in TBC zones does not look like 2004 because of renderer. It's the low polygon count in models and low resolution textures. Just look at MoP zones with higher quality models and you see the renderer can handle 2012 graphics just fine.

It could be faster at MoP zones though. As I said, I'm not asking for a change in graphic, just more efficient graphics.

Throwing in the money "argument" is pointless. I've said it before: if Blizz wants to spend all their money on hookers and blackjack that is for them to decide. Money is probably also the last factor to weigh in on decisions like updating a gfx engine. For both low and high-end systems the engine is still doing its job and doing it pretty damn well.
The game really wouldn't benefit that much from a new engine. The shine would wear off in no time since the game play would remain unchanged (just watch what will happen when the new skins are released).

So the water doesn't look as good as it does in some other game, so what? The special effects in Watchmen didn't look as good as in Avengers. Emahgerd update Watchmen! No. Still good entertainment, still watchable. Still a better movie imo.

What if I told you I actually like WoW's water style?

That and .. we're talking updating a gfx engine over water, in a game where 95% of gameplay takes place on dry land.
How fucking irrelevant is that? xD

Using your argument, we should never improve anything in WoW. After all, gameplay is the only thing that matters. Might as well downgrade to greyscale textures. It will save us a lot of texture memory and memory bandwidth. >.>

[frumper]

Omg. Do you people even read the threads you post in or do you just assuming you know what it's about?

I'm asking for a more efficient engine. Mario sunshine can do amazing water on weak sauce GameCube hardware using by today's standard primitive graphics techniques. Why does WoW's water use so much resources but look like mud?

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They just need to replace the renderer.

Yea, you should do some research on the subject. Comparing any single player game to an mmo is silly and the renderer has been updated many times.