What for the love of god is getting copied from WoW that wasn't copied in WoW at the first place? Tell me one thing. At least ONE FEATURE.

WoW's art direction is very clearly a long and lasting approach that they have chosen for many of their games. I got the same feeling from WoW as i did from the other games.

There are many things about wow that I like and many things that I don't like. The artist direction is in the middle. With the release of BC they re-used way to many previous graphics. And the run way lights they attached to my t4 shoulders aren't earning them any points with me.

Some of the weeknesses that I"m sure have been mentioned in WoW's engine are:

1. Very few direct lights. Its almost all ambient lights or light effects on objects.

2. Very few variations on look between characters of the same race. And in game there is almost no ability to further differentiate yourself. While you might claim this was a choice made by the Artistic team I think it was  a choice ment to reduce development costs.

3. Over re-use of models. I understand the trade offs in content development vs schedule. But i'm dissapointed that my favorite game gave me the same look on level 60+ uncommon gear as level 7 grey drops. (Only a slightly different color.)

The artist direction of wow is fine. I like it and i like the game.

But its not an epic artistic approach. There are a few really cool choices like the length of NE ears and some other choices like goat legs on Draenai that are at least interesting.

It is because warcraft 1 was supposed to have warhammer world license, but games workshop turned that off half a year before it's release. Blizzard had to create their own universe in that time, but they didn't revamp the graphics. So it ended up as a complete Warhammer ripoff  that it still is.

Originally posted by gestalt11

WoW has good art direction and QA, and that is really important just look at Nek forest in EQ2, bleh.

 

But  I can't say really think WoW's art is awesome or anything.  In fact  I think its kinda vanilla.  Its nice, but its nothing great.  Unfortunately many games don't understand how important that "nice" is.

I always though Nek forest was rather cool...course lol it was more from the aspect of walking around and suddenly a herd of trees or undead are chasing you down to beat you to death.  *shivers remembering running through there for quests*

btw QA has little to do with art direction..they're just there to make sure things work and try to ensure that totally bug filled packages of crap arent' sent out (bugs still get out its just the nature of the best with large programs and sometimes company's ignore whats being said in the first place)  

*Feels sorry for their QA guy rofl he keeps having to fix all the bugs he made before he was demoted*).

I love Nektulos Forest, one of my favorite areas

" Everything about WoW gets copied, except the graphics. :( "

Interesting title considering that about the only thing in WoW that was not copied from earlier games was the graphics.  If all future MMORPG were to copy the WoW graphics, I would not be playing MMORPGs.

I guess since MacDonalds sold whatever billion(s) of hambergers then all cooks in the world should only cook MacDonald hambergers.

Originally posted by HYPERI0N

In a way i feel sorry for the OP as he seems to come over as someone who hasn't really played any other mmo than WoW so to him WoW is the pinnacle of style and graphics. Fact of the matter is that even when WoW first came out its graphics were dated. And the cartoony look it has is really just there to help conceal the washed out textures and low Polly count of game models.

That is correct, the graphics conceal the basic engine which anyone could run (and everyone did run).

Vanguard? Realistic graphics... high requirements... bomb. Everquest 2, same. And now WAR seems to follow in their path.

I don't think World of Warcraft is the best game ever, and nor do I suggest that all other games should be carbon copies of it. Any sort of artistic style would help certain games a lot. Think about Everquest's pastel coloured promo girl, the distinctive logotype, and then consider the actual ingame graphics.

Striving for realism in an MMO is silly, because any FPS looks a million times more realistic than any MMO. Moreover, graphics fiends with high end gaming PCs just may have too short an attention span for MMO games. And Crysis and UT3 showed the world what happens when a game designer overestimates the rigs of his customers.

Originally posted by Thillian

What for the love of god is getting copied from WoW that wasn't copied in WoW at the first place? Tell me one thing. At least ONE FEATURE.

Things that I found in WoW that I never saw before - *NOTE* I may have missed something from games I didn't play pre-WoW (only really played FFXI, SWG, E&B, and UO before WoW)

1. Hearthstone (you had insta-teleports in other games, like Runebook's in UO, but no "home" location teleport that EVERYONE gets until WoW did it w/ Hearthstone)

2. " ! " and " ? " for quest givers. I never saw it in any MMO before WoW, now it's in all of them (in some form)

3. WoW was the first game to have truly quest based game play. I.E. quests from level 1-60 (max at the time) so you would never "have" to just grind mobs for experience.

4. With the quest based-game play came quest trackers, originally 3rd party UI add ons but then put in by Blizz - Now all MMOs with quests have quest trackers

I'm sure there are more if I really sat down and thought about it... but WoW did do some original things, including the major one, the fully quest based game play - which is now nearly the standard

Originally posted by Xanrae

 

Originally posted by HYPERI0N

In a way i feel sorry for the OP as he seems to come over as someone who hasn't really played any other mmo than WoW so to him WoW is the pinnacle of style and graphics. Fact of the matter is that even when WoW first came out its graphics were dated. And the cartoony look it has is really just there to help conceal the washed out textures and low Polly count of game models.

 

That is correct, the graphics conceal the basic engine which anyone could run (and everyone did run).

Vanguard? Realistic graphics... high requirements... bomb. Everquest 2, same. And now WAR seems to follow in their path. Actually looking at WAR its graphics are high but not too high it seems they are aiming for an average look which might work out grapphically.

I don't think World of Warcraft is the best game ever, and nor do I suggest that all other games should be carbon copies of it. Any sort of artistic style would help certain games a lot. Think about Everquest's pastel coloured promo girl, the distinctive logotype, and then consider the actual ingame graphics.

Striving for realism in an MMO is silly, because any FPS looks a million times more realistic than any MMO. Moreover, graphics fiends with high end gaming PCs just may have too short an attention span for MMO games. And Crysis and UT3 showed the world what happens when a game designer overestimates the rigs of his customers. UT3 was just fine a lot of machines could at least paly it, However the same couldnt be said for Crysis where no one could play it.

Originally posted by gestalt11

WoW has good art direction and QA, and that is really important just look at Nek forest in EQ2, bleh.

 

But  I can't say really think WoW's art is awesome or anything.  In fact  I think its kinda vanilla.  Its nice, but its nothing great.  Unfortunately many games don't understand how important that "nice" is.

I woudl have to say the original Old Forst in LOTRO (not what is in game now, though that is still very good) is the best forest I've ever seen.

Also, to the player who said that WoW doesn't have shadows. Actually it does. Turn up all the graphics to max and you will see shadows and the play of light off of surfaces.

WoW's art design is extremely good. But it is supposed to be evocative of a certain style.

It is outlandish and "cartoony" but it works.

It is not to my tastes however and one of the reasons that I could never really "get into" that game.

---

Originally posted by Xanrae
World of Warcraft, so far, is the only MMO game that understands this and instead of creating 'realistic' graphics (read: boring scenery), goes for artistic.

---

Besides, as it was said above, people may like or may not like the look&feel of WoW.

Though I see your point : Maybe MMO artists should try to think out of the box whenever possible.

Originally posted by heerobya

 

Originally posted by Thillian

What for the love of god is getting copied from WoW that wasn't copied in WoW at the first place? Tell me one thing. At least ONE FEATURE.

 

Things that I found in WoW that I never saw before - *NOTE* I may have missed something from games I didn't play pre-WoW (only really played FFXI, SWG, E&B, and UO before WoW)

1. Hearthstone (you had insta-teleports in other games, like Runebook's in UO, but no "home" location teleport that EVERYONE gets until WoW did it w/ Hearthstone)

2. " ! " and " ? " for quest givers. I never saw it in any MMO before WoW, now it's in all of them (in some form)

3. WoW was the first game to have truly quest based game play. I.E. quests from level 1-60 (max at the time) so you would never "have" to just grind mobs for experience.

4. With the quest based-game play came quest trackers, originally 3rd party UI add ons but then put in by Blizz - Now all MMOs with quests have quest trackers

I'm sure there are more if I really sat down and thought about it... but WoW did do some original things, including the major one, the fully quest based game play - which is now nearly the standard

Thanks for posting this! Unique and perfect example of missinformed WoW player that claims WoW was first and most original.

1) The same functionality in AC2 from 2002

2) Was probably not "!" and "?" but some other symbols, but used in AC2

3) Not true. AC2 was SPAMMED with thousands of SOLO quests. Notice these words. Thousands SOLO quests. It was the first game marked as EASY and SOLO oriented. Check some of the older reviews.

4) Trackers were used in AC2 and it was smashed down by reviewers that claimed the mmorpg's are getting too easy. However it was praised in WoW reviews how unique and original idea it was. Still it first was in AC2.

Yes please provide more proofs WoW players are missinformed and that WoW is an AC2 ripoff. And I don't mean they just take inspiration, they ripped it off completely. From game mechanics, through world system, combat system, crafting, UI ...

There are far more mmo's who are copyed from LINEAGE2 then wow.

Originally posted by Thillian

 

Originally posted by heerobya

 

Originally posted by Thillian

What for the love of god is getting copied from WoW that wasn't copied in WoW at the first place? Tell me one thing. At least ONE FEATURE.

 

Things that I found in WoW that I never saw before - *NOTE* I may have missed something from games I didn't play pre-WoW (only really played FFXI, SWG, E&B, and UO before WoW)

1. Hearthstone (you had insta-teleports in other games, like Runebook's in UO, but no "home" location teleport that EVERYONE gets until WoW did it w/ Hearthstone)

2. " ! " and " ? " for quest givers. I never saw it in any MMO before WoW, now it's in all of them (in some form)

3. WoW was the first game to have truly quest based game play. I.E. quests from level 1-60 (max at the time) so you would never "have" to just grind mobs for experience.

4. With the quest based-game play came quest trackers, originally 3rd party UI add ons but then put in by Blizz - Now all MMOs with quests have quest trackers

I'm sure there are more if I really sat down and thought about it... but WoW did do some original things, including the major one, the fully quest based game play - which is now nearly the standard

Thanks for posting this! Unique and perfect example of missinformed WoW player that claims WoW was first and most original.

 

1) The same functionality in AC2 from 2002

2) Was probably not "!" and "?" but some other symbols, but used in AC2

3) Not true. AC2 was SPAMMED with thousands of SOLO quests. Notice these words. Thousands SOLO quests. It was the first game marked as EASY and SOLO oriented. Check some of the older reviews.

4) Trackers were used in AC2 and it was smashed down by reviewers that claimed the mmorpg's are getting too easy. However it was praised in WoW reviews how unique and original idea it was. Still it first was in AC2.

Yes please provide more proofs WoW players are missinformed and that WoW is an AC2 ripoff. And I don't mean they just take inspiration, they ripped it off completely. From game mechanics, through world system, combat system, crafting, UI ...

Problem is most dont even know AC2 but true many things in wow are almost same as in ac2 was.

AC2 should get all the credit. The fact the game died was caused by server stability, number of bugs BUT NOT these kinds of things you consider in WoW being original (Easy thousands solo quests, simple crafting, interface layout, no xp death penalty, zones level ranges .. etc) So your argument "but WoW was first to made it right" is simply not good enough. We are talking about originality who came up with the idea. It was Turbine with Asheron's Call 2.

Correct -- WoW had done just as much copying as any other game on the market. The interface in WoW -- which many game reviewers will say was "copied" into other games, was actually itself copied from Dark Age of Camelot. And DAOC might not have been the first either.

Unfortunately, when a lie is repeated enough times, it becomes the truth -- and in this day-and-age of MMOs, everything is compared to WoW without regard to the actual roots of its design.

The game is popular in large part because the requirements make accessible to a lot more of the user base than many games that came after it. That's really it, because after I played WoW, I didn't see anything particularly groundbreaking about it.

WAR's graphics have a darker twinge to them, but you know what? I like that. My idea of a war-torn land isn't bright pastel.

any game that dies by stability, and can't keep themselves alive because of it.   deserves to be ignored by the playerbase.

emphasis on playerbase, not developers.

Originally posted by Xanrae

Every MMO developer gets this wrong.

What looks 'cool' in real life may not necessarily be so in a virtual world. The Empire State Building is quite impressive in real life, but in a game, it is just a bigger box. A moonlit forest night may be spooky in real life, but in a game, it always ends up being just an annoying black screen.

World of Warcraft, so far, is the only MMO game that understands this and instead of creating 'realistic' graphics (read: boring scenery), goes for artistic. And indeed, the draw of each new environment is that one could take a screenshot of it and frame it. [*] You go there for the scenery alone.

If the new environments are not attractive, why go there, other than just to farm and loot? More to the point, why would anyone spend several hours each day in a world that doesn't look attractive?

I can see WAR failing for this same reason. The mechanics are interesting, but it looks dull and depressing again. People do not care for games without graphics, no matter how many millions of polygons the engine may push.

[*] Not counting the dreary later raid dungeons and anything subterranean with lava in it and a dense red fog approximating the colour and brightness of the sun.

WoW looks a little to cartoony for my taste. Sorry.

Sorry, I stopped reading the thread after "Everything about WoW gets copied"

Guild Wars has the best graphics.  The only complaint I have about it is some of the character graphics try too hard to look Korean/anime.