With the huge income they get from their massive subscriber base one would think they could spend some money and time to update their gfx engine. I mean, imagine how good this game would be on the Crysis engine?

Obviously the old engine needs to stay for people who does not have enough juice to run the newer gfx engines out there but still. Imagine how many more people would take a second look at the game if the GFX was not almost a decade old.

The graphics were a huge turn off even from day one, for me.  You answered your own question as to why they're not upgrading; more subs with lower requirements.  Perhaps their new game in development will have a more advanced graphical engine?  I'm a Blizzard downer and even I'm curious as to what they're going to pull out of their hat.

Er why would they? Think about it. Their main goal is so that EVERYONE and their grandmother's computer can run the game on high and atleast get 10fps.  If they updated it, it'd take more graphics power. This would turn away some players. Plus if they updated the engine what's thepoint? If they didnt' go back in and completely rework everything to take advantage of it all, it'd be pointless. Plus blizzard maybe has 2 more xpacs out of their beast. After that it's kinda over with. So we're talking 4-5 more years worth of good times for them and their money from wow. So why would they spend 1-2 years updating something that'll be gone in 4-5 years when they can just make an expansion pack in the same time that'd give them anotehr 1-2 years of gameplay from the players?

To make it look really good they'd have to increase the polgyon count on all older objects and models. Unless they have high-polygon model versions saved somewhere that is an insane amount of work.

Graphics do not make a game worth playing. If they remade Big Rigs Racing (the worst game ever created btw) with the most awesome up-to-date graphics but the exact same gameplay would that make it any better? No.

How long do you marvel at a game's graphics anyway? The first half hour? Maybe an hour? It's not long before you don't even notice how good the graphics are in a game and your just playing it because its fun and has good gameplay. Right?

When they added in realtime shadows to WoW i was like "that's pretty cool". Do you even notice them anymore? Does it impact your gameplay? Does it make the game better?

You can see where i'm going.

To redo their entire engine would disrupt everything that wow is.  They would have to redo all of their assets just to use a different engine.  That would take an enormous amount of time.  Dont people complain already about the time it takes them to pump out content with the current engine?  Bliz designed wow's engine just for mmo usage.  To use the Crysis engine, for example, wow will most likely lose the fluidity that you know and love.  And may end up something like, well, Aion.  The best way to implement a graphics update would be to update their current engine, which, they will.  Though it wont be anything drastic because they dont want to lose the current player base.  When the expansion comes out, they will add one or two graphics updates.  Guaranteed.

Besides, they are probably sitting on a brand new engine with nice eye-candy for their next mmo project. 

Really horrible idea, the losses would be x100 the gains.

Originally posted by vvistovv

To redo their entire engine would disrupt everything that wow is.  They would have to redo all of their assets just to use a different engine.  That would take an enormous amount of time.  Dont people complain already about the time it takes them to pump out content with the current engine?  Bliz designed wow's engine just for mmo usage.  To use the Crysis engine, for example, wow will most likely lose the fluidity that you know and love.  And may end up something like, well, Aion.  The best way to implement a graphics update would be to update their current engine, which, they will.  Though it wont be anything drastic because they dont want to lose the current player base.  When the expansion comes out, they will add one or two graphics updates.  Guaranteed.

Besides, they are probably sitting on a brand new engine with nice eye-candy for their next mmo project. 

Yeah I guess its too old to redo the archaic gfx engine but the thing is the GFX engine was not that good even at launch. So I really hope their next MMO has some state of the arts GFX engine.

While it is true that a GFX engine alone does not make a game good it makes a good game 10x better. I for one could not play the game, even though it seems to be a good game, because the gfx was such a major turnoff.

Graphics from an artisit standpoint or a technical standpoint.

Artisticly the graphics are great, technicaly not so but the engine is close to 7 years old (alpha+beta+release).

Graphics engine has been improved steadly since release, hi-res tectures, dynaimc shadows, longer draw distances, more intense partical effects.

The game looks like warcraft thats all that matters.

The game looks the way it does cus thats how the designers want it to look, it does not look the way it does because of the engine.

WoW looks fine. THe graphics are one of the things I like about WoW.

Blizzard stayed true to the WC rts with the art style.

its always the same arguement from you people! I think many of you dont even have tbc subs let alone wrath. the engine HAS been improved. granted it isnt crysis but if you think it doesnt look good then your system isnt as good as you make out because I have it running in full 1080hd on my 37inch monitor and it looks fucking fantastic on full.

Originally posted by wartywarlock

its always the same arguement from you people! I think many of you dont even have tbc subs let alone wrath. the engine HAS been improved. granted it isnt crysis but if you think it doesnt look good then your system isnt as good as you make out because I have it running in full 1080hd on my 37inch monitor and it looks fucking fantastic on full.

I agree, those complaining must have never been in Wrath zones because it's very obvious how the engine has matured since vanilla.  Upgrading to graphics to something else would be suicide (in terms of playability and subscriptions).  Besides, we've seen in the past how engine upgrades have not necessarily been the most positive improvement  in games, Luclin graphics in EQ for example.

Originally posted by metalhead980

Blizzard stayed true to the WC rts Warhammer with the art style.

FIFY!

blizzard might ask help from microsoft to implement dx11 and donnybrooks but thats it

dont know on wich planet you live but crysis is way lower then dx11 check aion and check wow

was only had the toon upgrade and only in wotlk content.

but when cataclysm hit you ll be pleasantly surprised

and if microsoft word are true and that dx11 is fairly easy to add dont be surprised if blizzard have a dx11 and donnybrooks

added to wow we ll see.it depend on one factor ,how much backward compatible is dx11 and if microsoft will have released donnybrook so blizzard can put it in cataclysm.

one thing is sure graphic will be way better then they are now

but dont ever forget wow is a cartoony look so it WILL still look like a roadrunner cartoon.

I am sorry, but what the heck is donnybrooks?

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

Originally posted by metalhead980

Blizzard stayed true to the WC rts Warhammer with the art style.

 

FIFY!

Never saw anything that looked like WoW graphics while I want into Warhammer when I was a kid. Warhammer was a gritty more dark fantasy where as Warcraft is a cartoony art style. To me the reason why Warhammer Online is cartoony is because they copied WoWs art style. I mean the original Warhammer Online looked much more like Warhammer.

I've never had a problem with WoW's graphics, I thought the game looked a lot better than most of the game's out there running 'technically' more advanced graphic engines.

I can see how, if someone's hooked on the 'technical' aspect, they can be annoyed by how the game looks but for me, this is how WoW looks and has looked, how I remember it when i think of it, how i expect it to be when I log in. I'm not sitting and waiting for graphical upgrades, *This* is WoW to me.

Aging has no meaning to me in this sense as I've already lived through decades where 'Better graphics' hardly ever translated to 'Better game' and even more times than not translated to 'horrid performance'.

If you want a better looking game, just wait for their next MMO.

If its not broken then don't fix it.

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