WoW Graphics Will Blow You Away in Wrath of the Lich King

Blizzard have spoken up on the reuse and re-colouring of models for their latest patch, Fury of the Sunwell (Patch 2.4), and also mentioned that all designers are working on Wrath of the Lich king. The new graphics in the expansion will also be "far and beyond" any previous visual experiences.

This becomes extremely interesting in the light of the Burning Crusade model upgrades, even if they were relatively small, and the reworking of ALL character models (even if it was only noticeable on the Human females)...

[Leord]

While it's apparent that there will be improvements made, I am wondering if we really can be SO impressed. I mean, who haven't played Crysis?

[Superiorrior]

I second this statement.

[Silellak]

Maybe they mean it will impress people who only play WoW and nothing else? Or at least haven't seen a new game (or the sun) in a few years?

[Leord]

Could be... Still, they might be raising the bar on a grander scope, and making the over-all experience feeling quite overwhelming. For being a non-loading game (at least on a single continent), it is rather big, and the "meta-experience" does mean for something.

Still, I'm not sure such an advanced idea is what he meant...

[gta_cb]

the only game i really play on PC is WoW so i havnt played Crysis =p i know that with my graphics card being the X800 GTO if i was to install Crysis that it wouldnt impress me so i never tried it.

[Montrealien]

We are comparing a Rolls Royce Silver ghost with an Enzo. Crysis can only Dream of being more artistcally beautifull then WoW. And i`m sure that they will push the artistic envoloppe in the next expantion like they did with Burning Crusade.

YOu have to look at wow from a different perspective, it is all about what they do with what they got and damn is it beautifull. Crysis may have 256 color crayons to WoW`s 36 but it is all about what you draw with those crayons kids. And Blizz are masters of this...

[TitanUp]

does that mean higher system requirements?

[Leord]

It would probably mean higher system requirements for playing WotLK at least.

Can't really be anyone that is remotely interested in PC games that has a PC older than 5-7 years by now? I can't see what's so bad with increased system requirements tbh.

[alcaponedya]

more like WoW'ed

[TitanUp]

well my graphics card is a 7300gs and i don't want to upgrade thats why i got a ps3.

[gta_cb]

your 7300gs should be able to handle this expansion, if not then you can buy an up to date 8600 or 8800 for £80-£120 not to bad to be honest, oh and thats UK money so nearly double for people in the US

[Garrison]

As long as they don't upgrade the systems requirements. I have just a 3 year old pc and thats enough to have bought a single core x800xl pc. PC just evolve too damn quick man.

[Lotto]

Thats what PC gaming is all about. Evolving

[Pain]

That Game u Stole your IP from WARHAMMER is going to crush WoW Retarded...even more So if the Delay it got is for 'Console Porting" then Game Over.

[TheForgotten0ne]

Ehm, Warcraft was the first RTS wasn't it!?

[Montrealien]

Pain, you understand so little, it is cute...

/poke

[Leord]

I think PCs evolve a lot slower than they used to, and you can use a really old pc for a long time now. Still, it IS nice to update every few years, once in a while.

In the end, you will probably only need a PC upgrade to visit Northrend. If you don't wish to get the latest expansion (that won't have horrible demands, I promise it will be VERY effective for the performance demand, but you should perhaps get more RAM), you are free to play without it.

[rosebowl23]

I can't wait until the trend surrounding this crappy game is over.

[danarc]

You have a long wait my friend...

10 million subscribers don't cancel their membership on the same day y'know ;)

[Montrealien]

lol@ the word trend being close to WoW

[Kens]

Well, I remember a blue confirmed not long ago that it won't be needed to upgrade your computer for WotLK, so I doubt it will be a big of a difference...

[gta_cb]

maybe they will be using a new engine? or some new kind of coding which could increase performance a lot =)

[Reibooi]

WoW's art style sucks make the graphics as nice as you want eyes will still bleed because of the horrid deformity.

[TheIneffableBob]

I personally think WoW's art style is fantastic. The art direction masks the use of technically unsophisticated graphics very well. This ensures that the game looks great even on extremely old hardware.

[TheEndzor]

i hate this game

[Tyrael]

Blow me away? Well I never got into the habit of playing WoW. Infact, I've never played it at all. Guess I'll never know.

[DailyAddict]

With an install base of over 10 million people Blizzard is not going to risk alienating a majority of the players from being able to play Warcraft. They've even gone on record saying this in the past in regards to the Lich King that graphics will not see a major jump. Keeping in mind that you have large boss battles with 25 people in the room all using powers that are require a lot of visual stardust and then factoring in that you're running all of this over people's sometimes crappy connections and AT&T's servers (for those unaware, WoW is hosted on AT&T's servers) it wouldn't be smart for them to go nuts on graphics because things such as loading, lagging, etc. (especially in instances, dungeons and raids) would be too big of a concern.

I think this article is missing the actual point. Graphically, the game will not "look" much better. However, things such as artistic vision, art design, etc. will be more impressive. You can take the same picture of a lake and give it to two different people with two different visions and one will "look" better. But to expect a huge leap in graphics for Warcraft is ridiculous.

WoW is not an FPS and the majority of its gamers are casual who do not have machines to even take advantage of WoW to the fullest in its current state, let alone boosting graphics.

[Leord]

DailyAddict, you are probably right to some extent, but there was definitely a slight need for an upgrade to play smooth in BC compared to Vanilla, and at least a similar jump would be really nice for the majority of players.

There is probably VERY MANY people with relatively bad PCs, but I can't believe the majority are running on 5+ year old ones. Perhaps they are able to make graphical upgrades where it can be disabled in settings... A new engine would be cool. I mean, as the article says, they have made certain upgrades already.

[gixxxer]

It's not going to blow people away with it's graphics. Yes it will look better than now and will require a better system but it aint gonna be like crysis.

[Garrison]

Your quite a helpful fellow aren't cha?

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

Will everybody be able to run it though?

That's my concern.