WoW graphics are bad...??? maybe - Possible Rant...

This blog entry is an answer I am giving to someone in the forums... I am using the blog system because what I am going to say is very long...

I will try to keep this simple... ok... I will try!!!

WoW = Cartoon, Goofy, Cheesy, Ridiculous Graphics...

FF14 = Real Looking Graphics... In theory...

First part....

Just in case... Cartoon graphics is just an art style... If you dont like it, then that is your problem... I dont like them either but that doesn't mean that there is a problem with the graphics at all... A lot of people love the WoW graphics and they will defend the Cartoon style with their lives.

I have seen other Pandaria pictures and everything seems fine... They dont need any engine update at all... They have a decent amount of foliage, good res textures, a high enough poly count and for the most part it looks fine in other pictures... BUT!!! I can’t stand the art style... I just look at it in a more technical way because if I let my emotions take over, I will trash WoW and say that its  piece of crap game with obsolete graphics. The reality is that the GFXs are not obsolete like the ones in a PS2...

As far as I know, a PS2 cant render so much foliage at all, nor it can run the game in 1080p resolution, a friggin PS2 doesnt have AA or Anisotropic features... Nor it have Gamma correction features either and I dont really think that a PS2 have enough memory to load a single area map of WoW...

Second Part...

So you want a game engine update???? What sort of features you want in WoW????

Tessellation??? They can consider it... (Only The Secret World is using that feature right now in the mmo market)... Its nothing critical right now and its going to be better for you to buy a game that actually supports that feature instead of waiting because chances are that you are not going to get that feature any time soon…

What else do you want in Pandaria??? High poly count, High res textures???? That doesn’t need a new engine at all, it only needs new models and as far as I know, Blizzard is already working on that and have been doing new models for every expansion… Again, if you don’t like the Cartoon, goofy style, then you should look at other game.. There is nothing wrong with the game and we know it because it sells, even when the Metacritic score is Low as hell!

Third Part...

I know that some games add a few engine updates and code updates into their games... Eve Online is one big example of that... They keep updating the shaders and eveything related to the starships, the planets, the backdrops, etc... Right now Eve Online have one of the best looking character systems around the place, it is a pity that the toons do nothing in the station at all lol!...

Other games like GW1 had a few updates, but their game was basically the same thing all the time, just add a few extra feature over here and over there to render better fire effects or better dust particles...

Entrophia Universe on the other hand, completely changed their engine and updated a lot of things in the game... Kudos for them... but since WoW is a cartoonish game, there is little need for that move right now... As I mentioned above, for a cartoonish game, the graphics are just good enough... Whats the point in adding more polys to the characters if in the end, the proportions and the cheesiness is going to be the same....

After all, Blizzard also wants to make their game very accessible to the public... Using one of those engines like the Cry Engine 3 is not a good idea if you want the average person to play your game...

The forum thread is at: http://forum.mmosite.com/thread/2/3/20120919/505a920f9ce28b913-1.html#p50788e976a867b