A shinier WoW
by Eliah Hecht 
Mar 11th 2008 at 9:00AM
WoW is a fairly good-looking game, especially when compared to some other MMOs, but let's face it: it hasn't had much of a change to its graphics quality since its release in 2004, and you can tell. To give you an idea of how pretty it could be, Youtube user qelss has rendered several models from WoW with more light and some additional filters; you can see one above, and more on his profile page. As MMO-Champion notes, these are fan-made and not previews of anything, but it's still fun to look at the gleaming swords and armor.
[via MMO-Champion]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
bdo Mar 11th 2008 9:40AM
Looks great, but I imagine real time rendering of all that crap for all nearby players would slow your box to a crawl.
glorft Mar 11th 2008 9:38AM
I actually like the cartoony look of WoW. I find that using the filters in the vid and adding more shadows seem to change the mood of the game. Usually making the game darker (pun unintended).
Melenor Mar 11th 2008 11:00AM
For me, WoW's terrible graphics are one of the top reasons I'd consider quitting playing it.
hpavc Mar 11th 2008 12:08PM
Cartoony yes, but 100% consistent. You play a game like LOTRO and you see some nice landscapes and then some dorky 8bit graphic layover and your character doesnt actually interact with the environment but just floats ontop of it.
No load screens, haha, I love the games where a load screen is needed for every room you ever (again, LOTRO)
No wow is doing just fine IMO.
Kaji Mar 11th 2008 9:39AM
I'm not sure I want even shinier and more gleaming gear. As it is, I'm conflicted about the fact that the armor and weaponry I'm earning looks so cosmic and space-age-y, a total departure from the medieval-fantasy setting that drew me into WoW in the first place.
I'm hoping WotLK reorients the visual style of the game to something more familiar and, quite literally, less alien.
Taena Mar 11th 2008 9:40AM
It's really hard to call these renders an "upgrade" when his video quality is so poor. I almost feel like they're victim of too much lighting...
Tetelestia Mar 11th 2008 9:54AM
The Triptych Shield of the Ancients is one of the better looking items I've seen yet in the game imo.
His upgrades are nice though, it'd be need to see it scale a bit this next expansion.
Aaron Mar 11th 2008 9:47AM
Even with 2004 graphics, current high end machines still have trouble keeping WoW at full speed if there's so many models around in one area so no thanks :p
Michael Mar 11th 2008 10:09AM
I have to agree; less is more. While cool and obviously a lot of hard work went into this filtering effort, I don't want to connect to a US based server from Australia and suffer even higher ping rates because of lighting and shadow.
Thanks for the post though!
tdf Mar 11th 2008 10:02AM
As pretty as it is, the framerate in WoW varies so much already that adding any complexity would just make it unplayable.
I can get a solid 60 FPS walking around Shatt or flying around any zone, but in a raid situation I'm lucky if I'm getting over 15.
Valkoon Mar 11th 2008 10:46AM
They can upgrade a lot of the graphics without impacting performance all that much. They have done some changes already like the tauren druid cat face. For me to buy the next XPAC they need to do a revamping on some graphics.
I appreciate the cartoon feel of WOW and not suggesting it be changed (nor would it be possible) but updates are needed. When you go from Org to anywhere in OL you feel like you are going from ps1 to ps2 graphics. Certain shrubs and trees in Azroth look like a 5 year old made them. Don't even get me started on the 7 diffrent types of heads you get to choose from on any of the original races.
marnok Mar 11th 2008 10:15AM
I don't really see how offering users a choice of "advanced lighting" could hurt anything. In fact it's one of the few options that would scale extremely well to multiple levels of PCs.
Let's face it folks, wow looks dated. A little lighting and bump mapping could go a long way. And if your system can't run it, just don't turn it on.
F0REM4N Mar 11th 2008 10:17AM
I know I just built a PC for under $900 that could probably mince these graphics without substantial framerate loss.
Here is the point, many of you are saying you don't want Blizzard to do this becuase their machines already stutter with the current graphics.
Thing is, this would like be a "maxed" out graphics setting for people with more modern rigs, and not the default. So this makes that argument carry little water. I say bring it on, I wish they would attempt to polish things up a bit (of course I think wow is beautiful as is, I judty really like shiny things)
Milktub Mar 11th 2008 10:19AM
WoW is about as advanced in graphics as my poor old computer will run. I'm not a videogamer, so I'm not interested in shelling out for upgrades. As long as I can run the two games I do play, and run my photo-editing software, I'm happy.
Naix Mar 11th 2008 10:19AM
Less is not more. More is more. Give me an option to bump my graphics to surreal levels. I want details. I want my sword to drag on the ground sometimes giving sparks. I want my druids hair to blow is a random directions. I want to see the bones on my warlocks hand tremble as he prepares a 8k shadowbolt.
Dave Mar 11th 2008 11:09AM
In reality, Blizzard changing something like this might affect your framerate (depending on your rig), but it wouldn't affect latency or lag. Like the guy who did the rendering said, all the textures are exactly the same as they currently are...it's just the lighting and filters that he tweaked. This is a system-end render-time operation and would not require additional information to come over to your PC via the 'net. If Blizz coded an updated rendering engine they could give players the option of toggling between the new and the old in their in-game settings. I, for one, would be all about that. I love WoW, but I would definitely love a little bit more of a graphical update.
Arabelli Mar 11th 2008 11:36AM
Yeah, but compare the fire on Archimonde to the stuff that's coming up in Sunwell and WotLK. It's already a HUGE difference. A lot of the stuff that's been released as teasers for WotLK has a much richer feel visually, and it's definately going back to 'Azeroth' rather than wacky-other-planets-and-elvey-things.
I think in the next expac we will see a pretty substantial increase in the quality of the visuals as well as more of the fantasy war type stuff instead of 'holy crap space cows'. Yippie!
(That being said, I still really like the Draenei. Just ready to get back to some broadsword hacking action!)
hpavc Mar 11th 2008 12:16PM
No extra data would be transmitted having these model lighting/ filter changes. Not sure why people are saying that ping rates would get bogged down.
And obviously like death effects and what not this would be toggled.
Felwrathe Mar 11th 2008 4:23PM
I'm thinking after WotLK comes out, it might be time for Blizz to "Redo Freeport", as it were. I'd personally love to see new graphics, or at least improved ones.
I think it'd definitely bring a lot of new appeal to the game, but there's also the statement "Don't fix it if it ain't broke". WoW's graphics have never been much of an issue for me, and they've already got 10 million people paying $14 every month.
New graphics would have to be optional. Mandatory would mean a good chunk of their player base could no longer play [think of the huge downtime when half your guild can't show up to raid until they upgrade their computers.]
The only other thing I'd worry about is addons... my computer's fine, but other people might have to choose between a better looking core game, or to keep their favorite addons.
Louis C. Mar 12th 2008 12:16AM
If they do upgrade the graphics, they should do it as gracefully as Unreal Tournament. If there's one thing every developer needs to learn from Unreal is how to scale graphics. UT2004 and the more recent UT3 will run on pretty much any computer. If you need to scale down the settings, there's a plethora of options, and the game still looks amazing.
Also, I love WoW's art style. Don't change that.