Around Azeroth: And then the UI turned vicious
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Apr 16th 2008 at 10:00AM
So what the heck is going on here? According to Lightblaze of Black Dragonflight, he was being chased by a hunter through Nagrand when he was suddenly set upon by another enemy -- his own user interface. As you can see, his action buttons decided to invade his cloak, helmet and landscape, while what appears to be a railing has taken over the sky. Lightblaze stated that the glitch fixed itself after he alt-tabbed, and that while he was glitched, the hunter ran past him as if he wasn't there.
I was torn on posting this one. The glitch looks almost too bizarre to be true, and I suspect a lot of people will say it's been photoshopped. But stranger things have happened in-game (i.e. gnomes with night elf faces) and I tend to believe our contributors. I'm not a UI or Photoshop expert by any means, so I'll leave it up to you guys.
| It's a real glitch. | |
|---|---|
| It's real, but it's on a private server and done intentionally. | |
| It's photoshopped, and we're stupid for posting it. |
Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!
Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We prefer full screen shots without the UI showing. And please, no more sunsets, unless they're glitched to look like skulls.
Filed under: Screenshots, Around Azeroth, Galleries
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Minnow Apr 16th 2008 10:07AM
Happened to me several times... but mostly happens when I alt-TAB too much
SweepeR Apr 16th 2008 10:09AM
It's probably true, just some gfx card error.
Funnier thing, yesterday I was in a group in Mana-Tombs and our healer suddenly vanished. He just fell *through* the world. Like the floor suddenly became transparent and he started falling and died... ;D
Badger Apr 16th 2008 10:45AM
I was going to say this, too. Whoever took this screenshot needs to get his video card fixed. You know, before it reaches critical mass and goes nuclear.
Onawar Apr 16th 2008 10:11AM
Yeah, this has happened to me too. It shocked the hell out of me when it happened, and I think I needed to close WoW and restart it to get it to fix itself.
Kalabus Apr 16th 2008 10:12AM
I once got dc'd from stv and found myself way out in the ocean when I loged, with mobs flying over my head. according to my team mates it stated I was still in svt but was completely south of tanaris. just to prove a point I swam to what according to there map placements that non anything area above swamp of sarrows. I then reloged to find my self in an endless fall when I re-loged in unable to hearth, use auto unstuck of even logout because I was in that area... theres realy nothing there lol. I have the screen shots to prove it.
Zumwalah Apr 16th 2008 1:48PM
ive had that exact same thing happen... wish i hearthed while i was swimming south of silithus
Ryan Apr 16th 2008 10:13AM
Mr. Anderson...
No! My name is Neo!
Matt Turner Apr 16th 2008 10:52AM
Happens to me all the time when I start a video on the 2nd monitor. Not usually that bad, however. But various textures and symbols will implement themselves on other parts of the world. Minimizing and restoring fixes it.
shanson Apr 16th 2008 10:19AM
I've had it happened to me, I blamed my video card though.
pudds Apr 16th 2008 10:20AM
I tend to think its a photoshop, only because the story doesn't add up.
For a visual issue like that to occur, it would almost certainly have to be the graphics card at fault. (Not that I've seen a graphics issue to that extent, but I have seen vaguely similar issues on dying cards with floating point errors).
If the issue were caused by a graphics card error (and likely even in the case that it were a game issue), it would almost certainly have no effect on his character's location in game. The claim that the opposing character "ignored him like he wasn't there" simply makes no sense in this context.
I vote fake.
Adam Flanczewski Apr 16th 2008 11:20AM
Try replicating it.
This is not a photoshop.
If you disagree, first read my comments above.
Biff Apr 16th 2008 12:39PM
Definitely Photoshop-doable, but it's not worth the time and effort.
If it is Photoshop, this guy took the painstaking measures of studying how the textures are applied to the models and replicated it with great precision. For instance, take a look at the cloak. The texture is mirrored from left to right, just as cloaks (and tabards, and a multitude of other things) in the game are mapped. The staff is obviously (mostly) a straight front-and-back texture.
Check out the cliffs to his left. The texture is placed just like most cliff textures (and floor, terrain, etc.) are applied; straight from the top. That's why the boxes on the texture are skewed, unlike the perfect squares on the "grass" on the other side of the bridge. Same texture applied there.
All that junk in the air, that's the nether streams or whatever the hell they're called.
And, I mean, he's even got the sun reflection on the grass to his right. I'm a professional graphic designer and use Photoshop almost every day; been using it since version 3. Yes, this could have been done with Photoshop, but it's not worth the effort.
Another thing. It seems that for the world, only terrain objects and the sky objects got the textures replaced. The trees and bridge are still in their original texture. This is important because these objects are loaded into memory differently. These assets are only loaded once, and duplicated around the world (this saves RAM). So it makes sense that their textures are fine; they (static meshes as they're called in UnrealED) are pre-loaded with lighting and texture. The world terrain is loaded and then the texture is applied to it (I'm pretty sure), and the sky objects are most likely unique to this zone (I know that there are nether streams elsewhere, but they're probable unique in shape, so they're not loaded as static assets). This is an amazing detail for a Photoshop artist to think of.
Aside from that, I'm also a computer tech, and I know this isn't completely out of the question. I've seen stranger things happen. My vote is 100% real.
Biff Apr 16th 2008 12:42PM
I'd like to add, as well, that I have screenshots of my Troll Hunter with the textures of my Human Rogue in the character select screen.
tanek Apr 16th 2008 10:22AM
For some reason, the combination of that cloak and the part about the hunter running right past him make me think, "He's gone to plaid!" :)
wowtilder Apr 16th 2008 10:23AM
This happens to me more than I care to admit - see some screens on my guild's site:
http://eminencefront.servegame.org/forum/general/general-discussions/91569
Drivers are up to date, DirectX behaving properly (according to dxdiag anyways), Windows updates are current, etc...
brittwilson Apr 16th 2008 12:46PM
But IMO, thats a different beast. You are missing colors, wrong patterns loaded, missing data. You dont have an action bar for a face.
I have had a few weird graphical issues myself, and seen others, but they go in a set way(going off of my schooling in programming)
You can get a wrong ground pattern, but your still going to get a ground pattern, or crazy lines, or nothing. You are not going to get Elelks instead of waterfalls, because elleks are not found in the same place as the waterfall animations.
And I have NEVER seen the UI graphics get mixed into ingame stuff.
Because I cant prove its fake, I cant say it is, but Im pretty damn sure its not real to this extent.
SippieCup Apr 16th 2008 12:00PM
a very similiar thing happens to me every once and while
its mostly just artificting of the world map in my case
wierd thing is that it only happens w/ WoW, whereas crysis/WIC/HL2/ATItool all run without errors for 6+ hours
Adam Flanczewski Apr 16th 2008 10:33AM
It's probably bad GPU drivers.
From experience, I want to say it's an AMD (ATI) card.
The wrong textures are being addressed and displayed--buggy pointer arithmetic within the drivers? I am not a Graphics/GPU programmer, but that would be my best guess. Actually, it could also be the game--but seeing as how I alt-tab frantically on my 8800GT, I can't see that it can be. Most likely the DirectX/OpenGL support within the GPU drivers.
Badger Apr 16th 2008 10:45AM
Adam,
Could it also be an issue with the graphics card physically overheating?
Adam Flanczewski Apr 16th 2008 10:47AM
Actually, I'm not sure how much low-level access the DirectX/OpenGL API provides, so I'm definitely leaning towards it being a poorly coded driver.
It's probably a terrible on-board chipset for VIA or AMD (ATI). Sure, it could also be from Matrox, Intel, or NVIDIA, but I've had more issues with VIA and AMD chipsets than can be imagined.