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Is Blizz being Cheapskates
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Post by
KaptainKrunk
Blizzard has a unique art style with the Warcraft series. Look at Warcraft 3, ever since rendered into 3D, Blizzard has had a comical viewpoint on their models and characters.
I wouldn't say comical, but a little cartoonish and exaggerated. Comical implies humorous, which I wouldn't say about the way things look in WoW or WC3.
Actually, Blizzard subtly put comical things in Warcraft games. But I see the point you're making, thanks for correcting me.
Post by
375923
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Post by
327680
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Post by
omenofd
True, if Blizzard changed the graphics it just wouldn't be the same. Also, I heard WoW freezes up on Alienware, I'm actually ordering 1 today for gaming, but if it doesn't work on WoW then I don't know.
Hold onto your money Nemesyst. Alienware is horribly overrated. Something happened to Alienware several years ago and it has put a dark cloud over them ever since.
Dell happened. Dell bought out Alienware. The idea was to appeal more to the major market, gamers, for better profits. They kept the name but now they are completely controlled by a source of evil equivalent to that of Ner'zhul (post visit to twisting nether).
Since then their PCs are only as good as the rest Dell spews out. If you are not already aware. The problem is they use cheap hardware manufactures and they modify the OS installed on the PCs they sell.
Post by
466163
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Post by
Orranis
A. It's hard as hell on your computer. As a general rule the advancement of games is pretty much always a bit ahead of the computers they're played on, causing stuff such as lag. My friend actually played pong on one of the largest servers in the world to be poke fun at this.
B. Cheapskates? There a profit
business
. Being cheapskates is called making profit.
Post by
ChairmanKaga
People forget that not everyone owns the latest and greatest hardware. I was running WoW on quite an old system until this year -- so old it was still using AGP. Cataclysm will raise the requirements somewhat but not considerably, as doing so would alienate a significant portion of the player base. This is why they do those periodic hardware surveys -- so they know exactly where to target their games performance-wise.
Also, WoW's look is a stylistic decision as much as it is a technical one, and one I certainly don't disagree with. Warcraft as a whole has a look to it that WoW captures well. These discussions always remind me of people moaning about the final look of Team Fortress 2 (most of them still believing that the original TF2 mock-up from around 2000 was still relevant). If you've ever walked through the designer commentary built in to the game, they go into quite a bit of detail about why they went that direction. In TF2 it isn't merely a style decision but also a core feature of the gameplay (you can easily recognize a player's class at a glance, even at a distance), along with being thematic (Team Fortress has always been less ultra-real, more arcade-style) -- and Valve scored big hits on all three points.
WoW doesn't intentionally feed the art style into gameplay like that, but they certainly spend a lot of time evoking that fantasy book feel, and do so successfully.
Post by
aerion
What I DON'T get is why everyone freaks out like this. Your argument that "not everyone has the latest and greatest hardware" is invalid when speaking about WoW. Even if the engine was overhauled in such a way that the max settings would require a $5000 PC you'll still always have the option to turn the settings down.
My current PC runs pretty much any game at max, WoW being no exception and I have over 120 addon folders. My older PC has a 64MB AGP card and 512 RAM, both run WoW smoothly, just not as pretty or with the same amount of addons.
The thing about WoW is that it's a native PC game with a wide range of tweaking options to improve performance on older/weaker hardware. If a user is too dumb to even consider turning down the heavy stuff that's his own problem.
Please stop saying that a better graphic engine would "alienate a significant portion of the player base" because it requires a better hardware, it doesn't. Period.
/rant
Post by
73830
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Post by
Rexz
Not everyone has Alienware. MMO's can be taxing on your computer.
you dont need to buy some expensive brand garbage. just build your own.
Lmao, yea.
Prebuilt machines are for people who know absolutely nothing about computer. You can spend probably half of what you spend for an alien ware and build a computer just as strong, just not as pretty looking with all the little glowing lights and geehaws.
Post by
44284
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Post by
327680
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Post by
Zxian
Honestly, if you're trying to play a modern game (Yes... the BC and WotLK expansions count as "new") on a computer that's more than 3 years old, good luck. World of Warcraft by most modern definitions is not a very resource hungry game. In many cases, the bottleneck is on your CPU and network connection, rather than your graphics card. Like many others have said here, you can drop your graphics settings to the bottom and still play the game - it just won't be as pretty.
Another point comes down to the rest of the software running on your system. Often, most people purchase "high end" systems from OEMs, only to have a vast amount of pre-installed crap come with the package. I say it's crap because 90% of it honestly is. How many OEM systems come pre-installed with Norton or McAfee? Too many. How many come with needless "network management" tools for wireless connections (I'm thinking laptops here)? Too many. How many end up having a multitude of auto-start software running in the background? Too many. Users have a tendency to blame the wrong party for their problems, since they don't know where the problems lie. If your computer overheats when you play a game, is that the game's fault or the person who built the system? (Hint: It's not the game)
Another key question - how many users don't understand the limitations of their current hardware? The majority. It's not necessarily bashing anyone in particular, but most users out there don't know whether one piece of hardware or the other would be a better upgrade. Until you do the research into what's available and what's required, you simply don't know.
In all honesty, I could build an entire computer system (including monitor, keyboard/mouse, speakers, and a
legal
copy of Win7) for $900CAD (yes, I'm Canadian). You won't be able to play with graphics settings maxed out, but you'll be able to play all current content. The hardware requirements for WoW are only as high as you wish them to be.
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