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Topic: The draw of WoW.... (Read 36214 times)
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pxib
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4701
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The graphics still haven't been improved (And are in fact, painful to look at, especially trees)
The graphics are painful? Give me a break. The look of the game is one of the most appealing things about it. Kludge sees polygons. AcidCat sees trees. |
if at last you do succeed, never try again
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Chimpy
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10633
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I was thinking about the whole how it looks argument in here a little bit as I was making my dinner.
And I came to this hypothesis on the graphics and their appeal based on conversations I have had with the 'haters' who want "photorealism".
I think a lot of the success of WoW may be that the whole photo-realistic "dragon fighting guy in a chain mail hat" reeks too much of "Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying nerd" for the rest of society. Because WoW is not attempting to immerse you in such a game world, and instead is more outlandish and fantastical it is easier for people who are uptight about being labelled one of those "D&D Geeks" to come to the table and play.
You add into that the criticisms (which are valid) of people who see previous and current attempts at photorealism in a game as being uninspiring and not all that interesting and you get something that only caters to a small subset of the overall population. It is part of why naturalistic theatrical productions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries really did not gain a widespread audience. Seeing real dirt and live pigs on stage sounds great on paper, but in reality it is difficult to get an audience to immerse itself in that and not feel weird. Sensationalism and fantasy are much bigger sellers.
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'Reality' is the only word in the language that should always be used in quotes.
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Calantus
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2389
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Agreed. Childish things are in now and have been for a long time, that means it's cool to like cartoons and whatnot. My brother and his friends sing goddamn lazy town songs in the middle of the main quad at lunch time (ie. in front of half the school). All the schoolgirls have hello kitty or some other cutesy cartoon themed bags and clothes. They also have colorful dummies. Dummies. What the fuck? The whole thing is you can get away with liking this stuff because the idea is that you don't really like it but you get into it because it's not something that's cool by default, you're being "different" and crazy. So when it comes to WoW with it's cartoony graphics and over-the-top humor it's all good. Gnomes and baby pets just make it all that much more appealing. You can get away with liking WoW because you can always laugh it off for not being serious, you're just messing around in this crazy cartoon world.
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Xanthippe
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4779
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I love WOW graphics. I also love Oblivion graphics (someone please make a good mmo with that engine whatever it is). They're two very different styles.
EQ2 graphics, I thought were meh. LOTRO is better, but still, can we please see less green/gray and more colors and more bright shades?
I thought TBC was simply stunning. The Disney influences on the artists is obvious and a great tribute. I'm talking old Disney here - Fantasia/Sleeping Beauty/Bambi, not new Disney Hercules/Lilo&Stitch/Emperor'sNewGroove, btw.
Combat in WoW isn't stilted the way it is in EQ2 and even LOTRO. Movement is smooth.
Polish is what WoW has. And style, and humor.
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Righ
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6542
Teaching the world Google-fu one broken dream at a time.
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Its not just about cartoony vs photorealism though. I can live with both approaches just as easily. In MMOGs such as EQ2, LotRO and Vanguard the characters look like they were first created in a 3D design tool by artists who are uncomfortable working in that manner, while the WoW characters look like they were created on paper, and then transferred to 3D tools painstakingly by people practiced at the art of such transfer. I have no idea if this bears relation to reality, but that's how it comes off to me. It might just be that Blizzard have megabucks animation tools from Pixar, and SOE have a knocked off student copy of Maya with no plugins.
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The camera adds a thousand barrels. - Steven Colbert
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Fabricated
Moderator
Posts: 8978
~Living the Dream~
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I love WOW graphics. I also love Oblivion graphics (someone please make a good mmo with that engine whatever it is). They're two very different styles. It's a heavily modified version of the Gamebryo (spelling) engine with Speedtree Technology for the pretty foliage. If I recall DAoC uses a much older version of that engine. |
"The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist." - George Bernard Shaw
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cosapi
Terracotta Army
Posts: 51
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Two words.
Appropriate visuals.
Appropriate visuals which compliment the theme, setting and atmosphere as cartoony as WoWs may be. And to me, that's much more important than visuals which obstruct the setting and atmosphere and look out of place.
It's like how castlevania seems to work so much better in 2D.
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« Last Edit: June 17, 2007, 12:32:03 AM by cosapi »
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Phred
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2025
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Two words.
Appropriate visuals.
One thing that blows my mind is the level of sophistication in the details in WoW's engine. Look at cobblestones at your feet while running down a road. You can see the 3d'ish impression from the pixel shading. LoTR doesn't come close to this dispite trying for a more realistic look. |
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Engels
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9029
inflicts shingles.
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In MMOGs such as EQ2, LotRO and Vanguard the characters look like they were first created in a 3D design tool by artists who are uncomfortable working in that manner, while the WoW characters look like they were created on paper, and then transferred to 3D tools painstakingly by people practiced at the art of such transfer. I have no idea if this bears relation to reality, but that's how it comes off to me.
You put your finger on the issue right there. There's an apriori feeling of 'doneness' with WoW that really hasn't manifested itself in an MMO since FFXI. AO came close, in terms of toon animation and toon art, but EQ, DAoC, EQ2, VG, all of them feel oddly 'computerized', as I think you mean to say. |
I should get back to nature, too. You know, like going to a shop for groceries instead of the computer. Maybe a condo in the woods that doesn't even have a health club or restaurant attached. Buy a car with only two cup holders or something. -Signe
I LIKE being bounced around by Tonkors. - Lantyssa
Babies shooting themselves in the head is the state bird of West Virginia. - schild
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23657
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EQ did not feel "computerized" in the same way EQ II did. EQ had cartoony graphics -- they weren't going for realism like some of the games that followed -- and the animations were really well done and the characters had real faces even if they were flat. EQ II and many other games have those plasticy crappy looking "This is my first time using Poser"-style faces and bodies with Play-Doh hair -- in other words they look like crap. EQ II also had some of the crappiest animation work ever done in a 3D game.
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23657
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One thing that blows my mind is the level of sophistication in the details in WoW's engine. Look at cobblestones at your feet while running down a road. You can see the 3d'ish impression from the pixel shading. LoTR doesn't come close to this dispite trying for a more realistic look.
Highly unlikely that's pixel shading. Much more likely it's just very good texture work. |
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Phred
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2025
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One thing that blows my mind is the level of sophistication in the details in WoW's engine. Look at cobblestones at your feet while running down a road. You can see the 3d'ish impression from the pixel shading. LoTR doesn't come close to this dispite trying for a more realistic look.
Highly unlikely that's pixel shading. Much more likely it's just very good texture work. You sure? It fades away in the background too. At around 10-15 ft. |
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edlavallee
Terracotta Army
Posts: 495
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I think a substantial percentage of WoW's players are in the same boat.
Yes. But trying to explain that to traditional PC gamers just gets you blank looks. They have trouble comprehending folks on machines 4-5 years old as it is. Most Devs obviously have an even larger problem.. as they seem to expect users to upgrade their machines just for their game. Yeah, that may have happened in the 90's when the majority was geeks and tech-sector folks.. nowadays, not so much. This is a point that devs really need to pay attention to... The days of designing to the hardcore techies and making cash are fading as Blizzard has brought WoW to a larger mainstream audience. This more mainstream crowd is never going to keep up with hardware developments meaning games in development now need to have a much wider hardware requirement band. |
Zipper Zee - space noob
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AcidCat
Terracotta Army
Posts: 919
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There's an apriori feeling of 'doneness' with WoW that really hasn't manifested itself in an MMO since FFXI.
FFXI and WoW both have characters that really look like they are part of the world, like they belong there. In games like Vanguard you have the world, then characters that look like they were beamed in from the Renfair Mannequin Company. |
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Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075
Error 404: Title not found.
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This is a point that devs really need to pay attention to... The days of designing to the hardcore techies and making cash are fading as Blizzard has brought WoW to a larger mainstream audience. This more mainstream crowd is never going to keep up with hardware developments meaning games in development now need to have a much wider hardware requirement band.
Uh, just to be fair, knowing how to crack open your computer doesn't make you a hardcore techy. I couldn't build a computer worth a shit, and I certainly couldn't tell you what half the crap inside there does, but even I can pull a memory/video card out of there and upgrade it. It's not even close to rocket science. It's about as simple as adding fluids to your car. Sure, some people are so ridiculously hopeless that they could never figure it out, but most kids and most young adults I've met are extremely saavy about computer technology and inner workings. It doesn't require buying new computers every 2 years, or even upgrading your graphics card constantly. That's simply a copout by the few who want to bitch about a small group of developers who constantly try to push the graphical envelope to cover their (mostly shitty) gameplay. I think the last game I honestly knew was going to put me out to buying a new computer was Elder Scrolls III, and it was more than high time for the change. |
CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
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edlavallee
Terracotta Army
Posts: 495
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This is a point that devs really need to pay attention to... The days of designing to the hardcore techies and making cash are fading as Blizzard has brought WoW to a larger mainstream audience. This more mainstream crowd is never going to keep up with hardware developments meaning games in development now need to have a much wider hardware requirement band.
Uh, just to be fair, knowing how to crack open your computer doesn't make you a hardcore techy. I couldn't build a computer worth a shit, and I certainly couldn't tell you what half the crap inside there does, but even I can pull a memory/video card out of there and upgrade it. It's not even close to rocket science. It's about as simple as adding fluids to your car. Sure, some people are so ridiculously hopeless that they could never figure it out, but most kids and most young adults I've met are extremely saavy about computer technology and inner workings. It doesn't require buying new computers every 2 years, or even upgrading your graphics card constantly. That's simply a copout by the few who want to bitch about a small group of developers who constantly try to push the graphical envelope to cover their (mostly shitty) gameplay. I think the last game I honestly knew was going to put me out to buying a new computer was Elder Scrolls III, and it was more than high time for the change. I am in the same boat as you. I couldn't build a computer either and I can still slot in new memory or a new video card. However, I would still consider this level of computer savvy to be somewhat techie... certainly more than your average person wants to be involved with. My sense is that people are getting to the point where they are considering the computer to be an appliance and I can see a future where when its time for a component upgrade, they buy a whole new machine rather than crack open the case. Your average consumer just wants to get in and go... the whole comparison shopping for the right card, or the one with the features they want is not something Joe Mainstream wants to do. Then again, this leads into a whole discussion about the computer transitioning from a computation and business device into an entertainment delivery system. People don't want to crack open their TVs, their Playstations, or their DVD player. When it comes to entertainment, the more work you have to do, the less appealing it is. I am all for pushing the envelope, I love eye candy. What I was saying is that developers need to understand the consumer dynamic and build to a greater bandwidth of hardware capability. |
Zipper Zee - space noob
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Elsebet
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6
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I like WoW's raiding. As a Priest I feel I have a lot of decision-making to do which can always be improved and tuned even if my gear does not get improved during a raid. I like reading all of the theorycrafting that goes on about maximizing healing efficiency and applying those ideas or doing my own experiments.
As someone who raids 3-4 nights a week, I doubt I will see all of TBC raiding before the next expansion so the content will last for me. It's nice to be able to set your own guild's progression pace instead of having another guild set it for you.
Aside from that, it's something good to play until I get into WAR beta!
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Vinadil
Terracotta Army
Posts: 334
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A priest who loves WoW Raiding... that is a rare thing indeed!
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Threash
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9171
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The best thing about WoWs graphics is that you can have a dragon, a giant robot, a mounted knight, a bunch of dinner guests and the motherfucking wizard of oz characters all be boss fights in the same zone without any of them feeling like they are out of place.
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I am the .00000001428%
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LK
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4268
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"Then there's the double-barreled shotgun from Doom 2 - no-one within your entire household could be of any doubt that it's been fired because it sounds like God slamming a door on his fingers." - Yahtzee Croshaw
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hate
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1
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What is it that draws you to WoW? I can't figure it out! First, hello Im new to this community. Second, I was going to write up a comment to this guys post, but after reading his opening line I figured he was clueless. Regardless of your taste in MMO's, most "gamers" can see the appeal has. |
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Teleku
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10516
https://i.imgur.com/mcj5kz7.png
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A priest who loves WoW Raiding... that is a rare thing indeed!
Hey, I'm a priest and I enjoyed my time raiding in WoW (stopped when I came to Japan, and my guild has since imploded anyways, so no more, heh). Healing can be alot of fun, especially since you know you are the most important thing keeping raid going, heh. Now, if only they hadn't made Druids and Pallies better overall healers...... |
"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor."
-Stephen Colbert
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Xerapis
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Japan, huh?
You should swing by DATH'REMAR, since there's a few of us Korea-types playing.
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..I want to see gamma rays. I want to hear x-rays. I want to...smell dark matter...and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me...
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Big Gulp
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3275
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All you people saying "I couldn't build a computer", but will happily swap out video cards and RAM are smoking crack.
What the fuck do you think people who build their own computers are doing? Soldering their motherboards? It's just screwing the damn mobo in place and hooking up the power supply, slotting in a chip and heatsink, and attaching IDE/SATA cables. It takes all of 20 minutes and a phillips head screwdriver. I'm putting together prefabricated crap made in China, not building ENIAC.
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sinij
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2597
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There are few places you can mess up - not attaching heatsink properly (its not that hard but you need to use thermal grease) and not grounding yourself. Last but not least - not everything works together, you need to know (or be able to research) what components play nice together.
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Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end.
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Morfiend
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6009
wants a greif tittle
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There are few places you can mess up - not attaching heatsink properly (its not that hard but you need to use thermal grease) and not grounding yourself. Last but not least - not everything works together, you need to know (or be able to research) what components play nice together.
I gotta agree with Sinji, BG. Slotting RAM or GCard is a decent amount easer than building a system from scratch. Mostly because of BIOS, and jumpers and shit like that. Not saying its "Rocket Surgery", but its a little more complicated, specially if you plan on trying to RAID your drives, or you end up with hardware incompatibility. |
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vex
Terracotta Army
Posts: 178
Smock, turban, latex gloves and rubber slippers.
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I don't think I've used a grounding strap since I built my 386.
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Vinadil
Terracotta Army
Posts: 334
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It really is not all THAT hard to build a computer, but once you start earning above minimum wage it just becomes easier to pay the guys you buy the parts from an extra $50 to do it for you. And, beyond the hardware install i HATE installing operating systems and drivers and all that junk. I am sure it is easier now than in the 90's when I did it last, but the revulsion that experience left in me has lasted until now... and I don't see it leaving any time soon.
More on Topic... yes WoW has a HUGE draw because of how easily you can enter it and play. It truly boggles my mind when people make games that cannot run on 2yr. old computers. My "new gaming rig" is 1.5 years old now and was middle of the pack when I bought it new. And, it blew my old machine out of the water. And, that machine was significantly better than my third computer that some friend game me a while back. And... I could play WoW seamlessly on all 3.
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Jayce
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2647
Diluted Fool
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I don't think I've ever run out of content in an MMOG, but WoW does have a lot that I can do that's actually within my reach.
There are lots of endgames, and they all offer at least some advancement for a small time commitment (except possibly raiding). PvP, crafting, instance running, etc.
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Witty banter not included.
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Fabricated
Moderator
Posts: 8978
~Living the Dream~
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Wow, lot of conversation from a viral marketer post. Thanks, viral marketer!
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"The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist." - George Bernard Shaw
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Merusk
Terracotta Army
Posts: 27449
Badge Whore
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Wow, lot of conversation from a viral marketer post. Thanks, viral marketer!
I haven't seen a backfire this big since we tried to shaving cream a guy's room in college. |
The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
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Xerapis
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In the Army we used to just get the new guys very drunk and then shave them.
Also, DATH'REMAR. Thank you evi marketing guy. DATH'REMAR.
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..I want to see gamma rays. I want to hear x-rays. I want to...smell dark matter...and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me...
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LK
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4268
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Wow, lot of conversation from a viral marketer post. Thanks, viral marketer!
Woooah. Can totally see that now since the guy hasn't logged in since the day he posted this. |
"Then there's the double-barreled shotgun from Doom 2 - no-one within your entire household could be of any doubt that it's been fired because it sounds like God slamming a door on his fingers." - Yahtzee Croshaw
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WindupAtheist
Army of One
Posts: 7028
Badicalthon
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What's funny is how weak and full of shit the initial marketing-mole post is to anyone who's ever played WoW. I mean there are valid reasons to dislike WoW, but the catch is that most of those reasons apply at least as strongly to EQ2. Thus our guy is left with nothing to do but harp on one broken quest and make up shit about getting stuck in waterfalls.
By the way, one thing I would sometimes do in WoW is go around trying to climb up mountains and waterfalls by wiggling and jumping in weird locations. I would go way off the beaten path and try to get into places I wasn't expected to go, cross between zones in places I wasn't supposed to, and so forth. I never got stuck. Not once.
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"You're just a dick who quotes himself in his sig." -- Schild
"Yeah, it's pretty awesome." -- Me
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Tannhauser
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4436
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WoW's success is no secret
1. A MMO of a highly popular IP
2. Polish
3. Interesting and varied world design
4. Polish
5. Distinct races at start all with unique and interesting lore, skills and areas.
6. Polish
7. Amazing art design
8. Polish
9. Focus on questing as a levelling up mechanic instead of grinding.
10. Polish
11. Technically stable, low system reqs.
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