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Blizzard: WoW graphical reboot 'may never be necessary'

Speaking to VideoGamer.com in an interview from Leipzig Games Convention last week, Wrath of the Lich King lead game designer Tom Chilton said that it may be possible that constant expansions "keep the game looking fresh" and that high tech has never been a priority for the developer.

When asked how many expansions Blizzard could make for WoW before a series reboot is needed, Chilton replied: "It may never be necessary. It may be possible that just through constant iteration we're able to keep the game looking fresh enough. I mean for us it's never been a priority to have the highest tech game on the market.

"For us usability is a lot more important. We want to make sure that our game runs very well on low system specs. We want to make sure that our engine supports our stylised look. So for us it's really more that kind of iterative improvement works a little bit better for us."
jtorry - contributor
Published: 492 days 4 hours ago | News | PC | Dev News
 
 

Showing: 1 - 8 of 8 Comments
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Snoozer282 - 492 days 4 hours ago
1 -
I dont think it's needed for a long time. I've got a lot of friends who play WOW still because their PC's can't hack new MMO's. They don't complain that it looks 'aged.'
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marichuu - 492 days 4 hours ago
2 -
Sure, no need for a graphical update, but performance sure needs more work. The thing about the WoW engine is that it requires a way too powerful CPU compared to GFX card. So while you upgrade your GFX card for all the other games, WoW will still run like crap on your 3GHZ CPU.
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Leathersoup - 492 days 4 hours ago
2.1 -
Yeah... I thought that they'd implemented some methods to get the game to run better on multi-core processors but it doesn't seem that way.
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Voiceofreason - 491 days 21 hours ago
2.2 -
I play it on a 2ghz machine with all the setting maxed and do not have a single issue.
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marichuu - 491 days 18 hours ago
2.3 - @ 2.2
Can you do better than 60 fps or even 40 constantly? During 25man raids (especially Hyjal trash waves) it goes as low as 15 fps on my 3GHz, 8800GT. Unacceptable for such graphics to do so when games with physics and better graphics run better no matter what's going on. A good example is almost any UE3 game.
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Xi - 492 days 3 hours ago
3 - It looks fine.
but the engine is no source... Source engine is phenominal with regards to what it produces at it's requirements, even though I know much of it's clever mapping techniques.
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marichuu - 492 days 3 hours ago
3.1 -
WoW engine feels like the Source engine they used for Vampire: Bloodlines
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kinggeoff - 492 days 2 hours ago
4 - wow has always been
some saaaad sht

at least theyre being consistent
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