I have played WoW since end of November 2017 until the event of BfA in mid 2018. I currently own a 27" Late 2009 iMac HighSierra which worked absolutely fine with all the expansions til Legion. I had to stop playing cause the GPU required, even tho I did not buy the new BfA, is too high for my hardware now, what a bummer. I wonder if anyone has experienced the same issue and found a solution to this instead of upgrading my hardware or buying a new iMac for a game online…
These are my specs:
iMac (27’’ Late 2009)
Processor 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory 4BG 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics ATI Radeon HD 4670 256 MB
Please answer if only you have the same problem and resolved it…I am not an IT guy at all so I have no idea of what all of this means…but I do want to play again…so your answer would be very much appreciated.
Hi Ebic, thanks for your response…it’s been more than a year that im trying to figure out a solution…complained to activision, to blizzard, no one cares, no one came back to me…I guess they believe im one of those they shouldn’t care about. This is really bad. This company treats customers and players really bad. REALLY BAD! And the point is there isn’t any other option but upgrading and spend money on expansions, buying the game more and more, subscriptions, and so on…Not even the courtesy of saying we have received you complaint…nothing. I am fed up and not intended to play this bloody game anymore…Blizzard sucks
Unfortunately there is little we can do to help here. The best option here is still Bootcamp, given you want to stick to your Mac. However, since your system will be below the minimum requirements, it won’t be a very playable experience.
It is not that we don’t care, but there are some technical problems coming up when supporting old hardware: The graphic chip in your mac is tech from 2008 (OpenGL 3.3, DirectX9/10) and built for a software environment where some of the technologies which are a standard today (DX11, DX12, Metal) where not even invented yet or even considered.
World of Warcraft is not static, the game needs to be constantly updated to facilitate changes the vendor of an OS (be it Microsoft, be it Apple) does. If we don’t, the game will eventually fail to run at a certain point or requires a certain amount of user effort to run at all.
Due to this, there will be a point here we need to drop outdated tech in order to move forward.
To my knowledge, there was even some effort to try and include OpenGL in BfA, but ended up being dropped due to a large amount of issues (crashes, graphic errors, etc.) which turned out to be unfixable or would end up costing too much performance, resulting in an unplayable experience (usually: below 30 fps) on old systems.
I appreciate the jump in quality for Blizzard’s games, but now I feel that only few privileged players are able to enjoy the game, even tho I have payed for it in full and worked absolutely fine for months. The prices are exactly the same as per buying other games whether they are purchased online or at game shops.
So I do not understand why I should be spending thousands to upgrade my PC to play couple of games I have payed for already, and worked fine with my operating system…If these platforms are not static at least have the decency o reimburse those who are not willing or incapable to change GPUs or CPUs on a regular basis.
Blizzard has left me with the choice of not playing their games from now on, which clearly is a huge disappointment for a fan that used to love every merchandise, lore and the whole game-verse of Warcraft.
Pretty much any modern game will require modern hardware and will not support obsolete one if it would require additional work or would impact experience on supported hardware. And most of the time it’s not the game that calls hardware obsolete.
Looking at Steam survey majority of players can run WoW just fine so don’t play this card as it’s false. Also using a very old PC/Mac you should expect it will perform like an old PC/Mac - the vendor may stop supporting it or newer and newer games will work less and less efficiently or not at all.
This is a bit far from the truth, as World of Warcraft does run on systems which are very close to be obsolete. The minimum requirements can be met with a decent PC (2011) / Mac (2012).
True, it is not your fault that the game and macOS have moved forward. But this is how things are currently are, new tech is coming, old is slowly phased out.
Just to add a word of caution here too: I would strongly recommend upgrading your system in the near future, if this iMac is your daily driver: The system is at a point where component failure is becoming more and more likely.
You may want to ask you the question, if you are willing to wait for this to happen and create an uncomfortable situation where your system fails you while you need it urgently (and probably acquire the next best thing in consequence), rather than taking your time now and making a good and informed decision how your next PC or Mac may look like.
I disagree with you and I am sure there are others that have not participated to Steam survey and experienced my same issue
I believe this answer is pretty personal. I am the one to decide whether to have an obsolete or new PC…Personal Computer.
Since it is not my fault than why not reimburse me with something I will no longer use? That was the whole point. My justification of why I am asking my money back is the main point of discussion and not how I should be getting better equipments for the future.
Why not quote this?
Then why not giving the option to reduce graphics and settings to play the game?
Were you able to use the game when you were paying for it? If so, then there is nothing to reimburse since you were able to use it.
And yes, it is your personal computer and you can use it long as you want, but it does not mean that the world will stop and wait for you to catch up.
And it is not about reducing graphics settings: Apple has forced developers to move to use Metal over OpenGL as the graphics and Apple does not support that old GPUs in Metal. The first reply in this thread gave you a solution if you insist using your computer: Windows in bootcamp as it should in theory still work.
You don’t own your “Personal” computer if you want the sad news. You don’t own the operating system, hardware drivers, BIOS and firmware. It’s up to their creators to decide if your hardware works or not. There were cases of whitelist-only hardware compatibility or breaking compatibility with updates to force people into buying specific things.
Because it’s not the compute power that is the problem (even if the GPU is ancient and very weak) but the API which the stack uses to communicate. Game to the operating system API and that talks to the GPU driver and that to the hardware itself. If Apple ends OS support or GPU vendor stops releasing drivers then the chain is broken and game can’t do anything.
For Mac OS the Game-OS API is called Metal and that’s the only one supported. Trying anything else means no Apple support and no guarantees it can even or will work. Your iMac isn’t supported by Apple so it’s not compatible with it and thus Metal based apps/games won’t work.
I disagree immensely with you guys.
This is a fact.
Playing games should be for everyone, and if Blizzard, like Radathryl said before, looks up to those “stayed behind” as you call them…then they should have thought a little bit better.
Playing WoW shouldn’t be just for geeks or bootcamp or whatever technology you use. Thankfully I come from a generation where videogames started and I understand the evolution of it but not the mechanics. So for Blizzard justifying it so that they can keep my money, I just find it so absurd.
In regard with my private or personal choices of what I should have or not shouldn’t be none of anybody’s matter. If the whole community goes against me let it be, but I am still 100% sure there are a lot of other people out there that thinks or experienced the same as me. Expressing something that bothers me, doesn’t mean I try to argue or to fight. I am just simply communicating to the forum my experience and my loss of money from a company that disregards
A. who stays behind and can’t afford new machinery to play their games
B. huge lack of customer service
C. ridicules the “public” showing off as better than others. This is called bullying and authority abuse.
So that if I can’t get my money back, at least someone else will pick up on this and make their own decisions.
Edit: You guys don’t know the full story so that’s why you’re making your own assumption. Only for calling off Blizzard sucks I got finally an answer of a close solution. You know how many letter I have sent since last year? Or how many times I tried to get someone’s attention to help me resolve the issue? I cam to a conclusion that Blizzard isn’t really that good. Pretty graphics…but nothing else to offer. Why should I be supporting a company like that? Hence, I want my money back.
To be honest, you’re kind of missing the point. Apple themselves aren’t supporting the OS any more so there’s not a lot Blizzard can do.
Wow is unusual in that it does try to support older computers - as Radathryl mentioned earlier, minimum requirements can be met on an 8 year old PC or a 7 year old Mac … but yours is 10 years old and unsupported by its maker. I sympathise, I really do but computer systems change very quickly and a 10 year old unsupported by Apple computer is not going to work for pretty much any game nowadays.
But you do want to keep using your iMac from Apple. Apple, the company who threw your device off the support list, this was NOT done by Blizzard.
If you want to point with fingers, start by aiming at Apple. Even though that won’t help you either, since they have their valid reasons to actually limit their already quite long support on their devices. I think the only times they limit their support is when the technology simply cannot run on the older hardare anymore, sounds kind of fair to me.
A late 2009 device, perhaps bought in 2010 is by now a good 9 years old. It’s not a static once-in-a-lifetime investment, so you’ll have to calculate in when to renew or upgrade it - just like a car, phone or anything else with a limited lifetime.
You can’t blame Blizzard for supporting only devices and technologies which are actively supported by the supplier/manufacturer of those…it’s the only reasonable thing they can do.
You choose to work on a 9 year old device, nobody else forces you to. This doesn’t mean anyone is obligated to support your choice. This is how technology works, heck, this is how life works.
Yes that’s true. I still have old consoles with old games that I like to play with, so I get the point of going forward everything become obsolete. But that doesn’t mean I can’t play anymore for a game I purchased on that very obsolete machine. I am just disappointed for the fact that WoW actually worked very well with Legion and Blizzard won’t give any option to keep playing their game unless you buy a new expansion or upgrade the PC.
Initially when I requested if my PC was good enough for Legion they said to me it was absolutely fine, but as a first time player they should have mentioned that the game was going to change and so I could only have played for few months. Instead, they took my money and run away. And when I made the point to them, they absolutely blanked me. That’s where my frustration come from. When you buy a game, and it fits with your console, you can play with it forever.
Edit: read here what happened in USA, Blizzard apparently have posted somewhere where not so many people were aware of the massive change and lost hundreds of subs and players https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20762217419?page=1
Just for your knowledge
They miscommunicated the change so that Blizzard weren’t going to lose money…and now people like me are screwed. Funny that the Tech Support team isn’t answering anymore…perhaps because I am 100% right!!!
technology keeps advancing and the world keeps moving, its not blizzards fault that you bought a piece of hardware that cant be upgraded, you choose to go for apple and with that you accept that you pay for a overpriced piece of hardware thats not upgradeable and that cant play most games natively.
you say you feel like onley ‘‘privileged’’ players are able to play the game while you use a imac… imacs are overpriced and for the ‘‘privileged’’.
you cant exspect blizzard to hold graphical advancements back for everyone just cause you want to play on your dated imac.
Few months? Get your facts straight. You could play every part of Legion up till the BFA prepatch (I believe), so didn’t miss much.
What I read is “I read the warning, but I’m not going to replace my (i)Mac(Book) yet.”.
What is not clear? APPLE depricated OpenGL. A game like WoW can’t work well on depricated technology, it’ll break in a matter of weeks. So Blizzard had no other choice than to focus completely on Metal.