Volumetric fog comparisons: Classic / Forever

In Development WoW Forever Beta Discussion
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TL;DR: Volumetric fog is a big contributor to realistic view distance and lighting effects, but (IMHO) is poorly calibrated, abused in many areas, and it starts off too close, which makes colors way less vibrant and hides other elements such as clouds / sun / moons.

So, when I first saw the gifs that showed how certain areas in forever looked (mainly Ashenvale), I knew I wanted to check one of my favorite zones in Kalimdor: Feralas.

I’ve always loved Feralas, and always hated the radioactive green tint it had in Classic. Hoping for an improved, haze-less look, I rushed over there in the beta, and what I saw there prompted the following ideas and feedback about volumetric fog.

While it is true we can turn the fog on and off (although it must be done through a console command, and there is no “proper” option for it within the game’s graphic options AFAIK), doing so means sacrificing too many things on both ends. Full fog implies beautiful lighting effects and realistic (for the most part) view distance, but washed-out, dimmer colors, as well as not being able to see clouds, the sun or the moon. Turning it off makes things more vibrant and allows one to see the sky properly, but the view distance goes too far, and you miss out on many beautiful light effects.

Here’s an example with some screenshots I took: https://i.imgur.com/X0zEUN3.gif

And another, also in Feralas: https://i.imgur.com/qG2Qdii.gif

I believe the best solution might be, if possible, to simply push back the distance at which the volumetric fog starts to render around our characters, or allow us to adjust it in the options, instead of a full, all or nothing on/off switch.

Here’s an example of clouds and the moon being hidden by the fog: https://i.imgur.com/sw3vKAA.gif

Last but not least, I also went into Classic and checked how things looked over there. Classic has no volumetric fog, but it does still have that effect (called aerial perspective), where things start looking dimmer and with less contrast the more far away they are from us. The thing is, this “horizon” starts further away from us, and could definitely be a good guideline as to where volumetric fog could maybe start to render instead.

Here’s the comparison: https://i.imgur.com/JoHCRkl.gif

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The FOG in Forever make my eyes hurt
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Being able to push back the volumetric fog further away would be a godsend. On top of what you just said, it feels very unnatural in many places and also put extra strain on the eyes because everything is blurred by it, even your own character.

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I also commented another place about this. But your post here is great and I completely agree.

But I Just got another Idea of what they could do with it maybe. Make it like weather effects. Sometimes it rains and after theres a thick fog and sometimes it’s not been raining for a while and all the fog is gone. It doesn’t have to be combined with rain only saying rain because you need water to make fof. But just throwing in an idea.

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Blizzard should really add the option to toggle the fog on and off without the need of a console command. Besides, any extra option to modify the fog, such as distance (as discussed on the post) or intensity would be an absolute win for players.

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Yes please give us back the toggle. The game looked really nice without the fog and wasn’t so tiring for my eyes.

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