I did it: WoW on a tablet, handheld experience, local play

Community General Discussion
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I manage to get a Nintendo Switch like experience playing WoW using a Surface Go, an ipega pg-9023 controller, consoleport and joy2key to map any action I would need to be able to do onto the controller. You can check out videos of the kind of performance I can get from it at minimum graphics settings and 50% resolution scale. It’s adequate for questing and up to 5 man group content if you’re ok having minimum graphics settings for the benefit of being able to play WoW while you’re on the go…






I recommend getting a model with built in LTE and a dedicated cellular account for relatively stable connection on the go so it’s not cheap, though for me once I paid for the hardware, the second cellular account only costs me an extra 10$ a month.

What’s the use case here? Long commutes. I have a laptop with discrete graphics that can run WoW much better, but once the battery runs out after 2 hours of gameplay, I am just lugging 2 kilograms of laptop for nothing. Whereas a Windows tablet like the Surface Go together with an extending attachable game controller and mapping actions using consoleport and joy2key/wowmapper will last me the whole day if I use a decent external battery with USB-C output, like my Anker 20100 with USB-C which I originally bought for my Nintendo Switch. By itself the Surface Go can only run WoW for 2 hours like my laptop, but I can get an extra 3-4 full charges from my battery pack and thus get all day play if needed.

When I get home I switch to my proper gaming rig with 1070 and i7 8700 with ultrawide monitor, but I can still get questing done to pass time on days when I am away from home spending hours in public transport with nothing better to do.

I imagine the GPU on the Nintendo Switch is much stronger, so as far as processing power the Switch could probably run wow better than the Surface Go, but Blizzard will probably never make it happen themselves and even if they do they will probably have separate servers like with Diablo 3 which is totally lame. I want to be able to play with my friends and progress the same characters while I’m on the go, otherwise I would just play another game on my Switch.

So I say let them be short sighted like that, their problem. Me? I am getting handheld WoW right now using this method, and as Windows tablets become stronger and cheaper, it will only get better. Intel are now working on mobile chipsets that have 3-4 times stronger integrated graphics, so the next gen or at worst the one after that of Windows tablets will be able to run WoW at levels approaching what a laptop with entry level 1050 discrete graphics can do today - but in a form factor that gives you handheld gaming option for casual PC titles, and surpass the power of current day Nintendo Switch.

So I predict in one to two years we will start seeing casual gaming tablets and handheld consoles like the Switch will have to do a lot better to justify not having access to PC casual titles.

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DoNt YoU gUyS hAVe PhOnEs

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Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. This is one of those cases. There are just some games that are better with a keyboard and mouse and WoW is one of those.

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While this is a quite nice feat, I think wow isn’t suited to be played like this and shouldn’t be. The nature of the game would need to change a lot, to be fit well onto a handheld console. Changes that would alter the experience, gameplay and mechanics a lot for the PC users.

I’m thinking Diablo 1, 2 and 3, could be quite nice to play like this.
-Not that I’d necessarily support that :stuck_out_tongue:

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congratulations you should work at blizzard to make wow-on-the-go !!
dont listen to these angry leprechauns dissing you ;p you really DONT NEED A KEYBOARD for wow these days xd

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It’s not a diss, as I said, this is a quite nice feat.
-However I somewhat agree, my concern was more about using a mouse than a keyboard xD

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Blizzard joined the chat

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“Console port” mod makes it possible and u basically could play wow like u play ffxiv but it is somewhat even better. Its just sometimes pain to aim on npc but thats it. Playing with controller gives u bonus 100% to accuracy in doing rotations and 100% to comfort :stuck_out_tongue:

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For those saying the game “shouldn’t” be played that way, I’m not taking it personally, I understand the criticism. When you have to take all the settings down this much and in many scenarios you get sub 15 fps and say to yourself yay that you managed to dodge aoe, obviously this is not what the devs had in mind and not the ideal gaming experience. Keep in mind that generally doing quests I get 20-30 fps no problem so outdoor content is definitely playable bar the occasional running into a pvp farming group.

However, just like there are some people who prefer at times not to go through the same raid and dungeon every week so they prefer to do it once or twice on LFR and then get back to questing, you can argue that’s not how the game SHOULD be played, because you are missing out on getting close to comrades and overcoming difficult challenges together… but at the end of the day, for some people it’s either that or nothing and they are grateful to have that.

In my case, sure, it is much more fun and proper to play at home with mouse, keyboard, great fps and great graphics… however, since I have many days a week where I am in very long commutes, during those times I get bored out of my mind and there are simple questing tasks I could be doing on the bus instead of getting bored and then when I get back home and have few hours to play on a proper rig, I don’t feel I have to choose between getting my quests done and joining the occasional casual farm raid or low key mythic plus.

So when you say “should”, this form of gameplay is not replacing a proper desktop experience, for me… it’s just adding another option to play in situations where I “shouldn’t” be able to play at all.

So “should” WoW be played this way? No. Am I having tons of fun being able to play this way? Hell, yes!

And remember, this is ground zero with Intel 615 and 4415y duo core setup… in a year or two, we will have tablet devices with 3-4 times stronger gpu and probably equally more powerful cpus.

So the hardware support for this option will only get better. The fact you could do it even now with current technology in my opinion is awesome, again… for my use case which I understand won’t be relevant to most other people. For me it’s really great.

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[quote=“Lunaera-hellscream, post:9, topic:46901, full:true”]
For those saying the game “shouldn’t” be played that way, I’m not taking it personally[/quote]

Ah good, because I wasn’t aiming to shoot you down.
It seems like you provided yourself a perfectly fine solution for your situation, along with some interesting work to set it up. Which makes the feat even more worth it! When I said “shouldn’t be”, I referred to devs changing the current PC game to make this type of gameplay implanted by standard more than you achieving it.
-I’m thinking that stuff like targeting, mouse control and such can be eased out a bit with addons, which could be created for the purpose?

Again, very nice feat and a good way to spend your down-time effeciently! ^^

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Hey, Krezzida! I realize no one was trying to shoot me down. It’s fine to have a discussion! :slight_smile:

Targeting is definitely the biggest challenge, but there are people making WoW with a controller work regardless of what device you are doing it on. With a controller and tablet, I am able to play WoW not only on a bus, but while standing at a station waiting for a bus! Hell, I even did a Crucible of Storms normal run with guild while I was walking home - of course peeling my eyes off the tablet for a few seconds whenever crossing a road.

I knew ahead of time I just couldn’t make it in time for the raid and miss some bosses, but thanks to the Surface Go I did manage to participate from the beginning and dodge all of the aoe and do probably at least 80 percent of the dps I would do on proper rig, if not 90 percent.

I wouldn’t use this to do any proper difficulty raid or take up a critical role like tank or healer, just easy farm stuff in a dps role where the guild is taking weak alts to do an easy mode raid whether I am in the raid or not.

Also, there are plenty of situations even at home with proper desktop that I just like chilling in bed with a controller doing quests or island expeditions. I have access to keyboard and mouse at home, but sometimes it’s just fun to kick back and relax with a controller.

Consoleport is a really great addon, very polished… I can’t imagine an addon being so good and there not being a decent amount of people who use it and enjoy playing the game this way. It’s never going to be as good as a keyboard and mouse, but for vast parts of the game you don’t HAVE to have a keyboard and mouse to enjoy yourself and contribute to the group. If you want to play competitively and push yourself to your limit then keyboard and mouse is definitely the way to go, but I can get okay dps done on a controller too, and I am not a competitive player.

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TBH it is a very interesting educational project regardless of purpose.
I guess the targeting is restricted due to limitations from blizzards side, since it would get dangerously automation. We’ll see what happens to potentially improvements going into the future.

Getitng 80-90% of your “optimal” activity is actually not bad at all. But yea, taking this to the harder difficulties might prove quite the challenge. But yea, as you point out, stil very suitable for the majority of the content indeed.

However I always enjoyed the game for it’s complexity and high skills and communication required for PvP and hard content, well that and the oldschool RP, not so much the grinds(to me that was always just a necessary evil, but again that’s just me).

I guess if the “switch” are to be broken into and modified to run windows, it could very well be the best console for the purpose. If not future generations of it.

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Lfr, world quests, warfront, expeditions, wr campaign. I see some pattern here :joy: afk content.

Try rated arenas hc raid or m+ with it.

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Obviously, that wouldn’t be the desired content for this project. But since SO MUCH of the game is, exactly that, afk content, I don’t see much of a problem with doing it this way. -If that brings joy, as long as the game itself is not altered.
What you mention is your perspective of problems with the game itself, and a whole other discussion which people might/might not share your opinion on, not the choice of what platform you choose to play from.

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That’s another thing, I can get the grind part out of the way in situations where otherwise I would not be able to play at all and then at home with my proper rig do harder group content. It kind of feels a waste of time and resources to have this massive rig just to do world quests, though obviously it is more fun than doing it on a tiny screen with more difficult control method.

Then again, it’s nice to always have that stuff being done by the time I get home on days when I am mostly outside. :slight_smile:

Also, even if Blizzard fixed all issues with the game, you will always have a grind element if you want to play alts and it’s impossible to create content faster than people can consume it. This is where handheld WoW shines IMO.

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Heh. You know, getting a kid is botting next-gen 2.0, right? (jk) xD
-Jokes aside. I get where you are comming from, it is an insanely time consuming game and always has been in one way or another. Being honest, if I could and had the platform. I might’ve done the same in your situation given the state of the game. The reason I personally mention Diablo over wow, is because I started out as Diablo gamer. It would be awesome to have that nostalgia on the go, much like Pokemon games played on mobile with an emulator.

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I made this work with Diablo 3 as well with all settings low and 800x600 resolution, again using joy2key to map actions to controller. Wish I knew I could do it before I bought the Switch version, though obviously the Switch gets better graphics and the controls are properly made to work with controller. I have friends playing D3 on PC and had to level separate characters.

I understand that Blizzard don’t want to mix players with different rigs and control methods but some players just want to be able to play with friends casually and don’t care about maxxing out their builds… and you can still do that when you get home to your proper PC rig and still benefit from leveling you managed to do on the go.

If I am willing to play some of the time in gimp mode for portability and access to a game in situations where I would otherwise have no access to it, why force me to not be able to do that?

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I think it’s perfectly fine, again, as long as it doesn’t break the game unintended ^^
-As i remember it, the major problem with cross-platform playing for diablo is that the games are stored differently. So it would more easily be broken in unintended ways, if cross-platform existed. Diablo 3 PS and PC playing together, would’ve resulted in backdoors trhough which you could hack the gamefiles(hero editor). As soon as Diablo launched on PS, people already went and created hacked items with this method. If not split by platform, you’d be able to bring these cheat items from PS to PC. The same way you could bring single-players hacked items to open battle.net in diablo 2. But I don’t think that would be much of a problem in the case of wow, depending on how much would need to be clientsided on a switch.

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I found aiming with a controller in WoW easier than in FFXIV where you have to jump between enemies with arrow keys after pressing X button. With this addon in WoW you hold one button (scanning targeting) and switch between mobs with left stick, it highlights them, releasing the button will choose that exact mob i could be even faster than pointing a mob with mouse. Or you could set up a different button so it will switch between targets with one click.
There are tons of people including myself who play competetively FFXIV on a controller and that game has two or three times the number of active buttons you use all the time. WoW on a controller is easy peazy, its just a little messed with the looting sometimes or talking with npc, they need to work on it more.

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That is my point with it getting close to automation, if that issue are to be addresed. You’d have to make a multi-purpose interaction macro, after you targeted the given NPC/mob in some way, instead of clicking on it.
Aha! That addon targeting system sounds quite well thought through for battle situations.
-The basic target fucntion in wow was updated not too long ago, if I’m not mistaken, so making a single button click might work great. But I’m not sure how realiable it is for the purpose?