My new pc just arrived, spent 2k on it, it’s not that much but I still get 25-30 FPS in LOU. Fun fact I also bought an X3D processor especially for this game since I run no more than 6 addons which is not a lot if you ask me.
A new engine or an upgrade for Midnight expansion would be massive news for the whole playerbase.
Never going to happen. Despite the demand for a new engine better optimised over the ancient current Frankensteinian spaghetti coding it wouldn’t be feasible due to cost and time commitment just for the engine itself never mind all the issues it’ll flag up transferring current code and assets.
You’re looking at years of effort for minimal gain to an ancient game.
And before anyone mentions FF14 that game had a complete remake, engine and all, that took 3 years after its flop of an original release… it didn’t have to go through 2 decades of content that WoW has.
Why is it that every time somebody upgrades their PC, the first thing is start a thread asking for a new engine.
First off, the engine is already updated every time a new expansion is released. The Current WoW engine, despite it´s shortcomings, has features and optimization that weren´t even imaginable 20 years ago. Which is why the game looks nothing like it did back then aside from the art style.
Secondly: the amount of time necessary to code a new engine from scratch that actually supports the feature set WoW currently requires AND still preserves the feel of the game would be a multi year endeavor in and of itself. Because no 3rd party engine offers even half of the functionality required out of the box, and the millions in licensing fees (which are generally based on user numbers) make a 3rd partsy engine a non-starter, anyway.
Thirdly, just porting over the existing assets would take literally years, not to mention the necessity to create new development tools because the old ones won´t necessarily work with the new infrastructure.
You´re literally asking them to spend the next +/-5 years, by which time you will yourself almost certainly have upgraded your PC again at least once, and completely stall all further development of the game in that time, for a minor performance boost.
But, just for the record, I get +/- 60fps on ultra in LoU, and I´m running a Ryzen 5 3600 and a GF 1060 w/3 gb… I therefore firmly beleive that if your hardware is current and you weren´t ripped off by your SI that there is a significant amount of optimization potential in your system. 
I’m just happy OP didn’t ask for Unreal 5 specifically like all the people who’ve just been recommended a tech demo video on youtube or tiktok.
Engine is updated, modified, improved all the time, every expansion.
They can’t just make brand new engine from scratch that quickly. Migrating the game to completely brand new engine can’t be done if you expect to get new content also. It would take years when they would basicly need to stop doing any new content for WoW and that would basicly probably kill the game. It’s not worth of an investment.
At most I can imagine WoW updating to utilise AI generated fps like DSLL4… 
My personal opinion of fake frames notwithstanding… if you have hardware that supports any version of DLSS or FSR, you shouldn`t need to generate them in WoW but can simply render actual frames at 100 fps+.
I can see it coming in a few years, when “today´s” hardware is widespread on the lower end, to help people still using it to achieve better framerates… but again, if I can get 60 FPS on ultra on a GFX card that´s almost 10 years old and a cpu from 2019 (in 1080p mind you, obviously not in 4k), it´s hardly something that would currently make sense to implement… I think we´ll get optional RT lighting before that happens, which would arguably be the largest GFX improvement to the game in over a decade for those that can run it.
That said, when it happens, the art team will hate the engineering team´s guts for about 2 years, becaus they then have to go through and change every single light source, from the sun all teh way down to candles and fireflies, not to mention all of the sparkly shiny particle effects we´ve become so accustomed to in our spells and armor sets… Yeah, somebody is potentially gonna get lynched over that, strung up by his ankles from the Orc statue in the coutrtyard with “I will not campaign for GFX improvements” tattooed across their forehead 100 times 
WoW looks almost like a different game with RT;
This video really encapsulates how good looking it can get purely off lighting.
Let me guess:
Aye. And that´s just the RT shadows that we already have, not a full implementation of RT tech.
I think when they put in all the bells and whistles and people have the hardware to run it, most of the calls for a new engine will be silenced… at least those that aren´t asking for it for “more realism” = photorealistic characters that don´t fit the art style. 
I also got a new pc recently and I got no problems, spend 2500( 50 series gpu is so overpriced) but its also my work pc for 3D stuff so had to spend a bit of extra. Give the rest of your specs and we can really know whats the issue.
I remember in WoD when i upgraded to a 770 and the game was absolutely buttery smooth in ASHRAN of all places, hell it was smooth even when the 2 groups were colliding.
Now i have a 13700k + 4090 and im lucky to get 60 fps and its a lagfest.
What i really want for retail is the AI Upscaling from classic, it genuinely makes such a massive difference and i dont get why we still haven’t gotten it in retail.
I hope its a V8 that goes “BRAPBRAPBRAPBRAPBRAPBRAP!!!”
Means a new game. So it’s not going to happen.
What the Gnome said, it woud literally take yeras to developing a new engine which is untested whih is a huge risk to, look at FF14 1.0 with their Crystal engine whivh was unstable.
It woud be a huge mess
I’m rocking 60-80 FPS in LoU on my MacBook Pro.
I suspect some addon is hogging your resources. I know you may not have many installed, but if one of them is WeakAuras who knows what might be happening.
Fortunately WoW just got some really robust tools for figuring that out. Take a look at CPU addon usage during an LFR run (where your performance won’t matter much) or something. 
Nah, plenty of games receive new engines and continue to work just fine. Oblivion Remastered whacked half the Oblivion engine into UE5 and it works just fine, and Daggerfall got a Unity port which is much much better than the original engine, many games got open source ports like DOOM with gzdoom or Heroes 3 with VCMI or OpenNOX for Nox or OpenRA for the C&C games and on and on it goes.
And even WoW… but we’re not gonna talk about that.
It’s a lot of work though.
They used still existing engin but problem is warcraft run on the ancient customs made Warcraft 3 engine and its highly unlikely that you converr it on a new one.
Yes and no… traditionally, yes, a new engine comes with a new game, esp for ex teh IdTech series or earlier installments of the Unreal series, where the game´s primary purpose is to show off the engine.
But purely technically speaking, it is possible to replace the engine without anybody noticing even the slightest bit of difference.
However, that task is so gargantuan, especially for a game the size and scope of WoW, that most studios will simply opt to save time and resources by creating a new game instead of porting an old one.
