When questing there isn’t even voice dialogue most of the time. it is lazily typed in text format, this could pass in 2004 vanilla but it’s 2024 now. this isn’t good enough, play just about any other AAA or modern game and voice over for every line of the story is pretty much mandatory, even in FFXIV it’s like this. yet in wow only text.
I feel like combat can still be engaging, but the visuals and the graphics are kinda dated at this point, even on max settings, i’m not satisfied with the quality compared to when i’m playing wukong black myth, elden ring , or wuthering waves. Note, these games are a one time payment, and wuthering waves is free. Yet wow costs for the game, expansion and a subscription fee on top of it.
Wow pretty much has nostalgia going for it at this point, the sense of it being a world is kind of there, but as soon as a developer makes an MMO with next gen graphics i think its over for WoW. Graphics cards are getting extremely powerful too with the next gen soon about to break barriers once more. lets hope WoW have a graphical overhaul coming.
The thing with the graphics though, is that WoW has an art style that works perfectly for the type of game that it is. The art style also ages extremely well, whereas more realistic looking games tend to age quite badly over a similar amount of time.
I did notice that the voice acting dropped off outside of the main questline though, which I felt could have been done a bit better.
Text is better because it allows you to read at your own pace without missing a line due to circumstances. Not to mention that reading is faster than listening, and having to click to skip voice acting is a lot more hassle than the current system.
Nearly every MMORPG that came after WoW tried to be the “WoW killer” with modern graphics being the first thing they boasted about. Where are they? Why does WoW still exist after so many assassination attempts?
The obvious solution is to have voiced text. The best of both worlds. The standard.
And yes, WoW is definitely showing its age, which becomes apparent as soon as you play other games.
In some areas it feels like negligence and lack of due diligence on Blizzard’s part that they haven’t kept up with the times - for example with regards to voice acting, physics, combat design, performance optimization, or similar.
And some of it is also just part of the charm of the game, that it is its age, and it’s a great game in spite of it - perhaps even because of it.
you want every single quest text to have voice acting?
have you tried loremaster? have you seen just how many quests there are?
this alone would add a year to production I’d imagine
I disagree, WoW’s visuals are timeless, maybe the graphics for its visuals (think classic era models) can be dated, but wow’s visuals are just that, wow’s visuals. I’ve seen a lot of those unreal engine overdoes or showcases and all I can think is man soulless
I would question if WoW needs as much text as it currently has in order to convey its story.
To me it feels like there’s too much text that does very little in terms of conveying a narrative.
And I read everything.
I also think part of the problem is how Blizzard presents the text. You have to stand still at the NPC and painstakingly read through a tiny text box.
That’s awful design. The modern design would be to have the NPC go alongside you and talk to you as you explore and adventure - and perhaps even assists. You know, a more true to life experience.
But WoW does it the way it does because it’s always been done that way, not because it’s inherently the best way.
It was an example, not a suggestion.
It was an example to illustrate that WoW is old because the NPCs stand in place with exclamation points above their heads and present you with text boxes to read, rather than moving around and talking and interacting with the world they’re part of. I.e old game design versus modern.
But I’ll give an example that’s easy to agree with, for the heck of it.
Know all those lore books you can find in the game? Scrolls and pages and tomes that tell about various bits of background lore? Yeah? Sometimes they’re many pages long and it’s all text.
A game like Diablo III had the same kind of lore books strewn around as well. But if you picked them up they got saved in your log so you could read them anytime you wanted to. And they were voiced by the character who had written them, so you could also just sit back and listen to Decard Cain talking about the prime evils and the high heavens.
So obviously Blizzard can improve on the way WoW does things, because many newer games execute similar designs much better than WoW does.
I agree. I really want to read the text but I hate the way it appears on the screen so half of the time my brain automatically refuses to process what is written even if I would like to follow the story, and the next quest I will just accept it without reading anything.
It’s frustrating. I love reading, but that tiny box really hurts my eyes somehow. I had to really force myself for the Earthen story. I loved it in the end, but it was still a bit painful.
I don’t have this issue when quests have the text appearing at the bottom of the screen with dialogue, or cutscene subtitles, it’s just the standard box.
I hate it with a grudge. It’s absurd to me how WoW tries so hard to present such a beautiful world, but all the time the game’s design forces your attention to a tiny plain text box on the left side of the screen that you need to stare at for minutes and minutes, again and again.
If you don’t like add-ons stop here and read no further.
If you do, and you haven’t tried Dialogue UI, I’d really recommend it. It makes the quest dialogue appear much bigger, brighter and gives a much more immersive feel IMHO. The app’s default camera zoom to the participants can be annoying to some but can be turned off in the add-on options.
Well I expect people to flock to those AAA games and FFXIV… instead they are all here…
About this :
They are primarelly a SP game. They just add a “bonus” to summon certain players to the map you are playing in. But its not like WoW where you spontaniously find them on your game even if you dont want to. The focus is completly different.
SP games work like this : You spend X in development. You earn Y from sales. If X < Y its good news. Move on and spend 5 more years developing the 2nd title of that SP game.
Therefore, dont compare them to WoW, which primarelly a MP game… a game that requires 24/7 maintanace + weekly tuning + quaterly FREE DLC packs to keep engagement… And that is why you need some form of EXTRA, recurrent way to finance ALL that extra development you need after the game has been published.
Such as :
Which dosent have a subscription model. What it does have according to Wikipedia is this :
Wuthering Waves is a free-to-play action role-playing game developed and published by Kuro Games. It was released on May 22, 2024. [ It is ] an open world gacha game…
What is a Gacha Game might you ask ? Same wikipedia page sheds some light :
A gacha game is a video game that implements the gachapon machine style mechanics. Similar to loot boxes, gacha games entice players to spend in-game currency to receive a random in-game item. Some in-game currency generally can be gained through game play, and some by purchasing it from the game publisher using real-world funds.
And that is how they manage to get funds with out a subscription.
What do you prefer ? To pay 12E a moth. Or to have to pay 12E for the epic sword that allows you to raid with your guild ?
NO. WoW graphics are as they should be. Im sick of these AAA games that demand you have the latest 2000E graphic gard to play at full resolution.
WoW works on a toaster. Anything more than that and you got the full inmersion of the game.
WoWs graphics have stood the test of time for 20 years, how many games can say that? Most modern games look dated after 3 years. The unique visual style of this game cant be recreated. However impressive those unreal engine remakes floating arround looks, they lack the soul and magic this game has.
Further more the graphics allow this game to run at high framerate without needing a 3000eur NASA pc. You wouldnt believe how many people play this game on potatoes and 10 year old dell laptops, a graphical update would cost a big chunk of the playerbase.
For all of this game’s flaws and shortcomings, the visuals aint one of them, WoWs art team kills it, every time.
I think his main point is that, for example, the combat design in WoW is dated, and it’s not for a lack of resources on Blizzard’s part that it isn’t any better.
And it is dated.
It uses tab-targeting and automated direction. It’s inspired by the combat in EverQuest. A game from 1999.
Take for example a Frostbolt in WoW. You have to face your target in order to cast it. But if you’re facing your target at an angle it’ll still hit dead on, because the Frostbolt will just automatically change its course and finds its target. Even if the target has run behind a wall, so long as you’ve already cast your Frostbolt, it will turn into a guided missile and go around the wall in order to hit the moving target.
That’s an absurdly aged form of combat design.
And Blizzard did try to add a little modernization to it over the years, for example when they added Frozen Orb, which you actually have to target and aim yourself.
But the game’s combat is still overwhelmingly driven by the old design.
Parry and dodge are stats on gear that work passively. In any modern game those are active buttons you have to press to avoid or prevent enemy attacks.
WoW’s combat design is just old. And we like it because we’re used to it, but no new game would be able to get away with something like this now.
