Preach! WoW Classics graphics are so realistic! it’s like I’m actually back in 2004 squinting at a CRT monitor. Who needs modern graphics when you can have pure nostalgia pixels?
Like those lovely pixels on your avatar picture? 
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Exactly! Gotta keep it retro.
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I agree that classic graphics look better: it is more austere and soulful, grounded in a darker fantasy but still keeps it slightly more realistic than cartoony. Less is more! I love how moody, melancholic and atmospheric the old zones is.
The modern zones is too much detailed that nothing special gets your attention. Dont get me wrong, alot of the new zones are beatiful, but the colors are like a crayon…
The modern character models are awfully slick and cartoony. Like a posh, polished new car. Where the old models are like a lived retro car.
The old world and character models fit well together within their given frame, like a finished painting.
jesus christ no… Classic looked pixxly and bircky as hell. Get your eyes checked seriously.
Old timer here, who’s played the game since Zul Gurub was a new raid. I tried a bit of classic for the nostalgia feels, but the graphics are just too dated for me, sorry.
That being said I can argue one point in your favour which is that the game had a much more coherent and consistent aesthetic back then. It was all warcraft, from Gatzetstan to Stormwind, everything fit in the same world, the art made sense. Every element had space to breath.
Now wow is just so many things that I find sometimes things have just become a mess. You got sailor moon panda girl hanging out next to Human paladin that looks like an edgy crusader in a city full of robo dwarves and oh look here’s a talking turtle riding a mecha suit and little fox creature with 2 zombie t-rex as pets… Things are just cluttered, would be the nicer way of putting it.
Individually, every texture and location might be better, but the big picture is off, to me at least.
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Lol wtf 
I think it is because of the way lighting works. It might also have something to do with Anti Aliasing, not sure.
I noticed this myself when I thought I would try out Classic for a bit recently, just out of nostalgic reasons. I noticed right away everything was clearer, sharper (maybe because of MSAA instead of TAA or inferior AA in retail, I’m guessing) and because of less saturated graphics overall, the focus was more on objects I wanted to look at or characters.
Another thing is that the shadows in Classic don’t cause your characters front to be darkened because of lighting mechanics, so basically whichever way you turn, it will be the same light and you see your character clearly. While in retail I have to turn my character towards the light source or sun to get a clear view, otherwise the character will be darkened in shadows.
This goes for other characters aswell, they are all seen more clearer and you can spot their faces better. Armor also shows up better and is easier to see. While in retail you have to squint to see them sometimes because they are hidden depending on which way they are turned or where the light source is coming from.
There is also so much happening in retail, just take a dungeon for example. There is a ton of effects and you can’t see who’s aoe it was or was it the bosses ground spell or wth is even going on basically until you learn the mechanics and can tell because, well you have more information, not because of what you saw in the first place. This was much different in Classic. You could see and tell what is who’s and easy to spot just by looking even the first time.
There is probably more reasons, but those are some I remember I noticed.
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We’re reaching the limits of silicon, the electrons would literally jump tracks if we condense chips further. All that we can do now is make more cores but programmers struggle to use them optimally. Yes, AI might be the way. AI may be able to write effective multithread code. I don’t see an alternative architecture coming to our homes in the next 10 years though
Then we first have to make AI be able to think beyond likelihood calculations. If programmers struggle to utilize more cores, so will AI in the current state.