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World of Warcraft's art styleFollow

#1 Oct 18 2004 at 1:04 PM Rating: Decent
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53 posts
The cartoonish look of WoW.

I really like the look of WoW, from its characters to the environments within. I have heard some people say that it looks too cartoonish, is this true?

I think that by ignoring an attempt to make the game lifelike they have created an environment that is more welcoming to you’re character. Maybe it’s my love of anime, and other animated shows and series, but I really enjoy the look of WoW. Our minds fill in a good outline with our perfect ideal of reality, this ends up appearing even more real than things shown in full detail. To check this black out an outline of an appealing human figure, then look at the original picture with full detail. In many cases the blacked out silhouette is more appealing. Your mind automatically fills in the perfect features for this outline, or at least mine does.

As I am sure there are many opinions on this I am curious as to what they are and what reasons are behind them.
#2 Oct 18 2004 at 2:27 PM Rating: Decent
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175 posts
Personally I love the style it stays true to the proceeding games plus.. *gasp* this is Fantasy!! If it's fantasy I don't wanna run around in a world that is realistic.

I know many do not care for it especially FF players for some reason. But if it's Fantasy it's not posed to be realistic right? I want to see things like orcs and undead not cutsey tarus and giraffe necked Elvaan.

Slightly offtopic but has anyone noticed that no other MMO except FF seems to harbor such hatred to WoW? Apparently they know this game has its faults see something better but wanna defend it to its last. LOL I'm honestly not even seeing FF as any kind of competition.. Fans of FF are gonna stick with it but people that want to play a MMO are gonna play WoW or another. *shrug*
#3 Oct 18 2004 at 2:31 PM Rating: Decent
I run around in a realistic looking world everyday. When I want my imagination to be inspired, I look at WoW. It is fun, lighthearted, and really is amazing. When you finally get in the game, go to Ironforge. In the center at the great forge, just look up. It is awe inspiring. This game has great visuals. They are slightly cartoonish, but this quirky style is what has helped make the Warcraft universe so popular.

#4 Oct 18 2004 at 10:26 PM Rating: Good
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531 posts
EQ2 is going for the "ultra realistic" graphics, and I have to say I really like WoW's much more.

I ALMOST feel bad for SOE. With EQ people complain that the graphics are too dated, and EQ2 they are too real/advanced/artificial. They can't win. Sadly, I really don't have a problem with that. lol

WoW just really feels like a fun place you live in. It's a world. You travel from one place to another. EQ2(and even EQ) you "zone" from one area to another(EQ2's "load screens" are even worse than EQ's!). Zoning isn't fun and really drags you out of any realistic world the game was trying to set up.

Cartoonish or not, WoW really put me in awe with a lot of the environments!!
#5 Oct 18 2004 at 11:04 PM Rating: Decent
I have long been a fan of the Warcraft art. When I first heard that WoW was coming out, I was afraid that they might change the style for something more realistic. But alas, I should have had more faith in the Blizzard team. I love how they are making a world of their own, truly a place that the player can get lost in. When looking at the EQ2 screensthots I just cringe, it's too real, SoE is not leaving anything for the mind to feel in. With the no-zones that WoW has, it even adds more to the enjoyment and immersion into the Warcraft world.
#6 Oct 19 2004 at 4:36 PM Rating: Decent
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386 posts
I personally like the graphics in WoW...but I'm not going to slam the graphics in another game because there not like WoWs. Of all the comparisons drawn between games I think that this one is the least debabtable, not because there's a clear winner but because there can never really be a winner. Assuming that the graphics aren't shoddy then it comes down to a matter of style and that is defintely a personal preference.

As far as the emnity FFXI players have for WoW, I do see it but I don't understand it. I know people that left FFXI in disgust to go play Shadowbane or Lineage 2 or CoH but there doesn't seem to be the hate for those games. I can only assume that what people know about WoW casts a light on the glaring problems in FFXI that the fanboys don't want to ackowledge and this rubs the fanboys the wrong way.

Actually, I'd be interested to know if anybody has any other ideas about this...
#7 Oct 19 2004 at 5:02 PM Rating: Decent
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[quote=PhineasPoe]I personally like the graphics in WoW...but I'm not going to slam the graphics in another game because there not like WoWs. Of all the comparisons drawn between games I think that this one is the least debabtable, not because there's a clear winner but because there can never really be a winner. Assuming that the graphics aren't shoddy then it comes down to a matter of style and that is defintely a personal preference.
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Very good point!!

Edited, Tue Oct 19 18:03:20 2004 by scathedragon
#8 Oct 19 2004 at 6:17 PM Rating: Decent
I think this is the best part about the game or any new game. Just exploring the new areas and seeing how the new areas look and what the new mobs look like. The forests where night elves start are really nice even though they don't compare in amount of quests to where humans and dwarves start out.
#9 Oct 19 2004 at 6:45 PM Rating: Decent
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126 posts
what i think the cool thing about the more animated graphics is that it doesnt show all the flaws. If you try and make a MMO look realistic its not going to look all that realistic which makes you pick out flaws. where if you try to make it look like a cartoon more or less people cant look at it and say whell that person doesnt look real. the cartoon graphics look good and crisp but they also allow there to be an error in the realizom that gets looked over
#10 Oct 19 2004 at 6:47 PM Rating: Decent
Quote:
what i think the cool thing about the more animated graphics is that it doesnt show all the flaws. If you try and make a MMO look realistic its not going to look all that realistic which makes you pick out flaws. where if you try to make it look like a cartoon more or less people cant look at it and say whell that person doesnt look real. the cartoon graphics look good and crisp but they also allow there to be an error in the realizom that gets looked over



TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
#11 Oct 20 2004 at 11:57 AM Rating: Default
Another awesome thing about WoW graphics is they allow you to have a truely amazing looking game world, without a truely amazing system to run it on. FFXI is a pretty bad resource hog unless you play on low settings, and then its just so horrible looking I can't even stand it. EQ2 so far seems to be so "realistic" that its unreal, not to mention that system requirements.

FFMania posted a link in a diff thread to some EQ2 screen shots that I thought looked pretty good, till i saw the Gnoll models.. they looked totally.... stupid.

Ah, heres the link
http://media.pc.ign.com/media/481/481244/imgs_1.html

Most of the screenshots dont look bad.. but look at the one with the gnolls.... LOL its just horrific.
#12 Oct 20 2004 at 12:21 PM Rating: Decent
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243 posts
The thing I hated about FFXI was how much of an eye sore the landscapes could actually be. Plus, most of the world is dry and arrid with some jungles here and there. Most areas just felt dead (anyone remember actually walking from the dunes to Bastok?).

In WOW even a dry/arrid place still felt alive to me like the Crossroads or the area west of Razor Hill. Jungles and forested areas look and feel 10 times better and the same holds true for open grassy areas.
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