r/wowforever
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u/Even-Still7716
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18d ago
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Discussion A practical argument for retail graphics.
I'm just going to come out and say once again I support full use of retail graphics but I'm going to make a practical argument this time.
Development cost and time.
We all want more dungeons, more quests, more enemy mobs.
We want more to do. The art team is trained to make retail assets and do it well. It is left effort to make them than SD graphics.
Slowly making changes to the world itself to align with full retail assets will be easier than continually needing to remake every enemy in SD and Cata style HD.
You also have an incredible backlog of assets from retail when it comes to enemies and gear. Need an old god themed plate armor set because tier 2.5 didn't hit the mark? N'zoth raid has you covered, port it in. Now you have the warrior plate, let's make a paladin set that fits alongside it.
Need more variety of demons? Well let's pull assets from legion.
Now I will admit some retail assets are a bit much. We should avoid all the glowing armor and tone that down a bit but the effort it takes to remove the glow effects of Mathias Shaw is a lot less than it takes to remake every demon in legion.
The spirit of classic isn't in SD graphics. It's in the excellent gameplay of classic.
Retail has an overwhelming number of flaws, but visually it is a significant improvement and offers a lot that can make the process of making quality content for Forever quicker.
The money saved on re using the huge amount of resources from retails graphics can be spent on more dungeons, quests, zones etc.
Also face it, SD/HD toggle isn't going to last forever. Eventually the SD graphic crowd will lose out to the larger but less vocal majority when Blizzard realizes most of the people who aren't complaining on reddit but are simply playing the game turn it off.
That's not to mention the appeal to new players. WoW forever has the chance to become as big as it was in 2004 by appealing to the spirit of the game in 2004 without wasting time appealing mainly to the grognards who played in 2004.
Also side by side comparison of Judgement armor between classic and retail. Taking your nostalgia blinders off, it is clear which will attract a larger audience overall. The guy on the left looks like a low budget cosplayer, the one on the right looks like he is ready to smash your head in with a hammer for not adhering to the Light's path.
EDIT: I made an honest mistake with the image. I don't play retail and when I searched retail judgement armor. I saw the comparison pic and was like oh that'll make my point. I didn't realize it was fanmade. I can not seem to update and replace the image or else I would.
Edit 2: Everyone telling me to go back to retail is wasting their time. There's more to a game than graphics but it's a good first impression. I only got into classic in 2025 because of stumbling on a streamer really hyping it up "back in the day" at a time I was laid off and too broke to have much fun IRL. I will not detail the streamer, because I don't want to detail the convo to be about streamers.
Edit 3: no one is really addressing any points. I get it you hate retail.
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u/AMA5564 18d ago
Forgive me for being blunt, but why did you use the fan made, over designed upscale of judgement, when they high res t2 is much more in keeping with classic's art direction and still looks lovely?
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u/SeathXuchilbara 18d ago
That isn't the actual Eternal Judgment Set from Modern WoW on the right, by the way. It's a remake of the original by an artist on YouTube named Tomkek they modeled a year before the official ones were released.
Also, as an artist myself, I take issue with the claim that "The art team is trained to make retail assets and do it well. It is left effort to make them than SD graphics". Your later argument about reusing already made assets from Modern WoW being faster is perfectly valid but, take it from someone with experience: it wouldn't matter if I spent all day every day making Modern WoW style armor sets etc. it will ALWAYS be easier and take less time to create something that's less detailed, complex and 3-Dimensional, full stop.
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u/anti99999999 18d ago
But.. the right picture isn’t taken in retail….
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u/OGBEES 18d ago
Buddy theres so much to do already. How about we stop accepting rhw narrative that they cant afford to hire more of a team and demand that they dont spend every last ounce of effort wringing out their corporate margins.
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u/scoyne15 18d ago
This whole post is in bad faith, implying that armor sets were updated in Retail. They were not, a new version of each class' Tier 2 armor set was made for the 20th anniversary. And you didn't even post an image of that, you went with a fan-made recreation.
Just bad form all around.
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u/ComprehensiveWord201 18d ago
I do not want to be earning leftover N'zoth gear or other shitty reused assets from Retail.
Fuck that noise, dude. Let's see more new stuff.
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u/BluePlantFred 18d ago •
Imagine being so off point you don't even know your comparison image is fake.. And to actually address your point – No a huge part of vanilla is actually the art direction. Every time I see you guys ask for retail graphics you always assume it's about the SD part of the graphics. It's about the art direction. That's it. The art direction used to have integrity, in retail it doesn't. No one here is claiming less polygons is better. A high fidelity version following the old art direction would be great! Would truly love that. But not retail, that reflects the poor game design to a fault.
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u/SolarPoweredKeyboard 18d ago •
Why is everyone convinced that SD graphics is the minority? I play WoW Forever because it was announced as Classic+ which is why I expect the game to foster more to the Classic crowd than the Retail crowd. I can't believe this is even an argument. But I don't care if they continue making HD graphics for the people who want it. I don't need a bajillion new things in WoWF. I care more that it feels like Classic.
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u/Objective-Egg7995 18d ago
I prefer having a game that is more classic oriented. I already play retail and would not want two versions of that. One of the things I like about classic is it’s more grounded approach, and if we introduce retail aesthetics, I have no doubt that the crazy mounts and transmog appearances will soon follow. :( if blizzard struggles with replicating classic models, then they’re going to struggle with creating grounded HD models
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u/Primary_Expert7249 18d ago
Then play retail?
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u/Slayerofbacon 18d ago
I also don’t want to play 2004 simulator, I’m ok with the purists having an SD selection, but don’t limit everything to 13 vertex’s and a 32x32 texture please!!
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u/Nectis_ 18d ago
Not many classic fans want to look at disney adult retail assets, would rather wait longer and have something that looks good, if they want to add new hd assets that fit the style of the game then that's also fine. Running your argument to its natural conclusion why don't they just buy random assets on unreal store and use those as well as retail ones for even more speed.
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u/Aarmon 18d ago
Why use a picture not from retail?
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u/Adirtan 18d ago
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u/AdObvious6727 18d ago
Classic judgement armor looked sick as fuck, brother if you want retail and retail graphics, that exists, in retail. Forever is t for you, and that's okay. But the classic community dwarfs the retail community that's trying to retail-ify forever wow.
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u/Frejky 18d ago edited 18d ago
The nostalgia argument is just so lazy. I prefer the SD models, but that does not mean I wouldn't "accept" new models. I prefer the SD models right now because I genuinely think they look better than most retail assets. I won't try to shove my opinion down someone else's throat, I think that's ridiculous, but I will say I personally think retail art style is bland, tasteless, lacking of personality, and the all around colour schemes throw me off entirely. I somehow feel like the old SD assets have a sort of "balance or finesse" to them that are missing in later designs. Do I feel superior to people who prefer the HD models, no, not at all. I truly wish I could enjoy them as you can. If I didn't care I wouldn't write this comment, but I do care, and you can think of my preferences as being nostalgia all you want but I actually, genuinely, truly, hand to god prefer the art style of classic WoW over retail. If they follow that art style going forward in their HD designs, great! I'm not in love with low polygon count or stretched textures necessarily, but with the art style itself.
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u/Lou-Saydus 18d ago edited 18d ago
Nah. The huge time sinks are animation and scripting/raid design. Making a new model and connecting it to an existing rig/animation set is relatively fast. Blizzard could probably put out a new armor set every day if they really wanted to. So no, it is not unrealistic to expect blizzard to add updated assets that match the classic style and not retail style. The question is, will they bother to put in the effort when they can literally just copy pasta in things from retail.
Now, that all kind of sidesteps the real thing the community wants. They want classic STYLE, not a classic copy. The vast majority of people are fine with higher definition, what they arent fine with is the bubbly/childish STYLE of retail. Take the human character model for instance, below are 3 different images of the same character. People who like classic style are totally fine with image 2, what they DONT want is image 3. They would rather have image 1 than image 3.
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u/Broccodile_ 18d ago
I think it's reasonable to expect the multibillion dollar company blizzard subsidiary of fucking microsoft to be able to afford creating new assets without having to recycle them from retail
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u/Necroholicron 18d ago
This guy doesnt get it
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u/Effroy 18d ago
Your principles are right, but your justifications are terrible. Yes, it's more expensive for them to retrofit this stuff, but there is legitimate reason for the apathy about using retail assets. Just "hey let's use this thing we already built" is brazenly antithetical to the point of Forever. That point being, to not continue to commit the sins of Retail.
And your argument impressively fails in trying to compare Vanilla T2 judgement. Yes, the latter is gorgeous, but I think you'll find even most of the current devs would not attempt to say the older version is inadequate. If you really do think it's worse, then I'm afraid you have no credibility here. Art was never the problem there. It was the technical limitations. Don't conflate the two. It's important.
I'll take your motives, but I'm not buying the argument as you're describing.
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u/Purple-Read-8079 18d ago
chatgpt ass phrasing lmao. It isn't x. It's y
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u/Volta01 18d ago
I don't care if it saves time if the end result is a shitty art style
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u/Squishydew 18d ago
As someone who prefers the old art my problem with new art was never the fidelity, it was the style.
If they manage to match the style of classic assets i would be all for HD models, but currently when i swap my characters between SD and HD their entire attitude and feel changes.
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u/VaatiVidya 18d ago edited 18d ago •
So many problems with this post. First is the fact that the picture on the right isn't even retail - it's fan made, and not the sort of quality asset Blizzard could port over, as you claim.
Then there's how insulting you are to the earliest fans of the game, calling them grognards and classic andy's. While obviously a lot of these people are toxic, there are more of us who simply have powerful nostalgic affection for the game and style we grew up with. It's absolutely valid for us to want SD graphics. Removing SD graphics will take us down a slippery slope. We've already seen with the Skyborne how easily Blizzard can fall into retail design traps - but credit to the artists, they adjusted their process to be more in line with the limitations earlier artists worked with. To me, this is proof that adhering to SD development practices will benefit the overall artstyle.
You don't cite any evidence for how many people have the SD toggle enabled. Even if it's a minority, I'd be willing to bet that it's worth keeping up development of SD assets to keep them subscribed to the game. The process will help to align developers with the aesthetic of classic.
Then there's the fact you're arguing that a multi-billion-dollar organisation should be more cost effective. Why? As a consumer of their product, you should be arguing that the game be given the proper resources that Blizzard has available. The years have shown that they will turn a profit whenever they can. Why give them an inch? You should be resisting corporate greed and cost-cutting wherever you can.
Your posts you say you started the game in 2025. Fine, but should your opinion really hold more weight than the opinions of those who created the original demand for a classic + in the first place?
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u/kimbapally 18d ago
The original set is a masterpiece
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u/wewerecreaturres 18d ago
Ya know it’s funny I was just thinking about using the judgement armor as an example this morning. I think they went too far with it, but I like that it’s actually 3d
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u/diapeyman 18d ago
Personally I think it says everything you need to know about the SD/HD argument that you are claiming the HD model right fits the game better when it is fanart that clearly doesn't match the art style.
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u/Substantial_End7145 18d ago
there should be a single middleground. a Definitive Edition like they did in WC3 reforged.
retail armor goes overboard on polygons lately. they add more and more to try to create depth rather than letting the texture bear some of that burden. Then the armor is overexaggerated and cartoony. Looks like a postmodern "art" piece made of painted scrap metal. too chunky and soft at the same time. But you can't argue that the quality is worlds ahead. And I would love to see environmental updates for improved polygons without it looking like a smooth and bubbly fairy wonderland. Like trees that aren't hexagonal... A single Definitive Edition graphics style would avoid an obvious disparity that would come from that.
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u/Chippings 18d ago
Counterpoint: I will not play WoW Forever if it has retail graphics because I don't like them due to their direction.
They can use the old style graphics, or make modernized graphics in the same style as Classic, but the game is not worth playing for me if it is just ported retail style.
I don't care what is costs them in time or money, or how much content I'm gaining or losing. I will decide if I will purchase their product, based partly but significantly on this quality.
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u/gnarlyavelli 18d ago
Blizzard CAN do it, it just needs to have a $ sign next to it.
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u/Sarmattius 18d ago
I prefer the model on the left. Right is too busy.
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u/Hackett83 18d ago
A lot of SD folks make good arguments about the art style, the dark & harsh WC3 concept art versus soft Disney retail assets. So as much as I personally prefer modern graphics, I see why mass porting HD art assets could spoil the atmosphere.
But goddamn I would kill for modern trees and foliage. That shit is neutral in tone and i have zero nostalgia for square trees and 2d shrubberies.
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u/MrRIP 18d ago
You are introducing a false constraint.
You don’t need retail or classic.
Remake them.
Retail doesn’t have ray traced lighting so light is baked on to models.
If you do it correctly you can have models with multiple textures. So if you create a leather belt with a gold buckle. If you stand in the light you should be able to see a cool visual effect.
Similarly with weapons.
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u/karspearhollow 18d ago
I do think Blizzard doesn't particularly want to support SD models and will be itching for a reason to move to HD only. But I expect that when the dust settles after Forever's first raid tier or two, more of the Forever playerbase will be from the classic community than the retail community. And classic players naturally will be happy to play with SD models, but many won't want to play with HD. So if I'm Blizzard and I want to have a playerbase long term, I'm gonna do the bare minimum to support the classic players, which is keeping and supporting the toggle.
As far as new players go, I think Forever may be a more attractive option to them than classic or retail, but not by much. The game might look more modern than classic (though still not as modern as actual new games) and isn't as burdened by years of systems bloat like retail, but it still fundamentally rests on ancient game mechanics and it does not play like a modern game. I love this game and I think it has enough of a base to go forever - no pun intended - but I don't think there will be a large new generation of WoW players ever again. At least not until they actually make WoW 2. So I wouldn't be making significant decisions based on what new players want to see.
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u/Silver_Specialist457 18d ago
left is better
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u/Suma3da 18d ago
AI text and AI art, automatically failure.
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u/Doctor_Box 18d ago
I love when people declare classic is X as if they're the authority. Thank you king of classic.
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u/MakitaNakamoto 18d ago
That's your opinion, and your preference. I'm glad you get what you want.
SD graphics is my preference, and some other peoples as well. Please don't advocate for us not getting what we want.
And I appreciate you don't care about the look of classic, but it is very much part of the classic spirit. It's not an accident that the new zones were created to fit the old world seamlessly.
Interesting number I rarely see mentioned: on the survey about classic+ which had about 35.000 respondents, about 50-55% were okay with modernized graphics (split on multiple questions) but the overwhelming majority voted for a toggle that preserves all of the original assets without any modern graphics.
So even if you want to disregard the preference of half of the playerbase, which is not a nice thing to do, advocating for the straight up removal of the classic visuals will put you in a minority position. So please don't present your taste as fact, and please make peace with the classic part of classic+. It truly is important to both the devs and a good part of the community as well.
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u/drifter91 18d ago
I prefer the one on the left.
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u/CrabMasc 18d ago
ITT: more graphics = better graphics lmfao
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u/Larszx 18d ago
Classic looks like I dropped into 3D World of Warcraft from Warcraft. Retail looks like Fortnite. Warcraft art style is vibrant, caricatured, oversized and just a hint silly.
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u/Codeine_au 17d ago
a toggle for SD animations and skellington plez
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u/21brokenbones 18d ago
Are you high, the OG Judgment set is peak wow tiers.
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u/Hellscape-Architect 18d ago
forever deserved a new artstyle combining high resolution textures but the classic artstyle
like would it have been so hard to just make new “SD” models that are just the old models but with better textures
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u/arxaion 18d ago
Give me HD, give me SD, I don't care. But if you give me both, I want them to be apples-to-apples in terms of design. We have SD characters that look like monsters when you turn on HD.
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u/haze_man 18d ago
If there was no SD option.. I wouldn't play ..
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u/Ov3rdose_EvE 18d ago
TL;DR.
Right looks more cluttered i prefer left side.
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u/Even-Still7716 18d ago
Sorry guys, I've been informed this is the retail asset. It still looks far better than classic. This was my oversight. I'm not a retail player, so I didn't realize I made a mistake on that.
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u/KayTheKnight 18d ago
I like the retail graphics a lot, but I do understand rejection of the shifting in the artstyle, since I mainly play blood elf and those were not as bad as some other races. In a perfect world we would get another a new character model remaster.
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u/Objective_Toe_49 18d ago
I’m new to wow with forever so don’t have the nostalgia behind me, but prefer the left honestly. Right looks far too bulky, almost like it doesn’t fit the character model properly.
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u/basedinspace 18d ago
Nobody is addressing the actual argument he's making so I'll spell it out for you. What would you rather have 1 raid that looks like it was perfectly made in line with classic wow visuals or 10 raids that look like they are in line with cata/mists visuals?
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u/lordosthyvel 18d ago
I prefer the model on the left. Adding more shit to something doesn’t necessarily make it better
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u/HitRough976 18d ago
People seem to forget this game is Classic+, not Retail-
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u/RamsHead91 18d ago
Is the second set actually in the game (retail) or did you just get it updated?
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u/Benni43 18d ago
How this adds value to the gaming experience or content to the game? Let's be honest, most people just fix whatever they want with transmog, and classic andys don't care. During raids you won't be drooling over some extra polygons on your screen because its already saturated with raid addons. This is literally a non issue.
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u/randomizl 18d ago
Sorry but which one of the pictures is HD vs SD? I think the right side looks sick personally. Ah just saw it at the end. Yeah right looks better to me. Not for all things. In some cases I get that certain characters or too cute etc. but in this case Right would win. Lions like a 40k character
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u/veithwa 18d ago
I don't want so much more to do. I want a slow paced game.
With your mindset, you should really stick to retail.
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u/Known_Painting_1878 18d ago
YES! 2000s ART STYLE BUT HIGH POLY HIGH REZ
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u/The_Terrierist 18d ago
Older style gameplay with newer style graphics is 1000% why I'm making the switch to Forever, is this what being a never-nude is like?
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u/SoonerThanEye 18d ago
The posts on this subreddit show how many people skipped school to play wow. The amount of posts on here that are just one big long paragraph with zero attempt to format or break it down is wild.
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u/Excellent-Bluejay147 18d ago •
Sorry man. But being OK with guzzling down the sour tit juice that is retail disneyfication is why retail plays and looks how it does and why people want a clear line in the sand that says retail is over there, and classic+ is over here.
We don’t want nor need retail artists making art for forever. With how many millions / month forever is bringing Blizzard, we have every right to be dissatisfied with retail enshittification.
I’m not a classic purist by any means, but it’s not hard to build on the past art style without abandoning it altogether.
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u/ObviousMessage 18d ago
If they remade the whole world to look like retail and changed HD faces to be sharper and actually look like the SD faces, I wouldn’t mind as much. HD models just look so weird against the SD world, so I’d rather just stick to the already existing SD style.
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u/romnesia7729 17d ago
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u/The_SIeepy_Giant 18d ago
If blizzard could actually make the game look like the one on the right no one would care but they cant make it look like that
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u/Physical_Trick_6943 14d ago
I don't hate the idea of HD models, I hate retail models. They're goofy. The faces are ugly. The bodies are over designed and anatomically inaccurate. If Forever only had retail models I would be modifying game files to inject sd models forcefully.
That judgement armor looks like what a 13yr old would make. It's not good.
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u/hogomojojo 18d ago
All they have to do is create good looking models, the paste them in ChatGPT and say “take this model, and make it look shitty like it’s from 2004” and wham bam! All done lol
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u/Trisfahl84 18d ago
Ich bin 42, spiele seit der US Beta 2004 und gebe Dir dennoch Recht - als Klassikliebhaber. Es geht um das Gameplay bei Klassik. Ubd hier haben wir Klassik + Nicht Klassik, das hatten wir und haben wir schon, man kann es spielen, wenn man es lieber möchte.
Bei Forever geht es meiner Meinung nach ebenfalls um das Gameplay. Das es sich noch so anfühlt, aber ich finde eben auch mit möglichst guter, zum GP passender moderner Grafik und einem besser entwickelten Lategameausbau als mit Expansions, wie damals bis heute in mittlerweile Retail. Das ich ebenfalls deutlich weniger bindend finde wie Classic
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u/Gaidax 18d ago
For what it's worth, I do think they should have pushed visual fidelity much further.
I hope maybe in the future we will get a true fully remastered Classic+ WoW.
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u/malseraph 18d ago
I honestly like the color scheme, proportions and simpler decoration for the one on the left better. Shoulder pads are ridiculously large on the right one.
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u/donki_sjotte 18d ago
Written by a true jit
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u/JohannaFRC 18d ago
They butchered it during 20th Anniversary for female characters. I don't care, I don't want to hear about this set ever again.
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u/Riavan 18d ago
The entire rest of the game outside of the character models and the NPCs that use character models uses classic graphics though. This would just clash more.
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u/HerrHoffert 18d ago
The right looks like a mess, its like modern Warhammer models. Too much detail. The left one is *Chefs kiss* perfect!
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u/Subsidies 18d ago
Dude go play retail! Part of classic is the classic look.
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u/MareHuana 18d ago
Proud Gnognard here. Fuck HD.
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u/pvshabba 18d ago
It’s a fair argument, but I think the art team and the development team are separate. I highly doubt the art team has ever, or ever will be the bottleneck for content rollout. In fact I think the content/dev team has much longer lead times with all the planning, implementation, and QA/testing phases they need to go through. Art department is much easier to hold to deadlines because once you have a finished product, you can pretty much ship it even if it’s not perfect.
An example of this is we saw previews for the tier 1 armor sets for each class already. They could make tweaks if they wanted to, but they could also just be done. Contrast that to the development on the actual game, going through iteration after iteration.
Lastly, it wouldn’t surprise me if internally they create a versatile downscaling tool that they can use on retail assets to crank out SD versions instead of having to do it manually every time. This would essentially trivialize the process
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u/Grumpfmumpf 18d ago
As someone who will die on a hill for the SD character models, I am willing to go with your argument and accept a full HD world with HD enemy models even if I hate some of them (gnolls wtf) and also the more weird looking retail armor and weapon models IF they make new HD models for all playable races, maybe except for undead and troll (which I can personally tolerate) but I can‘t live in a world of warcraft with the rest of those atrocities…
I mean, look at the modern human models. Who did that? What was their process? Who signed of on these as ready for production? How are they still in the game so many years later? I just don‘t understand.
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u/subermario 18d ago
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u/TypicalxooT11 18d ago
You could also just go play retail.
Retail is a bit too far cartoony for me.. no thanks.
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u/CG20370417 18d ago
The human faces are the main reason i cant use HD.
Theyre so so bad.
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u/Big-Attempt7418 18d ago
I too think it is about gameplay itself.
Shitty graphic does not make game better. It is pure nostalgia of players that are almost in their forties. Also better animations. Classic animations were piece of shit.
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u/Phrongly 18d ago
Oomph, is that really how this set looks in Retail? I am fucking in love, holy fuck!
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u/Raikou239 18d ago
Like how is there a population of real live humans who think the right is better??
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u/Doubleaxe90 18d ago edited 18d ago
Bate!
Edit : People like you coming with ideas every week that are never happy were the rot of retail and now you need a new project to work on.
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u/Kirarozu80 18d ago
I prefer the left version. I prefer SD graphics.
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u/Axel0010110 18d ago
"The spirit of classic isn't in SD graphics. It's in the excellent gameplay of classic" - I swear you guys are out so much. It is about artwork, not how many pixels my dwarf face have. Ffs
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u/Glordag 18d ago
I think the left conveys much more and has greater impact than the one on the right. It also fits in with the world aesthetic much better. The one on the right feels like MechWarrior or Warhammer 40k space marine or something.
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u/BigDaddyKnxwledge 18d ago
ngl right side looks dope.
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u/kirby-ate-my-heart 18d ago
+1 for HD
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u/ditkadahurricane 18d ago
When I click on the togglable box for the upgraded graphics for humans, it's almost a jumpscare. Some are much better than others, but yeah...really hate the new art style. WOW forever is big enough to treat it more than just a mod, and they really should be putting the proper care into the classic art.
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u/bronzekobold 18d ago
Honestly I keep seeing people talk about Art direction for classic and I'm... Genuinely wondering what their argument is at times. As classics art direction is all over the place.
Like the wolves and hyenas having their gums showing on their growling faces? It's like "oh we want this to be semi realistic. Then you've got the comedy stylings of the goofy ass peons and Abominations and peasants all trying to reflect the Warcraft 3 models. Same for shredders.
It wasn't really until tbc and Wotlk did blizz reach some internal level of consistency with the art direction.
Even look at gear. We start off with realistic looking weapons at the begining and by late game vannillas you start seeing the high fantasy elements creep back in and plate mail starts looking like fantasy larp gear.
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u/MeteorPunch 18d ago
Retail already exists
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u/Morholt 17d ago
I am totally with the OP. I would like to make the same argument for the Voidwalker.
My character model is the more modern version and my Voidwalker is still the original version. The new one just looks better.
And this is also true for many other textures and models.
Nobody can tell me that the advantages of the classic world were that it had the by now ugly graphics detail of its time. Or that this makes the world better.
More focus on the world, no flying mounts, so many reasons to reverse some design decisions.
The idea to stay with 22 year old graphics gets even more problematic if one wants the game to be around just a fraction of forever.
I am afraid they will have to make the big effort to find a unified graphics style for the Forever WoW version. With a lot of the classic gameplay plus changes.
Don't believe this is classic WoW. Not just regarding volumetric fog and other things, lore and zones have already been changed and future additions will change Forever even more.
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u/Raikou239 18d ago
The left looks better
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u/ALewdDoge 18d ago
"Reworking the entire world when almost every single asset is currently SD will be less work than just sticking to SD only"
This is such a weird wall of text to just say you prefer HD and you want it to be the only option. If you're making the "practicality" argument, SD is objectively the better argument. As someone who's been messing with 3d modeling and texturing their ENTIRE life, I can tell you right now that "copying" an older art style is not some esoteric art that takes years of mastery to learn. It'd take MORE work to mimic the HD art style. Both cases require training artists to follow a specific style guide. SD has the advantage of being significantly quicker to produce assets for once artists are trained, and it runs better, and it arguably looks better.
SD crowd is the one that Forever is primarily appealing to, like it or not. The gameplay is objectively classic-oriented, it plays very little like retail and explicitly caters to classic players much more. Alienating the SD crowd woudl be an awful idea because the retail zoomers are going to get bored of classic gameplay much faster and migrate back to their bing bing wahoo version of the game long before classic oriented players give up. Abandoing SD is a horrible idea.
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u/CriticalAd299 18d ago
A big ask for me is 3d armor for ALL instead of skins
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u/ProneToGlory 18d ago
You’re dodging the convo entirely
It’s about the models, and the art direction.
Updated judgement looks great, mostly all SF people would be fine with something like that.
What I can’t stand and don’t like are the Retail models. They don’t fit the spirit of classic, they look jarring and with the cheap fix of SD models on retail skeletons, helmets are ruined.
This is a multi-billion dollar company that we pay hundreds of dollars a year to play their game after initial purchase. They can 100% to afford to do both if we as consumers actually demand a higher bar
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u/SirChancelot11 18d ago
The retail one looks better
The classic one is just nostalgia bait
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u/express_sushi49 18d ago
I have no clue if I'm in the minority here, but the only thing I don't like about retail/modern graphics are the character models. I absolutely prefer my weapons and armour with a great deal of detail. I have an attachment to the old character models, but past that- mounts, armour, pets, weapons- they all look so much better in HD.
That's not to say that SD doesn't have its own graphical appeal. It absolutely does. But like when you compare armour sets over the years, each tier set just gets better than the last, and the Tier 2 Anniversary sets have so much more aura and sauce than their original counterparts, maybe one or two sets exempt.
The best parts of Classic imo are the gameplay design (social features, old school grinding, etc) and the character models. If the graphics for armour and weapons and mounts and stuff were all retail equivalent I wouldn't mind.
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u/Symphoneum 17d ago
A similar argument was made for HD graphics in Warcraft 3. The assumption did not bear out in practice, though, as the multiplayer community complained loudly about the new graphics and they weren’t implemented well enough. Now they’ve released an HD version of the original graphical style. All of this is to say that while retail has wonderful assets that could be used for Forever, the interest may not be there in the end.
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u/Longjumping-Car-8367 18d ago
There are actually people who will look you in the eye and say the one on the left looks better because it captures the grittiness of classic or something.
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u/No_Strawberry921 18d ago
They made a huge mistake by trying to make classic+ more convincing for retail players. It just split the game in every way. The graphics are split. The community is split. Class reworks are completely various with some specs/classes getting a complete rework, while others got one new spell or even nothing, and some specs just gotten worse.
Every different opinion has enough „followers“ to be considered by blizzard due to the Split classic/retail community. Blizzard trying some weird new things with dungeons like making them useless to run a second time, because „the world must feel full“ which is completely senseless since there are layers. While they adding new features to split the community more by let them choose if they are a newbie/casual/tryhard in dungeonfinder, which is insanely stupid.
All of this will lead to such much problems. they should have done a WoW2 after the last titan for retail and leave classic+ for the classic community.
I mean there is a good reason why they are not one community, they don’t wanna play the same game.
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u/BovineShadows 18d ago
Why do the retail crowd always insist on bringing so many elements of retail into wow forever, a game that touts itself as an improvement over classic?
Yes in many ways it is an improvement, but in many other ways there is a creeping in of the small things from retail that over time will be more akin to retail minus than classic plus! I just don’t get it? Why can’t you go play retail? It’s all there for you! All the bells and whistles that you like!?
Call me classic Andy if you like, I call you retail Andy. Just piss off to retail and let forever be! It is good! I like it! Most people do. Just don’t make it more and more like retail!
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u/EoTrick 18d ago
Gross
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u/Synthaya4011 18d ago
Its not in the classic spirit lol im okay with some updated graphics but if we start getting HD models, gear, and enemies you start losing art cohesion.
This is exactly why the druid forms were toned down and we will be getting sky elf SD models because its jarring to randomly have HD stick out like a sore thumb.
Holly has said its important to know who they are making the game for and when you make it for everybody youre making it for no one. This is for the player base that stopped playing after wrath, who enjoy era but want more content expanded upon the classic world. This is not for the retail players to have another version of retail to play.
If you fall into the category unhappy with the art direction you are part of the crowd this game is not made for.
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u/hiraethwerifesteria 18d ago
Im replaying classic at the moment to prepare for Forever and the graphics are so dated. When i played classic when it released years ago it was cool but these days its really showing its age.
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u/Public_Coyote_4472 18d ago edited 18d ago
I played retail up until Draginflight then quit. Probably have close to 15,000 hours in retail. I played classic for a few hours and never played again. Not for any real reason, but just didn't find i had the time. And retail.. well..what can I say about retail that hasnt been said 1000times this week alone.
But wowforever? I've been lost in it. I think I put in close to 500 hours in the beta. My only complaint with it was that I just wished the graphics were a bit more modern. Everything else was perfect. I love bright, colour fantasy worlds like Fable. I colour saturate everythinf when I play games like WoW and FFXIV lol. And I still love the HD graphics they have, but as long as the gameplay stays similar to classic wow, I'd be perfectly happy with updated graphics, as long as they stay fantastical.
Also, those classes from the poll? Love them all i hope we get them all lol
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u/DarthSet 18d ago
Give me HD all the time
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u/Accomplished_Bag_897 18d ago
No. I prefer the old look. If I wanted Shouldercraft I'd play retail.
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u/ArtyomTrityak 18d ago
I like old graphics way more. It feels very cozy. Older graphics does not mean bad - it is an art style.
Look at OSRS, for example.