Whether it is 'cartoony' or not is purely subjective. As Blizzard have stated before, they tend to use a stylised art style as it ages better. Personally I love their style, but that's just personal taste. I don't really like realistic-looking MMO's because they tend to be dull and uninspired, and I'm not that keen on anime - but I can't quite put my finger on why. If you're one of those people to whom WoW graphics really grate, then I would probably advise you don't play it. To those that love WoW, the stylised, high-fantasy setting is all part of the appeal. If you're missing that attraction then it's not for you.
stylize
One entry found.
Main Entry:
styl·ize Listen to the pronunciation of stylize
Pronunciation:
?st?(-?)-?l?z
Function:
transitive verb
Inflected Form(s):
styl·ized; styl·iz·ing
Date:
1898
: to conform to a conventional style ; specifically : to represent or design according to a style or stylistic pattern rather than according to nature or tradition
— styl·i·za·tion Listen to the pronunciation of stylization ?st?-l?-?z?-sh?n noun
cartoony
One entry found.
Main Entry:
car·toon Listen to the pronunciation of cartoon
Pronunciation:
kär-?tün
Function:
noun
Usage:
often attributive
Etymology:
Italian cartone pasteboard, cartoon, augmentative of carta leaf of paper — more at card
Date:
1671
1: a preparatory design, drawing, or painting (as for a fresco)2 a: a drawing intended as satire, caricature, or humor <a political cartoon> b: comic strip3: animated cartoon4: a ludicrously simplistic, unrealistic, or one-dimensional portrayal or version <the film's villain is an entertaining cartoon>
It's stylized in a cartoony style. What you say makes no sense.
I didn't state that I thought WoW was cartoony. I said that people might perceive it to be so. I think it is stylised and NOT cartoony, but that is just my personal opinion. Even if I had called it 'cartoony and stylised' this would still be a perfectly acceptable description and not the contradiction you might think it is. Art is not so easily defined by a set of rules or criteria.
What I tried to point is that "stylized" means "conformed to a certain style". So per se doesn't mean anything, you have to say which style. And in this case, it is a cartoony style.
I'm considering returning to WoW - in lack of something better. Unfortunately I couldn't find my WoW disc's, they are at a different location, and since I've started to try out RP'ing and is planning to roll on an RP realm this time, I decided to read some WoW lore and history of Warcraft. And I'm surprised that it's pretty good actually, I found it interesting to read and related to places I've played ingame earlier. www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/story/ I never even bothered reading it before since I felt no need for it on general servers. I just wonder, why the heck did they make this story and universe into a silly cartoon world, what comes to mind is the elves with their extreme ears especially, the stories give a much better impression of them. I rember playing WoW the elves where a hated breed, perhaps because of some of the players... but they also look silly. Not to menton the dancing that is taken from very RL stuff, makes the whole thing look childish compard to the story. Yea I'm the kind of player that do care about the visuals, otherwise I wouldn't notice the cartoony style that much. But if the game had the more realistic feel like the cinematic trailers give (not as detailed ofc) maybe people wouldn't grow so tired of the visuals. Just think it's to bad
They made World of Warcraft look like the world of Warcaft. It's that simple. Look at the Warcraft games.
I'm pretty confident that Blizzard could pull off a much more detailed world (even surpassing AoC) holding the same open world principles of today. The main limitation is the player demographic and their computers, not the ability of the company to produce an open world with beautiful vistas. For example, LOTRO is two notches ahead of WoW in terms of world beauty and landscapes is concerned (maily due to directX 10 implementation). But since MS Windows Vista are not widespread and Blizzard wants their game accessible to pretty much anyone operating some form of PC these days, the graphics requirements are kept artificially low.
I'm hoping that Aion will become a serious contender. It seems that Blizzard needs the competition to produce more content (no competition from AoC, same old graphics)(minor competition from LOTRO, same recoloured clothes)(minor competition from WAR, Wintergrasp created for WoW).
Overall the graphics (for me) are bearable, barely. I kind of wish they were upgraded to WAR standards though, in terms of polygon count. The phasing technology is great, especially combined with good storytelling. They have also added some more environmental details compared to the the previous expansion. The world is definitely interesting when you explore it via ground mount. It's just a bit sad that it becomes a blur once you start zooming around with the very fast flying mounts.
Sorry it took so long, but I had read that report much time ago, some corrections are in order.
First of all here is the link, the report is one commisioned by ISFE to Nielsen, a comprehensive study of video games and gamers across EUROPE, so sorry when I said it was worldwide.
The document is freely downloadable either entirely or just the key facts.
Still, You can imagine the US situation would be quite similar if not exactly identical.
Another thing to consider is that the minimum age of gamer considered is 16, anyone younger than that is out of the scope, so you may consider that will alter the statistics.
Still, in the 16+ category we see that the AVERAGE gamer age in the UK is 38 years old, in Finland it is 32 and in Spain is 28. Those three nations were taken as a sample of whole Europe, UK representing the country with the most video gamers, Finland representing a middle point and Spain representing the mediterranean, more traditionalist (in entertainment) countries so with a bit less videogamers.
Another interesting statistic is the prevalence of parents playing with children with videogames, there are a LOT of those, much more than I thought possible (even knowing that if I would have a kid, I would play with him/her as much as made possible by work and other duties, I'm 31, my wife is 33).
You got the document, read away if interested, it is quite extensive research and quite up-to.date as it was done in 2008 with 2007 data.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
it fits perfectly into the warcraft art style of the previous 3 (plus expansions) games.
as for the RL and game influences in the world, its all to keep people playing and help them understand things by using well known images/names to portrey lore (or information). It works...
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds -Solid non level based game -Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
i personally like the art style blizzard goes with, yes i'm a fan of all their games. But i do think it would be awesome if they released a more visually realistic version of the game for those with powerful comps, kinda like what eve did and i think a couple other mmo's did.
of course its a money thing in the end and i wonder how many would be willing to pay more for them to make it happen heh.
(in before blizzard is greedy and should just give us what we want for free)
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand." - Lewis Thomas
Secondly ; Warcraft lore has N O T H I N G to do with Warhammer (let alone World of Warcraft), Warcraft1 WITH places like Elwyn Forest, The Black Morass, Goldshire, Swamp of Sorrows, the Medivh story and ... Karazahn setting (Medivh Tower) were used in 1993/1994. Warcraft is a game about the corruption of the people WITHIN. The evil turns friends and foes into ennemies - often - to their own race. At least read books on the lore and consult www.wowwiki.com This was so FROM the very beginning 1993 with the places we all know for more then 15(!) years now. Apart from taking races from Fantasy lore, the two gaming lores have NOTHING in common whatsoever. Show me ONE orginal document form that period (early 90's) that Blizzard wanted to make a Warhammer game. You can't. The story lines from the very beginning of WC1 differ way too much to be even considered they are based on each other. It is a M Y T H. Period. The Lores and stories about good and evil and the corruption of the good "world protectors" is as old as the beginning of Warcraft1. In fact Warcraft Lore lends MORE from Middle Earth in this respect than the very simplistic good vs evil races Waaarrrrggh uses. Even in WotLK we see the "Towers with the evil eye above". So first read the background stories, then do the talking. -----
You’re wrong.
No one is talking about the story, of course that’s different; they couldn’t use the Warhammer story.
Where the hell do you think RTS games came from? Warhammer. LOOK at the races, style and everything else, its Warhammer under a different name with a "different story", as if that matters.
The warhammer story is simple? You know jack, and shitt about it if you say that.
The Warcraft style came directly from the warhammer minitures. Fucks sake, Starcraft is a direct rip of Warhammer 40k.
Warcraft universe is functionally lifted wholesale from the Warhammer universe. The only IP Blizzard ever created was Diablo.
The original game in the Warcraft series (Warcraft: Orcs and Humans) was supposed to be a Warhammer game.
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
I like the colorfull cartoonish design of wow and belive that it is a masterpiece and will be standing as an example of computer art in the future (already are actually). Unlike the more "realistical" games, wow will not age the same way. I was very sceptical in the beginning since I had just played "realistical" games before, but now I actually prefer games like wow. Its beautifully looking with more atmosphere and small details than any other games that I have seen. Their designers are just pure talented people.
The artstyle is because right untill about month or two to release, Warcraft 1 was known as Warhammer 1. Then for some unknown reason, Gameworkshop pulled the license from blizzard and gave it to someone else, to avoid having to scrap the whole project and effectively bankrubting themselves, Blizzard changed the lore, style etc enough to avoid IP lawsuit and releasing it under name of warcraft....its VERY commonly known history
I don't know. I think Blizzard made the right choice for the graphical stylings of WoW. Whether or not they anticipated using up-to-date, extraordinary graphics would still be difficult to use for an open-world game isn't even a big deal to me. I notice, that if you cannot run most of the newer graphical games on the highest settings, there are flaws in the graphics as you run through the games. Maybe small blips and such, but still often noticeable.
I feel like the "cartoonish" style of WoW seems a lot smoother, whether on low or high settings, than the more "realistic" sort of graphics. Personally, I would prefer to see newer MMORPGs use graphics similar to WoW. They'd still be smooth, functional, and can allow for a much larger open-world setting.
I am a strong advocate of gameplay over graphics and a big fan of the Warcraft RTS games, so I was a bit surprised with myself how much I disliked the WoW graphics.
Comments
stylize
One entry found.
Main Entry:
styl·ize Listen to the pronunciation of stylize
Pronunciation:
?st?(-?)-?l?z
Function:
transitive verb
Inflected Form(s):
styl·ized; styl·iz·ing
Date:
1898
: to conform to a conventional style ; specifically : to represent or design according to a style or stylistic pattern rather than according to nature or tradition
— styl·i·za·tion Listen to the pronunciation of stylization ?st?-l?-?z?-sh?n noun
cartoony
One entry found.
Main Entry:
car·toon Listen to the pronunciation of cartoon
Pronunciation:
kär-?tün
Function:
noun
Usage:
often attributive
Etymology:
Italian cartone pasteboard, cartoon, augmentative of carta leaf of paper — more at card
Date:
1671
1: a preparatory design, drawing, or painting (as for a fresco)2 a: a drawing intended as satire, caricature, or humor <a political cartoon> b: comic strip3: animated cartoon4: a ludicrously simplistic, unrealistic, or one-dimensional portrayal or version <the film's villain is an entertaining cartoon>
It's stylized in a cartoony style. What you say makes no sense.
I didn't state that I thought WoW was cartoony. I said that people might perceive it to be so. I think it is stylised and NOT cartoony, but that is just my personal opinion. Even if I had called it 'cartoony and stylised' this would still be a perfectly acceptable description and not the contradiction you might think it is. Art is not so easily defined by a set of rules or criteria.
What I tried to point is that "stylized" means "conformed to a certain style". So per se doesn't mean anything, you have to say which style. And in this case, it is a cartoony style.
They made World of Warcraft look like the world of Warcaft. It's that simple. Look at the Warcraft games.
The only thing childish here is not liking cartoons because of certain age.
I'm pretty confident that Blizzard could pull off a much more detailed world (even surpassing AoC) holding the same open world principles of today. The main limitation is the player demographic and their computers, not the ability of the company to produce an open world with beautiful vistas. For example, LOTRO is two notches ahead of WoW in terms of world beauty and landscapes is concerned (maily due to directX 10 implementation). But since MS Windows Vista are not widespread and Blizzard wants their game accessible to pretty much anyone operating some form of PC these days, the graphics requirements are kept artificially low.
I'm hoping that Aion will become a serious contender. It seems that Blizzard needs the competition to produce more content (no competition from AoC, same old graphics)(minor competition from LOTRO, same recoloured clothes)(minor competition from WAR, Wintergrasp created for WoW).
Overall the graphics (for me) are bearable, barely. I kind of wish they were upgraded to WAR standards though, in terms of polygon count. The phasing technology is great, especially combined with good storytelling. They have also added some more environmental details compared to the the previous expansion. The world is definitely interesting when you explore it via ground mount. It's just a bit sad that it becomes a blur once you start zooming around with the very fast flying mounts.
Sorry it took so long, but I had read that report much time ago, some corrections are in order.
First of all here is the link, the report is one commisioned by ISFE to Nielsen, a comprehensive study of video games and gamers across EUROPE, so sorry when I said it was worldwide.
http://www.isfe-eu.org/index.php?oidit=T001:662b16536388a7260921599321365911
The document is freely downloadable either entirely or just the key facts.
Still, You can imagine the US situation would be quite similar if not exactly identical.
Another thing to consider is that the minimum age of gamer considered is 16, anyone younger than that is out of the scope, so you may consider that will alter the statistics.
Still, in the 16+ category we see that the AVERAGE gamer age in the UK is 38 years old, in Finland it is 32 and in Spain is 28. Those three nations were taken as a sample of whole Europe, UK representing the country with the most video gamers, Finland representing a middle point and Spain representing the mediterranean, more traditionalist (in entertainment) countries so with a bit less videogamers.
Another interesting statistic is the prevalence of parents playing with children with videogames, there are a LOT of those, much more than I thought possible (even knowing that if I would have a kid, I would play with him/her as much as made possible by work and other duties, I'm 31, my wife is 33).
You got the document, read away if interested, it is quite extensive research and quite up-to.date as it was done in 2008 with 2007 data.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
it fits perfectly into the warcraft art style of the previous 3 (plus expansions) games.
as for the RL and game influences in the world, its all to keep people playing and help them understand things by using well known images/names to portrey lore (or information). It works...
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
i personally like the art style blizzard goes with, yes i'm a fan of all their games. But i do think it would be awesome if they released a more visually realistic version of the game for those with powerful comps, kinda like what eve did and i think a couple other mmo's did.
of course its a money thing in the end and i wonder how many would be willing to pay more for them to make it happen heh.
(in before blizzard is greedy and should just give us what we want for free)
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
- Lewis Thomas
Fair or not.. still looks ugly..
I wish they had better graphics... even though gameplay>graphics
/Ely
You’re wrong.
No one is talking about the story, of course that’s different; they couldn’t use the Warhammer story.
Where the hell do you think RTS games came from? Warhammer. LOOK at the races, style and everything else, its Warhammer under a different name with a "different story", as if that matters.
The warhammer story is simple? You know jack, and shitt about it if you say that.
The Warcraft style came directly from the warhammer minitures. Fucks sake, Starcraft is a direct rip of Warhammer 40k.
Warcraft universe is functionally lifted wholesale from the Warhammer universe. The only IP Blizzard ever created was Diablo.
The original game in the Warcraft series (Warcraft: Orcs and Humans) was supposed to be a Warhammer game.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
I like the colorfull cartoonish design of wow and belive that it is a masterpiece and will be standing as an example of computer art in the future (already are actually). Unlike the more "realistical" games, wow will not age the same way. I was very sceptical in the beginning since I had just played "realistical" games before, but now I actually prefer games like wow. Its beautifully looking with more atmosphere and small details than any other games that I have seen. Their designers are just pure talented people.
The artstyle is because right untill about month or two to release, Warcraft 1 was known as Warhammer 1. Then for some unknown reason, Gameworkshop pulled the license from blizzard and gave it to someone else, to avoid having to scrap the whole project and effectively bankrubting themselves, Blizzard changed the lore, style etc enough to avoid IP lawsuit and releasing it under name of warcraft....its VERY commonly known history
I don't know. I think Blizzard made the right choice for the graphical stylings of WoW. Whether or not they anticipated using up-to-date, extraordinary graphics would still be difficult to use for an open-world game isn't even a big deal to me. I notice, that if you cannot run most of the newer graphical games on the highest settings, there are flaws in the graphics as you run through the games. Maybe small blips and such, but still often noticeable.
I feel like the "cartoonish" style of WoW seems a lot smoother, whether on low or high settings, than the more "realistic" sort of graphics. Personally, I would prefer to see newer MMORPGs use graphics similar to WoW. They'd still be smooth, functional, and can allow for a much larger open-world setting.
I am a strong advocate of gameplay over graphics and a big fan of the Warcraft RTS games, so I was a bit surprised with myself how much I disliked the WoW graphics.