Warhammer Online Vs World Of Warcraft

Post by **Xest** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 4:55 pm

[quote="Gandelf"]Most of the people I know who work in Information Technology are clowns, so I'm not surprised really. IT technicians are like council workers... it takes only one of them to fix something, whilst the other 5 stand around and watch. Funnily enough, you can actually make the word, "clown" out of the letters in "council workers". ]
Oi I work in IT damn you

ambera · Post by **ambera** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 5:09 pm

And me. Well, until recently. And about 3/4 of the other people around here...

Ovi · Post by **Ovi** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:07 am

[quote="Xest"]Oi I work in IT damn you ]

Nice of you to prove Gandelf's point for him ;D

To prove the point even more, I work in IT too

<ankh> · Post by **<ankh>** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:09 am

...so none of you have a proper job in other words

/Ankh

Korax · Post by **Korax** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 6:14 pm

[quote="Ovi"]Nice of you to prove Gandelf's point for him ]
and moi.

Kesxex · Post by **Kesxex** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 7:49 am

Cernos wrote:Clearly WoW artwork is influenced by the original Warhammer artwork. I remember the pen & ink artwork in the original Warhammer first edition in the early 80s and the orcs especially were very similar to what we now see in Warhammer Online and WoW.

However, Warhammer itself was directly influenced by (and intended to boost the sales of) tabletop miniatures made by Citadel (Games Workshop) and Ral Partha. These were launched in the late 70s and gained popularity in the early 80s as D&D took off. If you look at the figures from this period (do a web search) the style of orcs, dwarves, elves, goblins and trolls portrayed in those miniatures have a direct lineage to the artwork that appeared in Warhammer and beyond. The original style wasn't quite as caricatured as it now is, but the influences were clearly there.

White Dwarf magazine (produced by Games Workshop) also started carrying artwork much along these lines in the late 70s early 80s, obviously as tie ins to the miniatures and D&D modules.

Obviously the original inspirations for D&D and all these figures is LoTR and norse & celtic mythologies etc, but I think Peter Jackson's LoTR films draws as much from these tabletop miniatures as from the books themselves.

I think the irony is that whilst WoW was influenced by Warhammer and GW miniatures, Warhammer Online will inevitably be influenced by WoW. Personally I like the cartoon style of WoW, it suits the game, but the darker grittier style of Warhammer looks great and is perfect for that game.

The main reason for WoW to look cartoony is that Blizzard came too close to GW IP and legal rights with Warcraft 3. They had to change their style dramatically to avoid paying licensing fees.
And this Blizzard did.

As to W.A.R. it will come closer to the current artwork of GW simply due to the fact that Mythic is working with it. It won't be as gritty and dark as the original W.O. but it won't be as cartoony as WoW simply for the fact that the imagery is in the IP of GW and Mythic can draw from it, Blizzard can't.

<ankh> · Post by **<ankh>** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 7:55 am

You actually dug this one up?

/Ankh

Satyn · Post by **Satyn** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 11:08 am

From my experience i dont only think that its very cartoony but i also think its a feminin game. A lot of the mobs are cute and fluffy and makes me feel bad when i kill em

Even the hairy spiders.

Gandelf · Post by **Gandelf** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 1:15 pm

I certainly think the graphics in WoW are very atmospheric and the ambient music is very good too, when one moves between zones. The only thing that narks me about the graphics in WoW is when areas are filled with the same texture and you notice the same pattern repeated again and again... especially if you are high up in the zone looking down onto the sea or land.

I've often wondered if they could use some routine to get around this without having to create a separate texture for everything. But then, I guess as computers get better and there's more memory to play around with, all textures will be unique.

Post by **Xest** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 1:23 pm

Shaders have been a viable solution to deal with the repetitive texture issue since the Quake 3 era. I'm not sure why some companies don't use them to solve the issue, I've come across a fair few games with it - I can only guess it's down to lack of time, with release dates looming things like that are probably low priority and patching the landscape can create large patches so when the game is released, landscapes themselves are often left as is until an expansion is released where a large landscape patch can be included on the expansion CD/DVD unless the game is designed from the ground up to have a patchable landscape.