If by scalability you mean lack of technological flair.

Well, yes and no. For the time being I'd agree that the game has lost whatever graphical luster it had to begin with from a purely techinical standpoint. On the flip side of that...Blizz has plans to include some major graphical overhauls to the engine as time progresses with various expansions/major updates and whatnot, while still not abandoning the low-enders who most likely make up a huge percentage of their customer base. Whether that will actual happen remains to be seen...

If only they could just pull a "Tenebrae" and just add some simple stencil shadows/per-pixel lighting to the game (with an option to disable for you low-enders). That would improve the visuals ten-fold with fairly minimal effort (it would seem) in return. I'll keep dreaming until then...:o

If by scalability you mean lack of technological flair. Even when it came out it was very limited; Blizzard has never been known for pushing the hardware envelope. They just possess enough artistic talent to cover it up.

Not to bitch, but you realize that this is a good thing, right? What matters is how it looks, not how many bells and whistles they program in... if some places can't make a game look good without requiring a $2000 new rig, but another place can make a game look good on a 2 year old $500 special... yeah, I'll vote for the latter as being the better artists and game programmers.

Yep 6CD's is crazy.

DVD-ROMs are like $20. Make it a standard media distribution already. Flipping discs is a negative user experience.

The scalability of this game is one of it's greatest assets and part of the reason why it's doing so amazingly well.

If by scalability you mean lack of technological flair. Even when it came out it was very limited; Blizzard has never been known for pushing the hardware envelope. They just possess enough artistic talent to cover it up.

As for CD's... I picked up Battle for Middle Earth II in a bargain bin, and it's SIX CDs. That's about as absurd as it gets.

Comparing technological complexity between WoW and LOTRo is night and day; LOTRo makes massive use of HDR/Bloom lighting and video post effects. Where WoW doesn't even have a water shader, LOTRo has a very slick looking one. The draw distance/LOD in LOTRo is also a pretty big step up; it looks more like Oblivion than WoW. From videos, the only thing lacking in the visual department looks like spell/skill effects. It's high time we see some epic, eye-blinding shit flying across the screen in these games.

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"Oh how awful. Did he at least die peacefully? To shreds you say. Well, how's his wife holding up? To shreds you say."
This comment was edited on Jan 24, 04:29.

Starting now, all games should ship on DVD. If you don't have one then the game probably won't run on your system anyway.

Not true at all. You'd be suprised how well this game can run on your average, 5-year old, outdated, value-priced/consumer model, shitbox Dell. The scalability of this game is one of it's greatest assets and part of the reason why it's doing so amazingly well.

Truthfully, after seeing it run at the bare minimum...having everything at max is not so huge a difference (visually) as one would think. Cheers.

yeah ive made about 350-400 and im like 1/3 from 63.

Gained alot in gear though which was the huge thing, specially if you do want to finish that 40-50 alt off, nows the time to do it and make it your main, plenty of upgrades for casters and shamans/paladins. melee still get the stiff cock in the ear abit tho imo.

Why for the love of god is BC distributed on CD though? Doesn't everyone have a DVD in their system?

Agreed. Luckily I bought the collectors edition so I could use either. I used the DVD.

Starting now, all games should ship on DVD. If you don't have one then the game probably won't run on your system anyway.

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This comment was deleted on Jan 26, 09:12.

Why for the love of god is BC distributed on CD though? Doesn't everyone have a DVD in their system?

No kidding. An equal game like LOTRO brings my puter to its knees. My framerate is like 15 at best. -0.0000 in Bree. In WOWBC its a steady 60 and sometimes pushes past to 70-80 area. Just from the playability aspect WOWBC is hands down much more fun. It's why I've stopped playing the LOTRO close beta... the server and my system lag is unbearable.

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http://music.download.com/kxmode

The textures, colour and art direction is amazing in WoW and it doesn't require a supercomputer to pixel shade every vertex.

I really like the art design. It looks like Warcraft. Compared to other games that go for the 'realistic' graphics, I'll take WoW any day.

QFT! WoW has it's own style, which I really like. If you look at EQ2 and Vanguard which have tried to go for "realistic models", all they've managed to do is create whole races Ken and Barbie dolls ...

Any attempt to go for realism in these early stages is doomed to failure. I'm glad WoW went for their own style instead.

I really like the art design. It looks like Warcraft. Compared to other games that go for the 'realistic' graphics, I'll take WoW any day.

eom

FYI to everyone who doesn't know.

Unless you are a Druid (flight form), to get your epic flying mount skill you MUST purchase the regular flying mount skill, plus the normal non-flying skill, and even the level 40 mount skill. It all adds up to much more than 5000 gold in the end.

Prices have been reduced just before the expansion hit, but it's still a lot. I don't have the exact numbers right now.

I can not begin to describe to you how easy it is to obtain gold in Outlands. Just last night I came out of questing for an hour with 50g easy. Most level 70s will tell you the same thing, do not worry about having enough money for your flying mount by the time 70 comes. I came into the Outlands (at 60) with less than 20 gold, at level 62 I've got about 360g, and have spent quite a bit on Jewelcrafting as well. So the money will come to you in the process that it takes to get 70.

I've made a little over 900g. I'm a few bars from 66.

I've made 200g from quest turn-ins and selling BoP items that I've gotten from quests. That doesn't include any BoE items that I've sent to my AH mule to sell. I just hit level 62. 800g should be easy to get before level 70.

Ahh good to know... Thanks for the info...

I'm in no major rush to hit 70, but nice to know the regular one will be affordable (I actually just finally bought my epic horse when the prices dropped - I don't do the main thing... I just play whatever non-maxed alt I feel like playing). How much gold have you gotten from 60-68? 500ish?

Gratzies MT, but keep in mind the mobs in Outland are stronger than their original counterparts of the same level (since all the Outland gear is better). I'm planning the same on my lock, but he's a lock, so it'll be all good heh... Should hit 58 on him in a few days, then get some of those juicy upgrades (which btw, some of the quest items actually have lvl requirements... sad... but true).

-Alamar

So the flying mounts... I heard a while back they were gonna cost 10k... You know if that's true?

5,000g for the epic flying mount (prior to faction discounts)

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bleh - eunichron beat me too it, guess I should have finished reading the everything before responding... oh well


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Truth is brutal. Prepare for pain.
This comment was edited on Jan 23, 12:04.