Hard to believe i used to play EQ1 at it's inception on my bro's 32mb voodoo3 and i don't even know how much memory 128? 256?? and probably a 400mghz processor or some shit. Then i got my 64mb ATI card with 866mhz processor it owned all and 20gb HD... pretty amazing owned that game!

Now i just upgraded to a E6600, 8800GTX 320gb HD, DDR800 ram 2 x 1gb sticks... heh i would like to go back and load up eq now and see how the game runs... crazy how in a few years systems change so much.. but man funny how fast technology has changed...

Well, I can tell you that running that system and EQ1, you will not think you are playing the same game.

I have pretty much the exact same setup and I can literally go anywhere, raid with 50+ people with ALL spell effects set to high and not see one bit of lagg. It's pretty amazing. The only thing that actually slows me down is turning on shadows and turning the clip plane up for them.

You will also see how the world is supposed to look, especially the newer zones. They actually look quite good.

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
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VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

Ya it would be nice... after used to playing with limited graphics in that game for so many years it would be nice to see what it would potentially look like on full board... EQ1 is still my favorite graphics of all time, not to cartoony, but real enough that it really drew me into the world. Vanguard is pretty but TO real. LIke eq2 was i don't care quite for that real of a gameworld doesn't quiet draw me into the game. Wow was to cartoony... eq 1 was just a happy medium.

i don't think it's that wow is cartoony, it's just very, very colorful and vibrant. it's very lush. i like both, however. wow is more magical/mystical to me, though.

There has been more than a few times that some of the scenery/sites in WoW that have really impressed me, especially with the detail some of the areas have. The first time I dove into a real lake, and was greated to schools of fish, undersea flora, and other things, especially being used to the crap deadness that was 99% of EQ underwater areas, I was impressed. The waterfalls in Ferelas struck me, too, for some reason, and I just stared at them for a good 10 minutes the first time I saw the scene.

There are alot of zones in WoW that don't have that cartoony feel, like UC, Darkshore, UN'Goro Crater.

Org did seem a bit out of place for the way it was designed, though. Out of all the zones, I would say it's probably the prime example of the 'cartoony' feel of WoW.

Warcraft really just has distinctly stylized art. Yeah, it can be cartoony and yeah there's sometimes a saturation of color, but it works a lot like the cel shading graphics in Wind Waker did, creating a superior impression with better performance by using a creative style rather than trying to push the hardware as far as it can go.

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From the beginning, I was against the "cartoony" feel that WoW had. However, as I played the game, I came to not only appreciate it, but to really like it. When I see things like this picture: or when you listen to people when they type /silly or /train, it's tough to picture the game any other way than how they did it. Places like Gadget, Gnomeregan have their charm thanks to the "cartoonish" graphics.

It's not a debate of if WoW is cartoonish.
It is.

How exactly do you debate if you like it or not.
That's personal taste.

I personally prefer more realistic graphics.
I played WoW for 1.5 yrs and over time you get use to the DragonSlayer'esque graphics.

I do feel its genius on the part of Blizz so that the game plays damn near on any machine. Big part of their world market domination plans.

I bet super mario cart would run really well too.

Dunno maybe "over-animated" would be a better word then "cartoony" but in the end that's my impression. Am i saying id on't think it has beautiful grahpics? No, I do like them, it's just to much sometimes and well to cartoony I guess is the word that keeps popping into my head. Very comic bookish. The new expansion looks pretty nice i almost picked it up but VG in a week and a half i must hold out Hehe, plus i can use that money towards 2 more gig of ram =/

/handstand is my favorite VG command

/picknose
/pickear
/playdead

The artistic style in WoW is nothing new if you played Warcraft III.