World Of Warcraft To Get Graphics Settings Overhaul, Greater Draw Distance With Legion

When a developer is designing a game, there are certain limitations that they have to take into account. One of those is the fact that there are only so many objects that you can have displayed on a screen at one time. One way to keep those objects in check is to limit the draw distance. Well it's been a long time since Blizzard started work on World of Warcraft, so they're making some changes in the next expansion to keep the game up to date.

If you play older, open-world games, you'll notice that objects that are far away don't appear on the screen until you get closer. There is usually some sort of slider in the game options that allows you to change how far away the object has to be before it doesn't appear on the screen. Well, on World of Warcraft, they're planning on making things visible from much further away.

One great part about video games is the feeling that you're looking out into another world. And when you just see fog, instead of the mountains in the distance, that can take away from the immersion. So when Legion comes out later this year, you'll be able to see a lot further. Currently, if you login to the game and crank up the graphics, you can see 1,300 "yards" away from your character. When Legion comes out, the maximum distance will be 3,500 "yards" away. Check out the comparison of two shots taken in the game currently, and with the new increased distance. Bear in mind that these shots don't showcase the full distance, the "new" shot only has the graphics setting turned up to 8, instead of 10, which lets you see around 2,600 "yards" away.

Longtime WoW players might notice that there is no "8" in the current graphics option. That wasn't an error. Rather, Blizzard is moving to a numerical scale to represent the graphics settings. The presets will range from 1-10, with 3 being comparible to "low" and 7 being the same as the current "high."

Source: RPS