World of Warcraft Lunar Festival & Weather Screens

[Akeldama]

Blizzard has released a batch of new screens for World of Warcraft. One set highlights the Lunar Festival that is taking place in the game. The rest show the new weather effects that will be implemented in the next patch. You can see these new screens (http://rpg.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/art.view.php?id=10458) over at Boomtown.

[Grimgrock]

Wish Blizzard would update their site to reflect what will be in the next patch. It still has 1.9 as "in development". That said, the weather effects look pretty good. I wonder if they will have more than just an environmental/visual effect (does it effect movement speed, for example).

[XenonCJ]

Tight, weather effects, about time! I'd like to see real-time shadows at some point as well...

[Spigot]

I just wish they'd update to say WHEN the next patch would drop.

Everything looks nifty though. Maybe they'll have everything ready to go by the time I have the opportunity to log in again.

[Peacec]

I'm glad to see weather finally being introduced. However, I'm starting to get frustrated by the server problems still going on. I figure I will cancel for now and come back when Blizz releases The Burning Crusade. That way in theory it'll be like a whole new game between the patch updates and the exp. Ah well. Still one of my fav games.

[TrackZero]

Seriously, it's about time on the weather effects. I mean, shit, EQ has had them for years and years.

[Citizen Philip]

Wow thats awesome. Weather = grey! What they SHOULD do, is make that poster board above toon's head fade with weather effects too! That way the weather effects make seeing other people even harder... which on a pvp server makes World PvP that much more fun!

[AvA]

Blizzard people must have spent some time in the UK gathering data to implement weather in-game...

[Klade]

Golly what kind of weather effects do you guys live with? I mean theres snow, rain, hail, wind. All but the last one makes it get darker outside. And I think it would be pretty hard for them to show wind.

[siz]

What about dust storms, tornados, lightning, and rainbows? Taste the rainbow.

[RandomViolence]

Anyone know anything about the priest re-speccing? I just started one with my girlfriend and I'm only to 25, but it'd be nice to know if anything radical was heading my way.

[Voodoo]

World of Warcraft plus weather effects! Yoohoo! I've always thought this was the missing piece... Now if only they would make nights in Azeroth a tad bit darker...

[Deadend]

World of Warcraft plus weather effects! Yoohoo! I've always thought this was the missing piece... Now if only they would make nights in Azeroth a tad bit darker...

Meh, they are already too dark in some areas. I have had to crank up my gamma to make the darkness not too much. I also seem to always play when it's night ingame as well.

I want weather effects. The occasional rain in the barrens would be nice to see.

As it is the game still looks and feels too 'Disney World'. Completely static and lacking motion, Zebras stand next to Lions, Raptors, and Ostriches. Still a fun game, but lacking in the whole Virtual World aspect to me.

[Roc Ingersol]

So... rain, snow and dust?

I'd like to think there's more granularity and variety* to it.
That pick of inner binding in arathi looks straight out of EQ.
And is that falling dust at the tanaris/salt flats border?

*suggestions
blowing snow/sand as distinct from falling snow.
varying intensities of rain.
wind. (with the appropriate effect on rain and snow, but 'windy' all by itself is weather too.)
lightning/thunder/heat lightning/rainbows
mist/fog (tainted rain/fog/mist in zones like felwood would be nice too)
the occassional gas and ash eruption from the volcanoes would be nice too.

Varying levels of cloud cover to affect overall sunlight would be nice, but given their unwillingness to make night dark at all, I sincerely doubt we'll see that.
But I can be hopeful for the rest.
I think.

Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if you needed 39 friends to see the cooler weather effects ;)

[Eric_T_Cheng]

Having actual seasons would be great instead of certain zones always look like it's summer or fall for the entire year.

[bstiff]

Wow a year wait for weather effect that look like they came from eq1 .... Blizzard Rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Royal Fool]

More than a year - they had all that time during the game's actual development to put these features in. I bet the rain will go through objects, too.

It almost seems like WoW was built on the Warcraft III engine. That might actually explain why it tends to run badly when compared to other games and why it didn't have all these features like shadows and weather... but really, it's still no excuse. I'm not asking for super-bump-mapping or crazy realistic shadows that bend and twist, just some form of making the characters seem a tiny bit more "there". The current shadows look like they were directly pulled from Warcraft 3 (Yeah, I know WoW retains the unit-selection feeling, but still).

[Neirin]

Have you ever seen the fight between illidan and arthas at the end of the frozen throne? the engine they used in that fight is very similar to the WoW engine, they do share some similarities, which is okay, i always enjoyed the feeling of feeling like i was zoomed in on a wc3 game :P