World of Warcraft with new graphics. A private server wants to make this a reality and is implementing it simply. But will Blizzard let this pass?
World of Warcraft is old. Very old. The good twenty years show on the game, even though new expansions occasionally spruce up the graphics. But even the “new” character models for players are now 10 years old again.
There is often a desire to overhaul and modernize the graphics. A private server has done exactly that.
What kind of project is this? “Turtle WoW 2.0” is a private World of Warcraft server that shows what the game has to offer in its first trailer: More modern graphics thanks to Unreal Engine 5. Especially dark areas, such as the Deadwood or the Twilight Forest, look quite atmospheric.
The operators also make quite big promises. For example, one should be able to switch between the two graphic styles easily, the whole thing should run on Android, and they have “anti-botting systems” that make “all previous hacking and botting tools ineffective.” Big promises, for which one must certainly wait to see if this holds true at the “release” in 2025 – if it even comes to that.
Criticism is mainly directed at the fact that the whole project is not free from financial interests. Although you cannot directly use a cash shop – but indirectly. Because if you “donate” money to the server, you receive in return “donation points” that you can then exchange in the game, for example for mounts, big bags, or other advantages like a mobile bank. A cash shop, thought of a little sideways.
Twitch streamer Asmongold thinks it’s good, but not just pretty
This is how the community reacts: That the trailer is attracting attention is obvious. After just 2 days, the trailer has over 180,000 views.
Streamer Asmongold also reacts in one of his videos on YouTube to the trailer for this server. His opinion is quite divided. While some things – like the Darkwood (“Duskwood”) look pretty good, brighter areas are not really his thing.
A lot of it looks more like a “sidegrade.” It doesn’t look much better, but also not worse. Just a bit different. But it’s cool that they are trying this out. The coolest part so far was the Twilight Forest. The Twilight Forest was fantastic.
Is this even legal? This is disputed, and the regulations vary in many countries. Basically, the files of World of Warcraft are the intellectual property of Blizzard, and it is up to them to decide how this data is used and especially which servers are operated with it. Therefore, the operators of such private servers or sometimes “pirate servers” usually have to rely on countries where the regulations here are more lenient.
In the past, Blizzard has also increasingly taken action against such servers, usually when they have reached a certain size or attention. It is likely that this project might also face such an end sooner or later.
Nevertheless, it is of course interesting to see how World of Warcraft would look with a different engine and especially better lighting effects.
What do you think of such a graphic update? Would it be good if the “real” World of Warcraft underwent such a transformation? Or does the whole thing not fit the graphic style of WoW and would rather ruin more than improve? When the “Nostalrius” server was shut down back then, the community held a huge, sad event.
