Higher GFX IMO

[TheEconomist]

@SlickR: In order for that to be possible, we would need technology that could challenge that card. Crysis was impossible even as late as 2003. Plus, Blizzard would have to devote a MAJORITY of their time to the graphics instead of the balanacing and >>>>>ART<<<<< of it (which I vastly prefer to simply more polygons).

[Skyze]

keep in mind the higher graphics you go, the lower FPS go.. Technically, you want to be at LEAST above 40 FPS at all times.. Im playing with 10 FPS right now with my crappy video card, and when I watch streams, it honestly looks like another game completely, how smooth that is compared to my crap computer. I basically cant play competitively at all on this right now.

going higher would take away from that, and not make the game smooth.

[Asfastasican]

Blizzard go out of their way to make their games accessible to a wide range of lower-end PCs which is great, but they never really have true "extreme" or "insane" settings for graphics (especially with WoW.)

Does anyone know why they don't allow this?

Two reasons.

1. Developing games for high-end pc's make companies zero money.
2. Blizzard cares about making games with great gameplay while making sure they do more with less in the graphics department. They accomplish this by compensating with excellent art direction and great texture work.

[KadajSouba]

but why not have real "extreme" settings that are just plain ridiculous that modern cards/cpus can't handle.

Because of this?????? I dont understand, you answered your own question.

Why create a car that runs at 127371463123 mph of you can run it nowhere... Just stupid.

[dynamiK-]

Two reasons.

1. Developing games for high-end pc's make companies zero money.
2. Blizzard cares about making games with great gameplay while making sure they do more with less in the graphics department. They accomplish this by compensating with excellent art direction and great texture work.

This.

[Norfindel]

Well, remember that the engine must be able to run 8-player games. According to Blizzard, they didn't allowed zooming-out, partially because that means more units on screen. Seems like the engine suffers a lot the more units there are on-screen.

[Gifted]

Speaking of producing the product, this is a feature that would be better suited for a future content patch or specifically an expansion. We know that it has 2 expansions and would be the perfect time to consider such a request. Right now, I would say that a majority of people are satisfied with the "highest settings".

By implementing "higher end extensions" in future expansions, they provide more than just a content reason to extend it's shelf-life.

Lastly, they only have x hours in the day, and y space on the dvd they plan to ship it out on. If they go over either of those simple facts, it delays the release of the game or significantly increases production costs by requiring additional DvDs. (This is different than patch/digital I know, but it's still decisions being made regarding the typical ship of a product)

There are high chances that what you're asking has happened a few times in production so far. I wouldn't be surprised if the "top end graphics allowed" has been improved at least 4-5 times during the life span of the project so far due to it's timespan. Who knows if the resolution we're seeing now existed 6-7 months ago...

So while I think that it's a good idea, the scope of what would be required to bring it to fruition I feel would not be in the scope of something to "tag on while we're in beta". At this time, while it would be great to have "more", I would disagree with delaying the game due to it.

[SlickR]

Speaking of producing the product, this is a feature that would be better suited for a future content patch or specifically an expansion. We know that it has 2 expansions and would be the perfect time to consider such a request. Right now, I would say that a majority of people are satisfied with the "highest settings".

By implementing "higher end extensions" in future expansions, they provide more than just a content reason to extend it's shelf-life.

Lastly, they only have x hours in the day, and y space on the dvd they plan to ship it out on. If they go over either of those simple facts, it delays the release of the game or significantly increases production costs by requiring additional DvDs. (This is different than patch/digital I know, but it's still decisions being made regarding the typical ship of a product)

There are high chances that what you're asking has happened a few times in production so far. I wouldn't be surprised if the "top end graphics allowed" has been improved at least 4-5 times during the life span of the project so far due to it's timespan. Who knows if the resolution we're seeing now existed 6-7 months ago...

So while I think that it's a good idea, the scope of what would be required to bring it to fruition I feel would not be in the scope of something to "tag on while we're in beta". At this time, while it would be great to have "more", I would disagree with delaying the game due to it.

Even in an expansion it would be difficult.
They have their texture and shader model laid out, they have their art style laid out and they have the engine laid out.

They can always just add more polygons, but this is a RTS game, so while having 100 units on screen may be fine with ultra-uber-high textures, when 4 people are playing and having 200-250 units on screen the problem starts to appear.

If we see higher levels of detail, we'll probably see it in the 2nd expansion, but not in the first.

Actually they will mostly focus on Bnet 2.0, new story, new campaign units, new maps, new sound, new/improved voices and maybe few new units for the multiplayer for the first expansion.