Graphics and You

Giving a game a bad review or saying that a game is bad because of its graphics is an easy way to get laughed at by a lot of gamers.

the enlightened opinions of random internet users

Graphics matter - but not the way some people tend to think. It's not important how stellar the graphics are, it's not important if the graphics look "real", but rather the way the graphics fit into the atmosphere and the environment matters.

Minecraft has made hundreds of million of dollars with very low quality graphics, and no one has stopped playing the classics due to the higher quality graphics available in more recent games. Don't get me wrong, you can judge graphics all you'd like, and stellar graphics really do enhance a game's experience, but here's the thing:

Gameplay and graphics are mutually exclusive.

Updated Character Models Aren't Enough

Hold up! Let me explain -

I thought the new models were pretty good

In Warlords of Draenor we're getting new character models. It's something that Blizzard had been asked about countless times and something a majority of people would say is an overdue change for a ten year old game. The new character models have encountered quite a few problems in their development, including mountains of both positive and negative feedback by the players.

Blizzard was in a damned if they do damned if they don't situation - for more than one problem. Blizzard would either have had to keep their old models and their old graphics and had to deal with more and more people questioning why they aren't updating them, or start updating everything - including the player models, which then creates its own slew of problems.

Of course, they opted to improve their graphics. They began adding updated, HD models for important lore characters, for creatures, for armor, the environment - basically everything. They were really starting to up the ante on their graphics for the game, something that they had gotten a lot of flak for. The graphics of World of Warcraft is a discussion in itself, but as we see new MMOs and new games come out with absolutely stunning, smooth graphics and textures - it was just a matter of time until Blizzard put emphasis on improving WoW's graphics situation.