Effects: Shadow Quality
There are five options for the Shadow Quality setting.
- Low: Low-resolution terrain shadows, blob shadows for units
- Fair: Low-resolution terrain shadows, low-resolution dynamic shadows near player
- Good: Low-resolution terrain shadows, high-resolution dynamic shadows near player
- High: High-resolution environment shadows, high-resolution dynamic shadows near player
- Ultra: High-resolution dynamic shadows for the entire scene
The blurry shadow of the tower to my left is a good example of low-res terrain shadows. And the fact that you don't even see the shadow of my mount is a good indication that we're using the Low setting here.
The tower still creates that blurry shadow, but now there's at least a low-res dynamic shadow under the drake.
It's difficult to see the difference between low-res and high-res dynamic shadows cast by my mount when I'm up in the air, but if you compare the blown-up versions of this shot to the previous one, you do see the shadow becoming crisper.
Of course, the difference between High quality and Good is most apparent from the tower's low-res (blurry) shadow giving way to a much sharper high-res version. We've certainly seen more realistic shadow implementations (at such a distance, shadows aren't usually so sharp). But this is an MMORPG, after all, and it's hard to knock the realism of a fantasy world.
