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Breakfast Topic: What if World of Warcraft were more physics-based?

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

Many new MMOs coming out recently released boast about how they have amazingly new and realistic physics engines. A new one coming out, TERA, looks like it will be very heavily physics-based, and I'm sure it will be fun for a lot of players.

World of Warcraft is an old game -- six years old, in fact, and while Cataclysm updated it to a great extent, it is impossible to add things like a great physics engine without rewriting the entire source code of the game. So maybe in World of Warcraft 2, we'll have more realistic physics.

But what would WoW be like now if it had a more realistic physics engine? Sure, we have things like gravity, knockbacks, and vehicles, but you can't pick up a tree and chuck it at someone! You can't be cut up by the propeller of some deadly gnomish plane (those danged gnomes), and as my friend pointed out to me the other day, there is no friction. Think about it: In games like Super Mario 64, when you stop running, you lose momentum, so you still move a foot or two. In WoW, you have complete control over your actions (unless you're fighting one of those accursed warlocks), and momentum hardly ever comes into your mind when playing.

So, dear reader, what do you think about a more realistic physics engine? Do you think it would make WoW better -- or do you think WoW is great as it is, nice and simple? Share your opinions and maybe some ideas of what a good physics engine could do!