Monday, March 9, 2009

WoW loading screens

One negative change of Wrath of the Lich King has been that loading screens in World of Warcraft have become slower, especially if you are loading Dalaran. So while I was staring at one of those slow loading screens again, I started to wonder: Why is it that once you are in the game, you can easily ALT-TAB out, for example to use your browser, but during the loading screen that function is blocked? If you press ALT-TAB or the Windows keys during the loading screen, nothing happens until the zone is fully loaded, and only then do you jump into the other application.

That is silly, because when you are in the game, you usually have something to do, unless you are using a long flight path or crafting a lot of items in series. But on the loading screen you are just waiting, and being able to switch to something to read would be welcome. Besides playing WoW in windowed mode, has anyone found a way to ALT-TAB out of the loading screen? When using the hearthstone I found one way, that is starting hearthing, and ALT-Tabbing before the loading screen even starts. Then WoW is perfectly able to load the zone in the background, while I am using some other application in the foreground. So why is WoW blocked at the loading screen once it starts?

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