WoW in Widescreen

My brother was playing World of Warcraft on my PC one day and decided to fix some things. One of them was the video settings. You see, I bought this high-def widescreen monitor a few years ago (HP f2304) and thought I was getting the full benefit of it. One could say I assumed I was. You know where this is leading...

Here is the new setting:

Differences:

More Gargoyles for your money

Note that this is not a direct before and after. I went back into my old screenshots (this one was going to be about the Fishing Buddy mod) and recreated it with the new settings.

Before:

After:

Notice the Gargoyles in the lower right and left hand corners; they're a nice touch. On my old screen I could just see their eyes and beaks.


No Extra Picture

I didn't really get any more room on the screen - this picture (this is a direct before and after) shows an overlay of the regular settings versus the widescreen settings - I purposely darkened the area of the widescreen behind the regular screenshot. You can see there's really nothing of the environment that is added in the widescreen version.

Much More Clarity

I did notice that there is much more detail with the higher resolutions. It's clearer, crisper and the lettering is cleaner. Now when I go back to the old setting I can't bear to look at the blurriness. (The white lettering on this picture was added by me to show which is which.)

Update 8/21/2007:
Via Blue Tracker - Blizzard Post on the WoW-Europe Forums confirms there's no extra picture on the widescreen:

It's not really cropping anything, but you don't actually get extra vision at the left and right either. If that was the case it might have put widescreen players at an advantage over non-widescreen players in some circumstances.

Update 3/5/2008: A poll from wowvault: What screen resolution do you use?