This Doesn't Feel Like High Fantasy?

I was playing World of Warcraft the other day, and I was struck by one thing - the game's world has a high magic level, with teleporters, moonwells, places of magic (good and bad), levitating buildings, and a ton of other super-magic standards in the world. This is truly a good example of 'high fantasy' and it conveys the uniqueness and magic of the world very well.

Conversely, D&D3 and several of its game worlds are labeled high fantasy, but basically feel more like low fantasy. Note I said D&D3, the rules are forcing you to buy iron rations and 50-foot ropes, and putting most spells on a once/day casting time. The way magic is handled and the focus on survival pushes the world away from the super-fantastic, and gives you the impression of a 'boards and swords' world where magic is rare, magical races hide from humanity, and the world is another copy of Medieval Europe with Elves and Dwarves thrown in.

D&D4 is a little better, with the split worlds and fantastic races playing a larger role in the game world. They slip though, especially with the new Faerun and some of the settings. Even the fantastic world of Eberron with its Noir/Steampunk origins feels like low fantasy outside of a couple key locations. The default 'points of light' setting is a little better, since it leaves the world up to you, and you can add as many fantastical elements as you can imagine. This is a fantastic world, with magical places being written into how the world works, although the races sometimes feel they don't affect the world as much. Since there is no written world, this is expected, but the races and how they built the world is mostly up to the referee. To be fair, some of the later art in Essentials and the Dark Sun 4 setting is presented way more realistic than the books depict, looking more like 'bible art' than 'high fantasy art.'

Pathfinder has a unique split personality, where the rules are more simulationist like D&D3, and the art is way more fantastic and high-fantasy, with art depicting characters hanging in the clutches of Cthulhu-type monsters blasting them with magic spells. The game pushes the fantastic in the art, and then later on the rules catch up with unique classes and magic items. The later expansion books push a unique world a lot better than the basic guides, since the base books have to be compatible with other settings, they have to be more generic and D&D-baseline-centric.

It is a split more like hard sci-fi and science fantasy, and the rules and presentation matter. One example that is interesting is Mongoose Traveller's large book and miniature book. The rules are exactly the same, but the large book has art with a traditional hard sci-fi edge, and the mini rules book has art with sexier science-fantasy style art. Same rules, different presentation. I feel Traveller does hard sci-fi well, but science fantasy not as well as other systems built for pulp two-fisted action.

For fantasy, making sure the world-build matches the rules is critical to making everything seem like a unified creation. Design matters, and art plays a huge role here, because it sets the 'visual tone' for the game, and sets players' expectations for what they will read in the rules.