Ever since Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard has changed the entire philosophy of any expansion in their respective x.2 patches because what they originally made wasn’t cutting it. Of course, to introduce these new philosophies, they’d need to bring in new zones.
5.2: Isle of Thunder
6.2: Tanaan Jungle
7.2: Broken Shore
8.2: Nazjatar and Mechagon
While Legion got its big fix and started feeling better by 7.1, I think the fact that they’re introducing these different zones in patches is a huge issue.
They should focus on making 8 or 9 zones to release in x.0 patches, along with a philosophy to stick by throughout the entire expansion.
They could fix things by listening to feedback about major changes to expansions like Pathfinder, the homogenization of reputation, leveling, and obviously class design (which, regarding the last two, it seems they are indeed working on that).
We should have all kinds of huge things to work towards being introduced at the beginning of an expansion, not just sprinkled in with new patch zones that makes past zones irrelevant.
Remember Kul Tiras and Zandalar? We’re finally getting flying, but there’s almost no current content in those zones anymore, and these are zones in the same expansion that we’re in right now.
I think this is a big issue that a lot of people don’t really realize. It would’ve been great to see more zones in Kul Tiras and Zandalar, and maybe Nazjatar as the Suramar-equivalent in Battle for Azeroth so we could always be doing things in every single one of these zones up until the end of the expansion.
This is just how I see things right now.
3 Likes
or they could just like make good content and not have to keep growing the map even more
2 Likes
You’re absolutely right.
This game suffers from expansions making too many changes to where content within expansions will already become irrelevant within its life cycle.
I hope they fix things soon.
I mean, that’s kind of what I was alluding to.
Kul Tiras and Zandalar are well-realized in terms of art and music, so it’s a shame that their culture and story were just limited to two patches within their respective expansion.
They need to stop throwing away zones and just creating new ones like Nazjatar that will be used for one patch and one patch only.
That we didn’t see more loa-themed dungeons/raids or pirate-themed dungeons/raids come out in patch content or a continuation of the story in the continents of Kul Tiras and Zandalar was very disappointing, but expected.
Huge sword is currently stuck in the ground back in Silithus… here’s an idea, how about revamping and adding content to the original continents to finish the story line?
Wouldn’t require any new map modeling or anything. Just some good writing and quest design that takes you all around the original areas. Make it a massive epic quest line that brings back the feeling of vanilla, in the vanilla zones. Add in more mobs (repopulate the old areas), few new towns (using existing models to save time). Sprinkle in some nice hidden treats around (interesting side quests with humor for example, small hidden areas with lore aiding hidden treasures like books or journals to read and whatnot) Breathe some new life back into the game by reclaiming the old feel.
Building entirely new areas every few months is becoming out of control, just look the map now days.
My other 2 pents
Yes! This has been my idea for months now. Instead of adding yet another group of small isles, they need to do a reset instead.
Let’s see a revamped version of every single zone on Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms. Maybe combine some of the zones, like turning a restored Ghostlands, Eversong Woods and Zul’Aman into Quel’thalas.
Or even Silverpine Forest and Gilneas into the Kingdom of Gilneas, where our goal is to take back the city so we can turn it into one of the capitals.
We could see the sword shut down in Silithus and see some re-growth efforts, making the once ugly desert into silent, ancient plains with grass starting to grow everywhere.
This would be awesome.
Revamping the original vanilla areas with object/quest/npc density seen in new expansions would be sweet. Would take a good while considering how big the original continents are but man the potential to expand the lore is crazy.
As part of fixing the sword issue, you would have to reclaim and renew damages done by stories of other expansions (Looking at you Deathwing)
Just imagine restoring Azeroth back to how it use to be, literally turning the damaged zones back into their original versions (just updated with more stuff)
This could fill easily 2-3 years worth of content (like the original vanilla), but would require Blizzard to really step back into the lore and questing business.
The amount of possibilities with this concept are crazy!
Dude, I think we just figured out how save wow, lets get to work!
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I think it’d be much easier to revamp this time around, as their team is bigger and they don’t need to worry about invisible barriers/non-textured areas for flying since they did that back in Cataclysm.
That idea for the sword is really cool!
While most zones could be restored, it could be a Black Empire expansion with some awesome void-infused zones, too!
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And the best part is, all the newbie content can remain without issues and would fit in with the new systems they have (zone scaling ect…).
Heck even make some of the side story lines continuations of some of the old ones. Just for more immersion into the world.
The idea of helping dwarve’s rebuild loch modan dam, and then draining the wetlands makes me excited for example.
And blizzard wouldn’t have to do it all in one shot, they could roll out the main story through a few zones at a time on each continent.
Think rolling content development released every couple months (Think 1/3 of each content every say 6 months, that would be enough area to keep busy with until the next 1/3 is ready) till all of Azeroth is restored zone by zone. Seriously this could easily be a few years of non stop content. But also, would need great writing to keep it intriguing. Blizzard would have to bring back their Lore “A” Game.
Side note: I love lore, story lines, and exploring things if no one has notice yet ![:smiley:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/smiley.png?v=6" ":smiley:")