The only game (granted, limited experience) that felt really huge to me was Asheron’s Call. I still have a wall-sized map I printed out, because it’s just plain cool. And, yes, part of the size was because of a lack of flying, but the continent was just that much larger, and the zones were far less delineated.
It’s been oodles of years, so maybe it’s just the nostalgia talking, but I’m reminded of how one of the differences between the US and Europe is described: “In the US, 100 years is old. In Europe, 100 miles is a long distance.”
WoW is designed in a world where people don’t seem to travel much, except that the players do. And it was never designed for travel to be an adventure in and of itself, otherwise you might have to rest, and eat at times.
Hrm…rambling.
TLDR: WoW isn’t designed to be bigger, and nobody would like the changes that would really make it feel that way.
When you go from 2 continents with 40+ zones (Vanilla) to 5-7 new zones per expansion, it’s bound to feel different. In other words, the game will never feel as expansive and immersive as it did back then. End of story.
Making the game “bigger” is really just stretching out content with time wasters.
Currently what it looks like is slowing people down. Long loading screens into over populated instances, which lag out your computer. Loading screens to get to loading screens. Needing to use irritants like gliders and potions to get around other irritants. Blocking the roads with trash or obstructive geographical features, while obscuring paths. At the beginning of BFA, I’d log in and spend most of my video game playing time… getting around. I wasn’t having any sort of fun, I was just in transit.
If Blizzard really wanted to make the game Bigger, they’d update the capitol cities to give access to everything Stormwind/Orgrimar has, not destroy them. Zones would not be time locked but updated at the end of their content. What is life like now for people living in Red Falls or the Barrens? What do Blood Elves even do? How is Suramar doing? What is life on Azeroth like?
The game isn’t Minecraft, people don’t do things for the sake of it. It’s goal and reward oriented. Which isn’t great when behind absurd RNG. I didn’t enjoy killing hounds 100+ times because it was still fun after 20+ times. I made myself do it for the mount. BFA has dabbled with giving us more things to do and that’s a good thing, but the goal was never to make the game “bigger”, it’s to stretch out content.
Bigger is the line they use, but it’s not what they mean.
It was. It’s not any more. It’s been adventured already.
I enjoyed both Alliance and Horde campaigns. I think the worlds presented in BfA are better than what we had in Legion. Drustvar and Zuldazar are both standout zones. I didn’t dislike the zones in Legion, but they definitely seemed smaller and crammed together. But all that said, High Mountain and Suramar we’re great.
As long as you’re turning a corner down an uncharted path, it’s adventure. But once done, then it’s just travel. And by the 10th time it’s “Why can’t I fly!?!?!”.
The questing is what gives scope to the terrain, as the questing is what gives it story.
It’s like those Historical Markers on the highway. “Oh, look. A piece of dirt.” “While, yes, it’s a piece of dirt, but it’s the piece of dirt that Kit Carson stood on when he was helping chart the Oregon Trail. Now, perhaps the dirt is a fraction more special.”
Without the historical marker – it’s just dirt.
Without the quest, it’s a hut, or a camp of troggs, or an empty temple. The questing gives it context. Even if you have to go back to the same temple three separate times.
“There’s an abandoned ancient temple, go check it out.”
“Oh, wait, it’s not longer abandoned but had Blood Cultists in it. Try and clear them out, they’re dangerous.”
“Well, now we know not only is the ancient temple no longer abandoned, and now inhabited by Blood Cultists, we learned during our campaign to drive them out that they’re summoning the Blood Spirit Blothar. If THAT happens, things will be really bad. Go and stop it.”
When you stop the ritual and drive off the cultists, now it’s just an abandoned temple with an historical marker that says “Once inhabited by Blood Cultists who were on the brink of bringing Blothar , The Blood Spirit into the world before being thwarted, in the nick of time, by a GREAT HERO!”
There’s a shack in Death Valley. It’s a shack. Like any other shack. Save, it was also once home to the Manson Family. “Oh! THAT shack.”
The problem is that questing runs out. And questing is not the mechanism to grind gear and everything else. But all of the games have been like that. All of the questing ends, and you’re in end game.
It’s just really hard to make the questing continually relevant in the game. It always has been. Classic has 60 levels to quest through, which gives it an up on all of the others.
Unless I’m wildly misunderstanding your perspective, I have to disagree. I find WQs are the best foundation for immersive open world content that WoW has ever had, giving variety of events in the world, which I can use to pursue different goals/priorities.
(Although in terms of story progression, the farm in MoP is still my favourite area)
Back in my day you have to get the person to a destination under a timer across the city and you got to do it fast as crap without taking too much damage, a Discount Crazy Taxi with guns if you will. Nowadays you just… drive there. No need to rush or anything. You do get occasional special stuff, but other then that, that’s it.
