So something hit me while I was re-reading the stuff about Player Housing.
We’re supposedly heading for a world revamp, either in Midnight or in The Last Titan, and that will finally bring the older zones of WoW, the Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor and Northrend, up to the same graphical standards as the rest of the world.
That means we’re going to see all the Chaos left by the Cataclysm expansion finally cleaned up, but turned into what?
For Durotar, I’d adore seeing the spill of the Southfury River tamed and turned into irrigation canals, piping water deeper inland and more rice-paddies and farms built to take advantage of this glut of water, possibly even being funnelled into the Den to provide additional water to the swine-ranches there.
To see the Thunderfury Ridge turned into a shamanistic/druidic site where new and veteran mystics of all stripes come to meditate and seek understanding from the Spirit, Owa’nohe, and the surrounding region beginning to grow green and plentiful, and the return of peaceful Thunderlizards to the region, and the end of the Elemental war that has gripped that part of the region between the Elementals of Earth and Water.
I’d also adore seeing Sen’jin Village turned into a proper port between the Echo Isles and Durotar, turned from a scattering of huts into an actual settlement where Trolls, Orcs, Tauren and Goblins barter for food, trade goods and livestock. To see the Echo Isles turned into an actual homeland for the Darkspear, the Naga and the Murlocs finally banished back into the ocean, and fleets of Darkspear double-hulled canoes and fishing vessels trawling the waters for schools of fish and hauling up crab-pots full of clattering prey.
To see Razor Hill turned into a hub where the Horde musters not only a defensive militia to keep the homeland of Orcs and Darkspear Trolls alike safe, but where merchants and traders come to arrange convoys to Orgrimmar to the north, or to Thunder Bluff to the west, and even Ratchet to the south, a thriving market-place where mercenaries and sell-swords can hire on as caravan guards.
To see the coastline and inland area to the south-east of Orgrimmar turned fully into a military mustering ground, where new Grunts are put through their paces under the watchful eyes of veterans, siege-weapons and mounted Raiders are put to the test, and battle-mages can test their most devastating spellcraft without risk of doing harm to the healing lands to the west, and a true port has been built, where the might of the Orcish fleets is gathered, repaired, maintained and improved.
Further north, into Orgrimmar itself, I would love to see the brutally militant architecture of Garrosh’s rule dismantled and turned into more useful, welcoming structures, still distinctly orcish, but built to accommodate a much more diverse and eclectic Horde than the closed-off mind of that Warchief could ever dream of.
The central valley, the Valley of Strength, completely remodelled, the great fortress of Garrosh replaced with a great marketplace, celebrating the Horde’s end of a single Voice leading them into war after war, the other buildings expanded and updated, digging deeply into the cliff-walls to expand and create new avenues and shops, store-houses and taverns accessible via lifts and rope-bridges.
The Horde’s political heart instead moves into the area where the Horde Embassy once stood, a vast structure of uniquely Orcish design, but with Tauren totems and bead-work curtains, Darkspear scrimshaw and spirit-masks adorning the walls, Pandaren cushions and rugs, Elven teleportation circles and stained-glass windows, and Forsaken and Goblin machinery and conveniences to make the stay of the diplomats more comfortable, both in amenities and the references to home.
And with the end of Gallywix’s drilling efforts and the return of Darkspear Trolls to the heart of the Horde, the Valley of Spirit turns from a slum into a repository of spiritual knowledge, not just from the Darkspear, but the Tauren, the Orcs, the Mag’har and the Highmountain, a place where the traditions and knowledge of their ancestors may not only be stored for prosperity, but to intermingle and grow into something greater still, for the next generation to grow and draw strength from.
The Valley of Wisdom to the north shifts as well, still dominated by the Tauren, but it has become a place of learning as well as healing, with flocks of children, Orcs, Tauren, Troll, even Goblins, Vulpera and Pandaren, study at the feet and hooves of their elders, learning their words, numbers and the history of their collective peoples in the southern part of the valley, while the northern part is reserved as a place of healing, both physically and mentally, where the injured, the maimed and the scarred are given tranquility and grace to heal, and to come to terms with what they have lost.
To the west, the Drag remains shrouded, but no less alive, where goods that would perish under the harsh light of day are traded to the discerning customer. Mushrooms, enchanting goods, rare ores and tomes of magic exchange hands, and smoke-dens and ale-houses crowd for space beneath coloured lanterns and gas-fueled lamps. The Cleft of Shadow is no longer the home of the Shattered Hand or the Warlocks of the Horde, having been turned into a fortified bastion as the Horde turned to the Underhold for such things, kept cut-off from the rest of the city to ensure both secrecy and safety. Weapon, food and water stockpiles are constantly moved underground, and whispers that the remains of Blackfuse’s mechanical production-plant has been repurposed by the Goblins and the Earthen of Dornogal into something else entirely, the heart of the power-plant that fuels the lights that brighten the city without needing an endless, unsustainable amount of lumber to feed the flames, while others whisper that the massive arena where the ‘True Horde’ of Garrosh once stored all manner of beasts and creatures has been repurposed as well, into a magically shielded prison where all the traitors to the Horde are stuffed into those same cages and left to rot in the darkness, with only the screams of the mad to count the passage of time.
And finally, the Valley of Strength is where the military might of the Horde is concentrated, the southern half of the valley where the elite troops, the Kor’kron, train under the few veterans of their order that did not surrender their honor and dignity to serve the mad whims of Garrosh, while to the north, the Earthen and Goblins have corralled the smiths and other crafters of the Horde into a unified whole, churning out blades, shields, suits of armor and more to equip the Horde’s warriors, under the watchful eyes of experienced craftsfolk. The animal pens are expanded, digging deep into the cliffs and mesa to the north to produce not only large dens for the riding wolves of the Kor’kron, but a creche and rookery for the wyverns so endemic to the Horde’s aerial forces. The passage northwards to Azshara is likewise expanded, turned into both a trade-route and a sorting grounds for goods from Bilgewater Harbor and the repurposed Pleasure Palace, where great Kodo-drawn wagons haul lumber, stone and luxury goods from the Goblin’s new home within the Horde.
And in Azshara itself, great changes have been made. With the waters of the Southfury river mostly purified and the strip-mining operations ended, the great quarries of the Mountainfoot Strip Mine have been repurposed into a waste disposal area, where the nightsoil and other bio-wastes of the city are deposited and dealt with, Shamans, Druids and Mages alike working to move soil into and onto the noxious mixture to create rich, useful earth, to be ferried in turn to the new farms built into the northern reaches of Azshara, where new crops such as potato, cabbage, yarrow and other, more cold-weather foods can be safely grown to expand and fortify the diet of the Orcs, Trolls and other races of the region.
Druids, Shamans and Alchemists gather in the forests with this enriched soil and experimental reagents to feed the Horde’s need for lumber, growing trees in weeks rather than years, as well as dealing with the occasional outburst of alchemical mayhem or irritated elementals that now have a shrubbery growing someplace uncomfortable.
The Pleasure Palace itself has been turned into a large training facility for mages of all stripes within the Horde, a place for the everyday rank-and-file study of sorcery, leaving the true mastery of the art to the schools of the Forsaken, the Sin’dorei and the Shal’dorei in their respective cities, but here, the study of the less destructive forms of sorcery is taught. How to chill a room to preserve food for longer, to maintain a portal between two distant sites, the projection of an image to allow two distant people to communicate instantly, all are taught here to all manner of students, from young, wide-eyed children to world-weary adults looking for a new path in life.
The Secret Lab and the Ruins of Eldrath are turned into a form of combined R&D facility for the Goblins to master their new, less environmentally destructive forms of technology under Gazlowe’s direction, and an expanded holiday resort with the now (mostly) Naga-free ruins now littered with sea-side resorts and tourist traps, while the Bilgewater Harbor itself serves as the wet-dock of the Horde’s civilian ships, counting on its prodigious weapons and fields of sea-mines to keep hostiles away, while ferries transport goods inlands to kodo-pulled wagons that make great speed along the Goblin-built highways, the rocket-ways abandoned by for dare-devils and adrenaline junkies.
For the Northern Barrens, I could fully see the old ‘True Horde’ camps taken over by Mag’har, Vulpera and Drac’thyr who had replaced or repurposed them to suit, creating either farms or small settlements of their own where they can figure out who they are and what they want to be in peace and relative privacy, and a great Iron Horde-style bridge is built to span the lava-filled canyon that ripped the Barrens in half.
The Crossroads expands into a trading hub and watering point for the trade caravans between Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff and Ratchet, offering a variety of services and a much expanded inn and tavern arrangement capable of handling much larger parties, as well as a mercenary hiring hall where sell-swords and mercenaries can either leave a caravan, or join up with one, and a detachment of the Orgrimmar army is on permanent station to deal with outbursts from the Quillboar, the Harpies or whatever remains of the Garrosh loyalists in the northern reaches of the Barrens.
The Southern Barrens remains wild and untamed but for a few places, namely the trade-route between Thunder Bluff and the Crossroads, the former Alliance holdings of Forwards Command and Norwatch Hold have been repurposed into training grounds for Tauren and Highmountain Braves, while everything south of Fort Triumph, down to Bael Modan, remains Alliance territory, who have claimed the Dustwallow Marsh as their own and maintain small villages there as much out of spite as the need for arable land and lumber. A seasonal event where Horde and Alliance come to gather at the ruins of Theramore and lament the Mana Bomb, and the needless loss of life there, also occurs, and it is the one time Horde forces are permitted access to the region without conflict from the guards and militias.
What are your hopes for Revamped Zones in WoW? I have more, but I feel like I’ve blathered on long enough for my part.