Just wanted to make a short post about the map and how it doesnt represent the “actual size” the world we play in isn’t a facsimile of the world that exists in lore.
So it makes me roll my eyes a bit when people say "yo why are all these NEW ISLANDS poping up in the ocean? they’re like 1/4 the size of the original map! and we used to fly/boat over that area before!
And to that I said, for all we know, the islands could be just that, islands. people who tend to say this have very little knowlege of how flights or boat paths work in real life, much less a game that exists in a fanasty world with mostly steampunk tech at the highest.
Look at examples of history, the first people in california from the old world thought California was a long island separated from the rest of the Americas.
You can see all over real history how geography changes, even today maps still have this problem with showing the actual “size” due to Mercator projection. Also Ancient china and ancient rome HARDLY knew about each others existence so the map they had of each other were very inaccurate and sure as hell wouldn’t have included things like an accurate map of the island of sicily.
Hell, a vast majority of people don’t even know about the extensive habitable Alaska island chains that stretch many 100s of miles into the pacific ocean, or even smaller scale, Like, do people know that there are 4 rivers in NYC? or the islands that are part of the city both in the river and off the coasts in an area called long island sound? I just know a lot about maps and scale so the comment always bothers me as if people think it’s a “GOTCHA MOMENT” when people are upset the game has “new islands”
Have you flown before? Do you know of every island in every river and bay across the world? do you have knowledge of Akimiski island in Canada? But wait you live on earth, you could be right by it! You have access to modern geography tools and don’t know what island i’m talking about. What about something simple, the US virgin islands or Bikini atoll? Those might ring a bell, but when’s the last time you had access to a map or even acknowledged their existence, you literally have the internet.
What about “City island” That’s a neighborhood in the bronx in nyc, do you know of it? I mean, 8.33 million people live in NYC, you have access to the internet and satellite images, why don’t you know about it?
One race has space travel.
Globes also existed in our world before the whole world was explored
All of the new continents are fairly small lore wise, like Kul’tiras, canonically, is roughly the same size as Gilneas, but in game it’s the size of like over 1/4 of the Entire Eastern Kingdoms. Where as Pandaria and the Dragon Isles were magically hidden/sealed away.
Its just down to the game not being able to properly convery lore accurate sizes. Like how in lore Goldshire has a population of thousands but in game is a tavern a smithy and one house; or how in lore it takes an entire day of travel to get from Razor Hill to Orgrimmar but in game they are a 30 second walk.
For TWW, The Isle of Dorn for example is probably a pretty small little island, and is probably far enough out to sea that the island isn’t visible from Kalimdor’s coast, and so unless ships traveled in that one specific area, it wouldn’t be ever be found. People are so used to the world’s shrunken gamified scale that they forget just how massive the world would be realistically.
Heck even irl, with more modern technology there was a large archipelago that wasn’t discovered until 1913 off the coast of Siberia called Severnaya Zemlya which which then wasn’t fully explored until 1930, and since then even as recent as all the way up to 2012 there have been half a dozen of small previously unknown islands discovered across the world.
Even with modern tech, satellites, planes, radar, gps you name it, things are still being discovered because our world is just that big and vast; Azeroth is no different, even if the shrunk down game worlds makes it seem like it is.
And you assume in a theoretical situation that this Alien race that maybe has less than 100k total people left in it that they would share information of what remote islands they can see from their ship with an azerothian map maker? Who even knows how “big” or “small” said islands even are. you can barely make out the Bahamas from space and that’s a fairly decent sized island from a human perspective.
You’re ignoring the fact that islands like Pandaria and the Dragon Isles were hidden by magic for over 10k yrs. Khaz Algar is deep underground and somewhere out in the storming sea, is the Arathi homeland hidden by a giant magical storm.
Maps are drawn with proportions in mind, right? So if we look at the Broken Isles, it’s huge. Why wouldn’t it be visible. If you say the map is inaccurate, then you’d have to say the Broken Isles os Smaller than what we see in game.
The main map is drawn foremost as a UI. So all the areas are big enough to easily click. They are not actually to scale.
…until they are. The size of azeroth is as vague as the number of troops factions have. It is always just big enough to suit what they mean to happen at that specific moment.
I am pretty sure they realize they have hit the outside limits of even gernerous amounts of suspension of disbelief with Schrödinger’s islands, which is why they are quietly building up the other side of the planet as a place to go.
A whole new blank map to fill with suddenly appearing islands.
the Broken isles arent smaller than what we see in game, the rest of Azeroth (Kalimdor/the Eastern Kingdoms) are the ones much smaller than we see in game.
The maps in chronicles are the canonical sizes, the Broken isles as per chronicles looks to be roughly the size of Western Lordaeron (Tirisfal + Silverpine)
You said Goldshire was much bigger than we see in-game. So how is Eastern Kingdoms smaller than what we see in game by that logic.
How can any location be smaller than what we see in-game. That makes the whole world incoherent. Imagine Stormwind is even smaller than it is in-game? Where do people live, then?
And once that’s done, we’ll explore the southern hemisphere. I mean, Pandaria, Stranglethorn, Uldum… all very hot, tropical places, which makes sense if they’re along the planet’s equator.
Ah, the woes they invoked being Americans and forgetting if you go south far enough its actually quite cold.
Honestly, this is why way back in WotLK Metzen said making a globe was a terrible terrible idea because it locked certain things in. Metzen is a bottom up world builder, and he had not yet reached the level of a fully realized globe.
They could always capitalize on the, ‘Titans are Fallible,’ narrative, and we’re told those globes in Ulduar excluded certain locations (which tracks with the absence of Avaloren really).
That being said, Pandaria could be a lower continent but not exactly the bottom continent
Australia is pretty south but we’re still rather high in tropical & warm temperatures
The Titanforged redacting things they did not want mortals knowing of is about the only trick you can pull out to explain it away, honestly.
Frek’n Odyn.
And true. Though… Australia’s temperature is because of the giant parched interior acting like a big heat trapper. Also I am pretty sure the gate to hell is down there, which is why most the local life wants to murder people.
