[Open World] Azeroth and beyond is a lonely place

Community WoW Community Council
1

When you’re leveling from 1(10)-70, WoW honestly feels like a single-player game, you’re lucky to come across people, and the world feels like it’s just you in it.

There are multiple reasons in my eyes why this is the case.

  1. There are different versions of zones.
  2. There isn’t a lot to do in zones that are based in pre-DF expansions.
  3. This is more my observation, but it looks like development is purely focused on what is to come, and leaves out what is already there. Technology that is being brought into Dragonflight, can also be applied to older zones.

Why is this important? It will make the world feel more alive if there is more reason to get out in the world, and we’re talking purely cosmetic reasons here.

But also, diving into the world as a new player, their first impression of the game is just an empty world where it feels like they’re alone.

Now, for this to happen, another world revamp needs to happen, so that we can get rid of different versions of zones and that zones aren’t just stuck in their Cataclysm ‘‘the world just ended’’ state.

When that happens, my idea would be to add events that relate to the zone, like the Drust attacking in Drustvar or the Mantids needing to push back on the border of the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. It doesn’t have to be 100% lore-wise correct, it just needs to fit the zone theme. There can be cosmetics, pets, and mounts added to the events, or a currency for each continent that can be traded in for.

What the vendors sell can and probably should be available at all times and new stuff is added to keep it fresh. This can easily be recolored gear or mounts from existing items…

Now this is a big undertaking, but I think it would help to keep people engaged in the world, and help newcomers stay.

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2

It’s more or less inevitable that the last stretch of the leveling process happens in whatever the current expansion’s zones are unless there’s a big shift in the design philosophy. But the current alternative - shoehorning every previous expansion into the 1-whatever the cap is - isn’t great because it splits players into war mode, non-war mode, and then doubles it up with chromie time and war mode chromie time. With so many zones to pick from, any player, new or otherwise, is unlikely to find anyone else.

If there was a revamp of EK and Kalimdor as was mentioned and that became the only leveling path, then it’d solve multiple different problems at once: the world would finally move on from Cataclysm, new players would be given a world that is cohesive and they would be able to find other players on the same path, and veterans would be able to return to something familiar - an element that’s been missing for practically 2 expansions now.

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