Please, dear gods of the snow storm.
Don’t oof Silvermoon City like the leaks suggest. Just update the graphics. Allow flying. Don’t turn Silvermoon into a city with hostile mobs like Suramar. Why can’t we have nice things? Why do you have to treat Eversong Forest like Warcraft 3? Ignoring it for more than a decade only to ruin it? Please, Blizzard. Don’t do it.
Maybe some of us blood elves like to be oof’d? You don’t know us, don’t be so judging.
I wouldn’t mind if it’s done through phasing. Void Elves like Alleria Windrunner better be leading the charge to instruct our Light beholden brothers and sisters in the meaning of “freedom.” I do hope we do see through the course of the expansion and phasing Silvermoon going from hostile to friendly, from purely Sin’Dorei to a mix of High, Blood and Void Elves.
I agree. I’d love a graphical update + ability to fly in Quel’thalas, but not at the cost of losing a functional city.
Is Ban’dinoriel not still functional? What would even be sieging Silvermoon, and for what purpose? Hm…
So again, goes back to value proposition and how you convince the bean counters to greenlight things. You have to make it financially logical to do updates. Making it do double duty as Suramar did allows them to do such. The only other option would be to make it perhaps a expansion Hub for the Horde.
To my knowledge Ban’dinoriel was never reestablished after it collapsed in the wake of Arthas and the loss of the Sunwell. If it were, I wonder if it look like a giant priest barrier now, given how Light-y it would be.
Honestly?
Sir… shadowlands was our most unpopular expansion yet despite putting so much investment in this new content. This follows our development trend in both Pandaria and Warlords of Dreanor.
According to our metrics players are more interested in the older nostalgic content than they are of our new ideas.
Most of our players are legacy players rather than new players so we think we should shift development priorities where we update or even remake old nostalgic content rather than make new content that becomes obselete.
We propose to update old world gradually as new content rolls out in future patches and expansions. This can also act as a new introduction for perhaps new players who are not burdened to run through older content to experience Azeroth and lose interest before reaching the newer more relevant content.
We believe the return on investment on this shift in strategy will yield more positive results had we stuck to our current philosophy.
Half of Silvermoon is already a ruin overrun with level 8 magic baseheads.
So. Idk if that’d change much.
Yes but that isn’t how they think. They think how they can make the most in the least time with little care for the future as they have golden parachutes.
The one positive thing to come out of all these allegations was that the old guard got purged. And good riddance to them, if Blizzard can’t take their heads out of their own butts now then they never will.
its kind of in their interviews where they are running around doing patchwork of things people have been asking for years. Idk if Dragonflight or whatever had enough time in the oven for this new approach but I guess we will see.
Actually? I think it might be.
Consider this; two of the last three expansions had big pieces of content involving going back to old content with redone textures, terrain, skins or even whole areas added. Legion did it with the Artifact weapons that brought us back to old world stuff and included things like fully redone Kara crypts. BfA did it by redoing Arathi and Darkshore for warfronts.
Redevelopings zones in batches at a time just has to be more cost-effective than creating zones whole cloth. And when the redone areas are redone well (IE Legion and Arathi), people like the end result.
The only missing component right now is adding gameplay features that aren’t basically one-offs.
Tbh I liked Dazar’Alor a lot. Yeah its a bit weird there are parts of their city that are full of hostile troll expats or cultists. But Tirisfal has huge swaths of land still infested with disgusting, shambling monstrosities that refuse to stay dead.
And that’s just the Scarlets there’s also still quite a few mindless undead kicking around. After the Sylvanas novel though tbh I do wonder if they should at least try to rehabilitate them. It is dangerous though and can backfire as Thurman Aggamand showed. Maybe Calia could handle that. Lord knows that white collar could use some dirtying up. The Forsaken tend not to respect aristocrats.
I’d actually be game if a redond Capitol City was more a hostile zone than basically an open air garden with a bunch of generic NPCs standing around doing nothing much. I’d always imagined it teeming with Scourge.
In Classic at least it seemed like the Forsaken had very deliberately sealed most of the place off. I presumed because there was something super dangerous in there but nah.
I was hoping for a Startholme esque thing where parts of the metropolis are held by the Scarlets and Scourge and the Forsaken gotta root them out. The Argents can come help to give Blue players quests for it too.
I would love a capitol city with the forsaken only controlling sections of it while the rest are leveling or even dungeon content.
Besides it makes leveling and running dungeons in those areas more relevant for players rather than some random cave somewhere that we never see again.
It of course would depend on how big they make it. But tbh it was a letdown when I returned after Wrath and learned Capitol City was smaller than Hearthglen or Andorhal.
I think it could be a pretty cool area like Boralus or Dazar’Alor. I’d actually have the Forsaken rebuilding a huge chunk of it in their image. That way you could visually see you’re wandering into hostile territory. My only criticism of the BFA cities is that it’s easy to accidentally wander into hostile areas as there’s little to nothing to distinguish it from just the rest of the friendly city.
So something like that where you could see who’s neck of the woods you’re going into would be neat.
The world has aged.
When you go to Menethil Harbor and look beyond the sea you could only imagine what lay beyond the horizon. Well now in retail? stand in the same spot and if you got your settings set to maximum you can actually see Gilneas, Stromgarde and all the other locations.
In classic they did some little tricks to make the world seem bigger but they can’t do that anymore.
Kultiras is the same size as the entire northern kingdoms.
Honestly the best option is to just phase out the old world in some old content area like Outlands and remake the world from scratch but add these zones gradually. Like 6 at a time with every expansion rather than one huge update for everything.
There is a lot of “importance” Silvermoon has so I hope they don’t drop the ball in this potential situation.
I wouldn’t be against that.
With WoW Classic and BC and eventually Wrath and Cata this stuff has already been preserved for posterity. So there’s no real reason to keep a lot of this stuff around.
Like let’s be real here starting zones are fondly remembered. But I think if you’ve played Exiles Reach once you should just have the option of starting at level 10 in your factions Capitol with the bags and starter gear Tutorial Island hands you.
Maybe it’s a controversial opinion but I think it’d be more interesting if places like Elywyn, Tirisfal, Teldrassil etc. actually had new stuff in them occasionally. Because let’s be real here WoW has shifted to an entirely end game focused game.
Up until the recent time walking questline overhaul leveling was actually an immensely frustrating experience. I’d actively avoid dungeons and BGs because it was so easy to level out of a zone midway through the story even if you were actively trying not to.
And leveling is still kinda a chore. Getting to max level is no longer an achievement in itself it is just where the game starts in earnest now. Which isn’t great design. I came in midway through Legion.
It was genuinely a crappy experience to get to level 110. Because I felt weaker then than ever before. Because of gear power creep I went from enjoying myself in BGs to that whole gameplay mode being unplayable because obviously I’d get rolfstomped by people with much better gear.
And keep in mind I was a returning veteran. So I was able to intuit stuff about the wonky storyline and sudden difficulty spike that was more like just running into a wall. If I was new to this game I probably would’ve quit on the spot.
The leak you’re talking about has zero credibility aside from a lucky stab at the name, but yes, if the devs are desperate enough to milk nostalgia for Dalaran a third time and resurrect order halls they’re probably at such a creative nadir that “Suramar: Blood Elf Edition” sounds inspired.
It’s Blizzard’s signature move, one we’ve seen over and over again. Give the fans what they want in the most unpalatable way possible.
Dalaran’s weird to reuse as they haven’t topped its original appearance.
I really loved fun little details like how you’d see adventurers of all stripes touching down on the landing pad and running into the city. The sewer was filled with intrigue. It was genuinely pretty fun to explore.
Legion Dalaran on the otherhand was mostly rented out by the Class halls. Which was fine I guess but it kinda paved over the city’s more unique, mysterious flying wizard metropolis appeal.
And tbh I think Shattrath is still superior. It’s way more unique. It has that Suramar and Dazar’Alor appeal of seeing the operational version of buildings previously only seen as post apocalyptic ruins. And just really solid environmental storytelling.
I always loved how the World’s End Tavern and just the World’s End Tavern is flagged as a contested zone. Shows your in the rough part of town where they do not care if you’re being attacked.
I don’t mind some activity in Silvermoon.
Especially after what happened to UC and Teldrassil. Pain is part of the drama, and since we play as folks in this video game world, it is part of a progressing narrative. Silvermoon is half in ruins, anyway. And the front lawn is little better as the Ghostlands. I am not opposed to losing in game locations due to revamps with lore basis.
It could be Alleria because of her heritage, or because of the Void. Or it could be an aggresive Alliance. Heck, maybe Yrel comes to Azeroth and she doesn’t think the Elves deserve the Sunwell because they are consorting with the Maghar. If Yrel takes out the MU Draenei who are currently guarding the Sunwell, that would be one way to get Velen off his duff.
Quelthalas is criminally underutilized and stagnant. There has to be something pretty big to get that place revamped. Bring it on!
I have always felt like Yrel could use the Sunwell as a portal and have her Lightbound come pouring out of it. Makes for an real dramatic tension with how to stem the tide.