In any driving game I’ve ever played the first level or zone is always a large open area with long straight roads so the players can actually get used to the mechanics.
Undermine feels like this is the 5th zone we’ve had drive in with all these tight corners and piles of junk to ruin the flow of movement. idk who thought it was a good idea to have this be the place to introduce a new ground mount system.
Overall, just a really strange patch. Undermine really doesn’t even seem like it was designed with driving in mind.
If it didn’t have Drive then 11.1 would’ve been the most copy + paste patch ever with little change or innovation to the gameplay. It makes me feel like this system was nowhere close to being finished but it was rushed out the door so that Blizzard could say WoW has a brand new gameplay feature.
19 Likes
Undermine is a repurposed cataclysm map so it probably wasn’t originally designed with driving in mind
8 Likes
Interesting. I did replay the Goblin starting zone on Cataclysm Classic so that would make sense since the buildings and aesthetic are practically identical.
1 Like
Lets call the patch by its real name,
Undercooked.
12 Likes
Undermine is beneath the island of Kezan, the goblin starting zone. 
Lore wise, anyway.
1 Like
I was so hoping I could crash into other people with it. It was the first thing I tried. Kinda disappointing.
The map layout is pretty simple for organizing routes, there’s a roundabout that will direct you to every side of the map with 1 or two turns necessary to reach any specific point. I can’t really see someone having an issue navigating unless they’re overly reliant on gps irl / reliant on point and click moving with flying ingame.
2 Likes
Now that would have actually made it fun.
1 Like
I think DRIVE is amazing, but the place you get to use it actively works against having fun with it.
Too cluttered. Poor lane signaling. A circular city that everything looks similar is pretty easy to keep missing where you should be. Edit: Also, to keep my eyes glued on the minimap makes me lose driving momentum and hit something.
5 Likes
It’s terrible mechanically as the first zone to introduce it.
But thematically it’s great. Goblins, volatile technology and absent regard for civic safety go hand-in-hand-in-hand.
4 Likes
ding ding ding we have a winner!
5 Likes
I think as far as ‘chaotic and goblin-esque’ I think it’s the perfect place for it. It works and it’s fast but it’s so unreasonably jank.
Wondering how long it’ll take for me to hate it.
3 Likes
I agree. The narrow confines of the city do not help the introduction of a system that seems much more suited to open plains like maybe Ohn’ahran Plains
3 Likes
Strong disagree.
I like the zone and the DRIVE mechanic, think it’s by far and away one of the best side zones they’ve added as an addition to an expansion.
1 Like
I think it was completely intentional, otherwise, they would have made the vehicles less unwieldy, less drift, and with tighter control.
Took me about an hour.
I’m thrilled for everyone who likes it.
I’ve never liked Goblins. (I tried to play one when they were introduced in Cata, but I couldn’t stand the female animations especially the putting out a cigarette with her foot. Same reason I can’t play a Vulpera… same animations.)
I hate what they did to Azshara. Hate the design of their zones, so Undermine is torture. So relieved there’s no rewards there I want so I can just get through the campaign quests as fast as possible so I never have to return (hopefully.)
6 Likes
Definitely agree. The core tech is really great. I wish drifting provided more of a turning advantage when used correctly, and I wish there were an equivalent to Ariel Halt, but in general it feels good and I’d absolutely love this to be available for all ground mounts (the turbo button for horses being like Zelda gallop would be dope). But yeah, the zone isn’t remotely big enough. Edit: To add, there’s also this notable limbo where if you slightly adjust your angle and then hit space bar, you neither drift nor jump. It makes trying to jump off of ledges very finnicky, especially with how fast you’re generally moving.
The Dragon Isles and most zones since were designed with dynamic flying in mind, because it needs more raw space to feel fast while not making the zone feel tiny. DRIVE has this issue big time in Undermine. What exists needed to be twice as big, with some of the bigger roads being even bigger, and some of the tinier paths being less tiny. I also keep looking up at all this unused space and thinking how cool it would be to have had another tier to the city, and the sewers similarly make me think about how nice some tunnels and a more expansive underground would be.
As a goblin fan the aesthetic is mint (music is absurdly good), and I enjoy the systems, but there is a definite lack of polish in some critical regards. Reusing content for half patches is perfectly fine, and even just in general reusing what makes sense to reuse is fine, but the whole point of doing that should hypothetically be so that you can deliver a better overall product. And I know they know, because they’ve explicitly touched on issues they had to deal with for dynamic flying, but which they’ve now nonetheless shipped dynamic riding with.
For me the two big issues are that DRIVE feels like it was developed as an isolated system that fit “good enough” with the zone, and that it feels like 99% of the time you can’t use things like Heroic Leap or lock gate where you think you would be able to. It’s like the opposite of everywhere else. The DRIVE issue is definitely the bigger of the two, but it really breaks how fluent and thematic navigating terrain on the impacted classes feels.
2 Likes
The experience of driving in Undermine - cars drifting all over the road, taking corners way too fast, distracted drivers looking at the mini map to try to see where they are, drivers who have lost control of their vehicles, careening into buildings, driving as if the only thing that matters is high speed without regard for the resulting chaos and consequences - it all seems to reflect, more and more, the way people are driving out in the real world.
Some of that Undermine chaos must be dripping into our world.
4 Likes
Use DRIVE for longer distances and normal mount for shorter, it’s very fast and easy to use that way.
Undercooked? It’s that raw that it’s walked to the paddock and started eating grass again.
3 Likes