World getting a tad too big?

Community General Discussion
1

i was just thinking about this while doing something in legion dalaran…

back before wow had expansions there were 3 main cities each side that were relatively well connected through either zepplins trams or ships.
there were high level and low level zones spread out through the world but most of the time stormwind/ironforge/orgrimmar was the active hub,
which was right outside of a beginner zone

with the way that’s set up, as a max level player i might be idling in ironforge and dueling outside the gates or in goldshire on stormwind side, where lots of new players will see and interact with high level players, creating a sense of a populated world.

but starting burning crusade, they’ve been adding new zones and new maps to the world.

we got outland first, which, while not as big, is basically it’s own continent/universe.

at this point the max level hangspot becomes shattrath for its convenience and quest purposes. This took away some max level players from hanging in stormwind and ironforge, while new players still start outside of these major cities.

after that we got northrend and with that the first dalaran became the hub
then comes cata, pandaria, wod, legion, bfa.
every expansion adding new zones
the world gets bigger and bigger
but the wow player population hasn’t exactly with every expansion right.

So now, what we have is some 120s in stormwind and orgrimmar, very few in the other capitals (essentially ghost towns)
some low levels questing everywhere over azeroth, which makes them very spread out

all the 60-80s either in northrend or outland
90s in china
100s in alternate universe
110 in broken isles (well theres still 120 activity there but not much most of the time)
its almost like every level bracket is playing on their own servers with their different maps now.

i understand that with each new expansion they want to give the players pretty landscapes to explore, and i think thats a good idea

but making a new active hub every expansion just causes people of different level brackets to be more and more spread out over time.

the world of azeroth is already so big, a lot of it is honestly becoming wasted space. you get to 60 before you even quest half the zones in eastern kingdoms.
We have stat squishes all the time, maybe it’s time for a zone squish

coming from a player who’s lived in a canadian suburb all his life and enjoys the occasional human interactions, even if in an online game

3 Likes
2

The same could have been easily said of Earth in the 17th and 18th century. Maps of new islands and continents were rapidly appearing, and the world seemed larger as a result.

So why is this not a problem now? Easy. Because our means of traveling has been made faster and more convenient.

The game doesn’t need a zone squish – it needs a decent reason for players to congregate and interact if desired, and convenient means to reach such gatherings.

3 Likes
3

I think that if there’s ever going to be a WoW2, I’d like the initial amount of terrain to be far smaller. Five or six zones on one continent, adding one or two zones per expansion. The scale of each zone could be larger, allowing for a sense of “bigness” without the weird situation where you can’t throw a murloc without hitting an NPC.

I run into this problem now and then when doing worldbuilding for D&D games. It’s difficult to not take a forest and just say “this forest is a distinct kingdom” when that forest should have any number of unique areas within it. Not to mention the problems a realm would experience in such a uniform terrain.

I wonder how well a WoW game might have done if it happened exclusively in Elwynn, Westfall, Darkshore, Redridge, Stranglethorn, Swamp of Sorrows, and the Badlands.

4

i am gonna venture a guess and say it’s probably because the population now vs then is like 1:100 or something like that
i think while the means of travel allows us to get to far places faster, it doesn’t help improve social interaction.

with your real life example, i live in a suburb. I drive a car which i means i can go to a mall or head downtown where there will be people, but i can still walk around my neighbourhood for an hour without meeting another human being during daytime. thats what happens when people are too spread out.

5

That’s because people have reasons for doing things, ways they like to spend their time, ways they must spend their time, etc – it has little to do with the population density.

People are going to naturally congregate at or around points of interest, be they commercial or social. At almost any hour of the day, you can visit an Auction House in Orgrimmar and observe this in-game.

Unlike real life where there’s no logging out, though, once a person finishes the tasks they want/need to accomplish at POIs in-game, they simply disappear from the game world and move on to something else.

In other words, you cannot get people to congregate in a multiplayer video game without creating a meaningful reason for being there. Reducing the number of zones available won’t change this – it will simply reduce the amount of POIs available, and make people log out sooner.

1 Like
6

Tanaan has a bit of a higher level infestation

or at least it did last I checked

7

I don’t think we need to remove zones, just make older ones more relevant than simply blasting through them while leveling.

It’s meant to be a world of Warcraft - I know people like to focus on the ‘War’ WarCraft, but I think it’s about time we turned the focus back on the world.

1 Like
8

FOREVER THIS.

I been leveling my Void Elf… and it is PAINFUL
After Legion quality content I could not believe all the zones that were just empty and outdated! Like Vanilla looking outdated graphics and don’t even get me started on the quest and story telling of the Chapter Zones… I’m not even going to discuss the RPG breaking on how are New Races running old story content with out breaking completely immersion… but I understand that creating new low-level zones and zinc it to the timeline in a game is a lot of work and almost near impossible with out an army of developers and story team at it non-stop. However I honestly expected that the new races started at low version content in the broken Isles or part of BfA…Like in a Booty Bay quest, were you sync in the same map but the places is under attack and is burning but when you leave or finish the quest the area returns to its current state…Sigh** Anyway…

I mean in each starting zone there is potential for cool content if you updated it to Legion quality… Example: Undercity before being blown up had the Scarlet Crusade… Silver Moon had its neighbor Dar’Khan Drathir attacking them… Stormwind had issues with its noble houses that built up to even Dragons being involve and the list goes on by zone map to zone map… You have a Free trial to level to 20…for does who want to try the game… Does 20 levels should show the best of the Best WoW has to offer… leave them wanting for more, but no you just let them experience next to nothing in out-dated content and barely being able to see what the classes have to offer… all the friends I had them try WoW after playing FF14, GW2, ESO and even SWOTR…were are they? Not in WoW I can assure you…some din’t even finish the Trial.

I can’t speak for my friends (Believe me you don’t want to know what they said after that free trial) or anyone but myself and I have to say like Modosh mention it’s about time we turned the focus back on the “World”, BECAUSE we already have enough content for “War” just waiting to be updated into A LOOONG GOOD STORY AND BEAUTIFUL CONTENT Legion quality where players can explore, discover hidden quest/secrets, encounter PC or NPC alike interacting with them and feel they can enjoy the leveling and experience WoW has to offer.

Sorry for the rant :sweat: but I just been told by my best friend that the raiding group guild and him, just cancel their subs and left for Final Fantasy 14. Did you know Blizz that there are “help” videos and the FF14 community have a program for WoW players? And that they call it something in the lines of: the “wow refugees”…lol :rofl:
I know it sounds funny but its real, don’t believe me? Look for it on Youtube… :sweat_smile:
Anyway I’m not sure if any of this is helpful or good feed back but I have to agree with the content of this post… World of Warcraft need to feel like its a World again.
Anyway I’m going back to finish leveling my Void Elf… God I wish My DH had a Void Meta…sigh, but I guess this will have to do…lol
See ya in WoW! :grin:

9

Shouldn’t the world continue to grow and improve? We pay 15$ a month I would hope thing continuously get better.

10

it should, but not at the expense of spreading out the player base in my opinion

i think it’s great they add more zones every expansion
i just think warfront tables, ship missions, banks, profession stuff should be in major cities like stormwind and orgrimmar.

11

World gets bigger, Blizz responds to this madness by removing portals.

12

i want to come and live in your neighbourhood.

rl outside would be a much nicer place without people.