What would you add to a zone to drive more player traffic to that area?
This isn’t to take away from current content, but make previous zones for old expansions worth visiting.
e.g. Add a casino to non-contested area in Pandaria
Roleplay effects.
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unique animation objects: People will all funnel to zones that lets them do more than sit around. There’s hundreds of animations in the game our player characters have but can’t utilize. (Kul tians, humans, orcs, undead)
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Add more effects to these places. Like banks or effects that can draw attention.
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Any level friendly; make it possible to get a character there with ease so any and all can participate in these areas. Either portal, flight, or taxi.
Chairs
7 Likes
Remove all orcs from every zone.
:^)
2 Likes
I mean, we’re already working on removing night elves from most zones. Just look at Ashenvale :^)
At the present state of the game and world design there sadly is not much that can be added outside of easter eggs and the hidden mount chases. Most of the space in every zone has been allocated to focus on a quest chain or, in some instances like Redridge and Stonetalon, literally become craters and unusable. The whole world itself is in dire need of an overhaul and reworked to allow for a more dynamic world growth rather than the static trend that every expansion has.
I wouldn’t add little things like a “casino” or “bank” or what-have-you. I would add in events across the world. Hot zones of conflict between Alliance and Horde. Head on up to Grizzly Hills once again and battle for resources and harbor there for a different avenue of Conquest or opportunities to earn special transmog. Clash against your rival faction at the walls and highlands of Gilneas to contest the zone and provide your faction a morale boost no matter what region they are in. Aid the Reliquary or Explorer’s League outside the ruins of Uldaman to earn a few tips to get more out of your archaeology surveys and compete for relics and coin against your opposing faction. This is the one expansion where the focus should be on the faction war, and the faction war is only taking place in Kul Tiras and Zandalar? Please.
It’s the same gripe I had in Legion how the rest of the world seemed immune to the influence of the Legion as you are travelling through Loch Modan or Tanaris. Say what you will about how laughably dumb Deathwing was and how absolutely god awful Cataclysm was an expansion, but at least he was roaming around the world and gave the illusion he was just laying waste to what was in his path, as he was in both old zones and new. His presence was there and a threat; once that sky turned fiery orange you stood a very good chance at dying as he made his fly-by.
I don’t want “little things” to draw players there. A cutesy little goblin bank and tavern that appeared in the Barrens is not going to draw anyone to it for more than a casual glance or secret-finders. Certainly little things add to the draw and allure of a zone on a roleplay standpoint, but if you truly wanted to boost foot traffic through a zone, put things there where people will be frequenting the place. Imagine being a lowbie and heading to the Western Plaguelands just to be greeted by friendly and hostile players clashing at Andorhal, one of the last few bastions of Forsaken power in the Eastern Kingdoms, both for selfish gain and to give their fellow faction players some assistance no matter where they might be at.
Blizzard keeps on dancing around the subject of what might actually draw players to go through old zones again, and that’s just fresh content to do there and new things to see. Cross-realm is not going to fix that. Sharding is not going to fix that. Getting players involved in those places with heads to crush and loot to find is going to solve that.
This turned into a rant really fast, but my statement is still quite valid, I think.
1 Like
Take the Legion Invasion tech from 7.0 prepatch…you replace the demons with Monster of the Expansion enemies (ex. BFA would be Faction War) and you pepper zones with them.
I’d make them work like this: X zones are “Foothold” zones, such as say, the Blasted Lands or Stranglethorn. Invasions start at Footholds and you get the normal Invasion scenario…which is supposed to be pretty hard.
Then, if the Footbold isn’t cleared, then a neighboring zone is “Invaded” and the Foothold remains active. The new Invasion is easier than the last, but if isn’t squashed, another zone falls under attack and another, each time getting progressively easier to repel, but culminating in a siege of a capital city.
When you repel an Invasion, you are sent to the next invaded zone, bushing then back to the Foothold and then out of the area entirely.
And if you don’t want to deal with it, talk to the bronze drake which puts you on a shard sans Invasion.
Everything but this. If you’re going to a zone with the intent to linger in it longer than a flightpath or heading to a dungeon, then deal with the invasion. Letting a bronze dragon just magically make the invasion go away because you just can’t be assed to fight against it defeats the impact of the invasion and battles that are going on there, much like how they are in Darkshore and Arathi right now. I don’t feel like the Warfronts, the Silithus Wound, or the fall of the Undercity mean anything because I can just talk to a bronze drake and whip myself back in time whenever I please. It’s a cheap cop-out to adamantly refuse to go back and update anything rather than a convenient tool for me to warp back to something nostalgic.
I mean you’re not wrong mostly. I think it’s fine to think of little things because it’s not like we’ll even get anything so why not dream small if we’re going to dream at all? Try not to overthink the fun post this is obviously meant to be :3
See, I disagree because like everything, repeated world content is just that, repeated. It may make the world feel livelier, but after you’ve done it enough times even the best of content starts to get tedious.
Sometimes you just want to fly to a zone and farm mog/mats/RP at your favorite proxy/helping a buddy level, etc. etc. in peace. Giving players the option to opt out of what essentially locks down a zone is important for that reason. Not everyone plays the same way or enjoys the same things, and locking down a zone and telling everyone else to stuff it would cause a feature to backfire.
Likewise, by having the ability to switch, it keeps the two separate. By doing that, it gives the design team significantly more freedom to make truly wonderful encounters and events without having to worry about the potential baggage of the zone itself.
I will agree to disagree. Put that incursion on a timer if having the place go back to normal is such a necessity.
It doesn’t need to be constantly evolving, but having a changing, somewhat dynamic world is far more immersive than “being able to go back in time whenever you want to.” Dangers need to be made dangerous. Threats need to be present. Having a get out of war free card takes away a lot of aesthetic and presence.
This is my main sticking point, to be honest. They have the freedom, but the two zones we’ve seen so far that have been updated, Arathi and Darkshore, have been fairly lackluster, with the only real event and encounters there contained within the warfront. The fact I can choose to exist, the sheer fact that the option is there, in a world where neither of those events exist kills everything that could happen there.
If you wished for an example of why that impact is important, look no further than the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, where many players at the time when it happened have complained about how a nice, peaceful hub got wrecked and wanted to bring it back, yet Blizzard themselves have said that in doing so would limit the value of such a drastic change. Yet with a snap of my fingers, I can just make Sargeras’ sword vanish back into a boring, never-updated zone.
Already removed night elves from one :>
(jk ilu)
It’s brilliant. Simple yet effective.