There is nothing exciting about most of a zone because there’s nothing exciting to see. It’s just point a to b to turn in/do a quest.
Caves are just there to be annoying to find for that one 80 rep world quest and nothing more, so why even have so many damn caves all over the place that are cancer to find without flying? There’s no real excitement for discovering a cave.
They should just reduce zone sizes by 50% and you wouldn’t notice a difference.
Zones/continents have already been getting smaller since WoD… What they need to do is use more of the space instead,
I also quite enjoy large zones with with big expanses of space if done right
This is how I felt about Vol’dun. Vol’dun was beautiful in my opinion and I loved navigating the zone because while mostly flat, they used a lot of the space and the imagery changed from point to point.
The ruins were good, the Vulpera were great, the Sethrak empire was interesting, etc.
Umm
You should try some other games like Rift if you think zones are wasted space.
WoW is pretty dense for an MMO.
So the zones look pretty. How about giving you a reason to explore and find neat stuff looking around?
Like what? Mythic raid gear? Are collectibles and achievements in open world areas not enough for you?
When did they do that last? MoP with the various treasures and archaeology finds? Legion with hidden skin origins and things like the secret mounts? S’about it, really.
I’m fine with putting more in zones, but we should provide suggestions about what we’d wanna see.
You don’t have to fill an open space with things to do every step. Sometimes a desert is just a desert, and it makes the world feel more alive.
What do you want, a corridor in a straight line with something to do every step? Why? Open space allows for breathers in gameplay, and also allows for more space for pvp skirmishes to happen. Considering Vol’dun had some pretty hotly contested pvp at times (at least in my pvp server), I wouldn’t want it to be smaller.
Go play FFXIII.
Yes. Cause how things are right now, i see a star on the mini map, I ignore it. Treasures around the maps are also worthless.
Same. RS feels massive, because every area is kept relevant and you have 30 skills to level.
Even if it’s technically more ‘grindy’ it just feels more fun to grind and never a job since you can look forward to say something new unlocking every level. Get 40 prayer, you can protect from range! Oh at 43 you get protect from melee, 60 gets you +18% damage with chivalry prayers and 70 gets you piety.
Want to go skilling? Go to edgeville and go fletch in the bank, watch people pvp over the border, hop in and shoot a couple people with that msb you made and oops, that’s a maple shortbow, they’re using magic shortbows, better go train up your fletching skills and pvp.
What’s that?? Someone’s having a drop party, lets go in!
Even though the world is smaller, everything is alive, you can walk from lumbridge to varrock and falador in 2-3 minutes, but it doesn’t keep you from slowing down to look over the sights and hunt a quest giver. Meanwhile WoW fills like a lot of procedurally generated Terran. Nice to look at. While not much there but mobs and generic azerite cave x 40 everywhere.
You’d possibly have a point if this were BC or Wotlk… as is, though, the zones have been made smaller and smaller with each expansion and have been more and more densely packed.
It’s to the point that it’s making it feel like a game, when it should be immersing you instead.
If anything, WoW’s overworld is too small now-a-days and needs more–not less–wide open expanses.
I understand that, but the point I’m making is you’re not really providing suggestions about what they could put in the world. “I don’t like this because I feel it’s X”. Sure. But what do you do to fix X? What’s the suggestion?
I am not sure I feel the same as the OP. In my opinion, Nazjatar feels downright claustrophobic .
Literally anything of worth? Your reward for sidetracking for a rare is like 25 AP and vendor trash that rarely breaks 1g. Maybe one out of five of them even has a gear drop, and even that’s only useful up to 119.
Yes, exactly. WoW is very dense, there’s not a lot of good usage of the space. Everything is condensed into a point on roads everywhere.
I believe outlands and parts of northerend are beautiful and laid out so nicely.
Those 2 expansions especially feel really roomy and not so clustered, in fact I barley remember following the main road on my journey, besides hellfire I never really had to worry about pulling 3-6 pack of mobs for being 1 foot off the beaten path.
Talking about zones btw and not quests because I hate hellfire quest line 
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Some of the most beloved zones come from WOTLK, grizzly hills I still go back and level through just for how gentle (cannibal camp) and beautiful the music was:).
Nagrand for its music and layout is fondly remembered (not for quests tho <.< >.>)
MOP was when I noticed zones to be scaled down and started to be injected with pack of mobs everywhere, it’s probably why a lot of people want flying in the first place.
Sounds like you hate the concept of a video game world 
yes that’s all they are
I preferred the large zones of Wrath and even MoP. I didn’t like the Broken Isles, especially Val’sharah where the quest giver would send you to kill an NPC you could already see on your screen.
I don’t know I thought the zones in MoP were big and filled with depth and wouldn’t want to trade them away for anything.
I agree with this.
I prefer to have more open space to make the world feel bigger. The world doesn’t feel bigger if every square inch is covered with NPCs.