And I’ll call you a Neon Elf.
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I’ve heard worse 
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Ummm…
My first reaction was to agree, but … Drustvar? Vol’dun? Shows that they can still do it sometimes.
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I highly dislike desert zones tbh…
I’ll agree with Drustvar tho, bloody loved that zone. I was also more focused on quest/storywise, not just appearance.
Drustvar is good with both tho.
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I loved doing the storyline on my Alliance through Drustvar.
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So come Dragonblight you’ll have an army of alts, ALL of which will HAVE to level in the new zones for three years.
By the time the next expansion comes around, you’ll be sick of those zones, by your logic.
I just find it hard to understand your angle here. It seems you rather like levelling, but seem against repetition. 200 alts and you argue it’s a problem having the same zones? Something doesn’t quite add up to me.
I mean Westfall is just one zone. There’s either four brand new zones, of which you’ll surely get sick of after a year. Or there’s having forty in Classic alone (obviously that number is far higher now with previous worlds)
My proposition is just a shift in design philosophy. I want the whole world to be kept relevant and feel current all the time, regardless of what is the new expansion. Obviously there are limits in resources, and I don’t expect every zone to have massive teams invested in adding new content all the time.
Just ‘evergreen’, and Timewalking/Chromie Time are very much the systems which can achieve that.
My thought has always been events that fit in with the theme. Every so often there’s a scaleable event in Westfall in which Gnolls attack Sentinel Hill. It functions similarly to a world quest, and any level player can engage in it-- on each day the story progresses, say on day 1, the Gnolls attack, on day 2 players can attack Gnoll camps, and on day 3, players can raid the main Gnoll base.
For me there’d be so much potential for this kind of public quest thing. There’s always at least one up in the old world, probably more considering how huge it is. It’s something that can grant XP for levellers, and it’s something that can award stuff for max level players-- say gold, WQ level gear, crafting resources or tokens for cosmetic items. Players of all levels can work together, it doesn’t have to be engaged with, and it can be ignored by everyone if they don’t want to take part.
If it fails it doesn’t really matter, because the quests are still available and all you’d see is some fires in Sentinel Hill and wounded guards. It can be designed in a way so the event still progresses, but what matters is just a player being able to complete the quests on a given day. Say the overall objective of pushing back the Gnoll attack always wins, but the player is just a cog in that and you’re just there for your 20 minutes completing the quest to kill 12 of them.
Hah, no.
I have 2 characters atm.
I usually get sick by current expac zones after a couple of times, yes. Because they happen so often on top of each other - compared to Westfall.
I don’t have 200 alts. I said I’ve leveled probably over 200 characters these past 12 years, but I have deleted most of 'em before level 50 (using pre-level squish standards), because of changing my mind on the names, race, w/e.
I used to keep a full compliment of max levels, and have also deleted various over the years to make room for Heritage etc. Since I got the Love Rocket I don’t feel I need to keep that up any more.
I just have a pet project of having at least one male and female paladin in every race possible. Had to delete some more high characters to make room for that xD
I still find it hard to understand your position. “I usually get sick by current expac zones after a couple of times, yes. Because they happen so often on top of each other - compared to Westfall.” I mean this is pretty much my point. Having done stuff before really seems like an irrelevance in a game of this kind.
I mean it’s just the same game, effectively, just reskinned. What’s different really in Dragonblight? I mean it may have a new lick of paint, but as far as questing goes it’ll be exremely familiar mechanically. Is it the story? Do you really get engrossed in that?
Perhaps if you’re the kind of person who just likes to see things once or twice, and then “Done that”, and then moves on. Seems strange for someone like that to play an MMORPG.
What do you like doing in this game?
I’d agree that BfA actually had pretty good zones, when compared with the modern era standards.
Drustvar is ok, but I found the actually questing pretty annoying. Also it did seem tonally a little bit too much in the realm of ‘The Wicked Witch’ rather than Middle-Earth. Just a bit over-themed, if you know what I mean.
Why couldn’t we have some ongoing Drust event there? Something we can always go back to. An event on rotational like the Westfall one I suggested. It has multliple stages so going there on different days means things are changed.
Well, Drustvar was as much inspired by the Blair Witch Project as Uldum was by Indiana Jones, right down to the hexes hanging on the trees, so I think it was justified - and it worked!
The problem with using old zones is that it’s a bad idea to mix max level characters with levellers. You could do it with layering, and the idea of having versions of Westfall changing from year to year is tempting, but as others have said, that doesn’t work out so well in cases like the Vale and Uldum.
I wouldn’t be against it in principle, but don’t see how it can be done and work well.
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This is the issue, they’ve tried recycling some zones to use for invasions etc, it looked like a great idea on paper, but in practice it just fell flat for me.
Recycled content never has that new unknown shiny factor and the quests and structures are only ever going to be based around the existing assets.
At least with Uldum/Vale the originals were still accessible, same with the Warfront zones, but the originals didn’t benefit from any of the update either. Worst is things like the Cataclysm where it completely wipes out the originals. We see this done with dungeon revamps too.
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Because WoW isn’t based on just Middle-Earth, and thus dont have to?
Lets see…
- Norse Mythology (Dwarves, humans, the Titan Keepers of Ulduar and more)
- Ancient Egypt (Uldum, the Ramkahen part)
- The Aztecs (Trolls)
- Warhammer (The style of Orcs is based on Warhammer)
- H. P. Lovecraft (All Old God stuff)
Plenty more that I can’t get from my mind atm…
The pre-Legion Invasions were met with universal praise, as I saw it. You may not like them, but they worked very well for many. Things like that on a rotation in various old zones would work very well I think, and of course they would be toned down in ‘epicness’ and not be huge demon attacks.
and why should it appeal to min-maxers? It makes little sense to make public events in say Westfall have much reward for you Mythic pusher, but then neither do pet battles or actually anything that isn’t Mythic content. It seems to me on the reverse Mythic raids and high keys don’t appeal to so called ‘casuals’.
Much ‘new’ content is based on old assets. The mechanics of quests don’t really change.
Yes, new content doesn’t has the shiny new coat of paint, but you know that wears off very quickly. Seems to me you’re unconciously defending disposable content over the long-term. It also seems to me it’s pushing a rather impractical ever-marching forward, just reskinning things forever (I can call things reskinning, in much the vein you call things recycling).
I’d suggest the reason we have this constant problem of the WoW team being behind with development is precisely because of the perceived need to make NEW NEW. Revolution rather than evolution, replacement rather than developing what they already have. “Oh how exciting it is to be in a new continent.” Yea, well, that freshness doesn’t last very long does it when one reads the forums, I’d say overall it ain’t working all that well. People realise, well, it ain’t really new.
Amusingly enough by a country mile the most ‘new’ thing is the talent system, and that is PRECISELY a feature which grinds against the “we’re in 10.0 and World of Dragonflight.” It is a system that is universal and applies to the entire game from 10-max.
You are making an argument from the failings of Cataclysm again. Everyone agrees that is exactly the wrong way to deal with existing zones.
With zones they could add in events in unused areas - again using Westfall they could add in a scaling zone in the mines. The Gnoll Invasion I suggested need not effect the standard quests, and it can be ignored.
I’m talking about adding life to them, and yes upgrading the art while they’re doing it. Yes, it is actually possible to preserve the atmosphere of a zone while upgrading the art to modern standards. It’s a matter of fidelity, not aesthetics (one should preserve the latter).
They could add public dungeons, that are completely optional. They DO NOT have to ‘wipe out’ what exists there now, or even have clunky time-shifting NPCs.
The revamp of Scholomance was horrible because it completely changed the mood of the instance. It is actually possible to update the assets and some of the antiquated mechanics without spoiling the original mood or feel. What they should’ve done with that is just add a new wing of the dungeon.
That says nothing about my point. I’m talking about my personal taste of Drustvar-- I don’t dislike like it overall, I just don’t think it’s as moody or atmospheric as say Duskwood.
I’m talking about the tone. Rather than being more of a Hollywood theme park from the 1950s, it should bear more resemblance to classic fantasy.
Eh, I think the tone is perfect - thats why I like it.
Each to their own.
Some are nice tho - I think the Razorfen is alright.
The main problem with that revamp (as well as the one for Arathi etc.) is that the zones are locked into a very specific time. They are don’t feel like a part of the world, they feel like a questing region for BFA.
The world could do with a revamp but they need to be timeless (not the island) revamps so they are questing zones for leveling. With side quests building a local story.
They did it before that in Cataclysm. It was a mess of permanent tornadoes and dull pop culture references.
Not again.
And as an RPer I use many zones, regardless of expansion.
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Sadly the Cataclysm brought some permanent changes, some I really dislike.
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