In the recent years, I feel the fantasy aesthetics in the game has become more and more ‘sci-fi’ themed in most of the visual aspects. Weapons, armor, etc. being bigger and more flashier in colors. Do you think WoW belong in a more simpler and grounded dark medieval fantasy world, or do you think the direction as it is now with Shadowlands, a more cartoonish high-fantasy look fits it more? With spaceships, machineguns and technology, this makes me feel alienated from the world it used to be.
Personally I would like to see WoW go more back to the roots of the darker medieval / renaissance look just as in the old classic zones. The dark and cursed atmosphere in the landscapes like Tirisfal Glades and Silverpine, Duskwood, Swamp of Sorrows, Dustwallow Marsh, Ironforge and Stormwind are examples of a few zones that carries that mysterious aesthetic vibes.
I personally think Wow should try to go more for dark warhammer fantasy themed settings but maintaining its own art style (so basically more dead-serious settings). And of course also aiming for more texture resolution. We should at least be able to use choise-wise low resolution textures in 720p and high resolution textures in 1080p, depending on what computer you play on.
Like look at this reference from the recent Warhammer 3 Fantasy Total War (Spoilers from the Game ahead!):
Also here very accurate/honest Trailer from the Game:
i personal think about horde fantasy zones is recently zones happen proteck each base with vipes mean shadowlands more excutting play on does lands few zones can vipe one
I would like that very much, because I prefer classic lore more and realism in RPG games.
It would be so much more fun if every zone had some big Lore going on that is not effected by main story of expansion, like vanilla days.
Those things don’t exist in classical Dungeons & Dragons-style FRP. However, RP has anything you can imagine. I also think it shouldn’t belong to WoW and is one of the most strange things in this game. A good point to bring that topic to discussion.
No, as it never was. The term you are searching for is High Fantasy, and yes retcon all the recent sci-fi BS and return to sword and sorcery. Yes Draenei and Orcs are aliens from other worlds, but we used to travel to those worlds via magical portals and not via space ships.
Dark fantasy aesthetics have been present even in BFA (think Drustvar and Nazmir). I just want to get back to the real world, Azeroth and feel like what I do actually matters.
Shadowlands does the opposite both in terms of theming (afterlife, far removed from what you know and where you live), tone (the whole thing is depressing, you keep losing, every little moment the game reinforces that you don’t make a difference) AND story (where it’s all about being controlled without being able to fight back).
I don’t mind dark and depressing stuff when it has a sense of scale and impact. Felwood and Plaguelands were amazing back then, because we knew similar zones and therefore the extent of their ruination. But we still tried to fight back to make the world slightly better with every quest, and the narrative supported this. Even their Cata versions showed signs of recovery, a reflection of what you and all others have done earlier.
That is what WoW has ALWAYS been.
But yeah, the ratio of medieval and sci-fi has been skewed in Shadowlands for sure.
In Legion too I suppose. I loved Legion, but all the space ships was a bit too much imo.
So after Shadowlands you want even more depressing, dark stuff?
No thank you. I want bright colours! Lush forests. Jungle. Rolling hills. Sun!
And don’t get me wrong; zones like the ones you named are cool, in small doses.
But Shadowlands has been all doom-and-gloom except for ZM. I’ve had quite enough of it for a good while.
As for Stormwind and Ironforge: I’d love to see cities getting big overhauls and be made into actual sprawling cities full of life and things to discover. Actual questing areas within the city - just a bit different type of questing than your average world content.
Weird because it felt like korthia with bunch of rares everywhere and treasures on every corner, phase 1 of shadowlands felt like true open world RPG, where people would farm things everywhere and etc, it was crowdy, but then flying came and ruined everything.
I’d pref fantasy over those legion spaceships. I am a Fan of steampunk elements tho.
But honestly, i don’t care as long as they update the graphics. The world seems so static and dated. Give us some moving trees, a stunning sky, maybe improved weather effects. It can’t be that hard to polish the game a little…
I think they need to remove 50% of their game and just leave azeroth zones, maybe it will fix problem assuming how big world is and how many changes it would need, lets say chromie hitted her head on a rock and forgot to use her magic, then BUM we all are left on azeroth in present time with reworked and scaled whole world to max lvl, rework of all professions into 1-300 (not 1-100 cuz it would be a joke to level) and we have a wow 2
WoW has always been cartoonish high fantasy. That is its roots.
However, some of WoW’s darkest themed armour and weapons are from Castle Nathria and Sanctum of Domination, at least the plate sets in my opinion. Nothing sci-fi about these raids and their gear. Torghast too. The environments and enemy NPC’s of these places are wicked dark. Maldraxxus and Revendreth look great, as does the armour from these Covenants. I’ll admit that the Oribos themed gear is underwhelming, as are the new tier sets.
Machineguns have been in WoW since the beginning. Spaceships since at least Burning Crusade, though they were kinda just floating crystals. WotLK had a ton of steampunk aesthetics. I don’t think the game is any more sci-fi now than it has been in the past.
I would love to see examples of what you want WoW to return to. Any in game armour sets or weapons you are hoping for?
Ironforge and Stormwind as dark and cursed atmosphere that carry mysterious vibes?
I suspect I haven’t quite hit on what you’re talking about though. Do you mean that you want more down to earth, historic referencing? Armour designs that perhaps mimic real world armour from medieval history and not just massive plating with spikes, skulls and glowing lights/flames/magic etc. I’d be interested in seeing this.
me2 but please… please not to be again the champion to beat an another big big bad.
its becomin absurd.
yeas true. i remember while playin w3 the 1st campaign (arthas) was so immersive while riding in lordaeron with rain and dark landscapes.
Gilneas was similar but after 12 years is still a useless zone.
