Underwater zones are tricky because of the verticality.
Although World of Warcraft’s graphics were built with verticality in mind and the game features quite a lot of water, the inability to judge distances due to the lack of stereoscopic vision is a major issue and World of Warcraft has not found any way to deal with it.
So far, in the life-span of World of Warcraft, we have had one under-water zone. I think it was a success, but obviously the developers does not agree with me since we never got another one.
Ironically, an under-water zone is effectively a zone with flying enabled - yet those are fine apparently. Makes you wonder. Perhaps the issue is simply jumping.
The zone had stiff competition though, in the form of Mount Hyjal. The hype for exploring Hyjal was real because it had been teased from before the game came out and many major lore moments happened there, yet we couldn’t go there ourselves.
I wouldn’t expect any new under-water zones; not because it’s a bad idea necessarily, although there are certainly some big challenges when making one, but because Blizzard thinks it is.
On one hand, I find deep waters incredibly interesting… on the other hand I have thalassophobia. It doesn’t get more mixed than that I think.
Vashj’ir was a quite challenging zone to get through for me, especially having to dive down to that giant whirlpool and seeing all the giant creatures.
Moving swiming and doing anything under or in water in wow is not very gameplay frinedly. But i have to admit…vashjir is one if not the most beautiful zone in the game. I would recomend to everyone to go there and do the quest line.
On the other hand i cannot imagine bothering myself doing any daily or world quests there…its just not fun to move around there
nah, but my experience is mostly based of late expansions and the electric eel(cant remember the bosses name atm) fight for eternal palace. was very fun
I really disliked Vashjir. It was very pretty but I can’t cope with the 3D-ness of underwater. I was always too high or too low or facing the wrong way or a load of other things. It all started with quests in, I think, vanilla off the west coast of Stranglethorn. I discovered under water in Wow was not for me.
Most of the cata zones were rushed the vashjir itself had an unfinished storyline with Neptulon it where he got abducted and then in legion he shows up like nothing happened. Retconning at it’s finest.
Vash’jir is one of the best zones aesthetically, game play wise not so much… Wow doesn’t do well with verticality. Distances are difficult to measure under water, aoe spells are uqite wonky and hard to use etc.