I have for ages favoured Teldrassil, Ashenvale and Feralas as zones. I could not quite capture why, until I recently decided to pay more attention to what captures my attention so well in those zones, since both Val’shara and the pictures from the new Emerald dream content patch kind of disappointed me a bit.
It’s not nostalgia, since we already know someone will pull that card. I have a few other zones I favour greatly too, tho these 3 are the very top. I also mainly played Alliance since my start in 2006, and Alliance didn’t have much to do in Feralas, so not much nostalgia to build there. I also never really liked Darkshore, which is in between Teldrassil and Ashenvale.
Recently I realised a common factor in these zones are the massive trees. In pretty much every other zone in the game, the trees look more realistic in size compared to your character. In Teldrassil, Ashenvale and Feralas however, the trees are… massive, and the tree tops covering a lot of the sky box.
Now, obviously I enjoy more than just the trees in these zones, but I think this is a pretty big deal for me. It’s a part of what makes these zones feel so good, magic and mysterious(to me).
Why was massive trees scrapped in all future zone design?
Massive trees are a common theme in zones that favour the Kaldorei and theyre not active in every zone. But i think if we had too much of it then it would feel less special as well.
Oh yeah, definetly. I am not asking for it in every zone. I like variation, but I sort of realised that they have cut that aestethic(massive trees, partly covering the skybox) completely out of newer zones created. I also think it was a missed opurtunity for it in the upcoming patch, because from what I have seen, there is nothing massive about the Emerald Dream. And, that disappointed me at least.
Then our work here is done! Now to monetize murloc oil…
Also, huge trees, while impressive-looking, just take up space and don’t contribute positively to gameplay, so my guess is they don’t rank high in the “zone economy” when the developers are building the zones.
