Who played Age of Empires 3 here and used the world editor tool for hours to create their own maps?
I was thinking about something similar for WoW in which players could create their own lands, zones, cities using any assets of the game including various tools, buildings, trees, models, everything from the game.
When you are done making a map, you could also import your characters and play around in the world, zone you created.
There could be community events tied to this where the first place, the best map chosen by the community itself and maybe designers of Blizzard itself would choose a winner and the rewards would be gametimes, etc.
Of course this tool, app would be tied to being subbed to the base game.
There’s a MMO called Ryzom where you can create your own zones, complete with mobs, NPC’s and stuff and then invite people in to play in them. Needless to say it got exploited like crazy and the original idea got nerfed to hell and back.
Star Trek Online also had a facility where you could make your own quests in a custom zone and players could enter this area and play through it, guess what, that got exploited too and had to be pared back from it’s original idea.
Star Wars Galaxies also had a facility where you could create adventures and quests for other players and worked pretty well with some nice rewards for both the creators and users.
Personally I think this would be a great idea but I’m not sure it would work too well in a themepark like WoW, it’s more of a sandbox thing.
If it was to be made a thing in WoW then Blizzard would have to think very carefully about how it was implemented to avoid it being exploited and abused.
For role players this would be a dream, making your own epic stories and involving other people to share the adventures therein.
There would need to be some restrictions on it though, No XP to be gained, No loot other than what the creator could provide, no PvP honour or similar rewards.
As you mentioned, this would be an incredible tool for people to make videos of WoW stuff and would benefit Blizzard from the exposure.
It could also repair some of the damage done to the community spirit of WoW over the years and bring players back together in a far more social way than LFG could ever do.
Of course, it would be a completly seperate “server” than live. Something like PTR where things you do on your character doesn’t effect it on live.
One other thing that would need to be prevented would be any trading between players. Otherwise we’d be seeing server economies totally trashed as some players make alts on servers with low prices, buy the stuff and then trade to an alt on a high price server. It was this sort of thing that prompted the nerfs in the Ryzom system.
Oh yes, SW recreated with artwork resources from SFK and Kara.
There is obviously a map editor for WoW Blizzard made for their artists to create zones, etc. But they will not release it to the public to create their own. Custom maps wouldn’t realy fit how wow is. It doesn’t fit how the game works. Every place, every map, every zone has to be place that exist in this world. How can you achieve that with custom maps. How can you achive world consistency?
No no, this would be a completly seperate app that u have to seperately open, it wouldnt effect live servers in one way or other. It wouldnt be a place in the actual game where u phase into.
This would be a tool that lets your imagination fly and if u want, you can copy characters from your account to walk, fly around.
What u said in the first part basically, a tool like the devs have, something similar to that.
This wouldn’t be part of WoW, as a themepark the story needs to be controlled by the writers. This would be Azeroth in an alternate reality. a spin off if you like, with it’s own player made lore and story.
Mines of Moria is just crying out to be done as a HUGE instance.
Lets have a Helms Deep BG while we’re at it.
Mordor with a sprinkling of Lovecraft and a truck load of Hammer Horror, with lots of dark places full of unknown horrors waiting to get you.
Angmar waiting to be liberated from the control of the Witch King.