Map of a potentially crowded Azeroth

[0bsessions]

Suspension has to occur for the sake of gameplay. I don't believe for a second that, canonically, we're supposed to believe that places like Pandaria or the Broken Isles are anything but dwarved by the likes of Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms. Limiting the size of new continents for the sake of proper scaling, though, would seriously hinder those new locales. The only other option would be to dramatically increase the size and scope of the old world, which would both be a monumental waste of resources AND would make travel an absolute nightmare.

I'm glad you mentioned this -- that's exactly how I feel. If the world were ever to become a cohesive map with no loading screens, I think it would have to be made compact like this, to minimize the file size that would need to stored. This would also minimize the amount of empty ocean that we would have to fly over to get from place to place, and the ocean that is there (Nazjatar, Mak'aru, Vashj'ir, etc.) would be full of things to do.

The problem with something like this is that it would be a disaster from a tech standpoint. One of the biggest reasons for WoW's success has been that it typically requires a comparatively tame rig to run. WoW can run on onboard graphics right now and adding a persistent world with no separation between worlds would wreak havoc on load times for all but the best SSDs.

[mitotic]

The problem with something like this is that it would be a disaster from a tech standpoint. One of the biggest reasons for WoW's success has been that it typically requires a comparatively tame rig to run. WoW can run on onboard graphics right now and adding a persistent world with no separation between worlds would wreak havoc on load times for all but the best SSDs.

I always assumed that when a player is in Kalimdor, their personal computer is not trying to load all of Kalimdor at once -- rather, as that player moves through the world, nearby terrain and entities load in a radius around the user as determined by the graphical settings. If this is the case, then having a bigger continent probably wouldn't be a problem for personal computers. But perhaps there would be additional stress on the server side, rather than the player side, since the server would have to track players moving in a larger space.

Does anyone know more about this?

[Gadzooks]

I always assumed that when a player is in Kalimdor, their personal computer is not trying to load all of Kalimdor at once -- rather, as that player moves through the world, nearby terrain and entities load in a radius around the user as determined by the graphical settings. If this is the case, then having a bigger continent probably wouldn't be a problem for personal computers. But perhaps there would be additional stress on the server side, rather than the player side, since the server would have to track players moving in a larger space.

Does anyone know more about this?

It's hard to say without actual hands-on knowledge of Blizzard's server tech, but that's tightly clamped down trade secret stuff. But I think it's safe to say trying to put all of the maps into one server would be pushing the limits of even the best servers and cpus, ram, and networking on the market. You're also taking a HUGE risk with the entire thing crashing - one of the benefits they have to how they're set up now (several blades with multiple hds each) lets them easily swap out bad hds and components without having to back it all up and restore it all to one drive. And, load balancing one big map would be a major headache - a "server" in this context is multiple blades running a small network between them, but what you want is creating a huge bottleneck for entering the server - on a high pop server...yeah, it's gonna get ugly, fast, especially on high-traffic times. And, that would be some pretty cool coding to make a seamless transition from one blade to another, if they kept their current architecture, and didn't try to make it all one big map on one drive.

Who knows, tho - they do a seamless transition between zones, but that's all on the same blade, and they pulled off a pretty cool hack with the garrison to Dreanor map transition, but applying it to the entire map...I wouldn't hold your breath. Maybe it's a long term project to get something like that done, as the hardware improves over time, but I have to imagine the load on the blade's cpu and ram and bandwidth would be game breaking, if they tried to do it on one blade, and I can't imagine having a seamless, real time transition from blade to blade would be easy, or even possible.

[Vineri]

It's amazing none of these islands were ever discovered by all the boats traveling back and forth, constantly, all day, all week, all year during Vanilla / TBC / WotLK.

Cool map, but it further breaks lore, by acknowledging these places even exist. Or used to exist prior to MoP / WoD / Legions.

[Oaky]

That map looks amazing! So many possibilities.

[InDecisive]

You should expect Kezan and Zandalar, if not more, to be retconned to be large enough to support an expansion of their own.

[Gadzooks]

You should expect Kezan and Zandalar, if not more, to be retconned to be large enough to support an expansion of their own.

How would you have an expansion on Kezan, when it's covered in lava? Undermine is where any action would be, and that's underground, so it wouldn't appear on the map, anyway.

[InDecisive]

How would you have an expansion on Kezan, when it's covered in lava? Undermine is where any action would be, and that's underground, so it wouldn't appear on the map, anyway.

It's retconned to be much bigger. The bilgewater bit was the part hit by the lava flows, the rest is largely intact and home to an unexpectedly varied goblin civilisation. Undermine is an underground neutral city with connections to each zone.

[mitotic]

You should expect Kezan and Zandalar, if not more, to be retconned to be large enough to support an expansion of their own.

Haha definitely, I can see that happening. My ideal would be a South Seas expansion with each island being a single zone: Kezan, Zandalar, Darkspear Islands, Kul Tiras, and Plunder Isle, with Tel'Abim as a PvP zone. But I can totally see Blizzard making Kezan and Zandalar into their own continents with 3+ zones each, based on the way things are going.

[My User Name]

I appreciate the work and I know you said that "not the scale from lore or the in-game maps" but the islands are big. Like; way too big. Massive. They should be smaller. :P

Also what source did you use while drawing Darkspear Islands? And why is there a second landmass southwest of Tel Abim?

[mitotic]

I appreciate the work and I know you said that "not the scale from lore or the in-game maps" but the islands are big. Like; way too big. Massive. They should be smaller. :P

Also what source did you use while drawing Darkspear Islands? And why is there a second landmass southwest of Tel Abim?

Yep, I just wanted to try to replicate the physical zone sizes as much as possible: Broken Isles around the same size as Pandaria (slightly smaller), and Lost Isles around the same size as Azuremyst Isle. I figure if Blizzard ever adds Zandalar, Kul Tiras, Kezan, or the Darkspear Islands, each of these zones will probably be at least as big as Azuremyst Isle (in terms of walkable size) -- in part because zones these days seem to be larger than they used to be, and in part because people would be disappointed if we finally got to Zandalar and it was the size of the Timeless Isle or Darkmoon Island.

For the outline of the Darkspear Islands, since we don't really know much (as far as I'm aware), I used this drawing. That's a small river cutting through Tel'Abim, just for variety, but of course I have no idea what Tel Abim would look like if it's added to the game.

[Ethenil]

I think, for the in-game world map, they could use the lore map and scale as seen in Chronicles, with added small islands for future expansions. Then, when clicking, let's say, Zandalar, which would appear smaller than Dragonblight in the world map, you world get the game-scale map which would be (probably, anyway) a whole continent.

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It's amazing none of these islands were ever discovered by all the boats traveling back and forth, constantly, all day, all week, all year during Vanilla / TBC / WotLK.

Cool map, but it further breaks lore, by acknowledging these places even exist. Or used to exist prior to MoP / WoD / Legions.

Just because an expansion doesn't take place there doesn't mean nobody knew it existed. For example, you can roleplay that your character went to the Broken Isles during WotLK, there's nothing stopping you.

[smaktat]

They have never and I doubt they'll ever address "the other size of Azeroth", is there is anything between the Eastern Edge of the Eastern Kingdoms and the western edge of Kalimdor.

That's where we loop back around...

[Maletalana]

Good point, climate-wise it seems like this is only the northern hemisphere. I just included the lands that are currently in lore in some form, but I'd love to see new lands either south of Pandaria or even on the "other side of Azeroth" as Poshadin said.

The crowdedness of this map makes it very easy to imagine the Kalimdor Pangea that existed before the Sundering. Any lands south of Pandaria or on the other side of Azeroth would probably not have been part of that original Pangea, I'd imagine.

Hey I just wanted to add a few thoughts: We have seen images of the spherical planet Azeroth in places like Ulduar. It would seem that the two main continents, Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms, are stretching nearly from top of the sphere to the bottom, to indicate that our map of Azeroth is indeed compete.

HOWEVER, consider this to explain the climate of zones:

Azeroth as a planet does not sit up-right like earth does. Imagine A sun that Azeroth rotates around. Now have Azeroth orbit the sun, but point the Northrend area away from the sun, and as it rotates around the sun, keep Northrend pointing away from the sun. Northrend is always cold in this instance.

I will now also draw attention to how there is now no day / night cycle, and that the new north/South poles are weirdly in the middle of the map. I understand this is a broken / incomplete theory, I just wanted to possible think outside the box and use what we have seen in game as well.

Please feel free to spring-board off this sort of idea!

[Al Gorefiend]

The distance between the Isle of Giants and Kezan is about the same as the Southfury River's width (the river between Durotar and North Barrens).

I don't see how that is geographically possible.

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That's where we loop back around...

Two different oceans. One is The Veiled Sea, the other is The Forbidding Sea

[Vineri]

Then there is the actual globe of the planet in HoL, showing the loop, and (surprise surprise) few islands.

[Deleted]

How da fuq are Illidan and Maiev the only ones who went to the Broken Isles when it's so big it should be visible from Orgrimmar?!

Please note that the islands are drawn rather large because, where possible, the map is using the physical size of the in-game zones as the scale (i.e. how long it takes to walk across the zone), not the scale from lore or the in-game maps.

Oh that might explain it

Then there is the actual globe of the planet in HoL, showing the loop, and (surprise surprise) few islands.

https://youtu.be/u7VxZtth2ks?t=1m20s

[mitotic]

HOWEVER, consider this to explain the climate of zones:

Azeroth as a planet does not sit up-right like earth does. Imagine A sun that Azeroth rotates around. Now have Azeroth orbit the sun, but point the Northrend area away from the sun, and as it rotates around the sun, keep Northrend pointing away from the sun. Northrend is always cold in this instance.

I will now also draw attention to how there is now no day / night cycle, and that the new north/South poles are weirdly in the middle of the map. I understand this is a broken / incomplete theory, I just wanted to possible think outside the box and use what we have seen in game as well.

Please feel free to spring-board off this sort of idea!

Yes, I proposed a similar idea earlier in the thread. It's a cool idea! In addition to the problem of no day/night cycle, the sun wouldn't seem to move in the sky. Also, Veredyn noticed another problem:

Were Azeroth tidally locked like that, the dark side would be a frozen wasteland with temperatures approaching -200C and the sunward side would be the exact opposite. The only habitable region on the planet would be a comparatively thin strip at their interface.

That said, I wonder if there's maybe some other explanation that could give a cold north pole and a warm south pole, rather than two cold poles like the Earth. Of course, one explanation is "magic," or maybe something to do with the fact that Azeroth is a sleeping titan rather than a normal planet.

[Twistedelmo]

There was a posting back a few years ago about the blank space on the opposite side of the globe found here.

Your map lacks back clutter!

[purebalance]

And like I said, Blizzard's maps are never final - they're literally just the most recent they've made. i.e. the classic map in game not even having Northrend, Pandaria, Kezan, The Wandering Isle on them despite them being there... The same with Kul'Tiras being on this and not in-game. In a couple of years that chronicle map will be outdated.

Chronicle is written omnisciently in all aspects of the universe we're in. Therefore anything there is in fact what is there.