Old zone revamp next expansion?

[Fahrad Wagner]

I'd be okay with it, but only if they put Zidormi in the capitals and give you the choice to play in the new Azeroth or the Cata one. One of the worst things about these updates is the huge loss in story that leaves players without any context for plot arcs that come later in the leveling storyline which were established before.

I completely agree! To be fair, the should have done it for vanilla Azeroth as well... RIP my thousand needles.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I sure hope so.

And I hope that it'll be made to deal with local threats, rather than tying it heavily to a certain expansion.

[Snes]

If it's Old God themed, then I can see them revamping Silithus and adding a new C'thuun raid (or giving it the ZG/ZA treatment).

[Niwes]

I have always liked introducing people to WoW. Lvling a new character from lvl 1 with them, explaining how the game works and having fun together is an enjoyable experience. Back in the day almost everyone I introduced liked it but sadly I'm noticing that more and more people think WoW is boring and quit the game somewhere between lvl 20 - 40 and actually I can't blame them. Mobs dying with a single shot (even without heirlooms), professions being utterly useless on low lvl, dungeons being rushed by heirloom players. The low lvl experience currently feels so empty and useless, in my experience it makes new players quit before reaching end game. No new players is a dying game.

Therefor I think its time for a new revamp of the old zones, adding new gameplay value to it one way or another and make the lvling experience enjoyable again so new players don't quit before reaching end game. I think most quests are fine but professions and items need to get their value back, also I think it would be a good thing if the world is a bit more dangerous. Lvling up with zero chances on dying is plain boring, even new players are not that stupid. What do you think is the best solution to fix the low lvling experience (for new players)?

overall i (ofc) agree. no new players = dying game. this for it alone ofc is a fact.

but a few points here:

- blizz dont invest that giant amount into wow any longer since years. cost-effective is key.
- so you have to carefully think about where your dev invests go. leveling or content ?
- the game became fast paced. long leveling exp (like vanilla) is what young players dont like.
- modern leveling is not that great. its a sandbox streamlined system with route, quest hubs etc.
- many ppl hate modern leveling in new xpacs, at least after first 100-110, because of "boooring".

imo, you cant rescue that leveling stuff. there is not enough dev time for that and customers dont want loose even more end game content (which you loose when blizz redesign leveling stuff). and most young players want hop in, get all, hop out. they piss on good leveling.

instead i would delete leveling at all if i were blizz. let ppl define char and when entering the world it is 100. or at least give new players 1 cost free instant boost to 100. and let them choose if they want level some classes a bit to test things out, or bc they like leveling, or straight jump to 100, at least with 1 class they decided as theirs after some testing.

and you dont win anything if you make leveling that easy, dull and fast (like its now) to speed endgame access up, so that most players think "how boring" and leave.

i know that leveling is an integral part of a mmorpg. and we all level 100 to 110. but if you want attract modern players you have to forget everything before 100.

just my oppinion.

[Deleted]

Before Legion was announced I was hoping that the conclusion of WoD would damage the connection between the worlds and timelines and leave us stranded as refugees in an alternate, unwelcoming Azeroth.

[FelPlague]

Honestly I think the quest helper is half of this. The idea that you don't need to read the text and explore to find where the quest items are makes leveling boring. People like to solve puzzles.

The other half is how broken combat is. It needs to be harder. You should have to think about every engagement

Combat has never been "hard" and back in vanilla people just used addons/the web to find the quests. Only noons didn't

[In Ogres We Trust]

I don't think you understand what I just said. Old world revamps, and the resources it took, are the reason Cataclysm failed. Even with the size of their team now, if they devoted a large portion of that team to old world content revamps, we would not be delivered nearly the same amount of end game content as we have currently in Legion, and that just won't fly after this expansion. A surefire way for Blizzard's next expansion to fail is to do exactly what you are suggesting.

Cataclysm "failed" (if you call what they put out a failure) because of the shit story and disjointed premise behind it.

- - - Updated - - -

Old world getting mass updated was one of the largest reasons Cataclysm was a huge failure.

Elaborate on your statement.

- - - Updated - - -

If they do a revamp, I'd hope we get some way to keep certain questlines. Vanilla had dozens of amazing questlines that were lost and while Cata imo had far fewer, it would be a disservice to future WoW players for questlines like "The Day that Deathwing Came" or Rheastrasza's quest to create Wrathion to be lost.

Due to the current story arc, this is the perfect time to do a revamp, but the correct approach would be to relaunch the game as WoW II.

[Adlian]

Its possible. I like the idea where it takes us years to come back from Argus, during that time old zones might change. Mostly clean the mess from Deathwing.

[In Ogres We Trust]

These two messages sum it up for me. I really want a revamp of Azeroth but this has to be done the right way, with Legion-level of quality zones which scale with your character's level. They don't have to do them all at once, they can do them one by one for all I care, but I would really enjoy a high quality Azeroth. Oh, and most of all, they need to fix the timeline, that thing is far beyond broken. Maybe involve the Bronze Dragons to keep the old content accessible and explain why we go from this : Cataclysm > Outland > Northrend > Cataclysm > Pandaria > WoD > Legion. There has to be a clever way to fix this without damaging the timeline even further than Cataclysm did!

In my opinion, one of their major issues stems from the desire to always introduce new lands. For example, WoD would have been better off as a revamped Outland - coupled with updated lore that stated that the entire planet wasn't destroyed, e.g. 70% survived, 20% was destroyed by portals, and 10% became Outland.

P.S. Also, they could do a revamped Northrend campaign with the Spider Kingdom as an addition, or they could do a revamped Lordaeron campaign (that centers around toppling Sylvanas since her character should have been put out to the pasture during WotLK) with Kul Tiras as an addition.

[Draenox]

I dont want them to spend resources on that again. Cataclysm had a content issue through the entire expansion because of the amount of time they spent on redoing already existing content. I have leveled so many characters at this point and still believe that the old quests are alright, would much rather they spent their time making new content.

[namecraft]

I'll settle for WoW 2.

my thoughts exactly

[In Ogres We Trust]

I dont want them to spend resources on that again. Cataclysm had a content issue through the entire expansion because of the amount of time they spent on redoing already existing content. I have leveled so many characters at this point and still believe that the old quests are alright, would much rather they spent their time making new content.

Since it takes up the most time, they could outsource the artwork (which they're already doing to a limited degree) and assign a new team to creating WoW II. Honestly, it's not that difficult of a project.

[kaganpwnz]

probably going to see a revamp of the zones in the next xpac or two, and everything scaling to your level. will be fun to level alts through zones and complete them without overgearing/overlevling them after the first 4 quests.

I dont want them to spend resources on that again. Cataclysm had a content issue through the entire expansion because of the amount of time they spent on redoing already existing content. I have leveled so many characters at this point and still believe that the old quests are alright, would much rather they spent their time making new content.

i think the difference they can make with scaling could possibly make the revamp zones include high level content.

[slime]

Although you make a valid point and I agree with you, it'll never happen. A revamp maybe - but actual though-out content for lower levels won't happen. And I don't think zone revamps will cause people to stay and play, its just settings. It sounded like you wanted actual content added for the lower levels to enjoy that part enough to stick it out until end game, that's the part I don't think we'll ever see. Wow is endgame, and I think Blizz is okay with that.

[Kelathos]

Does the low lvling experience need a revamp next expansion?

Yes, by eliminating it. Start all new characters in the current expansion and be done with it. Let new players experience old leveling content via a trip through time system.

[Fahrad Wagner]

I agree with Rorcanna, threats should be local. This is the best way to fix this all "timeline" non-sense, and to me making the atmosphere of a zone more "generic" is sometimes good, that way you don't feel like you're always going after "Greatest Evil N°1" but instead you're involved in smaller (and often more interesting) plots. And there is soooo much potential for old Azeroth's zones. I've been thinking about it lately, and here are some changes I think would be very nice:

Kalimdor

- Epic Un'Goro, looking like a proper jungle, with an actual "constant danger" atmosphere. Maybe develop the titans lore there, with a newly-found titan underground site.
- Jazzy Gadgetzan, basically what we've seen in Hearthstone with gang wars and everything but even more developed, with maybe a faction-affiliation and a pvp event a few times a day. Oh, and with a pirate development on the coast of Tanaris!
- Green southern barrens, with the lava rift turned into a river, basically the continuity of what had already started with Cataclysm.
- Remade Feralas with an improved ogre thematic around Diremaul.
- Rebuilt Auberdine in Darkshore, with a development of the said city and that horrendous tornado problem fixed. Maybe expand the old-god/naga thematic on the south.
- Healed Hyjal, with many quests taking place inside the Emerald Dream to purge the few remnants of the Nightmare.
- Moonglade with actual decent trees, not those paper things that make my eyes bleed everytime I see them (Un'Goro, I'm talking about you too).

Eastern Kingdoms

- Expanded Booty Bay to make it look like a bigger harbour. Same as for Un'Goro for Stranglethorn, make the zone feel dangerous (a bit like Gorgrond was, in my opinion).
- Epic Dun Morogh, with actual mountains instead of these round-shaped hills we have.
- Fixed Loch Modan, with a brand new dam and archeological sites on the eastern part.
- DTA-free highlands, with the Wildhammer dwarves thriving and a few local threats remaining with the orcs and Twilight hammer.
- Retaken Arathi, with Stromgarde being rebuilt.
- Gilneas as a proper zone.
- Epic Alterac, same logic as for Dun Morogh but maybe harsher, more dangerous mountains.
- Forsaken Hillsbrad Foothills, with the zone being even more changed than it was before, fully belonging to the Forsaken now (explaining the Alliance presence in the East, with the newly retaken Stromgarde).

The list goes on and on, my point being that I really think Blizzard should spend time redevelopping those zones, with the amount of details they used for Legion zones. It would attract new players, and with scaling it could be seen as new content for high-level people too. I think we're gonna have to wait a while until we know more about the next expansion or whatever, but I really hope Blizzard is planning a revamp of Azeroth. And if they are indeed planning one, I hope they'll go the "local threat + healing" way, not the "Bwaaaah I'm Azshara, I'm gonna flood the world and make it even more destroyed" way.

[Ealyssa]

Well the WoW dev team is currently a lot larger then is was during Cataclysm, so a revamp doesn't necessarily have to mean that other content has to suffer from it.

Work ammount is still limited, no matter the size of the team. If you allocate some of them to a full revamp (which is a gigantic ammount of work) you still have to cut something somewhere else.

And with how aweful it turned out in cata (while the revamp was actually nice, a very small ammount of people actually saw it and worst, it wasn't max level content which should obviously be the focus of any expansion)

[Dekkers]

That will cost you 2 raid tiers.
Massive waste of resources.

[TheVaryag]

I have always liked introducing people to WoW. Lvling a new character from lvl 1 with them, explaining how the game works and having fun together is an enjoyable experience. Back in the day almost everyone I introduced liked it but sadly I'm noticing that more and more people think WoW is boring and quit the game somewhere between lvl 20 - 40 and actually I can't blame them. Mobs dying with a single shot (even without heirlooms), professions being utterly useless on low lvl, dungeons being rushed by heirloom players. The low lvl experience currently feels so empty and useless, in my experience it makes new players quit before reaching end game. No new players is a dying game.

Therefor I think its time for a new revamp of the old zones, adding new gameplay value to it one way or another and make the lvling experience enjoyable again so new players don't quit before reaching end game. I think most quests are fine but professions and items need to get their value back, also I think it would be a good thing if the world is a bit more dangerous. Lvling up with zero chances on dying is plain boring, even new players are not that stupid. What do you think is the best solution to fix the low lvling experience (for new players)?

Stop revamping old areas, and concentrate on making good NEW areas... Instead of revamp completely like Cataclysm did, I'd say "Remaster" Instead, re-do quests and things to be better, I'd say Cataclysm changes too much, mostly because of the whole "Cataclysm" thing, hint Is right there... the changes to zones was too much for me and gave me half the reason to hate Cataclysm right there and then.

I'll say another thing, you're right that low level areas are empty, and It's so sad... but from lvl 1-60 I don't know If I could reccomend those areas to a noobie, maybe the 60-80 areas aka TBC/Wrath. But then that'd confuse them even more...

Let me tell you the biggest problem Cataclysm has done to leveling, and that's break up the pace of the story which hinders new players who want to get Invested In the story and lore as much as we do, as you begin your wow experience you technically begin In the Cataclysm story period. I hate areas being revamped for that very reason, we'd be jumping from story to story without liniartiy or with the need to google everything to understand the story that the game should be explaining to you at least In a basic form.

You go from Cataclysm zones, to Burning Crusade Zones, to Wrath and back to Cataclysm zones, and only from then Is the story linear, there Is no Vanilla story anymore. The oldest zones and content In the game is Burning Crusade's Outland area. Unless you count some of the old vanilla raids too, but even some of them were revamped Into newer content which is now also old content (Zul'gurub & Zul'aman In Cata, Upper Blackrock In WoD).

Nobody can go and experience the story of how you get to the bottom of the Searing Blade plot to overthrow Thrall (The then Warchief of the Horde) by Infiltrating the cult Itself without the knowledge of the cultists, whilst you go out and kill cultists unbehest to their knowledge that It was you. That happening since the moment you make a character In Durotar, the orc and troll starting areas. And ends around the time you go to the Barrens and then continues again In Desolace many levels later.

Or the more noteably and memorable story of the Defias Brotherhood and the most understood villain of all times, Edwin VanCleef, going from Elwynn and to Westfall to realize something Is wrong here, they're more than just a bunch of thieves and gangsters, they're justified, It felt like -we- might've been the villains and I love the moments In the game where you question that, where you do quests and wonder "Am I the bad guy here?" and sometimes It's nice to know the answer Is "Yes, I am" (Death Knight Campaign anyone? That ending tho).

So what I think In contrast to your argument, Is Blizzard stopping catoring to casuals, start making the WoW experience more about the story, quests that make more sense and take you from story to story without making you jump around like a rabbit from story to story, I could go on and on about removing world quests entirely, the new legendary system taken from Diablo 3 which Is clearly not working, and the Artifact Power system which Is broken and only a grind for you to do.... but I'd need another hour for that. "Remastering" old zones would also be a good step to helping new players see the value In the game that we veteran players saw In It long ago as well. Let your friends play and envelop themselves In the gameplay, the story, and If needed ask you for questions and help, that's how It should be, new players shouldn't feel lost.

Oh and proffesions have sucked since about Cataclysm.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Due to the current story arc, this is the perfect time to do a revamp, but the correct approach would be to relaunch the game as WoW II.

... Um, no.

Relaunching it as "WoW II" when it would just be the same game with visually and mechanically updated leveling content would mean a whole lot of unnecessary work when WOW as it is pulls 10 million people back with each new expansion.

They didn't launch it as "WoW II" when Cata changed the 1-60 content, they wouldn't if they revamped it once more.