Remember when Blizzard used to create huge, flat zones?

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

Because the gigantic open zones are boring as hell, containing little to no features and no terrain to speak of.
So basically you want something that's less everything, you want it to regress and be more bland and boring. YOu have a very strange taste.

And this, is what happens when you think your opinion is a fact. Which obviously you do. Every time i see one of your posts, it's you acting like your opinion is law and other people's should be immediately discarded. Funny thing is, your opinion is usually shared by a minority.

[permp]

the issue when you make wide open areas of bullshit, it makes the travel times much longer, and boring... i remember spending hours just running around barrens bored getting from spot A to spot B

Now we spend hours trying to get to one spot to another with non-sense hooks and bugged rocks that we cant climb, we cant "num-lock" for 10 seconds that our character will stuck on something.

Make big maps like northend/pandaria with flying and the game will be more enjoyable.

[Highlord Hanibuhl]

I want WoW to do the same thing that the Witcher has; Big zones with a lot of boring 'nothing-space'
This will make the zones feel more realistic and grand, and, seeing as nothing of value will be added, it won't be a collosal workload. You don't want to overcrowd the player, instead you want to give a zone where there is always something interesting on the horizon, how Breath of the Wild does too. By adding these blank patches of nature in between, just as how vanilla wow had Desolace, Tanaris and other zones, this will add scale to the world.

Who cares that you want to level to max level within 2 hours? It's a game... it's WORLD of warcraft. You're supposed to be the brave adventurer to explore the WORLD!

[Thoughtful Trolli]

I disagree. I like it when it feels like an actual world. You know, wilderness? Far away from anyone or anything?

I know right?! We used to be able to see dangerous shit in the distance, especially if it was other players, and be like "Oh man, time to run far far away, because they can see me too" but not it's like, "Oh there's another player here," or "the boss is probably down this hole." and we don't really see anything more than 30 yards in front of our character.

[xcitng]

I want WoW to do the same thing that the Witcher has; Big zones with a lot of boring 'nothing-space'
This will make the zones feel more realistic and grand, and, seeing as nothing of value will be added, it won't be a collosal workload. You don't want to overcrowd the player, instead you want to give a zone where there is always something interesting on the horizon, how Breath of the Wild does too. By adding these blank patches of nature in between, just as how vanilla wow had Desolace, Tanaris and other zones, this will add scale to the world.

Who cares that you want to level to max level within 2 hours? It's a game... it's WORLD of warcraft. You're supposed to be the brave adventurer to explore the WORLD!

Men't to explore....nothing because thats exactly what big zones with nothing space is... nothing so what are you exploring exactly?

[Bigcountry11782]

I am glad the zones have some actual depth to them now.Nothing fun about an open zone with a tree or a rock every quarter mile.You get more exploration out of the new zones it feels more immersive.I don't get what the complaint is about a better looking zone.People will complain about anything as usual i guess.

- - - Updated - - -

I want WoW to do the same thing that the Witcher has; Big zones with a lot of boring 'nothing-space'
This will make the zones feel more realistic and grand, and, seeing as nothing of value will be added, it won't be a collosal workload. You don't want to overcrowd the player, instead you want to give a zone where there is always something interesting on the horizon, how Breath of the Wild does too. By adding these blank patches of nature in between, just as how vanilla wow had Desolace, Tanaris and other zones, this will add scale to the world.

Who cares that you want to level to max level within 2 hours? It's a game... it's WORLD of warcraft. You're supposed to be the brave adventurer to explore the WORLD!

Did you even play Wither 3?The zones had plenty to do and they weren't barren at all it was a living world with things around every corner.You should try actually going of the beaten path instead of running down the road for a change maybe lol

[Aesahaettr]

It's almost like different areas of the world are geographically different or something.

[KSM899]

Broken Isles are small on Lore that's why they are small in game, and that's why they put lots of stuff in the zones so that it doesn't "feel small".

I think we will get large zones if we get large lore areas next xpac.

[Deleted]

They changed their philosophy of making a world to making a theme park.

This is absolutely spot on! Vanilla WoW felt like a big world waiting for me to explore and take my own path through at my own pace. Still now when I see the old sceenshots here (and hear the music in my head), I feel the urge to jump in and immerse myself in that world. In contrast, looking at the new WoW screenshots, the game seems like a cramped amusement park that you're expected to rush through to the end. I feel no interest whatsoever in playing it.

Another major philosophy change I see is that in vanilla the world stood still and you progressed in it – you would play in whatever content you had chosen to progress to, while the new patches just added content to the world. Today it feels like you stand still and the game progresses – you will be playing in whatever content the latest patch brought and everything else is obsolete.

[Coffeexbean]

yes please we need to go back to having a more flat world.. and the quest hotspots can look like the broken isles but more landmass on the side forsure

[Deleted]

A lot of time in vanilla you'd spend time running back and forth over vast empty zones to deliver a quest only to get a follow up quest that forced you to run back again. Maybe that gave the impression of a huge world, but I doubt it was deliberately done. It just ended that way because that's all they had time for.

The reason those zones are "designed" empty because they were in hurry to push the game out and didn't have the art team resources to populate the world. It was just slapped together with the basic assets they had back then. Creating stuff like a single tree took time. That's why the zones are empty.

[Grimbold21]

Except WoD regions were also a clustermess

[McNeil]

Something I also miss in Legion is having actually towns. Most of the hubs you see are just camps or ruins occupied with just the necessary vendors. I liked how the Alliance and Horde were building their own towns on Outland and Northrend, it was an ideal way to settle in and having a proper place to live in while your doing quests for that zone.

[xenogear3]

I guess Blizzard doesn't want you to feel like an empty world.

[Trumpcat]

I agree that the feeling of "world" is gone, replaced by packed themed zones. I would definitely prefer a mix of bot. Nothing beats the freedom and sense of scale that a grand open zone gives, also nothing can beat the saturated experience of going through a heavily detailed terrain. Go into either extreme and it gets dull. The Broken Isles "continent", while great, is so small and packed with mobs at every corner that there isn't a point you can just wander and enjoy the setting, instead if you want to do that you need to find some isolated corner pocket and stick there or you'd aggro something.

For me Pandaria is the best world design in the game, following the classic zones. It gives a sense of being in a real land, with villages and wilds, hubs and hostile areas and so much room for exploration. Even though I don't like the Chinese theme I appreciate the world scope.

[ls-]

I prefer more compact zones that are filled w/ action/mobs/etc.

Without flying big zones are a huge PITA, even flat ones.

[Lochton]

I don't know about you guys but I miss those days. This is not just a Blizzard thing too, it seems lots of MMOs suffer from this. Smaller areas with more, compacted content. However, I think this takes away from the "world" feel. Think about the Barrens, think about how wide open that area is, and you won't bump into a mob every 10 feet..



Mulgore, although not the best example, has huge, rolling plains:



Tanaris, massive desert.



Westfall, open plains



And now, we have this:

Cramped zones with rocks and mountains placed perfectly to force you to go around them:



Sharp rocks and mountains, with little or no view



And now in Argus, more of the same:



Does anyone else crave lush, flat fields with a massive view distance like I do? Because I dont know about you but the landscape design in Legion drove me nuts. Some mountains felt like puzzles..

No, I don't wish for unnecessary flat areas. Only reason people don't like the detailed and more or less considered, 'cluttered' zones, is because they are a problem for them to navigate if they can't fly (just my opinion). I don't mind open areas, loved Uldum and Barrens but, I rather have zones that feels more worth exploring.

I love having zones to roam about, see the things that was added. One of my favorite zones IS actually, Stormheim. And one of the bonuses was the grappling hook system (again, own opinion).

[druenos]

Another thing, slightly off topic is when you go to old Dalaran you can't help but notice how much bigger it is compared to the new one. The only reason for doing the new one smaller that I can think of is to save money on making it. For this reason I think we will never see wide open spaces in Wow again. Now everything looks so false and unmemorable. Zones are designed around the quests now with absolutely nothing in between.

[Elim Garak]

Small crammed zones with terrible streamlined navigation are dull and not even worth exploring because they are streamlined and rigid - nothing to explore. But devs can put mobs in tight spots and call it a day.

Larger zones are harder to do, because you have to be creative with mob placing because players can approach them from all directions and even skip or miss completely. Devs actually need to make the zone alive. With hubs and patrols and stuff. Properly made large zones are interesting and very exploration worthy.

Guess which direction Blizzard chose? Treasures, treasures everywhere, but you need to find a path... exploration my ass.

[Rudkobing]

Pepperidge farm remembers.