What if topic: blizz expands the size of Azeroth/outland/dreanor

[Shadowspire]

So as the thread says. If blizz expanded the size of the game by like 3. What would you want them to do with all this new land? Me personally first i would want towns grown. Second to have each races architure updated, aswell as probably urn phased but phased layered housing( long story and a complete diffrent idea ).

So this is a very short idea list if blizz ever wanted to take a risk like this. What would you all like to see with this new growth?

[shoc]

Like if Blizzard just scaled the world up by a factor of 3? As is, Goldshire is 3x bigger, Orgrimmar is 3x bigger, Barrens is 3x bigger, etc?


That would be a massive undertaking, much bigger than the Cataclysm revamp and would take years on years on years with very little payoff. So what if the world was bigger, travel would just be longer, quests would be more spaced out, the world would feel emptier, I see no positive gameplay that could come from something like that.

[Shadowspire]

Yes that is what I mean. And I know it's a big undertaking. And as for it being empty, depends what they fill the world with, which is why I'm asking in this thread. I believe having up phased and free placement housing would put in some space around the world. Along with more world bosses that actually travel the world. There are a lot of ideas to fill in the world.

[Deleted]

It would feel more massive, at least to a new player. Players sitting in cities will still sit in cities though.

Comparing the amount of work it requires with the payoffs, I'd say it'll never happen. I've never once had a problem with the world being too small, only with there not being enough content in the world.

[Solarnova]

The Cataclysm revamp itself wasn't a payoff either, too much work was put into remaking the old world, and Blizzard actually said they wish they hadn't done it.

[Shadowspire]

This isn't the same a sma revamp guys, it's a enlargement that is it. And I'm saying if you were in charge of filling the world to get ppl out of the cities what would you do to accomplish this and what would you fill the world with.

[Fenixdown]

So as the thread says. If blizz expanded the size of the game by like 3. What would you want them to do with all this new land?

The same thing I want them to do with it all now. Let me freaking fly over it. Cuz it's boooooooooooooooooooooooooooring.

[Bathory]

Blizzard actually said they wish they hadn't done it.

Source on that? That sounds grossly exaggerated.

[Headayke]

The Cataclysm revamp itself wasn't a payoff either, too much work was put into remaking the old world, and Blizzard actually said they wish they hadn't done it.

Wow that's a huge jump to make. They said they wished they hadn't added flying capabilities to the new Azeroth. The revamp was needed, it just didn't do a very good job and should not have been adapted with Flying in mind.

[Thimagryn]

Sink it, and make underwater zones

[hrugner]

Use it for in zone player structures, increase the scale of giant city areas and give monsters something more to do rather than pace around awaiting death.

[Dawnshadow]

You're basically asking for alpha Azeroth back.

The very, VERY early versions of WoW were a lot larger-- I think it was something like on a scale of ten times the final map. It was cut down tremendously because travel times were absurd (remember, you were on foot until 40) and content too sparse compared to the amount of map space that needed filled. And remember, EVERYTHING in the world-- every rock, every tree and hill-- must be placed by hand, so that's a lot more work from the artists for the same actual content.

It would probably be better to add more new never before seen areas than to just take the current content and make it take up more space. Look at the geography of Azeroth-- while we've seen globes a few times in game, the temperature of zones-- cool or cold in the north, tropical and hot in the south-- suggest that all we see on the current Azeroth map is the northern hemisphere (and the globes, therefore, are inaccurate.)

http://imgur.com/r/wow/h1Sqg Alpha Goldshire.

[Deleted]

I'd rather have them come up with new, fresh stuff instead of expanding on the old assets ...

There are so many places, worlds and stuff that are already in the lore we haven't seen yet and I'm sure they're able to come up with even more stuff ...

[Gamevizier]

Yes that is what I mean. And I know it's a big undertaking. And as for it being empty, depends what they fill the world with, which is why I'm asking in this thread. I believe having up phased and free placement housing would put in some space around the world. Along with more world bosses that actually travel the world. There are a lot of ideas to fill in the world.

it would be a really good thing. if we count out the time and budget it takes on Blizzard to implement it.

[Geckoo]

Many times the zones don't really represent how big the world really is. Gilneas is a good example to understand this, since it's a small zone that represents a small country with a huge city in the middle of zone and all the events tailored in a way that avoids direct eye sight of the city as long as possible, the country is not that small, but the game plays perfectly with the small size of the map.

They do this all the time because what really matters is that you feel like it's part of something bigger when you are playing a specific sub zone. So when you start in a small town with the greymane manor in the distance you feel like it's part of something big, despite having Gilneas city just at your reach with a small walk, the same when you are in that zone filled with spiders you barely see the city, despite being just next to it. It's all about giving that feel even when the place is not that big. Even lore supports that the place must really be bigger, what is just a 5min walk for us is described as a travel that takes days.

The point is, that making the zones bigger could help to make the size more apropiate, but unless you fill the extra terrain with playable content and not just some random filler woods with some wildlife, but actually playable content with at least some quest or rare mob... is a waste of time. Have you ever been to the northern part of Kalimdor? I thinkg there are some random trees in that coast, i don't even know if we can get there, but the point is that there is nothing for us, players, to go there other than some random curiosity on a boring day.

[SirMufasa]

I'd be fine with most size increases, provided they're actually using the space wisely.

[Cute Chen]

I don't get it. The zones are already empty as it is.

[MasterDinadan]

Having a world that is more "to scale" is not really feasible, if the players are capable of traveling anywhere in the world.

I would have liked bigger areas but only if we were restricted to a small part of the world. When I play LOTRO, for example, the areas feel adequately large (though still not even close to scale) because they only gave a small part of Middle Earth to explore and they could put in all of these small details. Other areas of the world open up with expansions. If WoW had gotten the same treatments, I would have been fine.

Exploring the whole world doesn't feel awesome because it doesnt feel like a world. And now we are going to other worlds and even different times. it would have been great if we stayed in Azeroth and just opened up more of the world instead of going to other worlds (or pandaria). We'd have one rich detailed world instead of a bunch of depressing "islands".

[Hallowseve17]

If the world scale was increased, I would really enjoy that. The only problem would be the lack of mounts for lower levels, but they could work something out. I support a world scale change though, I loved Goldshire's appearance in the alpha. NPC behavior would also need to change to make the game feel like a living, breathing environment. Currently, NPCs and mobs just randomly roam around.

[hrugner]

I honestly would prefer the scale increase as part of a second game rather than an alteration on WoW; a full scale canon lore, sandbox Warcraft game would be nice.