WoW cities don't really feel like cities

[ravenmoon]

I was looking at warcraft 3, and the cinematics of Lorderon and Dalaran, and i was left thinking.. that in game, they look like miniature versions of what I saw.

in those vids, those places looked and felt like a city, but in game, they look so tiny. and feel so small, in fact in game, only the raid cities like AQ and possibly Strat etc actually feel like cities,

So i wonder, the game is supposed to be canon right, so does that mean that each of the racial cities look exactly like that? if so, should they do a cartoon or when we see the movie, stormwind's gonna be pretty darn tiny. In fact Azeroth would be really really small. probably a landmass no bigger than the UK, with Ireland being Kalimdor and Scotland northrend and england/wales eastern kingdoms. France Pandaria?

[Drewbacca]

While the story of WoW is canon, I wouldn't take what you see literally. First of all, the scale of the continents is much bigger than what you see. There are mentions in some of the books about a multi day trip from a distance that you can run in about 3-5 minutes. The world can't be as big as it is supposed to be due to computer limitations and practicality. About the cities, there are the same limitations. Some of these cities have thousands of people living in them. While modeling housing and public service buildings for all of these people might seem cool at first, it would get pretty boring. The cities are approximations of what the actual canon locations look like. If you want to see what they're really supposed to be like, wait for the movie.

[Nihilan]

What you see in game is basically a caricature of the nations and places as described in lore. Compressed in scale and lacking in detail. Its like trying to draw a map from memory on the back of a napkin. You may get the gist of it, but you are leaving out a lot of the minutia.

[ravenmoon]

While the story of WoW is canon, I wouldn't take what you see literally. First of all, the scale of the continents is much bigger than what you see. There are mentions in some of the books about a multi day trip from a distance that you can run in about 3-5 minutes. The world can't be as big as it is supposed to be due to computer limitations and practicality. About the cities, there are the same limitations. Some of these cities have thousands of people living in them. While modeling housing and public service buildings for all of these people might seem cool at first, it would get pretty boring. The cities are approximations of what the actual canon locations look like. If you want to see what they're really supposed to be like, wait for the movie.

can it be that hard to design a fairly decent sized scale? i mean you see them do it in drawings etc, and tbh, most of the buildings you can't enter anyway.

i always imagined that a clever way to open up huge cities, was to design the outside and the individual buildings well, but to leave the internal decor for many of the houses and headquarters to players and guilds.

e.g. the druid training HQ would be able to be decorated by druid players, the night elf area/embassies would be able to be decorated by night elf players. The tailoring looms are places where the players with tailoring can contribute to.

in addition, you or a bunch of people or your guild can grab a building and contribute to it, the lareger your contribution the higher your stakes in it and the benefit you get from it.

[Tomana]

The problem is that WoW world is actually quite small, so the cities are of a matching size. The whole EK/Kalimdor continents are kilometer-scaled, not hundred- or thousand kilometers.
And creating a realistic size world would lead to other problems (aka "how the heck do I get around on foot or even on a mount?")
Unless you actually put cities in some kind of instance with a different scale, which generates other problems.

[bearica]

Huge, sprawling cities/continents sound good in theory, but I don't think it'd work in WoW, with the main problem being how long it'd take to get around, especially before you get a mount.

[Deleted]

Shattrath City in Draenor is amazing in my opinion. Just the right size, looks really good, and the open space with the water and bridges make it feel more alive and greater.

OffTopic - A shame it was not our sanctuary instead of boring Ashran.

[StationaryHawk]

The entire world is on a much smaller scale than it is lore-wise. To design a city that's "to scale" would either require the rest of the world to expand as well, or having Stormwind take up all of Elwynn Forest and beyond. And then there's the issue of it being inconvenient to navigate.

[SlippyCheeze]

I was looking at warcraft 3, and the cinematics of Lorderon and Dalaran, and i was left thinking.. that in game, they look like miniature versions of what I saw.

in those vids, those places looked and felt like a city, but in game, they look so tiny. and feel so small, in fact in game, only the raid cities like AQ and possibly Strat etc actually feel like cities,

So i wonder, the game is supposed to be canon right, so does that mean that each of the racial cities look exactly like that? if so, should they do a cartoon or when we see the movie, stormwind's gonna be pretty darn tiny. In fact Azeroth would be really really small. probably a landmass no bigger than the UK, with Ireland being Kalimdor and Scotland northrend and england/wales eastern kingdoms. France Pandaria?

Yeah, this is definitely a "gameplay trumps lore" situation, as lots of people have said. It's also worth remembering that the very biggest virtual worlds cover, like, 64-ish square kilometers of land. The virtual world is so ultra-tiny in almost every dimension compared to the real world, because otherwise it feels empty.

(Imagine, for example, making the trip from Stormwind to Darkshire on the scale of, say, San Francisco to Mountain View or something. That is an hour trip at 60MPH in a car, so three to five hours on a horse. Have fun playing tonight, when you get to travel from one town to another. Not adventure or anything, just sit there and follow the road. Whee!)

[Shiroh]

Yeah, if the cities would be displayed in original-size then they would also have to increase the size of the continents by about a huge factor. Else Stormwind would fill up the whole Eastern Kingdoms. Well, maybe not that much, but you get my point. Or they should be instanced and would seem even emptier than they already do.

[MasterHamster]

In lore/canon, Goldshire has a population of 7000.


Yeeeaaaah....

[Rivin]

Ah, I remember the first time I reached the Charr capital city in Guild Wars 2. Spent over two hours exploring and still probably didn't see everything. That felt like an actual city. But once you've explored it all, trying to get around cities of that size just becomes a chore. GW2 sort of avoided it by putting waypoints all over the city that you could teleport between, but Blizzard hates convenient travel with a passion, so that obviously wouldn't happen in WoW. Gameplay is more important in this case.

[Boogums]

i've never played a game where an in-game city felt like a real city. (I hear morrowwind kind of is like that as far as distance and size of things.)

[Ratyrel]

Ah, I remember the first time I reached the Charr capital city in Guild Wars 2. Spent over two hours exploring and still probably didn't see everything. That felt like an actual city. But once you've explored it all, trying to get around cities of that size just becomes a chore. GW2 sort of avoided it by putting waypoints all over the city that you could teleport between, but Blizzard hates convenient travel with a passion, so that obviously wouldn't happen in WoW. Gameplay is more important in this case.

Yeah, I agree, but the question is whether that is the better solution. The cities are more actual zones in GW2 with quests and stuff to do in them... would that be good for WoW? I suppose it could work.

[Crruor]

Its due to flying.

On foot the cities still are quite big.

[metasine]

Stormwind passes pretty good for a city since the streets are narrow so it gives the illusion. Old orgrimmar before flight was ok.

[ravenmoon]

Ah, I remember the first time I reached the Charr capital city in Guild Wars 2. Spent over two hours exploring and still probably didn't see everything. That felt like an actual city. But once you've explored it all, trying to get around cities of that size just becomes a chore. GW2 sort of avoided it by putting waypoints all over the city that you could teleport between, but Blizzard hates convenient travel with a passion, so that obviously wouldn't happen in WoW. Gameplay is more important in this case.

i've always thought they should have taxis - horse and chariots in cities that could ferry people round at speeds faster than mounts, especially lower level players who didn't have mounts yet. It would be lovely to see what night elf carriages looked like, or blood elf ones, Gilenan worgen ones or human ones, or see what they would use for Orcs and Tauren or draenei etc... making travelling in a huge city really easy and convenient.

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Yeah, this is definitely a "gameplay trumps lore" situation, as lots of people have said. It's also worth remembering that the very biggest virtual worlds cover, like, 64-ish square kilometers of land. The virtual world is so ultra-tiny in almost every dimension compared to the real world, because otherwise it feels empty.

(Imagine, for example, making the trip from Stormwind to Darkshire on the scale of, say, San Francisco to Mountain View or something. That is an hour trip at 60MPH in a car, so three to five hours on a horse. Have fun playing tonight, when you get to travel from one town to another. Not adventure or anything, just sit there and follow the road. Whee!)

u know i use to think about that, and obviously the best way to get from stormwind to darkshire would not be to manually go their yourself but hitch a ride, hire a coach or horse or take a gryphon, and it doesn't show the whole journey, you just see yourself leaving stormwind and then flying in or arriving at the inn in Darkshire.. problem solved, they could show several points along the journey as extra..or not.

i even thought that there could be a random chance you got ambushed along the way, or lost.. where you'd have to find your way to the nearest shelter and than hire a ride from there.

[Gadzooks]

Yeah, this is definitely a "gameplay trumps lore" situation, as lots of people have said. It's also worth remembering that the very biggest virtual worlds cover, like, 64-ish square kilometers of land. The virtual world is so ultra-tiny in almost every dimension compared to the real world, because otherwise it feels empty.

(Imagine, for example, making the trip from Stormwind to Darkshire on the scale of, say, San Francisco to Mountain View or something. That is an hour trip at 60MPH in a car, so three to five hours on a horse. Have fun playing tonight, when you get to travel from one town to another. Not adventure or anything, just sit there and follow the road. Whee!)

This why flightpaths used to take so long, to make it feel like you were going a great distance.

[ravenmoon]

This why flightpaths used to take so long, to make it feel like you were going a great distance.

and that's not a bad thing, in fact it's a good thing.. it only becomes a problem when people have to travel around a lot, so they messed up there a bit, should have provided a lot of conveniences at every major base so you didn't have to fly back and forth for minor crap, the only time you needed to do was once in a blue moon special zone finishing or story arc finishing events that would grant you an audience with the king or warchief.

[Friendlyimmolation]

its because the scale is down. I saw somewhere that it would take a month to get from north to south barrens if they made it to scale.