A graphically revised EK+Kalimdor over new zones, please.

[Al Gorefiend]

With the new talk about updated skyboxes in the stream and Blizzard "not wanting to make dramatic changes so zones are nostalgic" it really got me thinking about just how old the vanilla continents are and how dated they appear. Having to spend time in the old zones for Legion content (Karazhan especially) there really is nothing the old world has to compare to Isles, Draenor and Pandaria. Seeing Highmountain and how it smoothly changes elevation and temperature, with all its nooks and crannies, makes it come alive and feel like the zone is twice the size of what it really is. Blizzards environment team went above and beyond making the Isles beautiful pieces of content unrivaled by anything seen in WoW thus far.

What I want to see most of all in WoW is this same team revising the old world and bringing 2004 environment detail to 2016 and beyond standards. Just some food for thought on how far Blizzard has come:

- Imagine Felwood, Moonglade, Winterspring and Hyjal having the same quality of terrain transitioning, elevation, detail and geographical accuracy as Highmountain. When you ride from Highmountain to Stormheim, it truly feels like you're following a natural zone transition that makes sense from a real-world geography standard and a fantasy game standard - the timberline slowly dissipates and trees become denser and heavier from the more abundant oxygen. The cliffs become eroded and craggy from being closer to sea winds and ocean erosion, the grass changes color from a brassy orange to a bright green from climate changes. Compare this to Felwood and Winterspring, the zone literally goes from fel-forest to permafrosted winter instantly with no elevation or terrain changes. It makes no sense. Hyjal has double the elevation of Winterspring and is not covered in an endless winter.

- Imagine making use of all that dull, low-res bumpy stuff that serves as zone boundaries within Kalimdor and EK. You could fit -ENTIRE ZONES- in some of that stuff, notably the massive bumpy spots north of tirisfal and the plaguelands, all around Khaz Modan, and around the southern EK zones. Before flying, the bumpy stuff (I won't refer to them as hills or mountains as they definitely are not) served a purpose of making each zone feel like it's own thing. Nowadays, these serve only to make zones look ugly and detached from eachother - what could be a world instead looks like a bunch of multi-colored Easter eggs in a egg carton separated by an inch of styrofoam.

- Imagine bringing the beauty and nostalgia of the old world up to the high-definition standard of today's game. Stranglethorn Vale being a dense and foreboding jungle that rivals Tanaan. Ashenvale having hidden streams and caves and endless green like Val'sharah. Riding from Feralas to Desolace tells a story without any words at all - the forest slowly decays and fades away from a Legion invasion long ago. Imagine Teldrassil finally looking like an Elven fortress built within a world tree - NOT that hideous abomination we have now (fact: Teldrassil is just a massive plateau of rock with bark-colored wallpaper)


Among all this: a connected Quel'thalas, an HD Orgrimmar, the area around Blackrock Mountain looking like it belongs, being able to log into WoW for the SAKE of wanting to explore and discover and take screenshots of the beauty. I want all this more than another continent, more than another planet. You could make the world feel alive again, tell new stories within old zones that utilize Broken Isles zone scaling and world quests.

[Deleted]

Blizzard doesn't really have the resources to spare.

[-Joker-]

We have enough engineers on Azeroth, wouldn't be impossible to have them fix a few things and the rest can be upgraded textures and such. I always thought Moonglade could use a waterfall.

[SinAscendant]

They already did this. It was called Cataclysm.

I mean, unless you want another xpac that has 4 new zones, no new class/race, no new system features, and a lot of dailies.

[-Joker-]

They already did this. It was called Cataclysm.

I mean, unless you want another xpac that has 4 new zones, no new class/race, no new system features, and a lot of dailies.

Worgen and Goblin say hello as does LFR that was introduced in Cata.

[Cæli]

Don't start wanting that, you know that when the devs change something they often change it a LOT, making it too different : P I'm ok for this as long as we have access to the old iteration. Compare stranglethorn vale with Tanaan jungle colors. The later just looks dull compared. Less color. Stranglethorhn is old but I prefer being there for instance.

[Sentynel]

They already did this. It was called Cataclysm.

I mean, unless you want another xpac that has 4 new zones, no new class/race, no new system features, and a lot of dailies.

Wrong. Cataclysm only revamped some of the zones. They weren't touched graphics wise.

Also, Cataclysm(4.0) had 5 leveling zones (the most diverse IMHO), 2 new races, flying in 1-60 content, class/race combos, revamped talent system and moderate amount of dailies. Later additions such as LFR and Darkmoon Faire also say hi!

Have no idea what the hell are you talking about.

[Kynario]

Blizzard doesn't really have the resources to spare.

Absolutely not true.

They make BILLIONS of dollars every year.

They HAVE the resources. They're lazy and greedy. A company who has that much money has the "resources" to hire a whole new team to work on it :-/

[Al Gorefiend]

They already did this. It was called Cataclysm.

I mean, unless you want another xpac that has 4 new zones, no new class/race, no new system features, and a lot of dailies.

Cataclysm did the bare minimum to make the world flyable and added little pockets of cataclysm-quality areas inside vanilla-quality zones. You can see the huge difference between Darkshore and Felwood because Darkshore was completely redesigned, and Felwood was barely touched.

Really, go fly over Darkshore and Felwood, and pay attention to the trees especially.

[ComputerNerd]

Absolutely wrong.

They make BILLIONS of dollars every year.

They HAVE the resources. They're lazy and greedy. :-/

Throwing money and/or people at something does not always solve it.
The more people you have doing something, the more different opinions there are.

That isn't a realistic task for a smaller team, but a larger one isn't going to scale up that well.

Graphics did not, and have not made the game.
I would rather resources be put into performance improvements.
I think it would be nice to actually support multi-threading a lot better, for example.

[Thorbalt]

Or you can always remember that the motto for WOW was ALWAYS to make the game accessible to as many people on as many different systems as possible. if you want a steaming pile of crap that puts graphics over content just go to any MMO that came out in the last decade


oh right, they ALL DIED

[Al Gorefiend]

Or you can always remember that the motto for WOW was ALWAYS to make the game accessible to as many people on as many different systems as possible. if you want a steaming pile of crap that puts graphics over content just go to any MMO that came out in the last decade


oh right, they ALL DIED

I am truly sorry the Broken Isles aren't compatible with your machine. You're really missing out.

[Coconut]

I'd like to see the old continents updated, but the poor reception of Cataclysm and the vocal minority clamoring for vanilla servers are going to be a strong deterrent.

Another one is the large number and small size of the zones. There are a lot of unique environments and transitions to be done on every continent, with little space to develop areas with the same scope as newer zones. I think many areas will still look bad simply because of the draw distance and how out of place they are within the surrounding environment.

What I could see is a return to the old world in future expansions, one continent at a time, with the existing continents still accessible through the Caverns of Time. I'm not talking update, but a complete revamp, including some geographical changes, expanding zones that are too small and bringing together others that are very similar thematically. They can place racial starting zones in the new continents where it is possible, and make use of their new scaling technology to allow players to level there.

Places like Dun Morogh and Loch Modan, for example, could be combined in a single zone, with an expanded Gnomeregan sub-area, same for Westfall, Elwynn and Redridge Mountains, Wetlands and Twilight Highlands, Blackrock Mountains & Searing Gorge, etc. Stranglethorn Vale could be expanded. This isn't meant to reduce the diversity in the newly resulted zones, but to reduce the need for artificial barriers between them and to smooth out the storylines. We've already seen that modern zones can have a great deal of thematic diversity within them (starting with Borean Tundra and coming all the way to places like Kun-Lai, Gorgrond, Val'sharah).

On the Kalimdor side, Durotar could be expanded or have sub-zones shuffled into the Barrens to reflect the true size of areas shown in Rexxar's campaign. Thousand Needles can be restored into a canyon with salt flats, and connected with Tanaris, with several elevators, bridges and rocketways connecting the pillars to the desert above. Gadgetzan itself could be expanded to better reflect its state in Hearthstone. Desolace should be merged with either Stonetalon or Feralas. Teldrassil should be redesigned to actually look like a tree bow, etc. Ashenvale has an appropriate size, but needs to be redesigned and have that ghastly volcano removed.

Now, the problem is that Vanilla, even with its much poorer graphics, took 5 years to make, while the expansions have to be done in 2. Even doing them one continent at a time might prove a bit too much, considering they now have bits an pieces added in TBC and Cataclysm as well.

[Segus1992]

Worgen and Goblin say hello as does LFR that was introduced in Cata.

LFR came with the last patch of Cata. Wasn't an expansion feature so much as a patch feature.

[Al Gorefiend]

Throwing money and/or people at something does not always solve it.
The more people you have doing something, the more different opinions there are.

That isn't a realistic task for a smaller team, but a larger one isn't going to scale up that well.

Graphics did not, and have not made the game.
I would rather resources be put into performance improvements.
I think it would be nice to actually support multi-threading a lot better, for example.

It isn't so much about graphics, it's also half inspired by the fact that Broken Isles has shown us Blizzard can create optical illusions using terrain mapping to make a zone seem double the size of what it is. Highmountain is only slightly larger than Wintergrasp, certainly smaller than the Storm Peaks. Their decision to make subterranean caverns, high peaks contrasting low valleys and including a coastline makes Highmountain appear much, much larger than Storm Peaks. You'll see for yourself once flying in enabled that Highmountain isn't all that big at all. But damn, I get lost in that zone every time.

[Thorbalt]

I am truly sorry the Broken Isles aren't compatible with your machine. You're really missing out.

yes my two 110s and two alts leveling at 103/101 are so me missing out

[Al Gorefiend]

I'd like to see the old continents updated, but the poor reception of Cataclysm and the vocal minority clamoring for vanilla servers are going to be a strong deterrent.

Another one is the large number and small size of the zones. There are a lot of unique environments and transitions to be done on every continent, with little space to develop areas with the same scope as newer zones. I think many areas will still look bad simply because of the draw distance and how out of place they are within the surrounding environment.

What I could see is a return to the old world in future expansions, one continent at a time, with the existing continents still accessible through the Caverns of Time. I'm not talking update, but a complete revamp, including some geographical changes, expanding zones that are too mall and bringing together others that are very similar thematically. They can place racial starting zones in the new continents where it is possible, and make use of their new scaling technology to allow players to level there.

Places like Dun Morogh and Loch Modan, for example, could be combined in a single zone, with an expanded Gnomeregan sub-area, same for Westfall, Elwynn and Redridge Mountains, Wetlands and Twilight Highlands, Blackrock Mountains & Searing Gorge, etc. Stranglethorn Vale could be expanded. This isn't meant to reduce the diversity in the newly resulted zones, but to reduce the need for artificial barriers between them and to smooth out the storylines. We've already seen that modern zones can have a great deal of thematic diversity within them (starting with Borean Tundra and coming all the way to places like Kun-Lai, Gorgrond, Val'sharah).

On the Kalimdor side, Durotar could be expanded or have sub-zones shuffled into the Barrens to reflect the true size of areas shown in Rexxar's campaign. Thousand Needles can be restored into a canyon with salt flats, and connected with Tanaris, with several elevators, bridges and rocketways connecting the pillars to the desert above. Gadgetzan itself could be expanded to better reflect its state in Hearthstone. Desolace should be merged with either Stonetalon or Feralas. Teldrassil should be redesigned to actually look like a tree bow, etc. Ashenvale has an appropriate size, but needs to be redesigned and have that ghastly volcano removed.

Now, the problem is that Vanilla, even with its much poorer graphics, took 5 years to make, while the expansions have to be done in 2. Even doing them one continent at a time might prove a bit too much, considering they now have bits an pieces added in TBC and Cataclysm as well.

Your thinking is exactly the same as mine! They can certainly combine zones into single larger zones. Badlands, burning steppes and searing gorge for example, can all be combined to form a single zone named Blackrock, or Redridge Mountains if you want to include Redridge as well (this is the lore name of the mountain range pre-Ragnaros)

- - - Updated - - -

yes my two 110s and two alts leveling at 103/101 are so me missing out

I am sorry then that you can't experience the game above 5 FPS, it not being accessible to your machine and all because graphics.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

They should just graphically revise ALL the cities in EK and Kalimdor. Just update the zones to fulfill the lore. Like someone said above, the game needs to be accessible to many as possible. We shouldn't update the zones visually until about 2020 where the zones will be almost 20 years old and will drastically need a visual update.

[Deleted]

Or you can always remember that the motto for WOW was ALWAYS to make the game accessible to as many people on as many different systems as possible. if you want a steaming pile of crap that puts graphics over content just go to any MMO that came out in the last decade


oh right, they ALL DIED

FFXIV possibly has more players than WoW now

[Yelmurc]

Now that we have this scaling ability I'd love to see them redo a few zones every expansion. Just let them be passion projects for the staff. If they can thing of a really good story for a zone or area just let them go at it. It could scale to be new content for max levels and if you wander into the zone at a lower level you could still do the old content. Just make sure there are unique rewards so that the higher level people feel there is a reason to go there if they are not interested in the story. If they are worried about the nostalgia maybe have it where the new content is gated behind older content. Like lets takes the Hearthstone Gadgetzan into consideration. People might like the old Gadgetzan, so if your level 1-85 you'll see the old version. The new version will only show up to those at a higher level. Maybe even require you to have finished a version of Dragon Soul to unlock it. That way it makes sense in the timeline. And for those who want to go back to see the old Gadgetzan at level 110 just add a bronze dragon in the zone that would switch you between phases.

by only doing 1-2 zones a expansion it won't feel like they are taking away a lot of content from the new areas. I'd love like one at the start of the expansion and 1 zone at the end between the last raid and the next expansion.