Old World revamp after BfA? [Suggestion]

[Hipnos14]

With all the faction fuckery in Battle for Azeroth, I've been thinking...what if in the expansion after BFA they just update the old world like they did in Cataclysm?
This idea was floating over here before the expansion announcement, but after BFA it makes even more sense to update the old world to show things like the new situation with the Night Elves and the Forsaken or to implement World Quests, so let me throw some ideas.

I don't know what was the idea behind destroying Teldrassil and Undercity for Blizzard, I don't know if they think that there are too many cities or if they just want to concentrate the Horde in Kalimdor and the Alliance in Eastern Kingdoms, personally I think that the old world needs a "definitive" revamp, one that would make sense even with future expansions.

The zones should have more simple closed storylines, a story that begins with the zone and ends in the same zone, maybe use it to seed need characters for the future, but without leaving the story too open and without things like outposts on fire eternally and stuff like that. Just less epic stories, with their "feet on the ground" so to speak, this is 1-60 after all.

Here is the map of the Idea



Bigger Version -- https://imgur.com/97OnIRw

GENERAL CHANGES

Starting Zones

All the initial zones for every race would show you the culture and history of the race from 1 to 10, things like the Night Elves telling you about their past, the War of the Ancients, the creation of the World Trees, the destruction of Teldrassil; the Orcs showing you things like their past sins with Mannoroth's blood, their bloodlust, shamanistic roots and fighter personalities.

I think the starting zone of every race in every RPG should tell you what that race is all about, so you playing the first time understand the culture and the motivations of that people.

Horde focus on Kalimdor and Alliance focus on Easter Kingdoms

If Blizzard wants to make Kalimdor Horde-centric and EK Alliance-centric, I love it, it gives the factions more personality, so in this idea every red zone in the map would have Horde-only questing and every blue zone would have Alliance-only questing, yellow would be Neutral.

The idea here is to mimic what they want to do in BFA, once you reach max lvl you can go to the zones of the other faction to do World Quests, or events or something like that. They could create World PvP world quests in places with faction frontiers like between Ashenvale and Fellwood with some special currency to try to create world PvP for example.

The Neutral zones would be mostly in the South of the continents, with a traveling connection between them and they would be the high-level zones, 40-60 or something like that.

Goblins and Worgen new starting zones

To bring everything to the present the Worgen could start in the present Gilneas and the Goblins in Azshara, giving you the option to talk with an NPC to experience the old starting zones if you want to(because right now those 2 are already instanced) as if they where a story about the past of your race, helping with the whole thing about telling you things about your race and culture in the starting zones.

Cataclysm zones integrated

With the introduction of scaled leveling, there is no need to keep some zones in the old world separated from the rest of the continent, so Hyjal, Uldum, Vashj'ir and Twilight Highlands would be integrated into the 1-60 experience, like for example using Hyjal as the new starting zone for the Night Elves. With Deepholm I don't know what to do xD

NIGHT ELVES

Now that Teldrassil is gone, I think there is a good chance for Blizzard to embrace the Night Elves a little bit giving them a new starting zone in Hyjal, they could create a small "City" around Nordrassil with a mixture of that greek old night elf architecture and the tree houses, and some decoration surrounding the Well of Eternity like in the War of the Ancients 5-man dungeon.

To not have problems with Firelands and the reputation from Cataclysm, the southern lava zone of Hyjal could be Neutral, with the Cenarion Circle and the ancients defending it, so if you want to go back and rise that reputation, you can do it, or if you want to enter in the Firelands raid, the portal is still there.

Winterspring would be full Night Elf without the goblins there and the North of Felwood would have an open path to the sea with a little harbor that you could use to go to Azuremist, Stormwind or Gilneas.

THE FORSAKEN

If in the end Undercity is gone, the Forsaken would retreat to Silvermoon, recovering the zone north of Eastern Plagelands called Northeron and creating a small "City" with the Forsaken architecture and a harbor to go to Kalimdor, from there they would go to Ghostlands, Eastern Plaguelands, Western Plaguelands, Hinterlands and Arathi.

Eastern Plaguelands would be controlled by a mixture of Forsaken and Blood Elves, with the now reformed Order of the Silver Hand secluded in Light's Hope Chapel, Tyr's Hand and New Avalon as a mini-zone like the one in Hyjal, just to allow you to get old reputations and rewards.

Western Plaguelands would be no longer plagued at all and mostly controlled by the Forsaken + Blood Elves, the Bulwark would be a faction frontier with a never-ending war between Alliance and Horde.

Hinterlands would be controlled by Blood Elves + Forest Trolls (new allied race?), Aerie Peak would be a Faction Frontier with confrontations between Alliance and Horde.

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This is it for now, I just wanted to share this idea, I don't think that Blizz will do a revamp again sadly but I would kill for a revamp with more normal stories, something more RPG and a story that doesn't tell you "Oh! look what the cataclysm did" when the Cataclysm happened years ago.

[Raetary]

recovering the zone north of Eastern Plagelands called Northeron .

that small unused zone northwest of the eastern plaguelands isnt northeron, its stratholme.
quite literally.


northeron is in the twilight highlands.
cata says hi.

[Deleted]

I'd love for them to perhaps do a bit of a time jump, like 4-5 years after BFA and during that time, have an "aftershock" from Deathwing's Cataclysm that destroys some more of the world and allows some of the changes to be fixed from the original Cataclysm (like Booty Bay for example)

[RotDog]

I would also like everything to come up to date as well. I don't think it will happen this expansion, but I think with sharding they could make it work in the future. Would be cool to see everything change as you do the quests, but for people who don't quest, everything would stay the same which would be kind of dumb.

[rydix]

You have some neat ideas here. I like your solutions for forsaken and nelves, though for forsaken second zone (10-20) could be argued. Ghostlands seems a logic way to go but it seems unfair in term of zone balance (lost/given) for forsaken since night elves would have their own 2nd zone and forsaken would have to share it with belves. Maybe rearrange that big Eastern Plaguelands in something like pre-cata Barrens or make new 10-20 zone in north-eastern part of Eastern Plaguelands since its a big zone. Without second forsaken-based zone it would be to much homogenization. All ally races (except maybe gnomes) would have their own second themed zones and horde would have something like 3 different:
1) orc/troll/tauren(mostly orc)-themed Barrens
2) belf/forsaken-themed Ghostlands.
3) goblin-themed Azshara
Without counting panderen on each sides. Kalimdor horde(except goblins) will always go through Barrens first to reach other zones which is a problem for creating a race-themed second zones there.

Now if we take scaling in consideration it still would not solve that problem everywhere unless they make each zone accessible from its every neighbor zone.
Example:
If I make a tauren in WoW with scaling and with zones not being accessible from its every neighbor, I would rather go straight to Barrens and level there first instead of running through few zones to get to lets say tauren-themed Feralas. By adding that accessibility (it can be a road or moved mountain or two) a player is given an equal choice for choosing his next zone and in this case Feralas could act as a tauren-themed "second" zone and that zone will still be good(giving xp) for some orc taking route barrens-thousand needles-feralas.

Back to Eastern Kingoms.
Swamp of Sorrows are close to Stormwind and conquering it would seem probable. We would not see New Stormwind there because its a swamp and not much hospitable but alliance would eliminate horde presence there and make an extra outpost similar to Stonard and would not conquer any further so Blasted lands should be neutral zone (since its just a waste) together with Deadwind pass and Stranglethorn.

The only thing that is weird is Isle of Quel'Danas. It actually bothers me since TBC. I see zero sense lore-wise or IQ-wise in making it so far from Silvermoon in first place, apart for making some lore shenanigans like they did in 2.4(whole tbc actually--->trolling level 9000 - happy 10th anniversary). So i would give it to horde, and make it a part of the Silvermoon(whole rebuilt), connected with some newly built bridge... or let it be just closer, like in chronicle.
Lets remind ourselves that 10y have passed and that Quel'thalas and Azuremyst Isles desperately need an update or two.

And one word for those wanting to farm old raids: "sharding".
Suppose "Chromie" could work too.

[Darktbs]

I would be happy if they made a "aftermath' of the Legion invasion, you go to a zone and you see a huge ship crashed , burned forests, ruined towns and cities being rebuild.

Also, since Draeneis started being relevant, i would like them to pick a zone and create a city or put Draenei architecture somewhere and like you said, Night elf cities.

[RotDog]

I would be happy if they made a "aftermath' of the Legion invasion, you go to a zone and you see a huge ship crashed , burned forests, ruined towns and cities being rebuild.

Also, since Draeneis started being relevant, i would like them to pick a zone and create a city or put Draenei architecture somewhere and like you said, Night elf cities.

I would love to see a Draenei home city that is something than the Exodar. I always loved the designs and colors.

[RobertMugabe]

I am actually very surprised that they aren't changing any quest zones, not even the now very outdated Draenei and Belf starting zones (10 years old).

[Lane]

I really don't want Horde to get Ashenvale and I'm not sure about Alliance getting Tirisfal. I could see Hillsbrad and at least the lower half of Silverpine (Pyrewood & Ambermill), but that's about it.

I would like to see EPL/WPL turned into Forsaken/BE leveling zones though. Feralas should be contested.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

Love the effort and the map looks amazing, but I really hope they stick with the "EK for alliance, Kalimdor for horde" thing cause that's actually a shake up of the status quo and gives us a new dynamic, like how would actually the races could advance more if they are freed from the gridlock they have been for the last 13 years.

I'm all for each continent maintaining neutral zones which would allow leveling for characters of both factions, also to add some specific faction conflict, but now that BfA is happening, I'm intrigued by the possibilities the continents now under each faction's grasp give us.

[zanzan28]

Not a terrible idea and nice map work!

[My User Name]

that small unused zone northwest of the eastern plaguelands isnt northeron, its stratholme.
quite literally.


northeron is in the twilight highlands.
cata says hi.

Not really. Only a small portion of the zone is Stratholme.

You're right about Northeron though.

[Deleted]

I would be happy if they made a "aftermath' of the Legion invasion, you go to a zone and you see a huge ship crashed , burned forests, ruined towns and cities being rebuild.

Would be nice if they kept updating the zones each expansion a little. Right now they're still in the cata timeline which is ridiculous.

[Elfezen]

Where is Teldrassil? They removed it compeltely from the map?

[De Lupe]

Where is Teldrassil? They removed it compeltely from the map?

That's what happens when a tree is burned; it turns to ash.

[Elfezen]

That's what happens when a tree is burned; it turns to ash.

It doesn't matter i doubt they would remove it from map, and this map above is also missing broken isles too, Teldrarssil should be the new undead capital or something

[My User Name]

It doesn't matter i doubt they would remove it from map, and this map above is also missing broken isles too, Teldrarssil should be the new undead capital or something

Meh. I don't really like the idea of Forsaken using a burnt tree for their capital. A renewed Stratholme would fit more with their theme, especially if they introduce Northern Plaguelands as a leveling zone which contains rest of the city (IIRC It's supposed to have a port, according to Warcraft II)

Also, I'm pretty sure OP only put Azeroth and Kalimdor to the map because other continents are irrelevant to the topic right now.

[Elfezen]

Meh. I don't really like the idea of Forsaken using a burnt tree for their capital. A renewed Stratholme would fit more with their theme, especially if they introduce Northern Plaguelands as a leveling zone which contains rest of the city (IIRC It's supposed to have a port, according to Warcraft II)

Also, I'm pretty sure OP only put Azeroth and Kalimdor to the map because other continents are irrelevant to the topic right now.

Obviously they wouldn't use the tree itself they would build a huge necrotic tower fortress there but they can do that in the mainland of Kalimdor anyway

[Eazy]

It's funny that Horde players can travel across the Eastern Kingdoms and Azeroth but Alliance players can't across the Kalimdor. I'm wondering how Alliance players are going to Silithus now...

And I don't think there's a need for revamping old zones that we're getting WoW Classic with totally different( ) quests and experience of leveling from 0 to 60.

[Hipnos14]

Curious though, wouldn't the Alliance have control of Twilight Highlands? Sure the Wildhammers were scattered due to the Legion invasion but they're all gone now, and I was under the assumption that Zaela brought her Dragonmaw into the Horde who all eventually got decimated by us. Leaving the zone well...empty

Or we just doing this for gameplay reasons?

I made Twilight Highlands neutral just because of faction balance, right now the Alliance would have 19 zones and the Horde 18, with the Twilight Highlands the Alliance would have 20 zones, I don't know what other zone could be neutral, maybe Feralas like Lane said, or Desolace to mirror the neutral zone in the middle of EK. Maybe they could make Wildhammer and Dragonmaw allied races and focus the entire zone in the conflict between those 2 "races"

It doesn't matter i doubt they would remove it from map, and this map above is also missing broken isles too, Teldrarssil should be the new undead capital or something

That was the first thing I thought, something like a Forsaken fortress in the island left after Teldrassil was burned, with a lot of forsaken ships surrounding the island protecting the Banshee Queen or something like that, the problem is that...where do we place the Night elves in EK? Gilneas could be an option, maybe terraforming the surrounding forest around the city with Night Elf vegetation and leaving the central city to the Worgen, but I don't know, it feels wrong that the Night Elves leave their ancestral territories like Hyjal.