Shouldn't zones become bigger?

[Krekko]

Just how much time you need to fly from one side of Hellfire Peninsula and how much time you need for Elwynn, Searing Gorge, Redridge and Duswood.

The quoted part in the OP is from WoWWiki's Hellfire Peninsula description.

---------- Post added 2010-07-19 at 07:13 AM ----------



yea, cause cool things cannot be added in maps. darn

Rather then make the maps bigger how about we say screw consolidation and toss everything all over the map. The only thing cities being good for is Auction house and a bank.

Class trainers all spread out (not near each other), Profession Trainers spread out and not near each other, profession vendors spread out and not near each other, how about say forget mailboxes all over the place as well and we just go ahead and put two mailboxes one on each kingdom and make you trudge your way through them. Lets also remove mage portals and warlock summons. Lets make you run to the Battle Ground entrances to queue, and make you go back to the Dungeons in order to enter them, lets remove summoning stones too.

Picture a game like this. It would be TOTALLY Different. All of a sudden the world would feel HUGE. Map size is hardly the problem, space is hardly the problem. What the problem is, is consolidation. The game is based around having these hubs and ease of transport of to where when even when it's a good size, it still manages to seem small. This is what the majority of the player base wants, they want it easy, yeah the idea of having this great expansive world seems awesome! But once it comes down to having to play in it, it doesn't feel so awesome anymore. Imagine 20-30 minute flight paths, or spending say 40 minutes just to get your mail, or to train a new rank of spell or profession skill. It might be fun at first, but it will take it's toll. Gotta think why the game is where it's at today.

If you're really bent on making the world feel bigger, get a slower mount, don't use any mounted speed buffs and such, and take your time and go around and enjoy it, no one is stopping you. However, the rest (the majority) of the player base likes the ease presented by the way cities and the systems work in game now. Can't blame em.

[eucatastrophe]

I was thinking along your line of thought OP a while ago but doing my old world loremaster, and levelling mining on an alt really opened my eyes to how large the zones are.

Your point is valid in the light of 310% fliers, but I think a massive increase would be overkill. From what I've seen so far, the zones have increased in size by a small, but reasonable amount IMO.

I've heard Vash'jir s as big as half of Northrend, so I'm hopeful!

[Rawrsome]

I'm not trying to be rude when asking this but instead trying to make a point. I could be wrong. You started playing in TBC or WotLK, right?

When wow first came out they pushed the notion that Azeroth was a gigantic world and they wanted you to travel a while to get from place to place. Flight paths were longer, mounts didn't come till level 40 and fast mounts weren't till level cap at 60 (and having one took some serious farming of gold). Many players didn't get anything other than their 60% mount till TBC came out. This made Azeroth feel huge. You had to travel, by foot, more than half your leveling experience. Later on they reduced the level at which you obtained mounts twice, each by 10 levels and dramatically reduced the cost to purchase the mount and the training. Also, by reducing the amount of xp needed to level a player doesn't need to do most, if not all the quests anymore before moving on to the next zone. This leaves so much of the zones untouched, making them feel small. Beta wow, and quite possibly early wow (although my memory slips me, I don't think it ever made it live) there were portals connecting every major city kind of like what Dalaran and Shattrath have. This was scrapped due to it making the game feel small. In order to make the game feel as big as it is while flying, as compared to running, blizz would have to increase the size of all areas of the game by about 300% which is just unrealistic.

I'm not going to be the guy that says "flying mounts ruined a part of wow" because I love the whole aspect of them, but they definately made everything feel smaller and I believe a lot of people will notice this more when flying in areas they've always had to run through.

Portals connecting the cities, hearthstone CD reductions, streamlined flight paths, more boats and zepplins, lower level requirements for mounts, flying mounts, and the LFD tool is what makes wow feel small, not the fact that it might actually be small. Blizzard seemed to have scrapped the "real gigantic world feel" they were aiming for early on for a more convienent one. But hey, who wants to wait almost thirty minutes to fly from Darnasus to Gadgetzan anyways?

You are almost correct, I did get to experience 1-50 Vanilla. For the rest of the post you are making some valid points and I agree with you most of the time. To make the zones 300 % larger would be unrealistic indeed, but I would still like 'em to give it a try. Maybe not 300 % even. Well, I can always dream :P

[Gyrllsbear]

Large amounts of space in nearly all zones aren't used for much other than random mobs.Take a good look at Storm Peaks and think about how much you use for questing and how much is pure lanscape and random mobs. As long as the content is useful then it doesn't matter how big or small zones are.

[Icecoldcoke]

The zones are more than big enough if you don't have a flying mount to use. It took forever to finish World Explorer in Eastern Kingdom and Kalimdor.

If the zones were made bigger because we can now use flying mounts in them, the leveling players would suffer because they can't even fly until level 60 (AFTER they've completed them)

[SuperflyForever]

The only reason I can't be bothered to level my alt right now is because I have to do Desolace, that place is rediculously big. Mostly bad because everything is spread out around the edges of the zone, but none the less. Leveling to 60 with every zone the same size as say Dragonblight would discourage way too many people.

[Deleted]

To be honest im not myself in the beta but from what ive been told through friends / saw on videos, the zones are far from small - and are filled with distractions and things to do :P
Can still take aaaaages to fly from one point to the other, and the game does NOT feel like it has shrunkled or nothin like that.