What if they made Azeroth an actual globe?

[Deleted]

Borean tundra is supposedly hundreds of miles from Howling Fjord... yet you can fly there in a matter of what... five minutes?

Right, you travel much faster in game than the actual characters do in the story. But what I meant was that whoever estimated the world of Azeroth to span 12000 kilometres can't be right, because then it wouldn't take so long for a dragon like Krasus to fly that distance.

[Golden Yak]

Azeroth isn't anywhere near "world sized" It's actually fairly small converted to real world distances, about 12km if I remember right, can't be arsed to find the article.
Besides, lots of games have a much bigger world, like Planetside.
However I'm with you in the argument of "What would it add?" Alot of loading and downloading time, and nothing more I think.

What I mean is, there's a distinction between world terrain and a physical game object. The games I was talking about would mean something like Mario Galaxies:

http://moarpowah.com/wp-content/uplo...alaxy-1-sc.jpg

The little round world he runs around on is teeny. Doing one of those, Azeroth-sized with all the props and code for all the characters and monsters to remain oriented properly - all that going might just be too complex for doing a real-time world.

[Herecius]

What I mean is, there's a distinction between world terrain and a physical game object. The games I was talking about would mean something like Mario Galaxies:

http://moarpowah.com/wp-content/uplo...alaxy-1-sc.jpg

The little round world he runs around on is teeny. Doing one of those, Azeroth-sized with all the props and code for all the characters and monsters to remain oriented properly - all that going might just be too complex for doing a real-time world.

I'm not sure the OP meant a LITERAL globe, like an actual sphere, but more like populating the world and making it such that if you flew in a straight line forever, you'd just keep looping around the map, which is a lot more feasible.

If I'm wrong, and OP did mean a literal globe, then no, that's pretty dumb. Not only does it seem like the engine could never properly support it, but it would look pretty silly too.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure the OP meant a LITERAL globe, like an actual sphere, but more like populating the world and making it such that if you flew in a straight line forever, you'd just keep looping around the map, which is a lot more feasible.

If I'm wrong, and OP did mean a literal globe, then no, that's pretty dumb. Not only does it seem like the engine could never properly support it, but it would look pretty silly too.

You're correct, that's what I meant. I was thinking about games like the older Final Fantasy games, where you had a ship and you could fly freely wherever you wanted, and if you flew in a straight line, you would sooner or later get back to where you started, because... well... the world is a globe.

[bufferunderrun]

What if it was possible to fly from anywhere to anywhere, without having to use ships. So you wouldn't get fatigue when you fly across the sea. You could fly from Kalimdor to the Eastern Kingdoms. You could fly from Lordaeron to Silvermoon to the Sunwell and up til you're back in Stranglethorn again - like you're actually on a real globe. You could fly from Darnassus to the Exodar. You could fly from Ratchet over towards Stormwind and on your way there pass the Maelstrom and Kezan.

It would maybe take longer than the ship route, but what if they fill the sea with lots of islands, small and big, for the next expansion. Some islands would be level up zones, some would feature nice things like the Timeless Isle that promotes a more open and free gameplay, and most importantly there would be lots of hidden things in that giant space, that would motivate players to go exploring.

I'm thinking about games like the older Final Fantasy games, where you had airships and you could fly around the world and go explore. It was such a free feeling, I would love that in WoW.

Wow is a themepark such a world will be wasted for that type of game, but lets immagine for a moment a EvE like game mechanics applied to wow, where the alliance/horde territories are the empire and the rest of the world is conquerable by guilds, this will be so exciting.

[Azreal313]

I feel like this is extremely pointless.

[purefury]

while you can see it in ulduar or on legendary cloak quest, the game is on a FLAT plane.
there is no horizon line on the sea or land = no curvature = this is not a planet, its a diskworld!

[Deleted]

Wow is a themepark such a world will be wasted for that type of game, but lets immagine for a moment a EvE like game mechanics applied to wow, where the alliance/horde territories are the empire and the rest of the world is conquerable by guilds, this will be so exciting.

They've been trying to implement more sandboxish things with the Barrens battlefield and the Timeless Isle.

[Flaks]

Azeroth isn't anywhere near "world sized" It's actually fairly small converted to real world distances, about 12km if I remember right, can't be arsed to find the article.
Besides, lots of games have a much bigger world, like Planetside.
However I'm with you in the argument of "What would it add?" Alot of loading and downloading time, and nothing more I think.

This is a "what if" scenario complete with "if it was possible".

Ergo imagine it without the technological limitations.

All I can say is it would be glorious.

[Herecius]

This is a "what if" scenario complete with "if it was possible".

Ergo imagine it without the technological limitations.

All I can say is it would be glorious.

Of course, the real problem is that there would have to be justification for the rest of the world to exist for gameplay purposes. WoW would need a gameplay shift of some sort to make the world more useful to be in, but right now it is, of course, primarily focused all on the endgame, raid bosses, and instanced pvp, no matter how you slice it.

[Aventhos]

I like the idea OP it would be really nice to actually discover (ie there is NO map) for the vast ocean between continents. Only after you discovered it could you "settle" the land. IE you would have to build docks for boats and develop flight paths.

Make the trade skills each have a tiered building unit.

Mining - Ghost Iron blocks
Blacksmithing - Ghost Iron Keystones
etc etc for each prof

have them actually build (in real time) as mats are delivered construction % goes up.