What should Blizzard do about Outland?

[Al Gorefiend]

Lore-wise, it makes zero sense that your character is even able to go there. Story-wise, its weird and clunky that you suddenly need to enter this place where the events happened almost 10 years ago in-game. Gameplay-wise, the questing is bland, the graphics in Outland are low poly compared to other parts of the game, and the questing model doesn't fit with the rest of the game anymore (kill 10 enemies in x zone, return to questgiver, head back to x zone to loot items)

Blizzard mentioned some time ago before Warlords the possibility of Outland existing in the Caverns of Time for people wanting to go there for mounts, rep, raids etc. and Northrend would be scaled to levels 60-80. They also entertained the idea of the player being able to choose between Outland or Northrend.

What do YOU think they should do about Outland?

[TheWindWalker]

I think they should do absolutely nothing aside as that's more resources not spent on making Legion even better.

[Supercool]

Blizzard mentioned some time ago before Warlords the possibility of Outland existing in the Caverns of Time for people wanting to go there for mounts, rep, raids etc. and Northrend would be scaled to levels 60-80. They also entertained the idea of the player being able to choose between Outland or Northrend.

Now that they've settled on boosting as a permanent way for new and returning players to get into current content, low level content is really only relevant to people playing alts.

It mattered when you had new players who had to do this stuff, but now they don't. So problem solved.

[PuppetShowJustice]

Any time spent on retooling Outlands or Northrend as leveling content is time wasted.

[Al Gorefiend]

Now that they've settled on boosting as a permanent way for new and returning players to get into current content, low level content is really only relevant to people playing alts.

It mattered when you had new players who had to do this stuff, but now they don't. So problem solved.

You end up with some confused as hell new players who don't buy WoD. This in itself isn't only a problem with Outland though, its a problem with the entire ideology of

I think they should do absolutely nothing aside as that's more resources not spent on making Legion even better.

Content shouldn't be do it and be done with it.

[ComputerNerd]

Lore-wise the progression in Pandaria makes little sense when it comes to the Vale.
There are many other cases too.
And why northrend, when there is no point story-wise for us to be there.

[PuppetShowJustice]

Content shouldn't be do it and be done with it.

Content being trivialized by advancement has been pretty core to the way WoW has always worked.

If they want to go back and put new stuff to do in the old zones for level capped characters then that's great, but I don't think there's any need to further support those zones as leveling content. Leveling content, by nature, is something you do and then you're done with.

[Supercool]

While the timeline is definitely messed up (and this holds true for Northrend as well), BC questing really isn't that bad. It's still hub-based. It's a bit of a halfway point between the grindy "collect 10 things" Vanilla style and the storyline-driven Wrath style, but I doubt new players find it jarring. Probably some of the weirdly itemized quest rewards are more out of place than the quests themselves.

[Leyre]

who cares what you, me, bob or mary thinks, blizz will always do whatever the fuck they want

[Deleted]

I doubt they will do anything. TBC is acceptable when it comes to leveling, vanilla wasn't. Storywise, when you go to Outland, you aren't fighting stuff in present day in terms of the warcraft lore. There's a reason why Dalaran in Wotlk will stay there when Legion is out because it doesn't matter.

Why do people think that when we do previous expansion stuff, we are there at present time ingame? I mean, you still see Garrosh in Outland and Northrend. There's nothing post TBC that makes us go back to Outland other than the warlock greenfire questline which was its own contained story so in terms of lore, remaking it doesn't mean much.

[Detheavn]

Old content isn't part of the current timeline and shouldn't be treated as such. Outland is the TBC era, nothing more, nothing less. No changes needed.
If anything Blizzard should stop removing old content in favor of an updated one.

[Al Gorefiend]

Just get rid of the entire continent's place in leveling. Scale Silithus, Winterspring and Blasted Lands to 60-70, or scale Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord to 65-72. The nostalgic players who are aware of it existing can still get there via CoT to level alts.

Is it really that huge an undertaking to scale entire zones?

[Supercool]

I mean, you still see Garrosh in Outland and Northrend. There's nothing post TBC that makes us go back to Outland other than the warlock greenfire questline which was its own contained story.

If you wanna see weird timelines, Twilight Highlands questing as Horde is pretty goofy. Warchief Vol'jin sends you there...with Warchief Hellscream. Then once you secure the Dragonmaw for Garrosh, you get sent back to Vol'jin to make a report.

[Al Gorefiend]

Imo when they remade the world they should have made it so you could level to 80 without going to Outland and Northrend. Considering how they completely redid so many zones it was entirely possible. Missed opportunity

definitely.

[guisadop]

Outland nowadays is easily one of the best leveling zones.

[zorkuus]

Content shouldn't be do it and be done with it.

That's how it has always been in WoW. For it to change there would have to be some major changes to design philosophy. Again... is it worth it?

[thedinosaur]

this just in. old content is old and should be skipped.

if you dont want to do it, boost. if theyre going to CoT outland then you would need to for northrend as well since dalaran is going to move... oh and for cata since deathwing is dead.... oh and for mop...

yeah pretty much everything would have to go :/
leave it alone.

[clevin]

I have a MUCH better idea. Since all of you seem to be buying into the "game starts at max level" BS... remove levels. You login, you're max level. Why bother with story, immersion etc?

[Spunt]

They should at least adjust DK's starting level to put them into Wrath content when they finish the starting zone as opposed to the dumping them in Burning Crusade content. That makes no sense lore wise, since DKs cam out in Wrath, not BC.

[zorkuus]

I have a MUCH better idea. Since all of you seem to be buying into the "game starts at max level" BS... remove levels. You login, you're max level. Why bother with story, immersion etc?

"Buying into it" would imply it's some new thing they're hyping up. It's not, it's as old as the game (maybe not so much in vanilla). I've just accepted it as the norm a long time ago.