From subtle inspiration to straight copying.

[Deleted]

Something I noticed whilst farming archaeology in Uldum the past few days (got the mount on 96th Tol'vir solve wohoo) was how non-subtle the zone is. If you don't see your character or any magic or whatever, you could easily think you were playing a game taking place in realistic ancient Egypt, that's how non subtle it is.

The same goes for pretty much all the (Chinese) content in MOP.

Now, races and zones in WoW were always somewhat inspired by real life peoples and places because after all, the game is made by humans from earth and we only have so much to draw inspiration from. Dranei, Trolls, Dwarves etc all have accents from real life peoples and somewhat inspired architecture from those places too.

However I feel that the difference is striking if you compare the earlier content to the newer, it used to be discrete and mysterious, and you hardly really notice it. I remember someone posted a thread on the general forums back in the vanilla days explaining his theory of what people each race were inspired by and you couldn't really tell if it was true or not.

Now, the themes are just shoved down our throats, and to me it just feels lazy. This is a fantasy game after all, taking place on Azeroth and not planet Earth. I don't know, I just feel like it's an easy way out in developing content. Completely copying an architecture, music, artistic style etc for a whole zone (Uldum) and even worse a whole expansion (MOP) is lame to me.

In comparison with for example the AQ raids. When those came out it was extremely exiting and mysterious, it felt alien and scary doing those raids for the first time. It was like a completely newly invented 'culture'. I hope Blizzard does more of that for the future.

[Gimlix]

Disagree, the 'texture' of each zone might be different but they all come back to the WoW feeling.
Due props or creatures or you name it.

[dope_danny]

I've said time and again how Uldum is an example of Blizzard at its very worst.

They could have had ulduar: stargate edition, and instead point for point ripped off raiders of the lost ark.

Its laziness bordering on plagarism. It totalled something like 22% of all post80 content for the expansion and at best it was a "LOLOLOL LE POP CULTURE REFERENCE XDDDD" waste of our time and remains to this day my biggest let down with blizzard. At least things like diablo 3's launch week bugs went away, after years of wondering what was behind the uldum gate from vanilla THIS is all we got and its here for as long as the game will last. We went from things like discovering the humans were descended from vrkyul and learning about the orcs ancestry in nagrand when leveling to spend and entire zone with no real relation to the expansion beyond... comedy? i think? and thats all we will get from uldum.

and what a bitter dissapointment that fact is.

[Jordaen]

I've said time and again how Uldum is an example of Blizzard at its very worst.

They could have had ulduar: stargate edition, and instead point for point ripped off raiders of the lost ark.

Its laziness bordering on plagarism. It totalled something like 22% of all post80 content for the expansion and at best it was a "LOLOLOL LE POP CULTURE REFERENCE XDDDD" waste of our time and remains to this day my biggest let down with blizzard. At least things like diablo 3's launch week bugs went away, after years of wondering what was behind the uldum gate from vanilla THIS is all we got and its here for as long as the game will last. We went from things like discovering the humans were descended from vrkyul and learning about the orcs ancestry in nagrand when leveling to spend and entire zone with no real relation to the expansion beyond... comedy? i think? and thats all we will get from uldum.

and what a bitter dissapointment that fact is.

That quest line is only, like, 1/3 or 1/2 of the zone. What about the rest of the quests and the mobs in Uldum? I think it was pretty well done and unique and definitely evoked an Egyptian feel which is kind of what Tanaris did as well. As for MoP and the "chinese" theme, there are only so many ways to go if you incorporate a panda-like race. No one would buy it if it had music like Silverpine Forest...

[Khaza-R]

I'll agree that Uldum was pretty uninspired. They took an generic Egyptian motif, added cat people and then called it a day.

However, Pandaria is no more a of copy of Chinese style than Tauren are of Native Americans from the Great Plains. Its clearly highly stylized unlike Uldum.

[lawow74]

Half of Uldum was telling the story of Titan creations and weaving it with Deathwing and the Elemental Lords. The other half was a giant Indiana Jones ripoff/homage that was wall to wall bad jokes and references that were generally amusing if groan-worthy once and became a horrible slog the other times with repeated 'WHY CAN I NOT SKIP THESE HORRID CUTSCENE' cries echoing across the servers.

Still, it gave us Gnomebliteration and whacking Pygmies, so you can't be too upset.

[Grumpy Old Man]

That quest line is only, like, 1/3 or 1/2 of the zone.

But that means almost half the zone is devoted to puns about an old movie. Think about that.

What about the rest of the quests and the mobs in Uldum? I think it was pretty well done and unique and definitely evoked an Egyptian feel which is kind of what Tanaris did as well.

I'll give you that some of the other quests are ok and fill the theme nicely. Still... I expected something more out of Uldum.

- - - Updated - - -

I'll agree that Uldum was pretty uninspired. They took an generic Egyptian motif, added cat people and then called it a day.

Almost that, yes.

[rda]

I agree, OP.

It seems that they look into real world, take a theme, and just use it without spending much effort on adopting it to Azeroth. Pyramids are Egyptian, while they should be obviously tol'vir (= at most, Egyptian-inspired) even from afar, and it's the same with everything else.

Northrend was much better in that regard.

Awaiting indian motives... :-)

[Deleted]

I agree, OP.

It seems that they look into real world, take a theme, and just use it without spending much effort on adopting it to Azeroth. Pyramids are Egyptian, while they should be obviously tol'vir (= at most, Egyptian-inspired) even from afar, and it's the same with everything else.

Northrend was much better in that regard.

Awaiting indian motives... :-)

Almost everything to do with Northrend was norse mythology themed. At least Uldum was one zone but Northrend is an entire continent.

[rda]

Almost everything to do with Northrend was norse mythology themed. At least Uldum was one zone but Northrend is an entire continent.

Exactly, almost everything to do with Northrend was norse, but it was integrated into WoW. Kvaldir were kvaldir, not vikings, etc. Uldum was Egypt.

It's hard to explain, really.

[Falu]

I can agree on Uldum... on Pandaria we can disagree.

[Deleted]

Exactly, almost everything to do with Northrend was norse, but it was integrated into WoW. Kvaldir were kvaldir, not vikings, etc. Uldum was Egypt.

It's hard to explain, really.

For me there were only two zones in Northrend that actually felt relevant to the story. Icecrown and Dragonblight. You had Ulduar yes but other than that Storm Peaks and everything else just felt like nordic country art and norse mythology tacked on.

I will not say that Uldum didn't have a heavy egyptian theme, but I will say that it's not an outlier.

[papajohn4]

Yeap indiana jones was a major let down... it started out at wotlk in Grizzy Hills and then they made it in Uldum x10 worse. And then, trying to forget this pop culture and get immersed into the ancient Egypt atmosphere, bam, commandos all over the place, RAMBO!

[Yig]

I don't agree, it looked like a good blend of Blizzard's style, Titan architecture and Egyptian flavor with Titan tech.
And Pandaria was,.... amazing. You could tell the devs needed to stretch their creative muslces from nearly a decade of chains and spikes and lava and skulls, and we got a lot more Nagrand charm and beauty with a dark shadow. The quest content I despised in Uldum, it was a waste of the WOW lore for me. Visually it's great. Pandaria is not your average Azeroth, it's exotic and alien, like it should be, but it's still got the WOW flavor of Blizzard creating Tibet, China, and other Asian regions into the look and feel of WOW.

[Laerrus]

I'll agree that Uldum was pretty uninspired. They took an generic Egyptian motif, added cat people and then called it a day.

However, Pandaria is no more a of copy of Chinese style than Tauren are of Native Americans from the Great Plains. Its clearly highly stylized unlike Uldum.

Agreed. My only complaint about MoP is that there should have been more Redneck Pandas (Mudmug and Fish Fellreed).

Instead of the same old Nesingwary quests, it would have been fun to have Pandas decked out in full camo as quest givers in that area.

[FraterN]

Aesthetically, Uldum is one of my all time favorite zones. Quest wise..not so much. I love the Egypt feel, but now I will resent blizzard until they give me my stargate themed story line.

[Yig]

Aesthetically, Uldum is one of my all time favorite zones. Quest wise..not so much. I love the Egypt feel, but now I will resent blizzard until they give me my stargate themed story line.

I wanted a compelling storyline about the devices there and the Tol'vir as well as the realm of the Wind Lord all tied together.

The only good thing from that spoof was the awesome clouds inspired by Raiders of the Lost Ark. When I fly through those clouds nothing in WOW makes me feel more like I'm flying in the game, it suddenly hit me every single zone needs clouds that are floating as real models aboves our heads. Skyrim was great with that realistically, Pandaria uses it around some mountains and things, but the whole freaking world needs a generic system of modelled clouds IMO. It makes the sky feel like more than a skybox and it makes flying more than a glorified swim mechanic.

Also, watching someone play WOW with the Oculus Rift, they could do barrel rolls while flying. And it was like seeing a dream come true, rising up over Stormwind and diving in spin to the ground, pulling up at the last instant and rising in a spin.

WOW in the Oculus Rift is going to rock, and playing in 3D is something cloud models really bring to life. When you're just walking down the road and you see them hanging above you, it kicks up the immersion significantly as a cartoon world.

I would love to see that with a high res star skybox added to WOW in one of the expansions as a universal graphical update like water and dynamic shadows. It would compliment the old original skybox and they would not need custom painted high res sky boxes for every zone from vanilla, just some basic variations to reuse universally where appropriate of hanging modeled clouds drifting around, interacting with the weather systems.

Imagine the clouds that would surround Teldrassil and the Night Elf 1-10 starting experience with clouds drifting in between the twilight and branches at the top of Teldrassil.

But for now I just fly around Uldum up and down through the clouds and dream, like a little orphan dreams for parents and some bread in his empty belly. And I hear the music in my head when they open the ark and those fucking scary angels rip everyone to melted melt faced peeps with their faces melting.

That also reminds me, in Hexen, ID and Raven Software's sequel to Heretic, there was an endgame relic like scepter which shot souls at enemies, a stream of whirling cloud hits them like a projectile, suddenly evil spirits come from all around the screen and surround the enemy and rip them to a pile of giblets while howling.

WOW needs a spell like that for Deathknights.

Oh look, something shiny.

[Lumikor]

The entire game is based on folklore and myths, they changed a bit to create a new world.

What's the problem?

[DeleteThisUser]

I understand where Kazim is coming from. Hopefully with WoD that will change, even if it's not every aspect of the game and on specific things.

[StationaryHawk]

I can agree with Uldum. It looks nice but it's a very unimaginative zone altogether. However, I disagree that MoP is some unimaginative Chinese rip-off. The zones have variety and the lore was a treat. If you want to say that it's lazy and poorly designed simply because it lends from Asian aesthetics then you'll have to say the same about WoW's many genetic settings.