Dazar'alor has become tied with the Shrine of Two Moons as my favorite Horde capital. First of all, we haven't had a new, faction CITY introduced into the game since The Burning Crusade. Dalaran is cool, but if you're RPing a character whose identity is specifically tied to their faction, then it's hard to get attached to Dalaran. Meanwhile, the Shrines and Ashrans didn't feel satisfactory; you didn't feel as if this was another major population center of the Horde or that the Alliance was growing. With Dazar'alor, it very much feels as if THIS CITY IS OUR OWN, as if the Horde has become larger and is more reminsicent of the inter-continental empire that has only really been told to us in the lore and not shown to us ingame. The pyramid also gives a sense of supremacy, as if we are on top of the world, as if the Horde really is AN EMPIRE. I don't mind that the Great Seal reused the Shrine's layout; Blizzard had already figured out in MoP how to make a beautiful capital that was also functional, with all of the major services within a short walk of each other. Dazar'alor is also very vibrant; it's incredibly refreshing to see something this colorful, and it will be a pleasant sight to see for the next couple years, if not more.
That said, I wish the geography of Zandalar was as great as its setpieces like Dazar'alor. I've been playing through Zuldazar and Vol'dun, and so far the layout of the world feels incredibly video gamey, just like in Legion, with nonsense layouts such as entire villages of hostiles only fifty feet away from a quest hub populated by friendly NPCs... or drastic changes in geography separated by thin rivers and shallow hills, or more obviously tall mountains. It's a blatantly obvious themepark, as opposed to a realized world. Meanwhile, I'm looking over at Kul'Tiras, and it seems that the Alliance got the better end of the deal here, with their continent feeling like an actual place rather than just a bunch of questing areas smooshed together. Not to mention the fact that on paper, Kul'Tiras simply has better map design, as you can see the weeners (game design term - in this case the mountains) from every other zone, and you can see the other zones from one side of the lake. I'm getting Liberl vibes from the Trails in the Sky games here, or better yet, Sinnoh region vibes. It feels open and it feels realized.
Ideally, I'd want my continents going forward to take the best of WoW's environmental design with Argus' amazing skyboxes and art direction, the setpieces that defined WoD and Legion, and the immersive world design that somewhat permeated Wrath and MoP.
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Originally Posted by icedwarrior
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