What's the Deal with Disconnected Zones?

[Paula Deen]

Im more concerned they will be mechanically disconnected. WoW's schtick has always been all the zones are part of one world....

[Wyrt]

Zones are always disconnected.

Well, they might be physically connected, but thematically they're all over the place. You'll have a desert right next to a swamp and a lush jungle. It makes no sense and there's no flow to it.

I'd argue that having zones be physically disconnected is less jarring than going from a frozen wasteland into a jungle.

[Drusin]

So let us talk about Shadowlands map design. Can someone tell me what is so bad about the zones not being physically connected? No one I've read talk about it seems to provide a reason other than "It's different from what I'm used to and therefore bad."

I never thought about it until your post and I haven't done any research into the zones at all so I really don't know anything other than what the map looks like



Now, looking at this map and knowing nothing as I do, I would firstly assume that travel is going to be a royal pain in the ass. I won't be able to fly between zones and I won't be able to take flight paths between zones so what are we going to do? (edit: unless we can fly/take flight paths in which case ignore everything I've said after this because that's fine) Run to some hub then port to the central hub then port to the zone we want to go to? If that is the system that's in place then it is shit but I haven't played it yet so I dunno.

Hearthstone to each zone? Unlikely and would be shit as well
Spellbook teleport to each zone? Unlikely and would be shit as well

I gotta tell you, I already don't like having to go to some NPC at the docks to port to the other factions continent in BFA then go to another NPC at whatever the nearest outpost is to port back to my home factions continent so I'm unlikely to be fond of any such system in Shadowlands.

[Kyriani]

While there's no guarantee that they will go this route, the fact that Shadowlands zones are not contiguous does allow the devs the option of making Pathfinder work on a per zone basis without relying on "aura" effects (like Timeless Isle) that dismount you when flying into an area where flight is prohibited.

If they did decide to go this route, it would allow flight in a specific zone when we've completed the designated content within that zone instead of making us wait till we do every last little thing in every zone and then make us wait till whenever they feel like it. They'd probably get some praise for handling Pathfinder this way from some players and good PR is usually welcome.

But they might just stick to the current Pathfinder formula, only time will tell.

[Flarelaine]

Uh yes. It was a thorougly bad expansion that suffered from content drought from day one.

Do you seriously and unironically mean you ran out of things to do on the first day?

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I still don't get that, other than Dragonsoul CATA was amaze-balls

The new stuff they added was fine, I think Vashjir was the most beautiful zone they designed. The problem was wrecking the old world for joke questlines like Keeshan in Redridge.

[Master Guns]

The problem with disconnected zones is pretty much the same problem we had with Argus: they start to feel really small, really fast.

And completely pointless

[Ophenia]

Now, looking at this map and knowing nothing as I do, I would firstly assume that travel is going to be a royal pain in the ass. I won't be able to fly between zones and I won't be able to take flight paths between zones so what are we going to do? (edit: unless we can fly/take flight paths in which case ignore everything I've said after this because that's fine) Run to some hub then port to the central hub then port to the zone we want to go to? If that is the system that's in place then it is shit but I haven't played it yet so I dunno.

Hearthstone to each zone? Unlikely and would be shit as well
Spellbook teleport to each zone? Unlikely and would be shit as well

I gotta tell you, I already don't like having to go to some NPC at the docks to port to the other factions continent in BFA then go to another NPC at whatever the nearest outpost is to port back to my home factions continent so I'm unlikely to be fond of any such system in Shadowlands.

Very likely portalz everywhere. You may have an "additional hearthstone" or shit like that depending on the covenant you're aligned with though.

I don't see any lore reason for having portals linking zones together though (like Maldraxxus > Ardenweald). So either they create a "gameplay reason" for them to exist, or you'll have to portal Bastion then portal to where you want to go. Enjoy.

[CrawlFromThePit]

I mean I don’t particularly care that they aren’t directly connected but to say “There’s absolutely not a single negative thing about it” is just lying :P It is mildly annoying right now when you need to go to the other factions zones in BfA. In SL it’s going to be worse because you have to port to get to ANY of the new zones. That’s kind of annoying. It’s not game (or subscription) breaking, but it is a little obnoxious and far more inconvenient.

Lol WHAT?

Hop on your flying mount and check the time it takes to go from the Horde city to any WQ in Voldun.
Now realize that this simple task takes A LOT more time than being in any of the Cata zone and going to any other of the Cata zone.

Teleporting right to a zone is so much faster than physically moving there, like wtf man. And notice I made the comparison with flying mount. It's gonna be 2 to 3 times worse if you consider ground mount.

Teleport > slow ass crawl.

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The new stuff they added was fine, I think Vashjir was the most beautiful zone they designed. The problem was wrecking the old world for joke questlines like Keeshan in Redridge.

I'd rather half laugh at bad joke quests than fall asleep while trying to help a nameless guard collect some animal organs for no reason.
Please let's not act like vanilla quests were good.

[Yemkela]

I don't think this is really an issue per se, it's just something we can talk about/ complain about.

I like the disconnected concept for this expansion because it works thematically, but it also hints at the possibility of getting new afterlife zones in subsequent patches, that will hopefully fit right in on this map. They haven't said that there's only four different realms of the afterlife in the shadowlands. Those are just the afterlives where we can join the covenants, but there could be more.

[Kokolums]

Outside of the horrid DS patch, people look at Cata in a negative light?

Cata was horribly antisocial compared to everything that came before. Anyone that hated Cata in all likelihood has quit the game by now. The people that stayed are probably so introverted that the issues with cata don't bother them. Its kind of a situation where, in order to grow the playerbase, WoW needs to cater to extroverts, and that means moving away from the cata model.

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Unfortunately yes. Many people joined at the peak of Wrath, when dungeons were loot hallways, you basically had catchup gear mailed to you upon character creation and raids were dumbed down to the lowest common denominator outside of hardmode. Then Cata hit and they tried to go back to the TBC model where you needed more then 3 functioning brain cells to play the game and the general populace lost their shit.

That's not the reason why cata sucked. I quit early in cata because the communities collapsed and suddenly everyone was a nameless, faceless person running around. That made it boring as hell. WoW is a people game and Blizz had freshly killed the people aspect. I never played mop at ALL and only WOD a little bit.

To this day, I say MoP sucked balls because it was incredibly antisocial. I have no interest in that.

[Tiwack]

To each their own, to me it's great as it means they'll be free to create and expand on their creative visions for each zone without being bothered by how they tie together with awful border areas and transitions from one to the next.

[Seasz]

The only deal is Blizz themselves said they didn't like it how it turned out back in cata.

Personally I never minded it and didn't see most of the playerbase whining and crying about it either.

[Soon-TM]

Personally I never minded it and didn't see most of the playerbase whining and crying about it either.

I'm glad that you didn't mind about it, however if you didn't see most of the playerbase "whining" is because they simply don't post on forums - which doesn't necessarily mean they liked it or that it was good. As a matter of fact, Blizzard themselves said they didn't like how it turned out, and avoided such design all the way from MoP to BfA. I still can't fathom why they've reverted this decision in SL, I can only guess that it's related to server load somehow.

[Yemkela]

It would be weirder if the different afterlives were connected like an island...

[Drusin]

Lol WHAT?

Hop on your flying mount and check the time it takes to go from the Horde city to any WQ in Voldun.
Now realize that this simple task takes A LOT more time than being in any of the Cata zone and going to any other of the Cata zone.

Teleporting right to a zone is so much faster than physically moving there, like wtf man. And notice I made the comparison with flying mount. It's gonna be 2 to 3 times worse if you consider ground mount.

Teleport > slow ass crawl.

Right now it may take longer but I can hop on any flight path and get to any zone on the continent. I personally don't like visiting Drustvar on my Horde and then not being able to fly back to the Horde city and instead having to go to some portal place. If there were portal dudes next to every flight path dude that at least sent you back to the main area Oribos I'd be fine with that. But no, every time I visit a zone I have to portal back, and I already don't like going to the opposite factions continent because of that.

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That's not the reason why cata sucked. I quit early in cata because the communities collapsed and suddenly everyone was a nameless, faceless person running around. That made it boring as hell. WoW is a people game and Blizz had freshly killed the people aspect. I never played mop at ALL and only WOD a little bit.

To this day, I say MoP sucked balls because it was incredibly antisocial. I have no interest in that.

People hate stuff for their own reasons

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To each their own, to me it's great as it means they'll be free to create and expand on their creative visions for each zone without being bothered by how they tie together with awful border areas and transitions from one to the next.

Cool, design them however you want, just let me fly between them

[Wondercrab]

I get why they're going for it thematically in Shadowlands. It's not an innately bad thing, but it does have some knock on effects that the devs need to consider. There's a subjective argument to be made for immersion -- hopping around between disparate, disconnected zones is a very video-gamey thing, but that's mainly down to personal preference. The more objective issue that arises from separate zones is the hassle of travelling between them. More loading screens in a video game is generally a bad thing. If Shadowlands requires you to return to the hub and then hop through portals every time you want to swap zones it's going to become a persistent headache throughout the expansion. Just getting between Zandalar and Kul Tiras is a pain for me because it requires returning to Zuldazar and heading down to the docks every time rather than just flying over directly like I would've done in Pandaria or Legion. That would be really bad if I had to do it for every single zone rather than just two continents.

Hopefully, though, the devs will anticipate this and design accordingly. Being able to travel directly between zones rather than going through the hub every time would help immensely, even though it would probably still require some kind of loading screen. In theory it shouldn't be too hard to solve the major problems that arise from separate zones, but then again, this is the same team that decided the Horde needed to take a flight path between the two halves of their capital city in BfA.

[Sondrelk]

Personally i would assume travel between the zones will work on the same concept travel between the zones worked in Argus. Several dedicated teleporters taking you from one area to the other, especially since having to teleport to the Vindicaar to get to other zones in Argus was only a thing fairly briefly on the PTR before it became too obnoxious to stick with.

[Twdft]

Cool, design them however you want, just let me fly between them

Yeah. There could still be portals but let me fly.

One BIG reason vanilla was better than most games at the time for me was that you could play for 3 hours and never see a loading screen. When I got my first mount I rode from booty bay to scarlett monestary. I actually went around both Azeroth and Kalimdor walking on the coast line / swimming where needed.

Now you port back and forth so much you see a loading screen like every 5 minutes. It makes the world (of warcraft) feel small.

[Orby]

I think mainly because the Shadowlands is a labyrinthine of spiritual planes, not a continent. So its not going to be like Northrend or Kul'Tiras or Outland, becuase it doesnt share those laws of nature we know.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Honestly it's the final conclusion of a direction WoW's been drifting for years now. Isolated single zones instead of a large interconnected world. Which works if you had flight from the start, but as it's built now we probably need to flight path between zones and that's just a big sigh.