Originally Posted by
Niter
I agree that it would be hard to keep all of them relevant, but they don't need so much in the way of resources to make a few zones worthy of our time. The problem with Cataclysm is that levelling was so quick that we had all green/grey quests before we were done with the zone. Their latest change to have the world scale with the character is a good one, but it came far too late to make the changes that they made in Cataclysm relevant, in my opinion.
If I were to consider such a system more thoroughly, I'd start by thinking about a few zones that could enhance player experience and progress the story. Let's see what I can come up as I write:
- Horde (Orcs and Trolls): reclaiming the Barrens from Alliance troops that refused to leave and have gone rogue or allied with some other neutral faction. Players have their homes in areas that caught these former Alliance troops, and get to defend their yard from them.
- Horde (Tauren, Orcs, Trolls): Qullboars and Centaurs have started to rise up after so many conflicts spreading the defenses in the Barrens and Mulgore too thinly. Now that the character has settled there, keeping it could make sense.
- Horde (Blood Elves and Undead): after Sylvanas destroyed the Helm, Undead troops in the area have gone rampant, attacking a few key areas. As someone settling in the areas nearby, the defence of the area is also your responsibility. This area could be the outskirts of the Ghostlands or Eversong Woods.
- Horde (Undead and Blood Elves): the Scarlet Crusade seem to be reborn. Although not as strong, after big wars and with the leaders concerned with the Shadowlands, resources and troops can't be easily committed, so those settling in the affected areas need to take arms.
- Alliance (Night Elves and Worgen) and the Horde (all races): Garrosh and Sylvanas loyalists that remained in Ashenvale seem not to respect the armistice and keep on trying to sabotage travellers, merchants and patrols in Ashenvale (either Forest Song or Silverwind). Both sides get to try and get the upper hand.
- Alliance (Humans, etc): Westfall is under a lot of disrepair and is targeted by the Defias, gnolls and murlocs. It falls to the new settlers to help defend the lands and farm them.
- Alliance (Worgen, Humans): having settled in Silverpine, or even in Gilneas, the settlers have to eliminate Forsaken, the Scourge and rabid other Worgen attempting to hunt in the area.
- Alliance (Dwarves, Gnomes): Loch Modan has become a dangerous place. Troggs, Murlocs and remnants of the Twilight Hammer coming from the areas nearby all attack on occasion. Settlers coming here try to restore the Loch while keeping these at bay.
Then players would have:
- simple 'invasions' to repel
- decorate and personalise their homes
- send allies/servants on missions
- defeat elites
- get enough rep/badges to get more customisation options, or mounts, or a hearthstone to their homes
- see some changes to the land every once in a while
The 'formula' could be pretty much the same, they would connect the races to the lore a bit more and have the players be interested in areas that are not merely the end game zones or the capitals and players would decide whether to invest in that. It's pretty much a single system, most of the assets are already in the game, and players would get something else to do.
Blizzard might even decide to have invasions not so dissimilar to what we saw in Legion, having the next enemies send some forces to harass the characters' homes in an attempt to throw them off balance, or some B or C-team villains could try to conquer or sack these areas. It wouldn't be too hard to do, and, once in place, iterating is simple.
Including some collectable options in older instances and raids would make players have something else to hunt and collect, also adding depth and stuff to do in the game.
These systems can work, and will definitely provide a lot of players with something else to do other raiding or doing world quests all the time, and iterating on them should mean simple tweaks here and there to keep things running well.