How could we utilize existing zones more?

[Cloe]

Archeology surveying! More mounts like dino skele!!! No. We need something? Mini rare bosses with stuff? I mean what can you do really? Hmmm. IDK

[MatthiasLehner]

-> Guild Wars 2 has been doing this for almost a decade, and it feels as fresh today as it did when it came out.

Every zone has mini-events that happen by themselves or triggered by people.
Everyone can get rewards, whether regular currency or items you can disenchant as well as XP and special items for special events.
Some of these mini-events grow into bigger and bigger events until they sometimes spawn a giant zone boss that requires a ton of people to kill.

If you go play GW2 now (I think the regular game is free to play), you will be ASTOUNDED at how full of life and players even the shittiest zones in the game are (and there aren't really any, the creators have put a ton of love into that game.

People do these events because they're huge and they can easily join other people which is what MMOs should be all about. They're fun, even if the rewards aren't always incredible.

Moreover, there are websites tracking world boss timers and huge groups literally go around zones as they spawn and fighting them, and considering how many bosses there are it's almost non stop around the clock fun, as much as you want.

-> Elder Scrolls Online does this too, same concept as GW2. People of all levels run around in every zone, joining together to fight bosses and have fun playing with each other.

-> Pretty much every MMO today does this...except WoW...because....who the fuck knows. They want to force people to focus on their new content? Bobby The Antichrist Littledick forces them not to? Some shitty game phylosophy by one of their new age millenial tumblerina managers?

In conclusion, if the events are fun and/or the rewards are worthwhile, people will do these events.
However when it comes to the shitstain WoW "community", you will always have the piece of shit vocal minority fighting tooth and nail about how "it's not worth it". And that's how you get WoW to where it is today.

Good day.

This is pretty informative tbh, especially about GW2 and ESO. Also pretty fun to read :'D

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I've suggested this before and still like the idea:

I think we should have random, non-impactful class quests that send you to random zones.

I don't see the devs adding a new campaign that leads you over the world, or a new system of invasion like events for every zone. But they could repurpose old rares or quest mobs. I also think the rewards should be low-impact and the main draw factor should be lore. Many people may not like having to globe-trot.

For example:
a) a druid needs go to Desolace to help regrow plants
b) a Rogue needs to infiltrate Jintha'alor in the Hinterlands to steal an item (disable flying with a 'troll magic' debuff that requires them to stealth through the whole area)
c) a Paladin needs to kill and then purify the spirit of a rare in WPL
d) a DH needs to fight a rare elite in some barrow dens in Felwood

It would be like a contract system. Maybe it awards a decent amount of gold, like 1k? And there would be one quest per day. Maybe it rewards a token to buy transmog gear. OR! Maybe it rewards you with books that expand on the lore and you build up a library.

I think this would be a low-impact, non-mandatory, easy to implement way to get people visiting old zones.

Edit:



I really like this idea ^^ I think they should occur without warning. You log in one day and this week the bloodsail are attacking. And it would happen on a random day, not a weekly reset. Then a few days later the Black Dragonflight are attacking Azshara, then Furbolgs are going crazy in Feralas, then there's a rare elite rampaging in Hillsbrad. Love this.

This I can totally get behind. Legion class campaigns were hella fun and made me make so many damn alts which I never did since vanilla alpha days

[Dancaris]

At first - I wanted N'Zoth to win this time. So when we woke up - we will find only Orgrimmar and SW to stand. And slowly, over the length of expansion we will fight back. With unlocking zones - scenarios with purging void presence, and short scenarios in clean areas.
But now - I wish clean peace addon - we return from SL to create a new world, clean from wars. You know, some local conflicts like fixing Barrens, Moving Frostwolves to Wintersprings (i can dream, right?), unlocking Gilneas as proper Capital, updating Arathi with removing Argorok and Horde buildings from there, Cleansing Ghostlands from Scourge. Possibilities are endless. To devide zones to races, not factions. And for endgame content - make some "hubs" with local quests, dailies, WBosses like Darkshore/Arathi.
Some week or even month we in Lorderon for Horde - repairing Tirisfal, Silverpine (north part) and Alterac (up to tarren mill) into one large Forsaken zone. And Gilneas, south Silverpine, and half of Hillsbrad (south part) as Worgen one. New architerture, new stories, LQ, and some Wboss for a week/2week/month. Another circle - another hub.
Barrens+Durotar for Horde, with joining Horde lands as one. Make Mag'Har some settlements, make Crossroads center of their lands. For Alliance - Ashenvale and Hyjal.
Another one - rather small like Felwood+darkshore for blue ones and Azshara+wintersprings for red team.
Mulgore+Stonetalon+Desolace(h) and Feralas+Silithus (a)
And so forth. each continent divide into 3-4 zones and cirlce it. When circle ends - we gain whole new Azeroth. Some questchains for leveling, some epic cinematics at the end of hub-zone. With some system to opt out of this circle when next expansion is out.
One hub for each faction - dungeons of this hub (like 1-2 per hub) with loot tokens that shared in dungeons.

[Kyux]

As someone having been leveling characters steadily throughout BfA, I'll say old zones are fine. There's always been players around.

Not every f-ing zone NEEDS to be relevant, but if they do one day revamp EK and Kalimdor again, they should incorporate max-level usage into some of the old zones.

My way of playing takes me all over the in-game world. Others are sat in cities. The person sat in a city isn't forced to, even less so since MoP onward.

You're right, not every zone needs to be relevant and I'm not suggesting a war campaign in every zone. But a single quest, or maybe a 2-3 part chain every few days in one zone would be nice. Just something for those people that want it. Something that wouldn't take up much dev time to implement. I don't think they will revamp EK and Kalimdor anytime soon so this is a good interim measure. I certainly wouldn't want a system that forces players to do it, that's why I think the rewards should be minor. Not even pets or mounts. Either just lore, or lore and gold.

[kaintk]

solution : blizzard should hire some people good at making quest and story, and their job would be to make old zone relevant each week/month, new quest appearing, old quest dissapearing, that would make the game more rpg, you know ? like the letter in mmorpg ?? xD

the old zone would be fun everytime you visit them

but wait

i forget that blizzard is activisionblizzard now, they will never do something like this

[Wolfrick]

-> Guild Wars 2 has been doing this for almost a decade, and it feels as fresh today as it did when it came out.

Every zone has mini-events that happen by themselves or triggered by people.
Everyone can get rewards, whether regular currency or items you can disenchant as well as XP and special items for special events.
Some of these mini-events grow into bigger and bigger events until they sometimes spawn a giant zone boss that requires a ton of people to kill.

If you go play GW2 now (I think the regular game is free to play), you will be ASTOUNDED at how full of life and players even the shittiest zones in the game are (and there aren't really any, the creators have put a ton of love into that game.

People do these events because they're huge and they can easily join other people which is what MMOs should be all about. They're fun, even if the rewards aren't always incredible.

Moreover, there are websites tracking world boss timers and huge groups literally go around zones as they spawn and fighting them, and considering how many bosses there are it's almost non stop around the clock fun, as much as you want.

-> Elder Scrolls Online does this too, same concept as GW2. People of all levels run around in every zone, joining together to fight bosses and have fun playing with each other.

-> Pretty much every MMO today does this...except WoW...because....who the fuck knows. They want to force people to focus on their new content? Bobby The Antichrist Littledick forces them not to? Some shitty game phylosophy by one of their new age millenial tumblerina managers?

In conclusion, if the events are fun and/or the rewards are worthwhile, people will do these events.
However when it comes to the shitstain WoW "community", you will always have the piece of shit vocal minority fighting tooth and nail about how "it's not worth it". And that's how you get WoW to where it is today.

Good day.

This is very true and very right, Blizzard have always been amazing at looking at other games and finding out what works then making their own system of it that is even better, so stuff like these must come into wow, since we have such a huge huge world... where most of our players just sit in a 5% part of it... and say they are board...

If you ask me, 10:0 will be an azeroth revamp, with stuff like this in mind... since shadowlands feel like a "lets get back to basic expansion where they fix the starter experaince and the classes + the level squish...

then next expansion after shadowlands they will do this to the world, and make it feel so alive and great again ^^

Mark my words and make me your prophet! XD

PS: I really hope this happens since we really need it and wow is just sitting there ready for soemthing like this to happen

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[QUOTE=Kajitheninja;52735402]World Events that arnt just tied to holidays

X might happen every so many months
like for the next month elementals are going crazy (make it tie in with azerite or something) and have a bunch of WQs scattered around the zones where elementals are a big presence and scale the mobs up so their tougher. Make a "boss" for each zone thats a decently hard fight

another example might be that the Bloodsail are gaining strength and for a month they are attacking coastal areas all around

could also do a Hemit Hunt quest that takes you to a random zone out of all the playable ones and fight a tough beast that Hemit wants to kill


could probably come up with more but these are just thrown out there[/QUOTE

wow... this is so cool... it could make a year of content feel so fresh and interesting, this is an amazing idea ^^

and if some people dont care, then let them stay in the cities and scream out they are board... but this would make the world feel so alive and also make so much Lore sence

[taishar68]

The cycle of fresh new patch of landscape, that becomes obsolete and lifeless in 2 years, except for those who are leveling saddens me, all the time.

I know it's impossible to ask for story updates unless it actually gets updated with purpose like Arathi Highlands.

But couldn't some zones can maybe have like, WQs that definitely feels like a side line stories, that might not cross the main story line, but at least show what's happening on the other sides of the Azeroth or others?

I'm probably in the minority who cares so much about the zones that did its job, but when I went through Legion and BfA, revisiting old zones with purpose felt just so damn immersive to me.

At the same time though, I wouldn't want players to feel so overwhelmed by too many daily things to do.




So what do you think? If Blizzard were to revitalize some old zones, what do you think would be a healthy way to do it?

Those old zones should have been where the battle for Azeroth was waged; storming villages, defending towns, random azerite causing upheaval everywhere, the Naga launch a huge attack on Gilneas or Durotar, or both, of course old gods to deal with...Zandalar and Kul Tiras should have been patch zones.

[jellmoo]

I say piggy back how the Allied Race quests worked. Give players long quest chains that take them zone hopping across the globe with breadcrumb quests that see them get an interesting reward at the end. I'd keep it a non mechanical reward (so think mounts, pets, weapon skins, new character customization options, titles, etc...) but that's just me.

[Zantos]

Adding in things people want. Unique transmog sets and mounts would be the obvious one. Of course, that'll only have them there for so much. Honestly, even the new zones have this issue. After they get what they want, people don't just go back.

[GreenJesus]

The problem to me is that so many of the older zones are just so outdated it wouldn't fit with their new tech/quest design. Plus, they probably to encourage people to not go to zones where there are more pixels in a single blade of grass in shadowlands compared to the entire old zone.

[Wolfrick]

I've suggested this before and still like the idea:

I think we should have random, non-impactful class quests that send you to random zones.

I don't see the devs adding a new campaign that leads you over the world, or a new system of invasion like events for every zone. But they could repurpose old rares or quest mobs. I also think the rewards should be low-impact and the main draw factor should be lore. Many people may not like having to globe-trot.

For example:
a) a druid needs go to Desolace to help regrow plants
b) a Rogue needs to infiltrate Jintha'alor in the Hinterlands to steal an item (disable flying with a 'troll magic' debuff that requires them to stealth through the whole area)
c) a Paladin needs to kill and then purify the spirit of a rare in WPL
d) a DH needs to fight a rare elite in some barrow dens in Felwood

It would be like a contract system. Maybe it awards a decent amount of gold, like 1k? And there would be one quest per day. Maybe it rewards a token to buy transmog gear. OR! Maybe it rewards you with books that expand on the lore and you build up a library.

I think this would be a low-impact, non-mandatory, easy to implement way to get people visiting old zones.

Edit:



I really like this idea ^^ I think they should occur without warning. You log in one day and this week the bloodsail are attacking. And it would happen on a random day, not a weekly reset. Then a few days later the Black Dragonflight are attacking Azshara, then Furbolgs are going crazy in Feralas, then there's a rare elite rampaging in Hillsbrad. Love this.

this has to be one of the best ideas in this post!!! great toughts and this would give the world so much more life and ever green content!

[kranur]

If they make old zones more relevant, they make new zones less relevant

[Razion]

I liked how the pre-Legion Invasions did it.

[Sondrelk]

Whatever it ends up being it needs to be time-limited. If it is available all the time then the luster disappears quick. It needs to both be rare enough that experiencing it is a treat in itself, but also not so rare that the game is only interesting when that one thing happens.

Whoever said on the previous page that the ideal might be 2-3 week zone-specific events might definitely be on to something. Just add loads of small events that give a tangible reward that is not tied to player power at all.

The only problem I see happening is that WoW is simply not built to be the kind of game where coo stuff happens all the time and adventure lurks around every corner. The only time it even came close to that was back in Classic, and even then it was on shaky ground.

Sadly the one thing that really kills world events like that is conveniences like flying. And unless Blizzard goes full hog and finally removed flying then content in old zones will continue to be undercut by it.

[Akelina]

Only if reintrodicing old zones make sense lorewise(like Artifact quests) or comes as bonus like Darkshore or Arathi.
Hell no if they do it again like Uldum or Vale without adding new zones.

[Sondrelk]

A deceptively simple idea might also be to add crafting recipes that require old materials like Mythril or Black Lotus.

Though then again, with flying most of these kinds of ideas would be undercut as you would not really be interracting with the world as much as a change like this ideally should.

[shoc]

Every month, 3 random zones from random expansions are invaded by the Infinite Flight. They timewarp the zone, causing all quests to be reset and replayable by max levels, but mobs are all super-elite, as in, a raid geared player should struggle to solo. Think of it as replaying a low level zone on Mythic+, but in the open world. Ideally it's scaled to require at least a party of 3 to progress smoothly. The quests only reward gold, and finishing the zone campaign rewards decent loot.

[Fistfighter]

Doesn't matter, all zones look the same if you keep flying on.

Arathi and Darkshore was a cute idea, but it's just fly from one objective to another, the zones don't even mattter.

[Littleraven]

There isn't just on answer but something I have thought about is do a Destiny type system. Basically do what they do with the Flashpoints and "powerful gear" and have a set of zones across the world have special events or quests or whatever that you can do any given week to get some kind of reward. Be that currency, mats or actual loot. They are already somewhat doing it with the invasions in Legion and the Old God ones too. They would just need to expand on that idea because knowing Blizzard they would just add the same tired world quests.

The reason I feel that works in a game like Destiny is that it can actually be fun to just fight shit for the sake of it. It also is a different beast being that it is an FPS.

[Wolfrick]

Doesn't matter, all zones look the same if you keep flying on.

Arathi and Darkshore was a cute idea, but it's just fly from one objective to another, the zones don't even mattter.

That is why we should remove flying... it breaks the world and the feeling of playing an adventure game... it really breaks my heart to think how much more amazing World of Warcraft would have been with no flying.