Originally Posted by
SirCowdog
I think the popularity of Classic servers might prove otherwise, but I see the point you're making. I have no doubts that providing an interesting and engaging world is possible, even if it does present some challenges to development. But Blizzard has a hisotry of doing things with WoW that even they claimed weren't possible: Cross server tech, matchmaking, LFR, phasing, etc. It's just a matter of whether or not Blizzard is willing to work at it, and I think as long as long as they have inflexible, formulaic, design-by-spreadsheet leadership like Ion, it's not going to happen.
Then stop trying to force players into doing everything! That, more than anything else, is holding WoW back from being better than it is. The reason games like Witcher 3 and Skyrim have fast travel is because they recognize that not everyone wants to do everything. Not everyone enjoys taking a magnifying glass to every pixel of road between points.
Blizzard is so god damned afraid that players won't appreciate their glorious fields full of pointless trash mobs that they literally don't allow you to bypass any piece of it, even if most of it wasn't interesting in the first place.
I want you to consider also that Vashj'ir was built using technology and design from 2010. And that since then Blizzard hasn't really tried it again. The technology has come a long way since then. Design theory, UI, server tech, latency, animations. Hell, even their development team probably has mostly different people. Virtually every part of WoW has improved since then. And yet rather than challenging themselves to make another attempt or to improve their open world design, they've regressed back to mostly flat zones with almost no verticality.
Is that REALLY what we want from Blizzard and WoW?
Then don't timegate it. Base it on actual progression. Let the PLAYER determine when they unlock it by how fast they clear the content. Keeping in mind, this would need to go hand in hand with content with actual depth and challenge, and not just faceroll AFK Kill-X quests.