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  1. #41
    I've never seen Rambo, so any references in Redridge are lost on me. I just like going around saving the team and then doing various missions with them. I think that's more fun than the Classic version. Uldum though, ugh. I was looking forward to that zone because I've been intrigued by the Tol'vir ever since I saw the Obsidian Destroyers in AQ. Instead of getting any meaningful lore about them (in an aesthetically beautiful zone) I get an Indiana Jones parody. The questing wasn't even fun, it was just as grindy and dull as all the other 80-85 zones.

    Quote Originally Posted by Aeula View Post
    In terms of gameplay? Every zone got better. Classic quests were shit outside of class quests and longer questlines. Cataclysm was a massive improvement in every way. Took me playing Classic this year to realise that.

    Even putting up with meme quests is better than suffering through kill 12 and 12 mobs three times for minimal reward quests.
    I did Arathi (as Horde) for the first time last night and if I didn't know better I would've sworn I was playing Classic. It's probably the worst revamped zone I've played so far in terms of questing and if it weren't for getting the achievement I would've bailed. It fits the exact definition of suffering through kill quests multiple times for minimal rewards. A lot of the Kalimdor zones for Alliance aren't much better. I guess I need to do Stonetalon as Horde because I'd never do that zone again as Alliance.

    Quote Originally Posted by Akka View Post
    I always loathed the Cata revamp, so much so that while I tend to love leveling, I always rushed through the 1-60 content as fast as possible while looking away just so I wouldn't be too much exposed to this garbage.
    Same. I'd get to 15 and start doing dungeons. Thankfully Elwynn came through mostly unscathed so I don't mind playing through it. Horde not so much. I still choose to level in Eversong/Ghostlands over the Cata-vamped zones.
    "We must now recognize that the greatest threat of freedom for us all is if we go back to eating ourselves out from within." - John Anderson

  2. #42
    Elemental Lord
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yarathir View Post
    I thought this was about the 80-85 Cata zones.

    I really wanted to rant about Uldum being 50% Indiana Jones reference. God damn, Cataclysm was bad with its references..
    Uldum could have been such a cool zone.. if indiana jones didnt take over and wasnt so empty for the rest... wasted zone..

  3. #43
    Quote Originally Posted by Lane View Post
    I've never seen Rambo, so any references in Redridge are lost on me.
    Well, it's still pretty obvious that it's filled with modern military-movie references non-stop. I never saw the serie on which the post-Cata Westfall zone has been based, but I still notice it's just a neverending pile-up of pop culture references, by the way characters are dressed and speak and word their sentences.
    It's fun exactly once, after which it becomes just a very grating anti-immersive sore.
    Kind of like the Indiana part of Uldum (though the non-Indiana is really great by contrast).

  4. #44
    Quote Originally Posted by Akka View Post
    I never saw the serie on which the post-Cata Westfall zone has been based, but I still notice it's just a neverending pile-up of pop culture references, by the way characters are dressed and speak and word their sentences.
    I had to pause for a minute to remember which series it was, then I remembered CSI: Miami. -_- Westall is another of my bitter disappointments with Cata, less so for Horatio Laine as I'd hoped/expected Westfall would've flourished into a bustling farming zone (complete with restored Moonbrook) after the Defias had been dispatched and farmers reclaimed their land. Instead, it was turned into a dust bowl with an (IMO) less interesting Defias plot and concluded with the destruction of Sentinel Hill, the only place in the whole zone that had been built up since vanilla.
    "We must now recognize that the greatest threat of freedom for us all is if we go back to eating ourselves out from within." - John Anderson

  5. #45
    Quote Originally Posted by Aeula View Post
    In terms of visuals? Everything affected by the Cataclysm kinda got fucked up. But that was part of the theme I guess. I just don't like it.

    In terms of gameplay? Every zone got better. Classic quests were shit outside of class quests and longer questlines. Cataclysm was a massive improvement in every way. Took me playing Classic this year to realise that.

    Even putting up with meme quests is better than suffering through kill 12 and 12 mobs three times for minimal reward quests.
    You know the whole broken word thing would of been better if at some later point (last patch or mop prepatch or somehting) they did a follow up that restored the zones to some semblance of not effed up. Alot of work but at least they wouldn't be stuck on some weird limbo or permanently at the edge of disaster.

    But Imo the whole cataclysm aspect of the revamp was severely misguided. They should have made them stand on their own.

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  6. #46
    Improved:

    • Arathi Highlands
    • Blasted Lands
    • Silverpine Forest
    • Desolace
    • Hinterlands

    Ruined:

    • Hillsbrad Foothills + Alterac Mountain
    • Thousand Needles
    • Stranglethorn Vale
    • Tanaris
    • Azshara
    • Westfall
    • Ashenvale
    • Redridge Mountains
    • Barrens

    They basically removed my favourite leveling zone as an Alliance player (mainly Humans too).

  7. #47
    The Insane Aeula's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dejavuproned View Post
    You know the whole broken word thing would of been better if at some later point (last patch or mop prepatch or somehting) they did a follow up that restored the zones to some semblance of not effed up. Alot of work but at least they wouldn't be stuck on some weird limbo or permanently at the edge of disaster.

    But Imo the whole cataclysm aspect of the revamp was severely misguided. They should have made them stand on their own.

    Sent from my CLT-L04 using Tapatalk
    I agree that designing the zones around the cataclysm itself was a mistake. Fixing the zones is something I want to see them do at some point but with the level squish letting you avoid the old world completely I doubt they will.

  8. #48
    Improved:

    -Winterspring
    -Eastern Plaguelands
    -Hillsbrad Foothills

    Worsened:

    -Ashenvale
    -Thousand Needles

  9. #49
    I don't think I like any of the revamps? I vastly prefer vanilla versions, even the questing experience. I honestly can't think of any single zone that I prefer the Cata version of...just, I really can't.


    A lot of the revamped questing was streamlined, I guess. The old quest used to just be kinda there, in random places, but I liked that. I liked the bunch of little stories, instead of turning the whole zone into a single questline/series/pun/pop culture. There were several places where you'd just run into a quest in a totally random spot, and a lot of those are gone. And a lot of the zones just had their own little problems, and then everything was made about twilight hammer, horde, deathwing, crazy elementals. I don't think that was good, long term.


    How about which zones they totally ruined, instead?! That's easier!


    Azshara - oh my god I'll never get over this. Sure, there are actually quest to do here now but I LIKED that the original zone barely had any, especially for horde. There were just a few you had to look for, and the zone felt so empty and mysterious and I simply loved it. I went there all the time, just to be there, I'd never done that with any zone before - It was beautiful and I just won't ever get over what they did to it.


    Darkshore - it's so annoying trying to navigate this zone now, and it was another that I loved a lot. The quest are annoying. But the landscape without flying is ridiculous.


    Thousand Needles - Ugh......


    Ashenvale - Another favorite, ruined. I hate the questing experience, the type of quest, the visual changes, just all of it.


    Eastern / Western Plaguelands - Originally these were really creepy and mysterious zones. I vastly prefer the original atmosphere. They just added way too many jokes, puns, "easter eggs", and lighthearted-ness into the classic revamps.


    Those are my top "absolutely ruined please revert them" zones.
    As to what is left, I still prefer the originals, but they aren't as offensive to me. Winterspring is still my favorite zone ever, thankfully they didn't touch much there. I admit 100% that questing pace itself is better in a lot of these zones, but it was at the sacrifice of immersion, atmosphere, mystery, freedom (they're all very linear now - you must follow the quest path), and I don't agree with it.

  10. #50
    Most of the OP's bad zones would have been fine if the sense of threat wasn't severely diminished in them.

    Thousand Needles was destroyed for lore purposes. I mean, the dragon was a bad end boss but at least he got to do something before we facerolled on him.

  11. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by Resentless View Post
    With classic out and everyone being able to see all the zones in their pre-cata version once again, it occurred to me that I preferred some of these in the vanilla version but also realised cata improved many in others.

    The ones that stand out as being ruined imho are:
    1. Redridge Mountains
    2. Thousand Needles
    3. Eastern Plaguelands
    4. Tanaris
    5. Alterac Mountains (basically removed and next to no quests or lore there anymore).
    6. Loch Modan

    While the improved ones are:
    1. Silverpine Forest
    2. Hillsbrad Foothills
    3. Duskwood
    4. Searing Gorge
    5. Stonetalon Mountains

    What do you think? I'll edit in reasons later or in comments if there are questions. Just had the thought on the bus home!
    Id say most of cata's improvements were actually good, the exceptions id say were mainly to zones that actually didnt get many changes, staying mostly similar to their vanillia counterpart, like Silithus, which felt boring and samey.

    However, the new zones from Hyjal to TH?

    The only one I actually like is TH, every single other new zone in Cata, from Hyjal (which is dooable mainly for alt farming) and the other 3 are completley forgettable, nobody touches vashjir unless your a masochist, deepholm is largely never used ever, and uldum is just... boring.

    TH is the only one with a remotley enjoyable storyline.

    In many ways its also a reflection of the failure of cata, considering said storyline was meant to have big cinematic openings for both alliance+horde but only the horde one ever got fully impliamented with the alliance getting a brief fargo-flintlocke meme intro.

    See, this is the funny thing about that Horde favoratism people say doesnt exist, it does, ever since Cata onwards many of the game design's focus has been Horde-centric char development.

    Cata: Horde takes major swathes of land to balance its Alliance-centric counterpart, has huge shifts in lore and paradigm, main neutral char was Thrall.
    MoP: Mainly Horde focused story with Alliance and friends being *side chars* for the most part.
    WoD: Its literally an expansion about Orcs, Draenei get a presence but are largely sidelined for Gul'dan and Grommash.
    Legion: Got 2 cutscenes for Horde at launch, Horde complained alliance got a specific cutscene in a .2 patch just because alliance actually got the closure they needed.
    BfA: Legitimately MoP 2.0
    Shadowlands: Legitmately WoD 2.0

    Honestly, I am beyond sick of Horde-centered storylines, it is beyond time the Alliance got a heavy alliance themed expansions showing the flaws and imperfections of a seemingly *united* people struggling to remain one.

    Instead we get more Horde fighting amoung themselves, Alliance having to save them *again* from themselves.

    And repeat.

    However, keeping focus on the topic and Cata relevency, Cata did give the Horde its first real expansion where it had alot more char development, ill admit, pre Cata, with exception to blood elves, Horde was mainly a backburner faction, though TBC was legit the blood elf expansion by the end.

    The biggest highlight goes to the Tristfal, Silverpine, Hillsbrad and WPL storyline which is largely a good and well consistant story for undead throughout.

    Arathi is a bonus for Horde on that one.

    For Alliance id say the best new content for revamped zones was mainly Westfall and Ashenvale, the rest were largely forgettable.

    On the neutral side id say EPL was a fun change of pace, and the more narrative driven experience in Felwood was interesting.
    Last edited by CaptainV; 2019-12-22 at 12:18 AM.

  12. #52
    It's all about Darkshore for me, was one of the things I was really pumped for about classic. Absolutely adore the OG version of that place, both cause of the atmosphere and cause of nostalgia. Hate cata for it.

  13. #53
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    I feel Darkshore was ruined. So much nostalgia from that zone in Vanilla. Glad I got to experience it again in Classic.

  14. #54
    Well, seems everyone misses darkshore! Can't say I've done it post-cata on alliance, but I've done the classic version and it was pretty good fun, definitely immersive.

    So I'm seeing a lot of comments about "how can you dislike redridge?" Well, if one thing was lost from the cata revamp, it was how immersive the zones were. Eastern Plaguelands is easier to explain. It went from one of the hardest, creepiest zones in the game, where the moment I heard the music I thought "oh shit, this is scary" to how it is in cata where you've got this cute family of worgen lady/dwarf paladin/belf paladin, doing pretty normal stuff and not at all fearing for their lives. EPL had a lot of horror elements to it back then, and it certainly still does now when you go to specific places, but I don't get that feel AT ALL from the questing experience.

    Redridge is much the same here. The questing was intensely immersive before the revamp. It really felt like one of these classic fantasy zones. As someone else said, it was fun to go through post-cata exactly ONCE, after that the jokes, one liners and action hero story just utterly destroyed my immersion.

    I see someone hates the fact that hillsbrad stopped being available to alliance, and I can see how thats a terrible change for them, but for immersion now as a forsaken character, the revamped tirisfal-silverpine-hillsbrad-arathi-hinterlands-wpl story is really really good. I enjoy going through them still to this day, and they were good zones pre-cata as well.

    I think in a lot of cases, the pre-cata versions just had a lot more mystery around them. Some of the more end-game zones didn't have a lot in them so they felt more mysterious as you explored them without any direction or faction involvement, whereas cata gave each zone a fully fleshed out questing experience that had a conclusion and in some cases that takes away from the mystery.

    WPL is interesting to me because it went from a similarly spooky zone as EPL to having quite a good story in the post-cata version but had lost all of its feel as a spooky zone. The music sounds uplifting, the mist is fading from it, doesn't really look like part of the "plaguelands" anymore.

  15. #55
    Quote Originally Posted by Resentless View Post
    Eastern Plaguelands is easier to explain. It went from one of the hardest, creepiest zones in the game, where the moment I heard the music I thought "oh shit, this is scary"
    That's how I feel about Classic Duskwood. The music with that bass line that sounds like a rapid heartbeat, possibility of encountering Stitches along the road, Mor'Ladim chasing you around while you try to kill skeletons, etc. I don't hate Cata-Duskwood and it didn't get the EPL treatment, but it does feel far less theatening. I did like Sven as a Worgen though.

    I see someone hates the fact that hillsbrad stopped being available to alliance, and I can see how thats a terrible change for them, but for immersion now as a forsaken character, the revamped tirisfal-silverpine-hillsbrad-arathi-hinterlands-wpl story is really really good. I enjoy going through them still to this day, and they were good zones pre-cata as well.
    Having recently done those zones, I didn't see any tie in between them, their stories (such as they are) are self-contained. Arathi and Hinterlands in particular were barely changed from vanilla. I'm fairly certain in vanilla you got all of the Jintha'Alor quests at once. Granted, the NPCs were elites, but I don't remember being sent in there half a dozen times like you are now. It got to the point I refused to complete the zone without flying because I was sick of being repeatedly sent to the summit. No remote quest turn in like the early Cata-vamped zones have, no NPC that follows you around to turn quests into/give new quests, just utterly ridiculous and I thought Arathi was bad with Stromgarde.
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  16. #56
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nightblade2091 View Post
    At first glance, thought this thread was about the zones introduced. Since I'm in that mindset anyway, Uldum is without-a-doubt my favorite zone in the game; the tol'vir are an amazing race that I wish they'd expand upon more, vast dune sea zones are the BEST, and I love Indiana Jones. As for the zone that Cata did 'wrong', I guess you could say Vashj'ir (though certainly not because of the visuals, which were INCREDIBLE). Also, I personally was not a fan of Deepholm, or really Hyjal for that matter; don't know if it's just because it's been so long since I've leveled through them, but as I remember I was very bored in those zones.
    Same. I agree about uldum, and its structure design is WAY underused and by that I mean it literally only exists in uldum which is a crime. Awesome zone and vash is actually pretty cool now that I've done it on pve mode. It was fucking canceraids on pvp servers and I hated it with a passion for a long time. Hyjal is the worst out of all of them, really lame boring zone. Twilight highlands was alright. Not bad not great. All in all they were way better than what we've got since then.

  17. #57
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    The ones that stand out as being ruined imho are:
    1 - Redridge Mountains
    2 - Thousand Needles
    3 - Tanaris
    4 - Hillsbrad Foothills
    5 - Tirisfal Glades

    While the improved ones are:
    1 - Desolace
    2 - Barrens
    3 - Eastern Plaguelands
    4 - Western Plaguelands
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  18. #58
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    Darkshore, Ashenvale ruined.

    Zone quests were much more streamlined. Zones like redridge and westfall were good, but i still prefer the more wide open quests if you will. Plus I can't STAND that stupid tornado in westfall.
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  19. #59
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    No part of the revamped old world from Cata was good. Especially bad are barrens and hillsbrad

  20. #60
    Quote Originally Posted by Highelf View Post
    Darkshore, Ashenvale ruined.

    Zone quests were much more streamlined. Zones like redridge and westfall were good, but i still prefer the more wide open quests if you will. Plus I can't STAND that stupid tornado in westfall.
    Yeah westfall and darkshore were ruined with those eyesores

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