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  1. #1

    The missing sense of adventure - where did it go?

    Yes. I'm going to tell you exactly where it went and you will be shocked - clickbait.

    Contrary to unpopular opinion, vanilla WoW world design had a certain structure to it. You had the "core zones" of your race / faction: Mulgore, Durotar, Teldrassil, Elwynn, Dun Morogh and Tirisfal. These zones had a heavy faction presence. As a new character, you were mostly fighting small-time criminals and minor monster infestations - believable problems for a "core zone".

    The further out from your capital you went, the lesser the presence of your faction became. For example, the Barrens felt like a peripheral province of Durotar with a new corresponding set of Horde problems: collecting supplies for your settlements, fighting fringe cults and defending your settlements from indigenous locals. All believable problems for a peripheral province of a newly-established faction. The Alliance, on the other hand, were fighting corrupt administrators in Westfall and Duskwood - also believable problems for a well-established kingdom.

    Now when you went out even further from the core and the periphery, that's where things got interesting. You journeyed into "wilderness" zones that had a drastically reduced faction presence. Along with this reduced presence, you had much less straightforward quests pointing you do to X in spot Y and collect Z. You'd have to figure out more on your own while traveling through the wilds - where to farm, which professions to level etc. You also encountered neutral towns like Booty Bay and Gadgetzan, where members of both factions would cooperate to survive in the wilds.

    As you went further out, you stumbled into even more desolated zones. You would have places like the Un'goro Crater and the Western Plaguelands which had barely next to no friendly presence - faction, neutral or otherwise. This is where you'd start to run into some really wild things like titanic Dinosaurs eating your face. Correspondingly, you'd also find much greater treasures and valuable materials.

    Lastly, you ventured into openly hostile zones like Silithus and the Eastern Plaguelands. These were the zones where you felt like you were actively in danger and they had the visuals to match their hostile and terrifying ambience.

    This progression from civilization into wilderness into terrifying enemy strongholds is completely absent in post-vanilla expansion. All Shadowlands zones, for example, feel equally lived-in and you are carefully curated into every nook and cranny with little possibilities for independent exploration. In fact, I think the last time we had an "outer wilds" zone with few quests and little friendly presence was Townslong Steppes in MoP and Sholazar Basin in WotLK. Perhaps people said that MoP reignited vanilla's sense of exploration exactly because it tried to recreate that core -> periphery -> outer wilds -> enemy stronghold journey with the Jade Forest -> Valley of the Four Winds -> Kun-lai and Townslong -> Dread Wastes progression?

  2. #2
    Neat perspective on zone structure, which is also why I prefer whole continents to explore rather than separate zones or multiple continents.

    Feels better to progress from the more welcoming zone, or at least not too dangerous after a shipwreck or similar, towards a big bad stronghold, possibly one you might see in the distance but can't access immediately due to lack of entry points until a certain patch or questline.

    Or you do have access and can wander right on in and quickly have to track down your corpse due to being unprepared for the dangers ahead, kinda like Tirisfal vs Plaguelands. One nice walk later and you'll be mauled by a common decaying bear and now you have something to strive towards.

  3. #3
    The Patient Yuli's Avatar
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    This is actually how I designed the world for my "the backside of Azeroth" Pen and Paper. First meeting denizens and cities, then venturing into the wilds.

    Quote Originally Posted by Wilfire View Post
    This progression from civilization into wilderness into terrifying enemy strongholds is completely absent in post-vanilla expansion. All Shadowlands zones, for example, feel equally lived-in and you are carefully curated into every nook and cranny with little possibilities for independent exploration. In fact, I think the last time we had an "outer wilds" zone with few quests and little friendly presence was Townslong Steppes in MoP and Sholazar Basin in WotLK. Perhaps people said that MoP reignited vanilla's sense of exploration exactly because it tried to recreate that core -> periphery -> outer wilds -> enemy stronghold journey with the Jade Forest -> Valley of the Four Winds -> Kun-lai and Townslong -> Dread Wastes progression?
    I think a thing with this is the community not knowing what they want.
    People want to have "adventure"-zones again, just like Silithus.
    But they also want flight paths anywhere.
    And also rant about "ugh we have to fight bears again"
    And "why can't I teleport to every WQ""
    And "why can't I fly at release??"

    All legitimate things people (with 10k+ posts) in this forum are wanting. Not trolls. Legitimate people. I don't get it. But Blizzard obviously has to design stuff for them.
    It goes even further than the "adventure feeling". Kul Tiras is the most realistic land mass in WoW, great transitions, world building and realistic routes, but people rant about how it feels boring because it isn't a f'ing theme park.
    Last edited by Yuli; 2021-03-05 at 09:36 AM.
    WoW players are all trash? M+ leavers? Pug raid fails? You don't have stuff to do? WoW has become a solo player game for you? People don't talk anymore? Everyone's toxic? I have a simple solution, just for you!
    Get social. Join a guild.

  4. #4
    Iteration and success of WoW has lead us to what we have today.

    Unfortunately for the explorer who simply wants a giant sandbox to play in, you probably now realize you aren't the core audience that Blizzard appeals to. Why? Because big open worlds are not cost efficient when we consider the same amount of art and level design resources could be used elsewhere while keeping the quest and story pace relatively the same on a smaller continent that is tailored to a specific experience.

    Big open worlds just aren't as cost effective, in terms of time and manpower to create compared to the amount of use people actually get out of the content. Simple as that.

    Majority of players can be placed generally into 3 main categories - Casuals, Raiders, and PVPers. Casuals mostly just want to go through the story and do the content. Raiders see the content as a means to an end to get to end game. PVPers don't really care at all. Either way, a smaller continent doesn't impact the content all that much.

    I prefer Wrath sized zones and flying, but WoW today is a very different beast from back then.
    Last edited by Triceron; 2021-03-05 at 09:43 AM.

  5. #5
    In comparison in terms of adventure this is how my experiences went:

    Mists: Difficulty through zones seemed linear - you finished at Dread Wastes, where the Sha corruption was most visible and where the real endcap was. You got further and further away from the initial faction conflict that drew you to the shores and got more involved with the natives and their problems, so in that sense you were discovering their place and their problems. Eventually the foreign problems came to a head again afterwards, bringing them into your problems, connecting both more. Basically perfect.

    WoD: The entire expansion had a feeling of being trapped - trapped in the Garrison, trapped clawing your way out of the starting area, trapped clawing your way back out to Azeroth again. Didn't feel like an adventure of your own, more like it was the Iron Horde's. I felt more attached to dealing with the Ogre empire than I did dealing with the Iron Horde because I felt like I actually discovered the Ogre threat and what was going on with that - discovered the slave works, discovered their gladiator pits, discovered their huge empire. That was discovery. By comparison to the Iron Horde - most of that was already known the second you were thrown in - I don't remember feeling that sense of discovery after the introduction. They just kind of frontloaded you with all the Orc stuff... and then didn't stop. Probably played into why people were so tired of Orcs by the end of it - maybe people wanted to explore and discover other things. Probably also why people were so interested in that cut Ogre zone - maybe they were more attached to the Ogres because of that adventure and discovery.

    Legion: The zones were all self-contained. You were allowed to pick your own end-cap story, and thus prioritize what events you felt like were more important first or last. Because this gave the most freedom, in terms of adventuring and exploration it felt the most liberating and the most "exploring" like. Like choosing to go on an adventure, I wanna go there, no I wanna go there - but what about there? Quite literally a gigantic fork in the road leading to different adventures. Do I deal with the Naga? Do I deal with the ghosts of Black Rook? Do I stomp on some Vrykul? Do I help out the Highmountain? I felt the Vrykul was more a personal character's story of going through challenges, but the Highmountain area had a lot more to unpack. The hammer and everything about the Drogbar went pretty hard for a while.

    BFA: Felt like there was less discovery here than in Legion. General vibes kind of summarized zones once you got there and not much really unearthed as you went through. But there was still some things that were pretty impressive, like discovering the Troll titan stuff that lead to Uldir... but you'd only get that Horde-side. Alliance-side there wasn't so much discovery as much as solving personal problems... but the cultures weren't very foreign like in Mists, so there was less discovery and adventure here. Discovering more human lands? Like, we already have a lot of flavors of that already. I didn't find that very adventurous. What discovery you did have about the new humans were basically, like WoD, front-loaded. I guess the most interesting stuff Alliance-side was the Stormsong stuff with the deep-sea corruption. Meanwhile, Horde-side the stuff about Mythrax with the Vulpera and Sethraliss, the stuff about uncovering the threat to the Zandalari Empire seal, Zul, and stopping the invasion -- that was good. It felt like you were uncovering that story more and more as you went through... but the retread of going back to the capital was kind of a weird reset of the adventure and exploration, in hindsight. Also, the other continent and the other faction conflict felt very side-objective. It felt less like the end-cap it was intended to be but rather secondary to the real stuff that was going on. War Campaign was kind of spotty like that - at least as it pertained to Zandalar and Kul'Tiras, it was kinda weird how separate from current affairs on these lands that felt. Kind of ruined the adventure in the foreign land a bit. Didn't feel like I discovered more about the land or its people or the threats going on while dealing with the other faction - it didn't bleed into each other like it would have in other expansions that did this.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Yuli View Post
    Kul Tiras is the most realistic land mass in WoW, great transitions, world building and realistic routes, but people rant about how it feels boring because it isn't a f'ing theme park.
    I do agree that Kul Tiras was fantastically done. One of the things I liked the most about BfA was continent design. While Zandalar was a little more theme park-y, it still felt like a realistic landmass. But my criticism would be that they are still, on a fundamental level, very small. Journeying into the Un'goro Crater felt like an adventure because you were very far away from your capital - perhaps an hour of walking away on foot and at least 10 mins via flightpaths. This "we're beyond the borders of the civilized world" feeling is possible to recreate only on a similarly large continent. While I wouldn't press for a massive Zandalar or Kul Tiras since it would be lore-unfriendly, AU Draenor could have been much, much larger. I'd rather have a massive world that felt more and more wild the farther out from your starting point you went than the densely packed zones we currently have.

    With SL zones things feel very boxed-in and unadventurous to me. Like a real life megapolis.
    Last edited by Wilfire; 2021-03-05 at 10:15 AM.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Wilfire View Post
    While Zandalar was a little more theme park-y, it still felt like a realistic landmass.
    Zandalar realistic? A jungle next to a swamp next to a desert? Riiiight. This is minecraft levels of realism.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Wilfire View Post
    Yes. I'm going to tell you exactly where it went and you will be shocked - clickbait.

    Contrary to unpopular opinion, vanilla WoW world design had a certain structure to it. You had the "core zones" of your race / faction: Mulgore, Durotar, Teldrassil, Elwynn, Dun Morogh and Tirisfal. These zones had a heavy faction presence. As a new character, you were mostly fighting small-time criminals and minor monster infestations - believable problems for a "core zone".

    The further out from your capital you went, the lesser the presence of your faction became. For example, the Barrens felt like a peripheral province of Durotar with a new corresponding set of Horde problems: collecting supplies for your settlements, fighting fringe cults and defending your settlements from indigenous locals. All believable problems for a peripheral province of a newly-established faction. The Alliance, on the other hand, were fighting corrupt administrators in Westfall and Duskwood - also believable problems for a well-established kingdom.

    Now when you went out even further from the core and the periphery, that's where things got interesting. You journeyed into "wilderness" zones that had a drastically reduced faction presence. Along with this reduced presence, you had much less straightforward quests pointing you do to X in spot Y and collect Z. You'd have to figure out more on your own while traveling through the wilds - where to farm, which professions to level etc. You also encountered neutral towns like Booty Bay and Gadgetzan, where members of both factions would cooperate to survive in the wilds.

    As you went further out, you stumbled into even more desolated zones. You would have places like the Un'goro Crater and the Western Plaguelands which had barely next to no friendly presence - faction, neutral or otherwise. This is where you'd start to run into some really wild things like titanic Dinosaurs eating your face. Correspondingly, you'd also find much greater treasures and valuable materials.

    Lastly, you ventured into openly hostile zones like Silithus and the Eastern Plaguelands. These were the zones where you felt like you were actively in danger and they had the visuals to match their hostile and terrifying ambience.

    This progression from civilization into wilderness into terrifying enemy strongholds is completely absent in post-vanilla expansion. All Shadowlands zones, for example, feel equally lived-in and you are carefully curated into every nook and cranny with little possibilities for independent exploration. In fact, I think the last time we had an "outer wilds" zone with few quests and little friendly presence was Townslong Steppes in MoP and Sholazar Basin in WotLK. Perhaps people said that MoP reignited vanilla's sense of exploration exactly because it tried to recreate that core -> periphery -> outer wilds -> enemy stronghold journey with the Jade Forest -> Valley of the Four Winds -> Kun-lai and Townslong -> Dread Wastes progression?
    Classic could do that because the were able to play with 60 level. New expansions always only can work with 10 or even just 5.

    So we cannot get that back because imagine the shitshow if the next expansion gives you 60 level ontop. Or worse. Zones for 60 level but only 5 level on top.

    The big warcraft crowd we have now do not like the open world. They don't want to be forced to travel through it. 2 minutes on ground mount is too much. Leveling from 50 to 60 in 7 hours was to much.
    If you get a zone in endgame without every possible convenience it must be bad. E.g. the maw (it has other problems too but still)

    I agree, that that is somethign i would like to have back. But it won't happen unless they maybe do another world revmap in the future. And i honestly don't see that happening. To much to do for content that you will outlevel in 10 minutes or finsih in an hour.

    They could start shipping more new zones with each expansion. The sense of adventure MAY come back a little bit. But that will never hold on long in endgame because that is just where you spend most of your time.

  9. #9
    It disappeared into familiarity.

    Even if the next expansion was the size of vanilla, there still wouldn't be that same sense of adventure, of the world unfurling before you in ever more expansive plains of danger and surprise.

    It'd be just "Oh, another zone. Better clear it and move on. I'll look at the map to see I'm halfway done with this game now."

    You can't bring that feeling back to WoW. It changed. We changed.

  10. #10
    This is bullshit.

    Literally the only example for your argument is pre-Cata vanilla continents and some of MoP.

    TBC zones weren't set up like this. WotLK zones certainly weren't set up like this.
    The moment you set foot on Borean / Howling Fjord shit was going down up until Icecrown.
    Cata zones are warzones.
    MoP was closer to this because it was designed to be an "explore a new continent" type of narrative.
    WoD wasn't like this. Legion wasn't like this. BfA wasn't like this and SL is not like this.

    There is a narrative reason for this:
    Classic was meant to be explored, literally. The 1-60 leveling was meant to be the content.
    TBC was a mess of wc3 fan-service and random shit happening because it was cool.
    WotLK was an assault on the Lich King. We didn't go to Northrend to explore, Northrend is a hostile shithole, we went to destroy.
    Cata was a literal apocalypse mixed with faction war, not exploration.
    MoP was designed like this narratively.
    WoD is the same as WotLK.
    Legion we had the... Legion to deal with.
    BfA was about 2 very condensed islands that have been inhabited for years now.
    Shadowlands is the literal afterlife. These zones were designed with an actual function, not made for mortals to explore.

  11. #11
    It went away when WoW hit 15 fucking years

  12. #12
    Scarab Lord Alraml's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wilfire View Post
    All Shadowlands zones, for example, feel equally lived-in and you are carefully curated into every nook and cranny with little possibilities for independent exploration.
    Isn’t that the point of the shadowlands though? The zones are created by their ancient ones for their specific purpose so are intentionally made that way

  13. #13
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    I keep coming back every expansion and patch to venture out where I haven't been, dunno what you're on about. SL zones are amazing, each in their very own uniqueness. I find magic realms fitting and while more natural zones have their place in the game I just find them very repetitive and boring as I'd rather venture out my own door than pace through a forest or desert in a computergame trying to mimic the real world. I'll take 'rule of cool' anyday over 'natural and sensical' in a video game aiming at fantasy and monsters.
    Last edited by Tiwack; 2021-03-05 at 01:49 PM.
    If you knew the candle was fire then the meal was cooked a long time ago.

  14. #14
    It is there. You just have to not understand the whole game down to its core systems to really feel it though. Most people just skip the adventure and go right into the "this gives me the best for the amount of time I can put in" option. Which mind you was always available. We see how it worked out in Classic (and I loved Classic btw) that in any version of the game people can and will find the thinnest line to walk along to spend the least amount of time doing something for the greatest rewards.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by NabyBro View Post
    These zones were designed with an actual function, not made for mortals to explore.
    Yeah, and that's the whole point. Devs these days seem to think that extremely annoying puzzles randomly placed on the map equals to exploration somehow.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by NabyBro View Post
    These zones were designed with an actual function, not made for mortals to explore.
    Yeah, and that's the whole point. Devs these days seem to think that extremely annoying puzzles randomly placed on the map equals to exploration somehow.
    Quote Originally Posted by trimble View Post
    WoD was the expansion that was targeted at non raiders.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Triceron View Post
    Iteration and success of WoW has lead us to what we have today.

    Unfortunately for the explorer who simply wants a giant sandbox to play in, you probably now realize you aren't the core audience that Blizzard appeals to. Why? Because big open worlds are not cost efficient when we consider the same amount of art and level design resources could be used elsewhere while keeping the quest and story pace relatively the same on a smaller continent that is tailored to a specific experience.

    Big open worlds just aren't as cost effective, in terms of time and manpower to create compared to the amount of use people actually get out of the content. Simple as that.

    Majority of players can be placed generally into 3 main categories - Casuals, Raiders, and PVPers. Casuals mostly just want to go through the story and do the content. Raiders see the content as a means to an end to get to end game. PVPers don't really care at all. Either way, a smaller continent doesn't impact the content all that much.

    I prefer Wrath sized zones and flying, but WoW today is a very different beast from back then.
    U forgot completionists that are a bit different than the other 3 categories

  17. #17
    Really the only reason is that there is nothing to explore if you already know where everything is. Wow is not real life, there simply isn't enough areas for it to give a constant stream of new discoveries.

    Zones are also not designed to be explored. The only one outside classic was MoP, and exploration is a finite thing.

    And of course there is also flying undercutting the sense of exploration. You need a level of struggle for discoveries to feel impactful. Mounting up and flying somewhere directly isn't really conducive to this feeling.
    The world revamp dream will never die!

  18. #18
    Shadowlands is literally littered with reasons to go off the normal path though.

    There's tons of sidequests all over the place, plenty of treasures to find, etc.
    And the Maw is literally an entire zone that's constantly a danger (Granted at higher ilvls now it's just a frustration moreso).

  19. #19
    Vanilla was adventure, rest of expansions are just challenges. You could just add new raids to vanilla and have same results.

    atm you could pick expansion you prefer to level 1-50 and feel them as adventure. Do this with each expansion with new character.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Yuli View Post
    This is actually how I designed the world for my "the backside of Azeroth" Pen and Paper. First meeting denizens and cities, then venturing into the wilds.



    I think a thing with this is the community not knowing what they want.
    People want to have "adventure"-zones again, just like Silithus.
    But they also want flight paths anywhere.
    And also rant about "ugh we have to fight bears again"
    And "why can't I teleport to every WQ""
    And "why can't I fly at release??"

    All legitimate things people (with 10k+ posts) in this forum are wanting. Not trolls. Legitimate people. I don't get it. But Blizzard obviously has to design stuff for them.
    It goes even further than the "adventure feeling". Kul Tiras is the most realistic land mass in WoW, great transitions, world building and realistic routes, but people rant about how it feels boring because it isn't a f'ing theme park.
    That's exactly it. People want different things. These things are often in direct contrast to one another. No matter what Blizzard does, there's going to be a large subset left disappointed because things weren't done their way. And sadly too many people these days can't deal with things not being tailor made to them. See my signature for further details.
    The most difficult thing to do is accept that there is nothing wrong with things you don't like and accept that people can like things you don't.

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