fair statement? 9.1 is reduced to korthia + instanced content

[Orwell7]

Absolutely.

WoW is a COMBAT SIMULATOR since ages. Anything added besides that is.. trash most of the time. Like, garrisons, pet battles, warfronts, you name it.
The masses of people don't even LIKE mmo's. WoW was NOT successful because it was an MMO - it could have been a Diablo game with monthly fee, after Warcraft 1-2-3 it would be 100% a hit.

Blizz realized soon that the masses don't like the tediousness of MMOs - they made WoW a "baby" MMO, making everything in it "easy". Over time people saw that the MMO-like things are easy: reputation, professions, languages, over-arching storylines, faction vs. faction war, they were all meaningless IN WOW. And they gradually removed it.

Now we have what people "liked": the combat.

And it is glorious, in Legion and BfA I had 2 characters, now I have 9, all of them were 210+ before 9.1.

Blizz devs should cater to THEIR playerbase: the minmaxer combat fans. We don't need shit like farming rares for mounts. We need MORE instances, more interactions between specs, multiple raid instances in a season... and just make the gear/sytem treadmill invisible, and we have a game that has 2-3 seasons per year and I would pay the sub till the day I die.

[Echo of Soul]

Azeroth, EK, Kalimdor are useless. the new zones introduced in 9.0 are basically useless. the current game is mostly 1 zone, Korthia, which is pretty much an instanced zone, plus tiny sandbox arenas, instanced dungeons, and instanced raids.

without noticing it, did 9.1 slyly strip the world from world of warcraft? are we truly in the age where is a universal hub with portals to everything and no game world?

WoW has always been like that. All content outside of the current patch is always obsolete in WoW. It's a very small game.

[Ivarr]

Yeah this is a problem with not just patches being episodic, but the expansions being episodic as well. Legion and BfA both have the same world quest format as Shadowlands. This means that extending the world quest emissaries to Legion and BfA as well would be a trivial task game development wise. However it would greatly increase the pool of world quests that players have to do.

It would befit Blizzard to simply add all the previous world quest content into the mix of any .1 patch. People have churned through the current content enough, and now it can be broken up. It's a shame we can't go further back than Legion. I would love to include Draenor and older content as well. But a rehaul expansion of Azeroth that would provide wold quests in at least Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms would solve this for a great deal.


Since Legion came out Blizzard is sitting on a wealth of game content that can remain relevant throughout further expansions. Since Legion they've started to create content that can be made additive to the current version rather than being supplanted by it.

[Deadite]

Uh... callings are still in the other 4 zones... Those are still a thing...

If you still need rep i guess. Not sure why anyone would still do them other wise.

[Zantera]

If you still need rep i guess. Not sure why anyone would still do them other wise.

Been doing them every day on main and up until 9.1 dropped did them on 3 alts as well. Pretty easy gold for someone who doesn't like farming raw materials or playing with the auction house. Made something like 2.5 million on callings/paragons (and the stuff you get that you can sell) since SL came out which doesn't feel too bad for something that is fairly easy to do and doesn't take too long.

[Zulggun]

If you still need rep i guess. Not sure why anyone would still do them other wise.

I still do the callings to get the rep for mounts/gold also the quests in 9.0 zones are good for anima. If you got everything from 9.0 zones they would not be important for you anyway so what's the point of op whining?

[Kokolums]

You get to the Argent Tournament with a tabard that teleports you there. By your logic it is the same as Korthia.

You were just given that tabard like you are given the korthia portal. And at least it was out there in the world.

- - - Updated - - -

Shhh, nobody tell OP about the Isle of Quel'Danas!

Damn, that was a beautiful zone. Korthia and most other zones look drab, dreary and depressing that make you want to log off.

[Super Dickmann]

This is about 15 years too late. @Ivarr though is right. They should just allow you to catch up through the 10 or so catch-up islands if you want. Put it in a .5 patch after the current gimmick has exhausted itself.

[Lochton]

You were just given that tabard like you are given the korthia portal. And at least it was out there in the world.

Korthia is there too? You can if you wish, travel from Ve'nari to Korthia, take the flight path, or portal, or even Wormhole generator? I mean, just because it is in a different section of the current world, does not mean it isn't there?

[Kokolums]

I fail to understand why people are even bringing up IQD, or Isle of Thunder, or Molten Front as if those things are some sort of rebuttal to the OP. It wasn't a good thing then. Its not a good thing now. Although this is particularly brazen, with just 1 new zone, its very tiny, and there's a direct portal from it to the universal town hub. They can't even bother to make us engage with the game world in any way at all, they can't bother to have 2 hubs, they can't even bother to make it big. This must be the minimum effort patch zone ever.

[Couchpotato2013]

I feel like complaints from people saying there is no engagement with the world need to be substantiated with an all the things screencap on debug mode.

Inb4 cosmetic insanity collection mini-game retort. It is the only addon that brings together achievements, and other things by activity and zone. And using debug mode, standardizes everything to highest levels.

Aka higher % done (overall and shadowlands categories) means more weight in the argument basically.

[Ivarr]

This is about 15 years too late. @Ivarr though is right. They should just allow you to catch up through the 10 or so catch-up islands if you want. Put it in a .5 patch after the current gimmick has exhausted itself.

I was thinking just putting the old (BfA and Legion) emissary quests into the mix of existing emissaries. That way as a player you still feel you're getting some direction from the game and aren't overwhelmed with the choice of three (plus) expansions worth of world quests, even though they're open as well.

Then the Emissaries, which you now have to visit in their own spot, will give you some reward relevant to the current game, plus completing the exalted reputation bar gives you an end-game reward equal to the current expansion's emissary reputation rewards.

And of course players should still have the option to opt out of this feature. If they prefer to stick to the current expansion's content then they should be able to do so at no disadvantage. They get the same amount of emissaries quests and perhaps the players who included the old content should get a limit on the total amount of world quests equal to the ones available in the current expansion. Otherwise grinding three times as many world quests in a day would become the new norm and that's not the intention.

[Paperfox]

The concern I have is how long will it be until Korthia becomes old. When you just don't want to do it anymore?

I did the 9.0 storyline twice and that was enough, and once more is too much.

[Djaye]

unfortunately this is how i see the future of WoW. port hubs with no grand continents.
less bugs with a smaller world and easier to pump out quickly.
less emmersive, absolutely. all the zones of SL together dont feel as big as original Barrens does.
many will claim that the world was dull and empty, but do we really need an enemy every 10 meters?
classic WoW was amazing for mainly the fact of the open world they created and its enormous scale. Azeroth is huge.
my last wish for the game would be an actual accessable open world azeroth that would allow you to travel everywhere by flying mount.
want to fly from northrend to panderia? go for it, may take an hour or two, have fun.-

[rhorle]

argent tournament was out in the game world. as far as i can remember both molten front portal and isle of thunder were out in the game world. korthia is different. you dont interact with the game world. you go directly from the shared city hub to korthia via portal. you skip the game world.

Molten front was literally its own instance/zone that was accessed by a portal in Mt. Hyjal. Isle of Thunder was its own zone accessed by a flight path. Korthia having a portal from the capital doesn't mean anything in the context you are using it. Because it is still connected to the maw and you can get to the zone as long as you are in the maw (which also has a portal in Oribos but certain classes can glide through the in between to the maw). You don't skip the game world any more then you do with any other post-launch zone added to the game. TBC did the same thing with the Sunwell content. Took a portal and only had content in the new zone.

The only issue with the "world" and Korthia is that they didn't attach it to Desmotaeron to keep it more connected to the 9.1 quests/experience. If they attached it up there it could have incorporated the assaults and "battle" between the two forces better.

[Ivarr]

All the zones of SL together dont feel as big as original Barrens does.

What's missing is what architects call 'liminal space'. The space in between spaces. The filler that ensures locations don't feel cramped and hectic. Legion was the worst. The Broken Islands felt like an overcrowded theme park. It feels unnatural. Humans aren't accustomed to walk from one meaningful spot into the next. You couldn't run away from mobs without running into a different cluster of mobs. BfA was slightly better in this regard but then Shadowlands contracted to a dense experience again.

I'm not sure why Blizzard is doing this. It seems deliberate. It seems like they're taking artistic pride in having every square meter of the game have something interesting going on.

If that's the case then their design is misguided. Not every area needs purpose. Long stretches of generic area have their own purpose, which is to provide the experience of travelling towards somewhere else. The more generic filler, the more liminal space in between quest objectives and mob clusters, the more time players get to catch a breath and just wander around.

[Boddhi]

Absolutely.

WoW is a COMBAT SIMULATOR since ages. Anything added besides that is.. trash most of the time. Like, garrisons, pet battles, warfronts, you name it.
The masses of people don't even LIKE mmo's. WoW was NOT successful because it was an MMO - it could have been a Diablo game with monthly fee, after Warcraft 1-2-3 it would be 100% a hit.

Blizz realized soon that the masses don't like the tediousness of MMOs - they made WoW a "baby" MMO, making everything in it "easy". Over time people saw that the MMO-like things are easy: reputation, professions, languages, over-arching storylines, faction vs. faction war, they were all meaningless IN WOW. And they gradually removed it.

Now we have what people "liked": the combat.

And it is glorious, in Legion and BfA I had 2 characters, now I have 9, all of them were 210+ before 9.1.

Blizz devs should cater to THEIR playerbase: the minmaxer combat fans. We don't need shit like farming rares for mounts. We need MORE instances, more interactions between specs, multiple raid instances in a season... and just make the gear/sytem treadmill invisible, and we have a game that has 2-3 seasons per year and I would pay the sub till the day I die.

Yeah that’s how it is. The reason I am still around in wow and not in ffxiv is that the combat in wow is still quite appealing to me. Smack shit up here feels and looks just good and honestly it’s all I want to do. I don’t mind all the Systems, borrowed powers etc., in the end they are just numbers that do not matter. I exclusively play fury warrior because it’s the pinnacle of spec combat fun to me, I went venthyr because condemn and how it makes fury even more appealing. Covenant legendary to make combat more fast paced even longer. Yes, we need MORE instances, dungeons, raids to mash our buttons ffs. Some farming and daily stuff is fine for me, gives me something to do, but in the end i just want to see my character woosh around and mow down shit.

[MrLachyG]

Isle of Thunder was its own zone accessed by a flight path..

Actually you had to use a portal to get to Isle of Thunder. There was no direct flight path from Pandaria

[rhorle]

Actually you had to use a portal to get to Isle of Thunder. There was no direct flight path from Pandaria

I thought they added one in after the initial assault/portal. I must just be getting it confused with the isle of giants.

[Amnaught]

argent tournament was out in the game world. as far as i can remember both molten front portal and isle of thunder were out in the game world. korthia is different. you dont interact with the game world. you go directly from the shared city hub to korthia via portal. you skip the game world.

You most definitely teleported to Isle of Thunder and Molten Front. And Argus and Nazjatar.....