The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Luck4]

To toss in my own pair of pennies, I'm personally of the mind that a world revamp would be a very good and desirable thing, and that it is very possible, though I am also of the mind people are getting a tad too confident about it. We've had quite a few false alarms thus far, and those who are in that camp are getting far too confident, I think. Still, I'm holding out hope for it myself in spite of that.

That's for sure, nothing is confirmed, and I think every time we get a new expansion that isn't a revamp makes said revamp even more unlikely to happen.

I would advise everyone to keep a healthy conversation about it, especially those that want said Revamp, for instance sometimes I come to this thread wanting to talk about it but I stop after seeing so many people already posting about it, and after all, we're still in 10.0, and this topic may bother people that come here to talk about Dragonflight related content, and I don't wanna make anyone hate the World Revamp idea as I did see happening with a class concept that shouldn't be named.

[huth]

There's no need to keep the same quest density though, as the leveling experience is pretty short these days. This time around questing should be tied to high-end/high-level content and focused on the narrative, like today's campaigns.

The point of the Revamp isn't leveling or graphics, it's meant to advance the lore surrounding the OG races and to give us evergreen zones that can be used to host more events in the future, back in BFA we had many events that happened in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms offscreen because of how outdated these zones are aesthetically and chronologically speaking, for instance, in 8.3 Blizzard picked Uldum a CATA zone and Vale of Eternal Blossom a MOP zone to host its events, meanwhile, in 8.0-8.1 they used two Vanilla zones (Arathi/Darkshore) but not before Revamping both of them.

If they didn't use Kalimdor and EK because they were outdated, why did they use Uldum, Arathi and Darkshore? All of those are the same age. And they're all Cata zones. The original Vanilla zones haven't been in the game since Cataclysm.

Your argument is nonsensical. Those events happened offscreen because showing them would have been a waste of resources. Not because they happened in outdated zones.

And of course they revamped the zones in BfA - there wouldn't be anything to do otherwise. What's the point of going to Uldum when it's still in the same state we left it at the end of Cata?

You're attributing way to much to age when the actual answer is much simpler: It would take limited resources they would rather invest elsewhere to do it.

Didn't you guys notice how the story is imprisoned in the new landmasses of the current expansion since WOD? This is not fun nor healthy for the game/franchise and makes it feel small and generic.

No, i didn't. I did notice however that this has been happening all the way back to TBC, with the biggest outlier being the comparatively recent BfA.

[Ersula]

If they didn't use Kalimdor and EK because they were outdated, why did they use Uldum, Arathi and Darkshore? All of those are the same age. And they're all Cata zones. The original Vanilla zones haven't been in the game since Cataclysm.

You realize they revamped Uldum, Arathi & Darkshore, yeah?

They felt that Cataclysm revamp was necessary, but people missed the pre-cata versions of zones, thus creating WoW classic years later. Also the focus on effectively recreating the entire game hurt Cataclysm's endgame development.

The simple solution: Make EK & Kalimdor the setting of a new expansion, but don't remove the previous iteration of the zones. The revamped version will *only* be level 70+ content rather than creating a new leveling experience, while 1 - 60 will use the existing versions. "Offscreen" events are really unsatisfying and there have been so much that's happened to Azeroth since Cataclysm it feels necessary to eventually reflect those changes in game.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

The fact that the old world isn't on pair with anything from 2012+ is making Blizzard avoid telling any stories in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms, which is pretty bad, since these places are the foundation of this franchise. We should be seeing story updates, events, dungeons, and even raids in those places from time to time, which btw was the case in The Burning Crusade/Wrath of the Lich King/Cataclysm/Mists of Pandaria, but since Warlords of Draenor Blizzard is avoiding like a plague to use the old world for literally anything other than pre-expansion events.

Didn't you guys notice how the story is imprisoned in the new landmasses of the current expansion since WOD? This is not fun nor healthy for the game/franchise and makes it feel small and generic.

Ignoring updated zones like dark shore they have reused old world zones for like every heritage quest and follow up quest like the blood elf and dark iron ones, And they reused red ridge and I think a couple other zones during the Kyrian campaign.

Blizzard haven’t been limiting story. To imprisoned landmasses at all there just aren’t many relevant ones for the themes the expansions want to cover.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Its really refreshing seeing a bunch of people on MMOC arguing about a supposed world revamp than complaining about current content. I feel like thats a really good sign.

I was thinking the same haha!

[Nymrohd]

The easiest way to do a revamp is to do what they did to Arathi. Zones retain their zone borders but the terrain in the zone proper may change. As for the content it could be full on expansion leveling zone or it could just be an evergreen area with vignettes and objectives.
It's not ideal. One of the biggest issues with the vanilla worlds ARE zone borders; they are shoddily made compared to what came in MoP and after and they barely touched them in Cataclysm beyond adding some empty terrain, fixing all the places you could fall through the world at and maybe adding an easter egg or two. So a solution that doesn't let them change the borders is already mediocre. It also doesn't solve perhaps the #1 request, merging Quel'thalas with the rest of EK.
Ofc they could START with Lordaeron. It is the place that needs the most work (due to Quel'thalas and all the missing terrain in Northeron/Hills of Maisara). In that scenario you would do a more proper revamp there and then move with zone by zone elsewhere.
One thing that would be interesting and would likely require some tech/testing would be the ability to phase two zones so that in the phase they behave like a single zone (with a single chat). That would let them do piecemail updates that combine a couple of zones together and could let them fix some of the worst border issues while retaining the borders elsewhere.

[Luck4]

If they didn't use Kalimdor and EK because they were outdated, why did they use Uldum, Arathi and Darkshore? All of those are the same age. And they're all Cata zones. The original Vanilla zones haven't been in the game since Cataclysm.

Uldum isn't a Vanilla zone, and they just placed NPCs there in 8.3, they didn't change the terrain or their buildings, Arathi/Darkshore on the other hand were dramatically changed, also Arathi barely received any changes in Cataclysm.

Your argument is nonsensical. Those events happened offscreen because showing them would have been a waste of resources. Not because they happened in outdated zones.

We had invasions in all the zones of both Zandalar and Kul'tiras in 8.1, and most of these offscreen events could've been explained/shown using such a system, also would make a lot more sense to see such invasions across Azeroth than just the two islands since the expansion name was Battle for Azeroth not Battle for the South Seas, but Blizzard didn't use invasion in the old zones because these zones are outdated and would need a revamp like Arathi/Darkshore.

If these zones weren't outdated why would Blizzard drive away the new players from them? The very first character that you create goes to a random island in the middle of nowhere and after that straight to Kul'tiras/Zandalar. New players don't even see the background of the races they choose to play anymore...

And of course they revamped the zones in BfA - there wouldn't be anything to do otherwise. What's the point of going to Uldum when it's still in the same state we left it at the end of Cata?

Uldum is in the same state that we saw in Cataclysm, they only added NPCs there, they didn't change the terrain or buildings, same thing with Valley of the Eternal Blossom, they only rolled back to the 5.0 version of the zone and added NPCs.

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With that said, I explained my point. I don't want to start a debate about it or change anybody's mind/PoV, so I'll not engage further.

I'll take my advice to keep the discussion light and healthy.

[Wangming]

Blizzard haven’t been limiting story. To imprisoned landmasses at all there just aren’t many relevant ones for the themes the expansions want to cover.

Well, it is up to them to pick a theme.

[Nymrohd]

Ignoring updated zones like dark shore they have reused old world zones for like every heritage quest and follow up quest like the blood elf and dark iron ones, And they reused red ridge and I think a couple other zones during the Kyrian campaign.

Blizzard haven’t been limiting story. To imprisoned landmasses at all there just aren’t many relevant ones for the themes the expansions want to cover.

This might be controversial but I think Legion would have been told far better in a revamped old world. Imagine if the Broken Isles just had the Suramar area (plus perhaps the Legion and Nightborne areas from Aszuna and Blackrook Hold tucked in) and tell the other stories in revamped zones. Meanwhile have all the Legion invasions happen in existing areas that we care about and slowly escalate them (perhaps even have Legion invasions in capitals; we know in canon at least Thunder Bluff was invaded).

[crusadernero]

Yes, it is. In which world do you think questing is something difficult when developing the game? I'm not saying that they need 3 days to do everything, but you use as an argument that putting quests and NPCs is difficult lmao.

Have you seen the quality of the orcs' ancestral quests? yes it takes time to gather all the information, but it's far from being more difficult than creating new things that require more resources.

They already have a base to build on, and for you that's incredibly more complex than not having a base? they have people who are supposed to know the story, from there you just have to continue what has already been done.

You honestly believe that redoing every quest in EK & K is easy and quick to do? Remove the hundreds of quests that are already there, create new ones and since they do that the zones themself probably gotta be redone too. In two landmasses probably bigger than several wow xpacs combined.

Yeah ok. The only good enough reason to redo EK & K would be for these landmasses being directly involved in a new xpac. Even then, its a big ask.

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This might be controversial but I think Legion would have been told far better in a revamped old world. Imagine if the Broken Isles just had the Suramar area (plus perhaps the Legion and Nightborne areas from Aszuna and Blackrook Hold tucked in) and tell the other stories in revamped zones. Meanwhile have all the Legion invasions happen in existing areas that we care about and slowly escalate them (perhaps even have Legion invasions in capitals; we know in canon at least Thunder Bluff was invaded).

I agree. If Blizzard would ever redo EK & K again, it gotta be connected to new and relevant content. Like with Cata, but instead of just adding new zones and have all endgame activity being there, they could in a larger way use the old established zones+ a couple of new ones.

[Nymrohd]

You honestly believe that redoing every quest in EK & K is easy and quick to do? Remove the hundreds of quests that are already there, create new ones and since they do that the zones themself probably gotta be redone too. In two landmasses probably bigger than several wow xpacs combined.

Yeah ok. The only good enough reason to redo EK & K would be for these landmasses being directly involved in a new xpac. Even then, its a big ask.

Yeah I am pretty sure questing is far more time consuming for them than actually editing the terrain. I say this because I've seen the work done on the latter in private servers with I'd expect vastly inferior tools to what Blizzard has internally (e.g. check out Epsilon). But questing is much more time consuming; just writing text alone takes time, let alone pathing, mob behaviour, quest turn in and all the different triggers that are riddled with bugs during alphas and betas; and ofc Voice Acting can take forever. That's the hard part.
I think a phased version of the zones (see what I said above; possibly with a tech to combine 2-3 zones into a single phased version) that is just the revamped terrain, mobs, gathering nodes and then plenty of rares/vignettes and fairly basic world quests but no actual questing is the best chance for something. World building can be done with NPC text, with a revamped and possibly renamed archeology (maybe changed into something that better encompasses current and recent history as well).
Then questing can be added later as needed or even alternative features. If there is a questing story that should be told there or something that fits current expansion events do that (and some of the zones should be used for whatever the expansion is for sure). But you could have events like invasions or the soup or have new types of events (always wished they could use garrison tech and a regional event to have us build/rebuild towns).

[Lahis]

You realize they revamped Uldum, Arathi & Darkshore, yeah?

Nothing was changed or remade in Uldum. Invasion weeks just phase in Black Empire obelisks.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Nothing was changed or remade in Uldum. Invasion weeks just phase in Black Empire obelisks.

Exactly, people have to stop pretending Uldum got a revamp when all it got was Black Empire mobs and a few floating platforms.

Excuse me, are you on purpose not to understand or am I expressing myself badly? There was never any question of leaving the quests, when I say that these are easy to do that obviously does not mean that we leave the old ones. Of course a revamp addresses all aspects...

Imo your point was pretty clear, and I agree with you. And people comparing the 25 "Kill X and pick up X" quests in Elwynn to the elaborated campaigns and side quests we have now like they both would take the same time to come up with... just no.

That being said, the more I think about it the more I realise a revamp of the old zones as they currently exist wouldn't make a lot of sense in terms of scale, with dragon riding you'd fly from Stormwind to Booty Bay in a matter of seconds and that wouldn't be great for immersion. It'd probably best if they built the continents from scratch and upscale the size of the old zones to fit modern standards. It's a lot more work, but with those new 3D "smart" elements they've been using to design DF, such as clusters of plants and modulable rocks, I imagine it wouldn't be too much of an issue.

Also, hasn't the dev team considerably grown over the past two years or something?

[Nymrohd]

Exactly, people have to stop pretending Uldum got a revamp when all it got was Black Empire mobs and a few floating platforms.

Uldum got a revamp where it mattered; its lore. Instead of the ridiculous Indiana Jones expy it got lore about the human pirates stranded in Tanaris who moved in and created a new culture in Uldum plus we got more on the Tolvir.

[Wangming]

THIS!

Nobody wants the geography of Duskwood to completely change. What we want is the story to acknowledge the things happened during and since Legion. Same for Tirisfal, Silverpine and Gilneas.

[Nymrohd]

THIS!

Nobody wants the geography of Duskwood to completely change. What we want is the story to acknowledge the things happened during and since Legion. Same for Tirisfal, Silverpine and Gilneas.

There are a few places where I would really like the zone borders to change. Like the entire eastern coast of Eastern Kingdoms south of Twilight Highlands is a mess. And that would not be doable without changing some zone borders. I also think a new version of Zul'gurub would look vastly different with current assets; the walls of ZG make very little sense in the geography they are on (And I wish the entire area could be open to questing in a revamp, same with Zul'aman which should have an entire zone around it.

[Lahis]

THIS!

Nobody wants the geography of Duskwood to completely change. What we want is the story to acknowledge the things happened during and since Legion. Same for Tirisfal, Silverpine and Gilneas.

Duskwood is built from 25 year old assets. It needs complete rebuild if they want to use it as current expansion content.

[Wangming]

There are a few places where I would really like the zone borders to change. Like the entire eastern coast of Eastern Kingdoms south of Twilight Highlands is a mess. And that would not be doable without changing some zone borders. I also think a new version of Zul'gurub would look vastly different with current assets; the walls of ZG make very little sense in the geography they are on (And I wish the entire area could be open to questing in a revamp, same with Zul'aman which should have an entire zone around it.

Well admittedly some zones need some work. Hell, I always wanted Zul'Gurub to be turned into a legit capital city for the Darkspears. But we are talking about a handful of zones with the combined size of one or at max two DF zones. The rest just need to push the story forward and maybe replace a few low poly character models.

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Duskwood is built from 25 year old assets. It needs complete rebuild if they want to use it as current expansion content.

I said geography. I mean if they are willing to change even the trees to better ones, all the better. But I doubt more mountains would grow just because there was a revamp.

[Nymrohd]

Duskwood is built from 25 year old assets. It needs complete rebuild if they want to use it as current expansion content.

The zone borders do not need to be rebuild though. You would retexture the zone, replace world objects with equivalent world objects. Perhaps shift the terrain to better integrate the Great Tree area (which was hedged off probably for gameplay only reasons).

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I said geography. I mean if they are willing to change even the trees to better ones, all the better. But I doubt more mountains would grow just because there was a revamp.

Arathi Highlands did change in several places, especially in the warfront area tbh. But the borders remained the same. The idea here is how well it could be done piecemail and the crucial part for that is to keep zone borders as they are so you can still move to the next area and the changes are done via phasing.

[George Lucas]

The zone borders do not need to be rebuild though. You would retexture the zone, replace world objects with equivalent world objects. Perhaps shift the terrain to better integrate the Great Tree area (which was hedged off probably for gameplay only reasons).

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Arathi Highlands did change in several places, especially in the warfront area tbh. But the borders remained the same. The idea here is how well it could be done piecemail and the crucial part for that is to keep zone borders as they are so you can still move to the next area and the changes are done via phasing.

This takes even more time than starting from scratch, if Blizzard wants to make something that isn't garbage like Cataclysm. Developers don't just click a button and all textures and assets are flipped (or they could probably make something like that, but the result would suck). The clutter density was completely different back then. The terrain looks horrendous compared to modern WoW, especially mountains. They need all to be rebuild in a sensible way and textures don't just need replacing but redraws basicly anywhere. They would also end up with a lot of unused space that you need to fill in anyway if it's supposed to look better then 2007 (I know Cataclysm came later, but the old revamped zones mostly are not better looking then Burning Crusade).

Arathi was made with a completely different intent and revamped zones shouldn't emulate it. At least unless you want just a tiny timeless isle sandbox that feels like WoW from 2012.