I still think the zones shown in the leaked screenshots look like they would be really fun to quest in. Especially the red Thousand Needles/Durotar esque area.
I still think the zones shown in the leaked screenshots look like they would be really fun to quest in. Especially the red Thousand Needles/Durotar esque area.
Here's the full webpage. The text itself is not totally convincing as it's pretty vague, but I won't use that as a point against it. The margins on the sides of the page are far too thin, most web designs get as center justified as possible to allow easy transition to mobile reading. If there were just arrows, I'd think otherwise, but the inclusion of "Khaz Algar" and "The Everward" are giving me doubt. Even more to this, it takes up the entire screen, which is also something that Blizzard doesn't do in their web design. Looking at the Dragonflight page, you see that it is more sectioned off taking up more of half the length of the page rather than full.
The description of Khaz Algar also seems confused on whether it's describing a city, a zone or a culture.
Again, I'm sure most of this is ridiculous copium on my part, but I still can't shake the feeling this is an incredible fake.
I personally want a “smaller” world. We’re at what, 700 obtainable mounts? Hundred playable zones? How many dungeons, raids etc. Everytime that number grows the previous things lose a bit of meaning. I think most players agree that When they incorporate the old content i a quests etc it feels great.
They’re in the mindset that they must create the new zones etc to sell their expac and that’s the reality. I just would rather have a more meaningful world for my MMO.
I want the new continent to feel, for the lack of a better word, believable. As messed up the geography and climates of Azeroth are, the old continents (EK, Kalimdor, Northrend, Pandaria, even Kul Tiras and Zandalar) all felt cohesive. I'm not a big fan of putting a few random zones together, with no broader aesthetic. Broken Isles were not perfect, but passable. Dragon Isles however are a hodgepodge of biomes that make no sense. We have a lush, almost jungle-like canyons, next to plains, next to tundra and icebergs, and a zone with floating islands to top it all off. Floating islands were cool in Nagrand, but there was a reason why they would be floating in Nagrand. What's the reason here? Because dragons?
I would like Avaloren to be inspired by Iceland/Faroe Islands/Scotland/England/Ireland. There should be enough diversity here to make a diverse, yet cohesive continet.
I will say the reuse vs new asset ratio seems off compared to Dragonflight, but at the same time reusing Shadowlands assets in DF or BfA assets in SL largely wouldn't work due to thematical differences, so this might just the first time we pick up on it, if the leak is real.
You're missing the forest for the trees. Every expansion reuses existing assets, rigs, etc. Yes, they reuse tree models... But every single thing in this, including the major set pieces seems to be reused or modified assets. No expansion has ever reused assets this heavily and in such a dense concentration.
Sure. They throw old trees in now and then. They also make new trees for basically every zone, because foliage is a big part of making zones feel new, so when you make a canyon-y, rocky red zone similar to Waking Shores, you don't put in Waking Shores trees, because that makes it feel like just Waking Shores. You throw in new, visually striking trees so that it feels like a similar but new zone.
It's very likely that living world assets (the birds and butterflies) will show up in 11.0 zones. It's likely that some of them will be reused. But what are the chances that you take four random screenshots from a trailer or press kit and two of them just so happen to have slightly modified existing living world assets in the exact same front left, easy to see position?
Sure. They reuse or upscale assets. But what are the chances Blizzard sits down to make two huge set pieces in a zone, like giant highly visible statues carved out of a mountain, and they make one an upscaled existing asset, and the other just a dwarf player model in an existing animation? Imagine getting a first look at Vol'dun, and the pyramid was just higher poly vanilla ZF pyramid and in the background, instead of a new, striking, visually distinct snake statue, they just had a stone colored old cobra model.
What are the chances you take four screenshots of different zones (or areas), and of the almost dozen creature, critter, etc. models in the screenshots, none are actually properly new, just mashed together existing assets? And you have basically no new aesthetics? And the screenshots "just so happen" to conveniently have a reference to recent official twitter pictures? And the same extremely basic skybox when the art team has been going 150% on skyboxes lately?
Individually none of these are a huge problem, but together? Go rewatch the dragonflight/shadowlands/etc trailers and see how immediately distinct the zones are. The chances of the art team suddenly phoning it in after 20 years isn't 0, but it's really, really low.
Last edited by Hitei; 2023-10-26 at 04:18 PM.
The raid zone definitely seem interesting enough. Though the rest don't give me anything to go by. One is just temperate forest, one is just snow and rocks, and the last one is just Zuldazar with Titan pillars.
The fact that none of the pictures really show iconic landmarks or interesting architecture leads me to believe it's an elaborate fake.
The world revamp dream will never die!
How does that stop Undermine from being a different place than Kezan?
Are we talking about the same eagle statue? It looks exactly like the statue in the EK except with smoother textures.Still haven’t even seen the whole statue, only one side of it that’s mostly obstructed.
Except Azure span also has the same rocks and mist effects as that picture. The only difference is the addition of bright flowers on the ground;Not really. As mentioned before, the first screenshot you mentioned doesn’t look really much like Azure Span. I just don’t see any VALID comparisons. Unless “oh no both zones have orange rocks!!” Means they’re both waking shore.
Nope, looks like a spruced up Azure span.At most it reminds me of Kul Tiras in a way but I can’t put my finger on it.
Basically. There's *nothing* entirely new. You could have made all of these with existing assets, and that's what seems off.
IMO legit press release screenshots would *very likely* focus in something actually new and exciting (even if these scenes on themselves could entirely exist)
The leak is impressive because it's a bunch of small things thrown together in a way that makes it seem believable.
The first picture and the one with the dwarf in the snowy area especially. They seem more thrown in to make the other two pictures more impressive, and for the whole to stand up better to scrutiny.
The world revamp dream will never die!
Again though, they don't necessarily have to show big landmarks, if that's just the images that were available to leak to whoever leaked them. People are going on about how many reused assets there are, but most of those screenshots, while they are evocative of previous areas, do in fact use plenty of "original" assets. Just because the trees look similar in some cases, doesn't mean shit when the shapes are completely different. There are still more assets that haven't been made out as copy-pastes, than there are assets we could, so far, call out as such.
What if all these Avaloren leaks are a Blizzard deal made by intention in order to misguide us from the real ones. OR! to find potential leakers within the crew.
Google doc with all plate mogs complete with import codes! PLATE TRANSMOG-O-RAMA
I believe these leaks to be genuine. However, I will remind everyone that the art community of WoW is extremely talented.
There’s that artist on reddit who was churning out class cosmetic glyph ideas for months.
The artist who was developing racial class sets for every race.
Tomkek who impressively HD updates early in game assets.
It would be pretty amazing, legendary even, if a group of artists like these got together this summer and made a super convincing fake together.
I’m excited either way.
Not sure if been mentioned yet but doesnt the light pillar in the 4th photo look similar to the pillars from the blizzcon asset tease?
Specifically the right one on the bottom image
Correct but why would those same pillars appear in avalorn? These pillars look EXACTLY like the Blizzcon ones. Which we know is themed off temporal conflux - but an exact copy doesn’t exist in temporal conflux. This avalorn pillar looks like an exact copy but over grown and green.
Edit: ignore me - I am wrong they are literally copy pasted from in game haha
Last edited by flan1337; 2023-10-26 at 04:44 PM.