Outland revamp confirmed at Blizzcon 2010 for the Future

[Deleted]

Actually, I would like this if they do a legion themed expansion with 10 levels. Dont get me wrong, they will need to another continent or planet into the twisting nether, that you go to from outland, and some how keep some sort of story line consensus...

- 60-70-
~You go to outland to find the black dragons and the netherwing to help with deathwing (before 80), but the black dragons tell you they can never set through the portal again till Nzoth is dead, and the netherwing are being captured by twilight's hammer.

~Blades edge dealing with the black dragons (has become their capital) and moknathals. More rexxar lore, and why he never comes to help us with Garrosh.(both sides). And ogres lore and easier way to do ogrilla rep, with chogall trying to take them. More TH stuff.

~Shadowmoon Valley with the Remnants of the illidari held up (neutral faction, lore to illidan's were abouts), Twilights Hammer ravaging the place, calling upon the old god as well. Netherwing in trouble from TH. Shadowmoon becoming twisted from TH. DW shows up. Minor demon threat. Broken and Draenai love

~Hellfire Peninsula, minor threats from demons (seat), as they have been largely pushed back. The Dragonmaw clan is near death, you kill them, and the last few go to Twilight Highlands. Horde vs Alliance mainly, so back and forth that the lands are split equally.

~Nagrand becoming a warzone a new horde vs alliance. A grave to Saurfang's son. A Bronze dragon showing you the future of garrosh, and his downfall like a timeline quest where you help with canon lore of a horde and alliance party killing garrosh with the help of varian, jaina, voljin, and thrall. A grave to garrosh is placed post 90, with its own little scene that can be seen by both horde and alliance, similar to Cairne funeral. More DRAENAI LORE!!!

~Zangamarsh, cenarian expedition restoring the lands while horde and alliance still trying to kill each other. Battles end when the land begins to be corrupted by th. Alliance and horde face off with them, together, killing some "major" dude, together, then both sides pulling back "honorably". Broken and more Draenai.

~Terrok Forrest, archidrion becoming the Shadow Council capital, summoning demons, bringing forth an eredar. Arrokar neutral faction (if they arnt playable) to kill all the "bad ones". Battle between Horde and alliance. Alliance wins, and pushes horde to the Sunfury Place(have to have a horde flight path so this is the best spot). Worgen's begin setting up shop here (a real village.. quest hub. Not a damn tree).

~Netherstorm. Lots of love to draenai here. Cleaning up now insane Wretched blood elves. Surviving Sunfury that were enslaved join the horde. More Etheral Love. Each faction has a flight point now, Alliance the once ghost town, and horde a Sunfury place.

~blood elf and Draenai zones updated. Blood Elf shows dealing with alliance (as spoken in the 5.1 quests). Draenai wonder if the alliance really appreciates them (lack of lore to there name) and then learn the Alliance is good for them when Orcs attack (garrosh orders), and they remember the past.

Anything else? Nah. Think that's enough to play off of for 60-70. Would keep it cohesive. 90-100, only if this expansion will deal with it, then a full continent of lore to show for it, rather than 6 split up zones, dealing with the actual expansion Post 90.

This is exactly what i imagined too, a revamped Outland for 60-70 questing experience which ties in with the Lore and doesn't have these time jumps which we have now.

And while opening this Thread i also saw it exactly this way, Outland to be revamped vor low lvl content new Places to go for 90-95/100 maybe Argus or something along those lines.

I really like your ideas

[Djuntas]

With all there execuses about time lately, I would bet money this will never happen. I could maybe see Dranei/Bloodelf being a flying zone, but thats about it.

Now days WoW gets as little attention as possibely.

[Deleted]

But there are so many planets to go to,
Outland is only one of the fragments of Draenor, which means there are other fragments of Draenor, that could have life on them.
Argus, the homeworld of the eredar race, and the exiled draenei.
K'aresh, the original homeworld of the ethereals.
Xoroth, the homeworld of the dreadsteeds.
Fanlin'Deskor, which is draenei for Amber Skies over Wondrous Rock, but seeing as how its inhabitants did not speak in ways anyone can understand, and none of the mortal races from azeroth ever walked there before the legion destroyed it, we probably won't go there unless it's a past vision kinda thing.

"One of the things we're most excited about," says Metzen, "is the chance to create environments unlike anything you've seen in previous games. Even better, this is something that's infinitely expandable for us in updates and expansions down the line. There can always be more portal worlds." Referring to the portals to other worlds that Illidan closed in Outlands.

So there are so many possibilities, it's limitless really.

It could also be, that Outland will be revamped for 60-70 content to tie in with the lore and to level above 90 to 95 or 100 we have to go back to Outland (as level 90) and now we're able to step into all these closed portal which lead us to different worlds. Maybe something like this:

Portal 1: Xoroth 89-92
Portal 2: Fanlin'Deskor 91-93
Portal 3: K'aresh (World of the Ethereals) 93-95
Portal 4: Argus 95 (Endagame content for max lvl)

[Deleted]

The worst part about Outland (particularly HFP) is how every goddamn quest reward is a chest, helm or pants. Give some love to the non-heirloom slots, please.

[Skayth]

This is exactly what i imagined too, a revamped Outland for 60-70 questing experience which ties in with the Lore and doesn't have these time jumps which we have now.

And while opening this Thread i also saw it exactly this way, Outland to be revamped vor low lvl content new Places to go for 90-95/100 maybe Argus or something along those lines.

I really like your ideas

Yea, the more I read my idea, the more I like it myself. It was mainly for cohesion, rather than plot points, cohesion for the 1-60 and 80-90.

I wanted to give plot points that people were wondering about, like in example, Sabellion. I want him to be fully against his father, to the point his father nearly kills him, but leaves him near death. And as much as he wants to return to Azeroth, he cant, because of the corruption from Nzoth would cause him to go insane (and the rest of the black dragons in this place that would go with him, as he is returning population to the flight), and it cannot reach him there. Knows about his "younger brother" from the rumors that were spread, but cannot feel him (which makes wrathion believe he is the only one left).

They can make Garrosh become more ruthless, and begin seeing Orcs as the True Horde, seeing the darkspear and taurens in zangamarsh not killing the alliance after they deal with the "twilight leader," seeing Rexxar as impure and beats him in one on one combat after he speaks Against the Warchief that the alliance and horde shouldnt be killing each other with deathwing and TH problem(yea, I know, Rexxar is god, he cant lose to garrosh, but for story line he can), seeing the forsaken as disgusting cretins only wishing to survive, and goblins as greedy willing to sell to anyone (alliance included for storyline). When he goes to Nagrand to rage war, sees his people fully behind him (as maghar) after the alliance does something... idk... wrong (storyline) and then they full fill the bloodoath, and keep it.

There is alot they can do with revisiting Outland.

[Tiberria]

Here is what I would do with moving some of the Vanilla zones into being 60-80 zone options.

Level 60-62 - Western Plaguelands
Level 62 -64 - Eastern Plaguelands
Level 64 - 66 - Badlands
Level 66-68 - Swamp of Sorrows
Level 68-70 - Blasted Lands

Level 70-72 - Desolace
Level 72-74 - Feralas
Level 74 -76 - Thousand Needles
Level 76-78 - Un'Goro Crater
Level 78-80 - Tanaris

You could then expand the level ranges for some of the existing zones. People generally way out level zones before they finish them now. Although this is in part because of heirlooms, why not just extend the level ranges and let people without heirlooms either do a couple of extra dungeons or do some of the other zones in the level range to get caught up.

Alliance - Eastern Kingdoms - 1-60:
10-20 - Westfall or 10-25 Loch Modan
20-30 - Redridge Mountains or Wetlands
30-40 - Duskwood or Searing Gorge
40-50 - Northern Stranglethorn or 45-55 Burning Steppes
50-60 - Cape of Stranglethorn

Alliance - Kalimdor - 1-60
10-25 - Darkshore or Bloodmyst Isle
25-40 Ashenvale or Dustwallow Marsh
40-50 - Stonetalon Mountains or Felwood
50-60 - Southern Barrens or Winterspring

Horde - Eastern Kingdoms - 1-60
10-25 - Silverpine Forest or Ghostlands
25-40 - Hillsbrad Foothills
40-50 - Northern Stranglethorn or 45-55 Burning Steppes
50-60 - Cape of Stranglethorn

Horde - Kalimdor - 1-60
10-25 - Northern Barrens or Azshara
25-40 Ashenvale or Dustwallow Marsh
40-50 - Stonetalon Mountains or Felwood
50-60 - Southern Barrens or Winterspring

With that, you'd be able to fit 1-80 levelling into the revamped Cata zones, and still give an option of 3 different places to level in almost every level range.

[zorkuus]

You make a good point, however Outland has become a noticeable carbuncle in the levelling process with inferior questing and zone design. If it were 'cataclysmed' I imagine it would be considerably less work than fixing the older world so maybe they will do it.

I don't really see the point because even without xp boost going through Outland is very fast, you don't have to tolerate it for long.

[Ceethemage]

I see Outlands only being revamped if there is a burning legions expansion. IF there is a burning legions expansion then what I figure is that they will add new lands to Outlands to level to 95 (or 100). They did this in Cataclysm but to Azeroth Blizzard doing it in another expansion to another area wouldn't be that surprising. I would also suspect they would revamp Shattrath to be more up to date.

[ipoststuff]

Outland is too big for just leveling. You are done with two zones and you move onto northrend. I think very few people quest in netherstorm or shadowmoon valley if any. There are 7 zones in outland. And we need only 2-3 for leveling the rest can be updated for the next expension.

[Ceethemage]

I don't really see the point because even without xp boost going through Outland is very fast, you don't have to tolerate it for long.

That actually made me sad for Nagrand it was my favorite leveling area. The rest of them I could live with out. Especially zangermarsh when I was working on my rep grinds.

[Deleted]

If they want to update Outland it would need to be on a huge scale. They would basicly need two expansions for it:
Problems:

Continent: If they redo Outland they would need to add two Continents for Outland. One for 60-70 (possibly the old one) and One for 90-100. They can’t physically put it in the same place for these reasons:
1. Phasing Issues. If you are automaticly phased into the high level Outland by reaching level 90 you won’t ever be able to help friends in that level range (for the arena quest for example). If you want to level a new profession you can’t move back to gather resources. And old ore and new ore might cause problems as well.
2. Excitement. If they use the same Continent people know already there is nothing really left to explore endgame. It would be pretty much underwhelming. It would feel old, possibly even older than cataclysm because in cataclysm we at least had some completely new and unknown zones (e.g. Uldum or Twilight Highlands or Vashjir).
3. The community hated the shattered zones of Cataclysm and enjoyed closed continents. It is very unlikely storywise there is a whole new continent hidden in outland that is completely unknown and not shattered by the legion already. There might be some zones floating around, but in all fairness: It would feel just as scattered as Cataclysm then. In addition how would we find out about that continent? But even the fact that they would need to revamp 1 whole past expansion and add another new continent on par with MoP in terms of quality seems unlikely.

Storyline: If they redo Outland, they would need to come up with two new story lines for both leveling ranges. The old problems of Outland are dealt with and hence they can’t be used for a revamp (they didn’t use the same problems for Cataclysm either). Doing so would drop sweet nostalgia memories and some people would outrage. In addition to altering the story line they would need to alter the:

Dungeons & Raids. The old threats in the dungeons and raids were tied to the Outland storyline (e.g. Hellfire Citadel was about Illidan’s felorcs keeping Magtheridon busy). If both leveling ranges (60-70 and 90-100) would take place in the same Outland we know, they would need to adjust existing places (like Hellfire Citadel) to new stories and add new and exciting / unknown dungeons somewhere. Where would the new dungeons (leveling 90-100 and heroics) be then? How would they feel unknown new and exciting? What would happen to the raids? What would happen to the favored t4-6? Where would they put the new raids into?

I’d much rather see them rescaling some of the cata low level zones up to 68:

58-61: Scaling Felwood
61-64: Add new quest hub around the Timbermaw Hold and the Furbolgs (questing areas would be Entrance to Felwood; Entrance to Moonglade; Entrance to Winterspring) with some follow up to Moonglade and some questlines about the Barrow Dens and and one around the Shrine – possibly around the emerald nightmare first steps – leveling people realize there is a threat lurking there)
64-68: Scaling Winterspring and maybe add some interesting content if there aren’t enough quests.

[melodramocracy]

Please god no, we already have more than enough quest-on-rails in this game.

[Deleted]

i would have no problem going back to out land but it would need to be re done fully so i wouldn't delete the old stuff and start again. I would have a bronze dragon in front of the portal who you talk to and say hay i want to go to out land of the past exactly how it works for Theramore Isle. Neatherstorm after it being re-grown by those Consortium or w/e and hellfire after the nelfs fixed it up.

[Ceethemage]

If they want to update Outland it would need to be on a huge scale. They would basicly need two expansions for it:
Problems:

Continent: If they redo Outland they would need to add two Continents for Outland. One for 60-70 (possibly the old one) and One for 90-100. They can’t physically put it in the same place for these reasons:
1. Phasing Issues. If you are automaticly phased into the high level Outland by reaching level 90 you won’t ever be able to help friends in that level range (for the arena quest for example). If you want to level a new profession you can’t move back to gather resources. And old ore and new ore might cause problems as well.
2. Excitement. If they use the same Continent people know already there is nothing really left to explore endgame. It would be pretty much underwhelming. It would feel old, possibly even older than cataclysm because in cataclysm we at least had some completely new and unknown zones (e.g. Uldum or Twilight Highlands or Vashjir).
3. The community hated the shattered zones of Cataclysm and enjoyed closed continents. It is very unlikely storywise there is a whole new continent hidden in outland that is completely unknown and not shattered by the legion already. There might be some zones floating around, but in all fairness: It would feel just as scattered as Cataclysm then. In addition how would we find out about that continent? But even the fact that they would need to revamp 1 whole past expansion and add another new continent on par with MoP in terms of quality seems unlikely.

Storyline: If they redo Outland, they would need to come up with two new story lines for both leveling ranges. The old problems of Outland are dealt with and hence they can’t be used for a revamp (they didn’t use the same problems for Cataclysm either). Doing so would drop sweet nostalgia memories and some people would outrage. In addition to altering the story line they would need to alter the:

Dungeons & Raids. The old threats in the dungeons and raids were tied to the Outland storyline (e.g. Hellfire Citadel was about Illidan’s felorcs keeping Magtheridon busy). If both leveling ranges (60-70 and 90-100) would take place in the same Outland we know, they would need to adjust existing places (like Hellfire Citadel) to new stories and add new and exciting / unknown dungeons somewhere. Where would the new dungeons (leveling 90-100 and heroics) be then? How would they feel unknown new and exciting? What would happen to the raids? What would happen to the favored t4-6? Where would they put the new raids into?

I’d much rather see them rescaling some of the cata low level zones up to 68:

58-61: Scaling Felwood
61-64: Add new quest hub around the Timbermaw Hold and the Furbolgs (questing areas would be Entrance to Felwood; Entrance to Moonglade; Entrance to Winterspring) with some follow up to Moonglade and some questlines about the Barrow Dens and and one around the Shrine – possibly around the emerald nightmare first steps – leveling people realize there is a threat lurking there)
64-68: Scaling Winterspring and maybe add some interesting content if there aren’t enough quests.

They wouldn't need to add an entire continent to Outlands. That is like saying Uldum in Cataclysm is its own continent. They would just need to add new zones in the area. It wouldn't change higher levels helping lower level friends in the original outlands or leveling up professions in the old zones. Not to mention revamping the old zones of Outlands would ADD excitement to the zones for experienced players who are leveling up alts.

For example, they could update Shattrath and the lower city. New land could be found/added off of ShadowMoon Valley or the Netherstorm. Personally I would love for them to add past Nagrand that was my favorite area and would love a higher zone out past Nagrand or turn the elemental plateu into a zone of its own. If they were to add a new class Tinkers starting zone could be added to Netherstorm or Demon Hunters starting zone could branch off of ShadowMoon Valley.

As for Dungeons and Raids. They could do heroic Gnomergan, and create new dungeons not to mention raids. Even then I WOULD LOVE a updated version of Kara like a heroic version added to the game.

I disagree with rescaling some of the lower level zones like Felwood and Winterspring. That could cause some issues especially with new players and accidentally walking into areas and going "oh crap" as they eat dirt. Timbermaw Hold, no that would make the rep grinds absolutely pointless for those of us who did them.

The Emerald Nightmare is a different realm of Azeroth and surpasses Moonglade. Not to mention Moonglade is really a druid only area. I could see an arch druid starting zone there later on though. Not to mention I really don't see them now adding the Emerald Nightmare after Pandaria. It would essentially be a rehash of what we have already done here. We would in EN be fighting our own nightmares, and saving others from themselves for example Yezra.

I could see them revamping the quest line for the original areas of outlands however.

[Florena]

I think Outland could be updated in a much smoother way. They wouldn't neccisarily have to update the storylines, but could simply improve quest flow instead. Also, Outland has much less content than Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms. Far fewer zones, and unlike them Outland is already built with flying mounts in mind so it wouldn't take the same amount of art resources to make everything fully 3d. That, combined with the fact it's far less content than Cata had to redo, and the fact that they know what they're getting into now where as in Cata it was far more work needed than they realized, I think that an Outland revamp is feasible.

[Rhozul]

I could see them revamping Outland and Northrend in the same manner that they did Duskwallow Marsh back in the day. Just as a feature in a random patch, one zone at a time. Maybe not even as it makes sense to do it, but as they have story inspiration.

Because let's face it, some of Cataclysm's mass-revamp storylines were pretty underwhelming.

[Lucetia]

You make a good point, however Outland has become a noticeable carbuncle in the levelling process with inferior questing and zone design. If it were 'cataclysmed' I imagine it would be considerably less work than fixing the older world so maybe they will do it.

Maybe they won't.

Three months to find out.

Outlands would take a lot of work to redo and even though they said they will they can and have changed their minds before. They found out Vanilla revamp wasn't worth it at all especially how much it took away from end game.

Outlands the advantage would be they don't have to redevelop the world for flight adding in Z coordinates everywhere along with barriers. They would more than likely add flight to Draeni/Blood Elf areas. They would have to redo a lot of quests in areas as the current quests no longer make sense with the Cataclysm+ story.

For instance you go from Garrosh being warchief to finding out about him and bringing Thrall there to learn of everything, etc. I can't remember if they changed this or not in Cataclysm (as after 10 times I've been avoiding questing), but there are several quests involving that and other things that simply just don't exist anymore and I'm sure the Alliance has some as well.

[dejec1989]

I would hope they have a few people working on it when they are not doing something related to current/future content, might take longer to come out but it would come out at some point in time.

[Florena]

Outlands would take a lot of work to redo and even though they said they will they can and have changed their minds before. They found out Vanilla revamp wasn't worth it at all especially how much it took away from end game.

Outlands the advantage would be they don't have to redevelop the world for flight adding in Z coordinates everywhere along with barriers. They would more than likely add flight to Draeni/Blood Elf areas. They would have to redo a lot of quests in areas as the current quests no longer make sense with the Cataclysm+ story.

For instance you go from Garrosh being warchief to finding out about him and bringing Thrall there to learn of everything, etc. I can't remember if they changed this or not in Cataclysm (as after 10 times I've been avoiding questing), but there are several quests involving that and other things that simply just don't exist anymore and I'm sure the Alliance has some as well.

They wouldn't neccisarily have to update the story. They could just redesign quest flow, etc.

I also don't think they would HAVE to redo the blood elf/draenei zones either. Why would they? I don't think there's a lot of complaints about them, just from 60 to 70.

And yes, not having to redo Outland graphically to account for flying mounts would be a massive time saver.

[Ripster42]

60-70 is considerably less work than 1-60, not to mention a lot of the development process was physically changing the zones due to the cataclysm. It's just the matter of updating the storylines, revamping the questing content, maybe revamping the dungeons, ect.

Frankly, to improve the leveling they'd only have to redo 2 maybe 3 zones. When was the last time you leveled through 70 and actually go to blades edge, let alone shadowmoon or netherstorm?

The first zone, zangar marsh and nagrand. That gets you to 69 and wrath.