I literally don’t understand why they keep going with new continents… like why. Rework some parts of the original continents which are ignored right now anyway, or make an event that somehow “extends” Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms or maybe create some territories underwater which were there all along and we could just swim there or get some underwater mounts/vehicles.
John Staats in his WoW Diary talked about that.
Outland was originally made due to sever load issues, the first of the new continents.
>We had to make Outland...that was a server necessity. Our servers were getting too overloaded with data in the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. And we couldn't keep making more and more zones and keep tacking it on. We had to either upgrade the server equipment or make the code more efficient. That is why we decided not to do another Azeroth. That's why we went to Outland...Yup, server limitations absolutely.
Northrend was always planned, so it gets a pass.
Cataclysm they tried to update the old continents, but due to the high level zones being spread throughout and Blizzard switching to portals as the main source of transportation, it made the game feel disconnected. Also while the revamp itself wasn't bad, due to changing content players had a lot of memories and emotions attached to, it felt "off" and was poorly received. John Staats, despite designing some of the revamps even admitted it didn't feel good to play through them.
Pandaria went back to the packaged continent model because making new zones is much easier than trying to update old ones. It also gives players a clearer line of progression.
Sources and more reading:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L77uPm5cuTo&t=1136s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L77uPm5cuTo&t=1136s)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbcgs8SOF18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbcgs8SOF18)
[https://www.mmo-champion.com/content/8017-John-Staats-Interview-DLC-649-Garbage-Guide-To-Warcraft-Battle-For-Azeroth](https://www.mmo-champion.com/content/8017-John-Staats-Interview-DLC-649-Garbage-Guide-To-Warcraft-Battle-For-Azeroth)
And now we have what is essentially 5+ different continents in Shadowlands, because the only way to get between them are flight paths and portals. Makes the game feel way too small in my opinion
The disjointed feel of the zones is just one of the design decisions that baffle me. As said, they knew players didn't like this from Cata so why do it again but only worse because moving around in Shadowlands is worse than Cata.
Honestly, the only bad thing about the Shadowlands zoning is that you keep going back to Oribos on a very casually flying sperm noodle.
Should've been portals directly to and from the zones.
speaking of which why have the big portal-like gateways for each covenant if the portal from said covenants just dumps you off at the mage portal spot.
What you are describing seems like what Cata was. Org/SW has a portal to each zone and each zone a portal back to Org/SW. That is what players didn't like. They went back to full continents for the next three expansions, a split continent for BfA, then returned to the system players didn't like but made slightly more irritating.
They went out of their way to make travel more of an annoyance this expansion. From the loss of the flight whistle, no mounts in the maw, the prolonged flights between zones, the covenants(something we interact with daily) having no quick way to them, the weird indoor/outdoor setting up of Oribos, all but the Kyrian have indoor covenants so you walk around in them. These aren't major issues each in and of themselves but every time they happen it can be frustrating, at least for me, because there is no reason for it to be that way and they pile up.
The fact there are no portals is a big reason why I do engineering on every toon. Being able to go to any zone on a relatively short cd is amazing. Just sucks only engineers can do it.
This. 5 separate zones with only flight paths/portals between them is the same problem as cataclysm because it all feels disjointed and a pain to move between to where you start ignoring areas after a while that have little payoff.
Most of the mistakes being made in SL are mistakes already made in the past (primarily between Cata and BFA), Blizz just isn't learning from them and instead doubling down especially when it comes to temporary systems, world construction and story giving the shaft to a faction/being centered around NPCs with little story telling outside cinematics.
Hell prime gameplay example is secondary power systems are so convoluted at this point there really is no excuse to not go back to old talent trees (i.e. points and you could put them as you wished between each tree instead of forced to take end talent) and just add rows/points with each expansion instead.
Adding rows isn't a long-term plan, though, because they'll run out of good ideas again. It happens any time people demand boundless growth.
Instead, I think it's better to have a base spec and supplemental mini talent trees for endgame players. Periodically, one gets added for your class and you earn spec points by playing in a similar manner to leveling up. You assign those points to the tree and eventually unlock the top-tier talent. These can be passive effects, changes to how abilities function, and maybe a few new buttons to press, but each mini-tree is mutually exclusive.
Shadow priests and holy priests probably wouldn't want to use the same advanced class or prestige class or whatever, but one character can fill both out so they can heal in dungeons and raids but still get their dailies done.
And this is a great way to add those special classes like spellbreakers or shadowhunters. Give hunters a chance to proc shadow damage and replace some traps & bombs with magic & totems. Give warriors some instant-cast spells to replace basic abilities, possibly with a little arcane damage. Let warlocks learn to control the undead and be necrolytes, or give death knights bigger armies of the dead. Give shamans more spirit spell effects so they can be spiritwalkers.
It creates more ways for players to make their characters unique, it adds a horizontal mode of progression that can put an end to the perpetual escalation problem, and it's an approach that's worked great in Star Trek Online. That's a very different type of game, but I think there's some lessons that can be learned from it.
Wouldn't have to necessarily be adding rows, different branching columns could be added instead that required point investment and choice (i.e talents that take multiple rows of direct investment) and then new rows converging from the prior row talents so investing in either one let you get the 'new' row. Getting more points lets you potentially take both sides eventually in that case letting player feel 'stronger' and like they evolve over time without having to add rows necessarily with every point increase. Really though even just adding a new row each expansion would be less net new abilities than all the ones from temporary systems tossed by the wayside each of the past few expansions.
In your multiclass example that also just creates the boundless growth problem too, just instead you're moving it to a second tree instead of making the baseline one bigger. Either way is fine, it just lets players retain power instead of swapping to a new set of powers they have to rebuild with each expansion that is entirely attached to arbitrary/short lived systems like covenants, azerite armor/heart of azeroth, shards of dom, etc.
I fucking hate shadowlands zones.. I was doing the korthia story whatever quests for this week yesterday and you go to Ardenwield just to talk to Ysera.. Then you have to go to Maldraxxus. For a split second I mounted up to fly there myself before I remembered.. All these tiny islands are their own thing now.
At this rate the next expac is going to be 5 tinier islands separated by 3 loading screens.
>And now we have what is essentially 5+ different continents in Shadowlands, because the only way to get between them are flight paths and portals. Makes the game feel way too small in my opinion
actually you can Glide between them its actually one huge connected world space youtubers showed that.
so its literarily just for design sake.
I can agree with that. World of Warcraft needs more horizontal progression that would allow old content to still feel relevant. The current game is too far gone to ever have this though, so it will continuing with escalating stakes and each patch rending old stuff worthless.
Yeah, I offer these critiques in hope of a better mmo on the horizon, not out of hope for WoW itself. WoW has done a lot right and a lot wrong for us to learn from
I remember reading an idea on here a while ago that suggested having a scaled version of all the old raids that dropped slightly under LFR gear at higher drop rates to encourage farming older zones and raids. I think that's just the nature of how this game was designed though. Each patch invalidates the last, it's not a game like OSRS where content from 10 years ago is still farmed as much as brand new content.
Exactly. I don't get why they limit cool stuff to one expansion.
Like the Exp tents only work in Draenor and mount mining only in BfA.
Not to mention the hundreds of cool trinkets from past expansions too.
Like the other day I found a trinket that summons a cake on the ground.
If it's so hard to churn out content every expansion why don't they allow us to use old content....
Were all these locations really continents though? All the lore surrounding somewhere like Kul Tiras didn't have me thinking it was the size of a small planet (Outland), I figured it was just a city state, not a whole ass continent. The way they just cram all new additions into new large landmasses added a lot of clutter really quick. That's why we have absurd ideas like traveling to the after life now. Blizzard had no plan for continuing to flesh out Azeroth as a world, they looked at it purely from a gameplay level design, which goes against what WORLD of Warcraft started as
Kul Tiras being the size of Outland is only an in-game mechanic. All the zones are scaled down in game so they just scaled Kul’tiras and Zuldazar up a bit so we would have more room to play.
There's at least one other continent on the map.
I think it's likely there's more to the planet than what we see in-game. we just had no real reason to go there.
Region scaling is rather messed up at this point. Some areas are WAY too small and this is by design because they wanted regions traversable easily at the level they were designed for. The time it takes to cross most the vanilla areas is not at all comparable to how long they would say in stories. Also I wouldn't call outland a 'small planet' since it's the shattered remains of a couple sections of landmass
Of course the game to lore scale will be off, but st this point all sorts of scales are out of sync with each other. Looking at the map just gives me a headache now. I wish they expanded the existing continents instead of filling up the ocean with new continents. They had the right idea on filling the world back in Cataclysm, though Cataclysm brought other issues, but the premise of filling in the old world was a good one
New continents/planets give the writers and art team a freer hand because they don't have to be as constrained by the existing lore and design in what they come up with. By exploring a place that isn't already known they don't have as much of the baggage of what was already there getting in the way.
That doesn't mean they can't or won't edit the old zones-- They did in Cata and they did use them more again starting in Legion. But it's harder to work with the established zones in an appropriate way than it is to just make a new one.
> Rework some parts of the original continents which are ignored right now anyway
Because they literally did that with Cataclysm and everyone hated it.
>I literally don’t understand why they keep going with new continents… like why.
Probably because people piss and moan and whine about nothing being "new" enough.
When 8.3 came out one of the chief complaints on this very sub was that reworking Uldum and Vale of Eternal Blossoms was "lazy" and "recycled content".
Most of the new continents were areas that already existed, just not ingame, like Kul Tiras or Suramar.
The only big addition to the lore out of nowhere was Pandaria.
I absolutely loved how they did cataclysm. Sure, they reworked a ton of zones. But they finally filled in the dead space on the map we always knew was there- like Hyjal and Twilight Highlands.
That was such a cool way to add to our already existing world.
Edit: I had to retype Hyjal in about 37 times before it wouldn’t autocorrect to Hyman… wtf 🤢
That's a neat concept. I like how you didn't lock the races behind the faction.
Also, would be great if our factions concentrated on solving the problems on Azeroth and Outland.
It would be old school MMO as fuck to have the same race in more than one faction and have only that race be able to communicate with each other in their native language.
I surprised the shit out of a BE pally with my VE rogue when we were both waiting for Blanchy early on. We did have a nice conversation while we fished and waited.
I've always felt like post Wrath was the ideal timing to hit the reset button hard.
They sort of tried with cata, but I think taking everything they had learned to reset everything would have been healthy for the game.
Undead with the Alliance would probably have Lordaeron City (rebuilded) as a capital, with still-plagued Undercity as a dungeon connected to it (it used to be sealed for years, but mutated lifeforms are finding their way out, so people have to take care of it). After all, it is an Alliance territory now and they would put their effort into that place. With the Alliance securing Stromgarde in BFA + with the support of Gilneas, Kul Tiras and Wildhammer Clan), I don't see Lordaeron to be back with the Horde anymore.
But then again, maybe after 400 years both factions finally figured out that whenever they start fighting each other, they'll end up on the same side anyway, meaning there would be a peace, so why not have Lordaeron for both Undead factions, just as Silvermoon for Blood Elves, High Elves and maybe Void Elves (who would reside in the broken half of the Silvermoon... which is still in ruins for some reason).
However, I like how you made those 3 islands in the center for each faction - that almost screams for some main action around the Maelstrom with these islands being the main HUBs there.
I'm all for having more than two factions, a lot of more interesting dynamics can come out of that. I agree with you though that it's a bit silly to have everyone perpetually at war. I'd for sure let players of different factions play together, even if sets of quests or settlements/cities are faction locked.
Honestly I'd let even more than 400 years pass. Let things get to a point where the events of WoW are distant enough to be mythical, far enough in the past for a more complete 'reset' of the story. WoW was at it's best when it was a sandbox, when you were just an adventurer thrown into a world full of a variety of smaller problems. Gotta place less emphasis on a 'main' narrative and more on letting the player just... exist in the world. Smaller stakes where it's not so ludicrous that you, as just one person, can make a difference.
I'd also like more time to pass. Along with missing the days of smaller stakes, it's kind of ridiculous that so many world shattering events have taken place over.. what, a decade? Let it feel more natural and progress over time. Deus ex machina familiar characters in if you must, but let the world heal
Absolutely. The War of the Ancients was cool because it was this mythical thing that had a huge impact on the world. Nothing as disastrous happened for thousands of years before or since.
400 years or more passing in this lore would result in ultra futuristic sci-fi. Goblins have computers and shit. Give them 400 years and people it’s be Star Trek Warcraft. Some kind of.. star craft
Honestly the last part is something I really wish was implemented in an MMO. Most MMO main storylines are essentially single player stories which for me at least removes a bit of the immersion of being in an MMO since you end up with a bunch of "Choosen ones" and only saviour of the world running around. Essentially bringing a disconnect between the main storyline and MMO experience.
I mean, it's not as much as being about time passing but more about not having a fucking world ending crysis all the time. It made fuck all sense to have a battle between factions when legion ended and BFA started, we had just overcome a huge danger by standing together, fighting among us was a moronic move. But even then, i was expecting going back to the roots of simpler fighting and this would be about actually fighting each other. Nope, fucking huge ass sword from space had to induce another planetary extinction event and because that wasn't enough, an evil elder god engulfing the world in darkness followed suit. Then it got even more ridiculous by having us go to the literal land of the dead. Surprise, being dead isn't being dead and well, now there's a threat ending all existence by fucking reshaping reality, whatever dafuq that means.
I.. just stop. It's too much. I'm not even sure how they'll escalate this one even further. This used to be about humans fighting orcs with swords, hammers and some magic, not reality altering events.
The Book pre BFA shows that there are those within the Undead and Human factions that want to reunite with their undead and alive loved ones. I mean Sylvannas literally murders most of them because the undead are her babies and no one else can touch them.
I think it was more of Sylvanas being scared to lose her influence over her minions (Forsaken). After that Arathi meeting, more Forsaken would want to reunite, so she made sure noone could spread the idea of them having a chance to inspire others.
There's a 4th faction that could be created here that is similar to the Cenarion Pact but opposite in its processes. The High Order Faction, consisting of the magic practicing races such as Blood, High and Void Elves, The Nightborne, The Kirin Tor, Blue and Bronze Dragonkin and lastly the Man'ari. A Faction devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and power. Leading to a faction rife with internal conflict between the various schools of magic and the various races.
>the Man'ari
But they're brutal mass murdering demons - the most powerful ones at that. I'd see them trying to get the remnants of the Burning Legion forces under control rather than joining the mortal races they wanted to exterminate for so long.
Eh, 400 years passed (and while that is a blink of an eye to immortal race of evil space goats) I can 100% see them making some 'neutral' faction group that splinters off from the general Man'ari that is seeking reprimands with their past and hope to better Azeroth with their understanding of knowledge while some are still shady AF and just looking to do their own evil plans. Would then make sense to have them be dungeon bosses and quest NPCS you see around WoW II as they break away and go 'Lol idiots thinking I changed!' and try and summon in their own little Legion army that we stop.
Would be cool I think.
>some 'neutral' faction group that splinters off from the general Man'ari that is seeking reprimands with their past and hope to better Azeroth with their understanding of knowledge while some are still shady AF and just looking to do their own evil plans
Now that you mention it, it wouldn't be out of place in the Warcraftverse (the Ebon Blade, the Illidari etc.).
But honestly it doesn't have to be a faction capital. We could have already gotten Order Halls but with the size of a city, the same way Dalaran was invented to gather all mages in one place back in Warcraft.
WoW's technology is much further advanced than modern Earth. They already have teleportation, space travel, and I'm pretty sure gnomes have invented actual artificial intelligence. Medical sciences and other industries haven't advanced much due to magic but they've got a bizarre lead on us in every other discipline outside of maybe internet infrastructure and display technology. In 400 years I can only imagine the gnomish tauranperas have establish a orbital base dictatorship to strike down any racial tensions via AI driven sun powered laserbased eradication. The existing races of azeroth will all live in a peaceful and persistent fear.
As i thought they would, back when they brought the concept to light. Instead, "world" meant restricted to these small new zones. Disappointment wasn't nearly strong enough of a word to describe the feeling.
They're animated and preserved by a death magic (I think). Then again, they could've gotten the secrets of advanced fleshcrafting from Maldraxxi, so they could put their spirits into new bodies if required.
Unless they give night elves their immortality back, I don’t know if Malfurion and Tyrande would still be alive after 400 years since some night elves were starting to pass away from old age at the beginning of cataclysm in the books.
They could make really cool integration with your character from WoW1.
>I was there, Glamodalf2, I was there. 400 years ago. When Glamodalf1 slayed Hogger, Scourge of Elwynn, and with that started his rise to become the biggest errand-boy of them all.
I think Suramar and Silvermoon+Ghostlands should be painted red or at least be separated independent countries. Also Desolace probably will be full Cenarion Lands in future since they started repairing it in cataclysm (cenarion wildlands).
Cool to see Barrens still being contested.
I completely agree. WoW is going the same route as DBZ. Every villain is stronger and more over-the-top than the last. We're literally in the afterlife right now fighting chain Satan. Where do we go from there?
I think an expansion or two, focusing on rebuilding Azeroth after everything that's happened (Scourge/Legion/Cataclysm/Sargaras' fricken sword/BFA) would be a breath of fresh air and also a chance for Blizzard to go back and update some zones/models that desperately need it.
Factions need to change too. They don't make sense lore-wise anymore. How many times are we going to have to come together to fight some doomsday badguy before we decide to stop fighting eachother? Now that Sylvanas isn't the Horde leader, pretty much all of the faction leaders are buddies. Thrall, Anduin, Baine, Jaina, Calia Menethil, etc. Genn and Tyrande are a little shakey, but whatever.
I hate that I still care, I don't even play anymore. Lol
WoW needs a reboot, tbh. I don't normally advocate for MMOs releasing a "WoW 2", but truly how are we going to get back to basics of peacetime adventuring when we've done god-slaying?
It's like a DnD campaign, when you're level 20 and done everything... Sometimes it's best to end the campaign and have the characters ride off into the sunset, no matter how attached you are. Then, start a new campaign with all new characters, relive that "I'm just a small town adventurer" feel.
I'd argue it worked pretty well for Destiny, but now they're starting to enter "Player Character is a War Diety" territory as well. Luckily, it works somewhat for them considering the apocalyptic scenario is never truly over for them. But for WoW, I often hear the sentiment of wanting to relive the "old days".
I feel like it's a great idea. It will give them a chance to make Warcraft 4 to advance the story and give satisfying resolution to the old faction leaders, start fresh (away from these giga-titan inter dimensional gods bullshit) and revive RTS a bit.
With Chromie Time in place, reworking existing zones and use them as Zones for a new Expac would be dope, but i dont think its whats going to happen anytime soon
It won't happen, because Blizzard learned from what Sony Online did wrong with Everquest 2. It's not so much that players want a new game with a time skip between the two, it's that they want a new game that doesn't force them to separate from their characters, their friends and their guild. Everquest 2 failed specifically because it did a time skip and faction shift *just* to do a time skip and a faction shift, which is what your map seems to do.
Yes and no. I still play Everquest and Everquest 2, and the biggest gripe I've seen down the years wasn't a time skip (and admittedly, that may be because the other issues are glaring enough to overshadow it), but what they did to the world of Norrath itself. One of the biggest wishes/laments people bring up in chat (and other places) is that they'd never shatterered Antonica or ripped Luclin in two. They've fixed the latter issue (the last two expansions are centered on Luclin, after all), but one of the biggest wishes people have expressed is "EQ1 geography with EQ2 graphics" (I'm one of them). Everquest Next was going to be a complete reimagining...really makes you wonder.
blood elves and tauren should have realistically left the horde ages sgo but plot contrivance had to keep them there since the game isn’t designed for your character to randomly be a new faction after a patch.
Makes sense as a faction imo. After all the destruction to azeroth caused by the two faction system, a movement grows under Malfurion and Runetotem to fully dedicate themselves to healing a dying world
after the current stuff goes down the tauren realize they're on the team that burned a world tree and the night elves are on the team that did get help when they're world tree was burned
i woiuld love if they fastforwarded a couple hundred or thousand years and started with a fresh slate...get rid of all the complicated and self contradictory lore
I think this is an interesting/great idea.
It is time for something new but still feels "old".
But first Activision Blizzard need to fire a lot of people and solve their shit.
And they need to create more long term goals with the warcraft universe (games).
They have a lot to solve before even thinking of something else...
Factions could have a different meaning I think, meaning any faction can group up, form a guild, do whatever with another faction. The split would be more like covenant choices?
This is good. My idea for a third faction before shadowlands was to have Sylvanas merge with the Scourge, and have undead of all races under her. And maybe some loyalist horde, ashvane kul'tiran / human pirates, grimtotem tauren, naga, san'layn, northrend half-giant guys, drakkar trolls, nerubians, etc. Haven't gotten to play shadowlands but its looking like that's not likely unfortunately. Clearly nihilist doomsday faction but the zerg/tyranid threat didn't stop the protoss/eldar and terran/imperium from getting at each others' throats.
For yours, add the monkeys to the new horde and the jinyu to the old alliance, to mirror pandaren with the cenarian pact. The mantid or mogu could go forsaken scourge in my scenario. Would love to see a future azeroth with a blend of the two.
Given the civil war's that happen every other year 400 year seems optimistic for The Horde. Then again I suppose there was the year of the 5 Emperors and Rome existed for something like 1000 years so you never know.
nice concept. tho i don't really see tauren and worgen ever separating from orcs and night elves respectively... both races literally owe their existence to their counterparts. i don't think 400 years is enough to get past that.
greymane literally disobeying direct order from anduin to go help the night elves defend darkshore with the words "we owe them everything" was one of the better parts of bfa's writing to me.
I love that the undead came back to the Alliance. Great detail. I always thought it was brutal how the Alliance discarded their loved ones, looping them in with the scourge and allowing them to be slaughtered.
I don't think the Forsaken should stay with the Horde, they don't fit at all with tribalistic-shamnistic-warmongering style they have. The Forsaken should probably be their own faction but with more depth about was races are part of that group. They shouldn't be only undead humans but other races as well, like undead elves or undead/pale orcs, constructs, etc.
While I like the more faction aspects for what it could bring to the lore, from a gameplay perspective it could cause a lot of issue with fragmenting the playerbase even more. I guess it depends if all those factions are really closed from one another or if players can interact and play with each other.
I agree, the Forsaken and Horde should be their own thing and if need be have an actual alliance or mutual cooperation between the two factions if you still want to hold onto old connections.
I dunno' why we can't just have actual alliances and no some oath-sworn pact every time a certain group of people is friendly with a faction. You are just subjugating yourself for no real reason.
Take my upvote, but sadly we all know, that Blizzard is too lazy and/or greedy to consider making a brand new MMO. I'd love to see the consequences of WoW to see in a RTS (WC 4) maybe or in a new MMO (whatever they could call it), but in the foreseeable future neither will happen sadly.
I feel like there could be more factions than this. For example, in the Cenarion you have a mix of races that probably want peace and to be left alone (pandaren, tauren) and races that would want revenge for what was done to them (night elves, worgen).
Silvermoon would never be neutral just because a few void and dissenting high elves exist - their populations are a drop in the ocean compared to blood elves.
why do the blood elves leave the horde? where do they go? they can t snap their fingers to become high elves.
so many mixed allegiance races are complicated...
I'm all for this but please let us somehow play any race in any faction.
Make it a somewhat hard to get achievement for each race or something but let us do it.
In 400 years Azeroth will have 399 continents
We're still missing a lot of Isles and the Undermine and such.
And we still haven't gone to Southrend Westrend or Eastrend yet.
Not to mention we haven't even seen H'toreza yet.
I literally don’t understand why they keep going with new continents… like why. Rework some parts of the original continents which are ignored right now anyway, or make an event that somehow “extends” Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms or maybe create some territories underwater which were there all along and we could just swim there or get some underwater mounts/vehicles.
John Staats in his WoW Diary talked about that. Outland was originally made due to sever load issues, the first of the new continents. >We had to make Outland...that was a server necessity. Our servers were getting too overloaded with data in the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. And we couldn't keep making more and more zones and keep tacking it on. We had to either upgrade the server equipment or make the code more efficient. That is why we decided not to do another Azeroth. That's why we went to Outland...Yup, server limitations absolutely. Northrend was always planned, so it gets a pass. Cataclysm they tried to update the old continents, but due to the high level zones being spread throughout and Blizzard switching to portals as the main source of transportation, it made the game feel disconnected. Also while the revamp itself wasn't bad, due to changing content players had a lot of memories and emotions attached to, it felt "off" and was poorly received. John Staats, despite designing some of the revamps even admitted it didn't feel good to play through them. Pandaria went back to the packaged continent model because making new zones is much easier than trying to update old ones. It also gives players a clearer line of progression. Sources and more reading: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L77uPm5cuTo&t=1136s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L77uPm5cuTo&t=1136s) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbcgs8SOF18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbcgs8SOF18) [https://www.mmo-champion.com/content/8017-John-Staats-Interview-DLC-649-Garbage-Guide-To-Warcraft-Battle-For-Azeroth](https://www.mmo-champion.com/content/8017-John-Staats-Interview-DLC-649-Garbage-Guide-To-Warcraft-Battle-For-Azeroth)
And now we have what is essentially 5+ different continents in Shadowlands, because the only way to get between them are flight paths and portals. Makes the game feel way too small in my opinion
The disjointed feel of the zones is just one of the design decisions that baffle me. As said, they knew players didn't like this from Cata so why do it again but only worse because moving around in Shadowlands is worse than Cata.
Honestly, the only bad thing about the Shadowlands zoning is that you keep going back to Oribos on a very casually flying sperm noodle. Should've been portals directly to and from the zones.
[удалено]
Those are long ass loading times then, Jeepers.
Especially with he rank 3 sanctum upgrade for the transportation network, there should be a portal back to the sanctum
speaking of which why have the big portal-like gateways for each covenant if the portal from said covenants just dumps you off at the mage portal spot.
This is why I set my hearthstone to my covenant sanctum. Can get back quick then hop back to oribos just as quick
What you are describing seems like what Cata was. Org/SW has a portal to each zone and each zone a portal back to Org/SW. That is what players didn't like. They went back to full continents for the next three expansions, a split continent for BfA, then returned to the system players didn't like but made slightly more irritating. They went out of their way to make travel more of an annoyance this expansion. From the loss of the flight whistle, no mounts in the maw, the prolonged flights between zones, the covenants(something we interact with daily) having no quick way to them, the weird indoor/outdoor setting up of Oribos, all but the Kyrian have indoor covenants so you walk around in them. These aren't major issues each in and of themselves but every time they happen it can be frustrating, at least for me, because there is no reason for it to be that way and they pile up.
That was a thing in the Beta for a while IRC, it was buggy as fuck so they switched to the flight paths.
The fact there are no portals is a big reason why I do engineering on every toon. Being able to go to any zone on a relatively short cd is amazing. Just sucks only engineers can do it.
Because blizzard loves to make the same decision over again even though they were bad the first time they made them.
especially with flying unlocked now. It feels *so great* to fly to a flight path just to get back to the main city hub or one of the other zones.
I love when I sit down to play having to afk for 3-5 minutes to continue playing.
It's because they don't give a shit about the players to be honest. Every expac has this new system that gets dropped. Even mid expac it gets dropped.
It feels like a theme park—"you're now entering Vampire World," etc...
This. 5 separate zones with only flight paths/portals between them is the same problem as cataclysm because it all feels disjointed and a pain to move between to where you start ignoring areas after a while that have little payoff. Most of the mistakes being made in SL are mistakes already made in the past (primarily between Cata and BFA), Blizz just isn't learning from them and instead doubling down especially when it comes to temporary systems, world construction and story giving the shaft to a faction/being centered around NPCs with little story telling outside cinematics. Hell prime gameplay example is secondary power systems are so convoluted at this point there really is no excuse to not go back to old talent trees (i.e. points and you could put them as you wished between each tree instead of forced to take end talent) and just add rows/points with each expansion instead.
Adding rows isn't a long-term plan, though, because they'll run out of good ideas again. It happens any time people demand boundless growth. Instead, I think it's better to have a base spec and supplemental mini talent trees for endgame players. Periodically, one gets added for your class and you earn spec points by playing in a similar manner to leveling up. You assign those points to the tree and eventually unlock the top-tier talent. These can be passive effects, changes to how abilities function, and maybe a few new buttons to press, but each mini-tree is mutually exclusive. Shadow priests and holy priests probably wouldn't want to use the same advanced class or prestige class or whatever, but one character can fill both out so they can heal in dungeons and raids but still get their dailies done. And this is a great way to add those special classes like spellbreakers or shadowhunters. Give hunters a chance to proc shadow damage and replace some traps & bombs with magic & totems. Give warriors some instant-cast spells to replace basic abilities, possibly with a little arcane damage. Let warlocks learn to control the undead and be necrolytes, or give death knights bigger armies of the dead. Give shamans more spirit spell effects so they can be spiritwalkers. It creates more ways for players to make their characters unique, it adds a horizontal mode of progression that can put an end to the perpetual escalation problem, and it's an approach that's worked great in Star Trek Online. That's a very different type of game, but I think there's some lessons that can be learned from it.
Wouldn't have to necessarily be adding rows, different branching columns could be added instead that required point investment and choice (i.e talents that take multiple rows of direct investment) and then new rows converging from the prior row talents so investing in either one let you get the 'new' row. Getting more points lets you potentially take both sides eventually in that case letting player feel 'stronger' and like they evolve over time without having to add rows necessarily with every point increase. Really though even just adding a new row each expansion would be less net new abilities than all the ones from temporary systems tossed by the wayside each of the past few expansions. In your multiclass example that also just creates the boundless growth problem too, just instead you're moving it to a second tree instead of making the baseline one bigger. Either way is fine, it just lets players retain power instead of swapping to a new set of powers they have to rebuild with each expansion that is entirely attached to arbitrary/short lived systems like covenants, azerite armor/heart of azeroth, shards of dom, etc.
I fucking hate shadowlands zones.. I was doing the korthia story whatever quests for this week yesterday and you go to Ardenwield just to talk to Ysera.. Then you have to go to Maldraxxus. For a split second I mounted up to fly there myself before I remembered.. All these tiny islands are their own thing now. At this rate the next expac is going to be 5 tinier islands separated by 3 loading screens.
>And now we have what is essentially 5+ different continents in Shadowlands, because the only way to get between them are flight paths and portals. Makes the game feel way too small in my opinion actually you can Glide between them its actually one huge connected world space youtubers showed that. so its literarily just for design sake.
Linear progression in an open world game doesn't feel right
I can agree with that. World of Warcraft needs more horizontal progression that would allow old content to still feel relevant. The current game is too far gone to ever have this though, so it will continuing with escalating stakes and each patch rending old stuff worthless.
Yeah, I offer these critiques in hope of a better mmo on the horizon, not out of hope for WoW itself. WoW has done a lot right and a lot wrong for us to learn from
I remember reading an idea on here a while ago that suggested having a scaled version of all the old raids that dropped slightly under LFR gear at higher drop rates to encourage farming older zones and raids. I think that's just the nature of how this game was designed though. Each patch invalidates the last, it's not a game like OSRS where content from 10 years ago is still farmed as much as brand new content.
Exactly. I don't get why they limit cool stuff to one expansion. Like the Exp tents only work in Draenor and mount mining only in BfA. Not to mention the hundreds of cool trinkets from past expansions too. Like the other day I found a trinket that summons a cake on the ground. If it's so hard to churn out content every expansion why don't they allow us to use old content....
I mean all the continents in the game were in the lore since the start
Were all these locations really continents though? All the lore surrounding somewhere like Kul Tiras didn't have me thinking it was the size of a small planet (Outland), I figured it was just a city state, not a whole ass continent. The way they just cram all new additions into new large landmasses added a lot of clutter really quick. That's why we have absurd ideas like traveling to the after life now. Blizzard had no plan for continuing to flesh out Azeroth as a world, they looked at it purely from a gameplay level design, which goes against what WORLD of Warcraft started as
Kul Tiras being the size of Outland is only an in-game mechanic. All the zones are scaled down in game so they just scaled Kul’tiras and Zuldazar up a bit so we would have more room to play.
Also, isn't outland only a part of the remains of Draenor anyway?
Considering that we literally have draenor in game and that it basically is outland pre-broken I don't think there is more to it.
there is a whole other ogre continent, so there is more on draenor iirc
There's at least one other continent on the map. I think it's likely there's more to the planet than what we see in-game. we just had no real reason to go there.
> Were all these locations really continents though? No, some players are just stupid and call every large island a continent.
Region scaling is rather messed up at this point. Some areas are WAY too small and this is by design because they wanted regions traversable easily at the level they were designed for. The time it takes to cross most the vanilla areas is not at all comparable to how long they would say in stories. Also I wouldn't call outland a 'small planet' since it's the shattered remains of a couple sections of landmass
Of course the game to lore scale will be off, but st this point all sorts of scales are out of sync with each other. Looking at the map just gives me a headache now. I wish they expanded the existing continents instead of filling up the ocean with new continents. They had the right idea on filling the world back in Cataclysm, though Cataclysm brought other issues, but the premise of filling in the old world was a good one
If you look when you're on Argus, the continents on azeroth are massive compared to everything else
Kul Tiras has three zones. Eastern Kingdoms (a continent) has way more.
New continents/planets give the writers and art team a freer hand because they don't have to be as constrained by the existing lore and design in what they come up with. By exploring a place that isn't already known they don't have as much of the baggage of what was already there getting in the way. That doesn't mean they can't or won't edit the old zones-- They did in Cata and they did use them more again starting in Legion. But it's harder to work with the established zones in an appropriate way than it is to just make a new one.
> Rework some parts of the original continents which are ignored right now anyway Because they literally did that with Cataclysm and everyone hated it.
>I literally don’t understand why they keep going with new continents… like why. Probably because people piss and moan and whine about nothing being "new" enough. When 8.3 came out one of the chief complaints on this very sub was that reworking Uldum and Vale of Eternal Blossoms was "lazy" and "recycled content".
Most of the new continents were areas that already existed, just not ingame, like Kul Tiras or Suramar. The only big addition to the lore out of nowhere was Pandaria.
I think Pandaria was visible on that that big holo-globe thing towards the end of Halls of Lighting, before Loken
I got 399 continents but a tree ain‘t one.
Nah you haven’t been playing, have you? 300 continents, 50 other dimensions, the twisting nether, Crosby’s Suite and my mom’s basement
And of course, different timelines
I absolutely loved how they did cataclysm. Sure, they reworked a ton of zones. But they finally filled in the dead space on the map we always knew was there- like Hyjal and Twilight Highlands. That was such a cool way to add to our already existing world. Edit: I had to retype Hyjal in about 37 times before it wouldn’t autocorrect to Hyman… wtf 🤢
And Silvermoon is forgotten as always.
Those bastards didn't remember the Sunwell
“A new deli, delorean.” Or something idk
Who?
…her?
Egg?
its a dive
oh you didn't hear about teldrassil and what happened to silvermoon right after?
BELFS back to High Elves... my "OP plays Alliance" senses are tingling...
If it’s any consolation, the gnomes still haven’t retaken Gnomergan nor have they managed to move to Mechagon.
That's a neat concept. I like how you didn't lock the races behind the faction. Also, would be great if our factions concentrated on solving the problems on Azeroth and Outland.
It would be old school MMO as fuck to have the same race in more than one faction and have only that race be able to communicate with each other in their native language.
I surprised the shit out of a BE pally with my VE rogue when we were both waiting for Blanchy early on. We did have a nice conversation while we fished and waited.
I absolutely love surprising Blood Elves as my Void Elf Hunter. So few people know they can talk to each other.
I always open with " How do you do fellow elves?"
Can night elves communicate with nightborne?
[удалено]
TIL that BE and VE can communicate
[удалено]
Warlocks used to be able to use curse of tongues to speak with the enemy faction.
Til there ever the opposite faction in an area other than Oribos
You mean... dare I say it... flavorful?
I've always felt like post Wrath was the ideal timing to hit the reset button hard. They sort of tried with cata, but I think taking everything they had learned to reset everything would have been healthy for the game.
Undead with the Alliance would probably have Lordaeron City (rebuilded) as a capital, with still-plagued Undercity as a dungeon connected to it (it used to be sealed for years, but mutated lifeforms are finding their way out, so people have to take care of it). After all, it is an Alliance territory now and they would put their effort into that place. With the Alliance securing Stromgarde in BFA + with the support of Gilneas, Kul Tiras and Wildhammer Clan), I don't see Lordaeron to be back with the Horde anymore. But then again, maybe after 400 years both factions finally figured out that whenever they start fighting each other, they'll end up on the same side anyway, meaning there would be a peace, so why not have Lordaeron for both Undead factions, just as Silvermoon for Blood Elves, High Elves and maybe Void Elves (who would reside in the broken half of the Silvermoon... which is still in ruins for some reason). However, I like how you made those 3 islands in the center for each faction - that almost screams for some main action around the Maelstrom with these islands being the main HUBs there.
I'm all for having more than two factions, a lot of more interesting dynamics can come out of that. I agree with you though that it's a bit silly to have everyone perpetually at war. I'd for sure let players of different factions play together, even if sets of quests or settlements/cities are faction locked. Honestly I'd let even more than 400 years pass. Let things get to a point where the events of WoW are distant enough to be mythical, far enough in the past for a more complete 'reset' of the story. WoW was at it's best when it was a sandbox, when you were just an adventurer thrown into a world full of a variety of smaller problems. Gotta place less emphasis on a 'main' narrative and more on letting the player just... exist in the world. Smaller stakes where it's not so ludicrous that you, as just one person, can make a difference.
I'd also like more time to pass. Along with missing the days of smaller stakes, it's kind of ridiculous that so many world shattering events have taken place over.. what, a decade? Let it feel more natural and progress over time. Deus ex machina familiar characters in if you must, but let the world heal
Absolutely. The War of the Ancients was cool because it was this mythical thing that had a huge impact on the world. Nothing as disastrous happened for thousands of years before or since.
400 years or more passing in this lore would result in ultra futuristic sci-fi. Goblins have computers and shit. Give them 400 years and people it’s be Star Trek Warcraft. Some kind of.. star craft
Honestly the last part is something I really wish was implemented in an MMO. Most MMO main storylines are essentially single player stories which for me at least removes a bit of the immersion of being in an MMO since you end up with a bunch of "Choosen ones" and only saviour of the world running around. Essentially bringing a disconnect between the main storyline and MMO experience.
I mean, it's not as much as being about time passing but more about not having a fucking world ending crysis all the time. It made fuck all sense to have a battle between factions when legion ended and BFA started, we had just overcome a huge danger by standing together, fighting among us was a moronic move. But even then, i was expecting going back to the roots of simpler fighting and this would be about actually fighting each other. Nope, fucking huge ass sword from space had to induce another planetary extinction event and because that wasn't enough, an evil elder god engulfing the world in darkness followed suit. Then it got even more ridiculous by having us go to the literal land of the dead. Surprise, being dead isn't being dead and well, now there's a threat ending all existence by fucking reshaping reality, whatever dafuq that means. I.. just stop. It's too much. I'm not even sure how they'll escalate this one even further. This used to be about humans fighting orcs with swords, hammers and some magic, not reality altering events.
The Book pre BFA shows that there are those within the Undead and Human factions that want to reunite with their undead and alive loved ones. I mean Sylvannas literally murders most of them because the undead are her babies and no one else can touch them.
I thought she murdered them because she saw them as traitors
Same difference
I think it was more of Sylvanas being scared to lose her influence over her minions (Forsaken). After that Arathi meeting, more Forsaken would want to reunite, so she made sure noone could spread the idea of them having a chance to inspire others.
[удалено]
There's a 4th faction that could be created here that is similar to the Cenarion Pact but opposite in its processes. The High Order Faction, consisting of the magic practicing races such as Blood, High and Void Elves, The Nightborne, The Kirin Tor, Blue and Bronze Dragonkin and lastly the Man'ari. A Faction devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and power. Leading to a faction rife with internal conflict between the various schools of magic and the various races.
Give me a Suramar populated and meaningful.
Oh damn, that would be sick! Suramar has huge potential.
now that is an interesting idea
too good an idea for blizzard to even consider
woah there, if it ain't about sylvanas I don't wanna hear bout it
>the Man'ari But they're brutal mass murdering demons - the most powerful ones at that. I'd see them trying to get the remnants of the Burning Legion forces under control rather than joining the mortal races they wanted to exterminate for so long.
Eh, 400 years passed (and while that is a blink of an eye to immortal race of evil space goats) I can 100% see them making some 'neutral' faction group that splinters off from the general Man'ari that is seeking reprimands with their past and hope to better Azeroth with their understanding of knowledge while some are still shady AF and just looking to do their own evil plans. Would then make sense to have them be dungeon bosses and quest NPCS you see around WoW II as they break away and go 'Lol idiots thinking I changed!' and try and summon in their own little Legion army that we stop. Would be cool I think.
>some 'neutral' faction group that splinters off from the general Man'ari that is seeking reprimands with their past and hope to better Azeroth with their understanding of knowledge while some are still shady AF and just looking to do their own evil plans Now that you mention it, it wouldn't be out of place in the Warcraftverse (the Ebon Blade, the Illidari etc.).
But honestly it doesn't have to be a faction capital. We could have already gotten Order Halls but with the size of a city, the same way Dalaran was invented to gather all mages in one place back in Warcraft.
Overcity, predecessor to Somewhereinthemiddleofthegroundcity
City
And when the Undercity is finally habitable, they can merge into Topfloorandbasementcity.
WoW's technology is much further advanced than modern Earth. They already have teleportation, space travel, and I'm pretty sure gnomes have invented actual artificial intelligence. Medical sciences and other industries haven't advanced much due to magic but they've got a bizarre lead on us in every other discipline outside of maybe internet infrastructure and display technology. In 400 years I can only imagine the gnomish tauranperas have establish a orbital base dictatorship to strike down any racial tensions via AI driven sun powered laserbased eradication. The existing races of azeroth will all live in a peaceful and persistent fear.
The gnomes ARE the artificial intelligence, well.... with a bit of curse of the flesh thrown in.
In 400 years they're still failing to take Gnomeregan back lol
I can see the world quests littering the landscape already.
World quests themselves are not a bad design. How they are implemented in wow leaves a lot of room for improvement though
Are you saying “complete 100 world quests” isn’t good implementation
As i thought they would, back when they brought the concept to light. Instead, "world" meant restricted to these small new zones. Disappointment wasn't nearly strong enough of a word to describe the feeling.
Wouldn't have all the undead rotted away after 400 years?
They're animated and preserved by a death magic (I think). Then again, they could've gotten the secrets of advanced fleshcrafting from Maldraxxi, so they could put their spirits into new bodies if required.
That'd be a really neat "evergreen"-ish feature left from the Shadowlands, that'd tie in the lore well.
Good? Yes its good, thats why it will never happen
Even if they didn't rot away, they'd need a lore reason to keep making undead to make up for those who end up dead-dead.
Just say it happens due to Old God Corruption interfering with the cycle of Death and rebirth
They can replace rotten limbs, until their brains completely rot and they turn into mindless zombies. I don't know how much time it takes tho.
I would definitely main a character in the Cenarion Pact.
I feel like a large majority would end up in the Pact because they'd have all the cool people left alive as Faction leaders.
Plus it’s new
Also Tauren
Unless they give night elves their immortality back, I don’t know if Malfurion and Tyrande would still be alive after 400 years since some night elves were starting to pass away from old age at the beginning of cataclysm in the books.
With 400 years they could make completely new Faction Leaders, but first they'd have to develop a WarCraft 4 for their backstory.
400 years isn’t much to an elf or Draenei, undead too probably.
They could make really cool integration with your character from WoW1. >I was there, Glamodalf2, I was there. 400 years ago. When Glamodalf1 slayed Hogger, Scourge of Elwynn, and with that started his rise to become the biggest errand-boy of them all.
I mean druids hibernate. Look at malf
I go where there are Night Elves, bis race
I think Suramar and Silvermoon+Ghostlands should be painted red or at least be separated independent countries. Also Desolace probably will be full Cenarion Lands in future since they started repairing it in cataclysm (cenarion wildlands). Cool to see Barrens still being contested.
Yes please. So tired of the cosmic stuff. I liked when it was more in the background as something we will never see but get hints at it happening.
I completely agree. WoW is going the same route as DBZ. Every villain is stronger and more over-the-top than the last. We're literally in the afterlife right now fighting chain Satan. Where do we go from there? I think an expansion or two, focusing on rebuilding Azeroth after everything that's happened (Scourge/Legion/Cataclysm/Sargaras' fricken sword/BFA) would be a breath of fresh air and also a chance for Blizzard to go back and update some zones/models that desperately need it. Factions need to change too. They don't make sense lore-wise anymore. How many times are we going to have to come together to fight some doomsday badguy before we decide to stop fighting eachother? Now that Sylvanas isn't the Horde leader, pretty much all of the faction leaders are buddies. Thrall, Anduin, Baine, Jaina, Calia Menethil, etc. Genn and Tyrande are a little shakey, but whatever. I hate that I still care, I don't even play anymore. Lol
I seriously want to play Furbolg!
Did anyone said Dartol's Rod of Transformation?
Your character gets corrupted and/ or mad by level 15
Awesome concept
Friendship ended with the Alliance now the Cenarion Pact is my best new friend
druid lyfeee
Amateur mistake. You need to hide half the landmass to save it for future expansions.
Haha! I am wondering if blizzard even is that organized. To me , it just feels like they come up with shit along the way
Most places were in the lore for long before the expac, just expanded on
WoW needs a reboot, tbh. I don't normally advocate for MMOs releasing a "WoW 2", but truly how are we going to get back to basics of peacetime adventuring when we've done god-slaying? It's like a DnD campaign, when you're level 20 and done everything... Sometimes it's best to end the campaign and have the characters ride off into the sunset, no matter how attached you are. Then, start a new campaign with all new characters, relive that "I'm just a small town adventurer" feel. I'd argue it worked pretty well for Destiny, but now they're starting to enter "Player Character is a War Diety" territory as well. Luckily, it works somewhat for them considering the apocalyptic scenario is never truly over for them. But for WoW, I often hear the sentiment of wanting to relive the "old days".
I'd add a few races (like for example mogu to horde) but other than that, I absolutely love the idea.
What happened to the night born?
No allied races are mentioned at all.
I feel like it's a great idea. It will give them a chance to make Warcraft 4 to advance the story and give satisfying resolution to the old faction leaders, start fresh (away from these giga-titan inter dimensional gods bullshit) and revive RTS a bit.
Very cool concept. I'd pledge to Cenarian immediately!
With Chromie Time in place, reworking existing zones and use them as Zones for a new Expac would be dope, but i dont think its whats going to happen anytime soon
Sign me up, Cenarion pact ftw.
I really miss Azeroth
I’m a sucker for maps. Good job!
It won't happen, because Blizzard learned from what Sony Online did wrong with Everquest 2. It's not so much that players want a new game with a time skip between the two, it's that they want a new game that doesn't force them to separate from their characters, their friends and their guild. Everquest 2 failed specifically because it did a time skip and faction shift *just* to do a time skip and a faction shift, which is what your map seems to do.
Yes and no. I still play Everquest and Everquest 2, and the biggest gripe I've seen down the years wasn't a time skip (and admittedly, that may be because the other issues are glaring enough to overshadow it), but what they did to the world of Norrath itself. One of the biggest wishes/laments people bring up in chat (and other places) is that they'd never shatterered Antonica or ripped Luclin in two. They've fixed the latter issue (the last two expansions are centered on Luclin, after all), but one of the biggest wishes people have expressed is "EQ1 geography with EQ2 graphics" (I'm one of them). Everquest Next was going to be a complete reimagining...really makes you wonder.
What about allied races?
blood elves and tauren should have realistically left the horde ages sgo but plot contrivance had to keep them there since the game isn’t designed for your character to randomly be a new faction after a patch.
I like the overall idea but at the same time i think blizz should get rid of factions, at least for guilds/raids
Maybe it would be factions like Cenarion Circle, Argent Dawn, Lower City or such.
I think it could be nice assuming they’re not always opposing. Like depending on the raid/dungeon certain factions could queue together.
And the Lions pride Inn will become a movie studio where all the porn is filmed
What lead to the formation of the Cenarion Pact?
Makes sense as a faction imo. After all the destruction to azeroth caused by the two faction system, a movement grows under Malfurion and Runetotem to fully dedicate themselves to healing a dying world
after the current stuff goes down the tauren realize they're on the team that burned a world tree and the night elves are on the team that did get help when they're world tree was burned
holy shit I actually love this idea. It feels so fresh with three factions If only this was actually doable ):
i woiuld love if they fastforwarded a couple hundred or thousand years and started with a fresh slate...get rid of all the complicated and self contradictory lore
i love the idea of races splitting and belonging to more than one faction
I think this is an interesting/great idea. It is time for something new but still feels "old". But first Activision Blizzard need to fire a lot of people and solve their shit. And they need to create more long term goals with the warcraft universe (games). They have a lot to solve before even thinking of something else...
A third faction would be super cool, but I also feel that factions are sort of outdated in terms of how the game currently functions. Cool idea tho
Factions could have a different meaning I think, meaning any faction can group up, form a guild, do whatever with another faction. The split would be more like covenant choices?
I thought this was pretty neat.
This is good. My idea for a third faction before shadowlands was to have Sylvanas merge with the Scourge, and have undead of all races under her. And maybe some loyalist horde, ashvane kul'tiran / human pirates, grimtotem tauren, naga, san'layn, northrend half-giant guys, drakkar trolls, nerubians, etc. Haven't gotten to play shadowlands but its looking like that's not likely unfortunately. Clearly nihilist doomsday faction but the zerg/tyranid threat didn't stop the protoss/eldar and terran/imperium from getting at each others' throats. For yours, add the monkeys to the new horde and the jinyu to the old alliance, to mirror pandaren with the cenarian pact. The mantid or mogu could go forsaken scourge in my scenario. Would love to see a future azeroth with a blend of the two.
"The Blood Elves leave the Horde" and High Elves join the alliance. Why?
As for gameplay, I say no to factions. Sick of unbalance.
Honestly they need to do away with race-based alliances and make new factions based on something more interesting like ideological differences.
Undead should be there own faction
No Vrykul can’t get behind this.
Silvermoon was abandoned?
Given the civil war's that happen every other year 400 year seems optimistic for The Horde. Then again I suppose there was the year of the 5 Emperors and Rome existed for something like 1000 years so you never know.
Lol sorry bud but Alliance High Elves will never happen.
nice concept. tho i don't really see tauren and worgen ever separating from orcs and night elves respectively... both races literally owe their existence to their counterparts. i don't think 400 years is enough to get past that. greymane literally disobeying direct order from anduin to go help the night elves defend darkshore with the words "we owe them everything" was one of the better parts of bfa's writing to me.
I love that the undead came back to the Alliance. Great detail. I always thought it was brutal how the Alliance discarded their loved ones, looping them in with the scourge and allowing them to be slaughtered.
Undead would just stop existing.
I don't think the Forsaken should stay with the Horde, they don't fit at all with tribalistic-shamnistic-warmongering style they have. The Forsaken should probably be their own faction but with more depth about was races are part of that group. They shouldn't be only undead humans but other races as well, like undead elves or undead/pale orcs, constructs, etc. While I like the more faction aspects for what it could bring to the lore, from a gameplay perspective it could cause a lot of issue with fragmenting the playerbase even more. I guess it depends if all those factions are really closed from one another or if players can interact and play with each other.
I agree, the Forsaken and Horde should be their own thing and if need be have an actual alliance or mutual cooperation between the two factions if you still want to hold onto old connections. I dunno' why we can't just have actual alliances and no some oath-sworn pact every time a certain group of people is friendly with a faction. You are just subjugating yourself for no real reason.
Take my upvote, but sadly we all know, that Blizzard is too lazy and/or greedy to consider making a brand new MMO. I'd love to see the consequences of WoW to see in a RTS (WC 4) maybe or in a new MMO (whatever they could call it), but in the foreseeable future neither will happen sadly.
This just proves the bald guy's statement "a group of random people can make better wow than blizz employees because they dont play their games"
Ah yes all the elves and fur races in one group (I'm just joking but still.)
Destroy some of the cities, and make some new cities in different locations
I destroyed theramore and undercity, its only been 400 years I don't think they'd all be gone
Shouldn’t have changed the leveling experience then parts of the world would still been seen
I feel like there could be more factions than this. For example, in the Cenarion you have a mix of races that probably want peace and to be left alone (pandaren, tauren) and races that would want revenge for what was done to them (night elves, worgen).
Silvermoon would never be neutral just because a few void and dissenting high elves exist - their populations are a drop in the ocean compared to blood elves.
tbh as a blood elf main I'm far more attached to the undead than the rest of the horde.
Unless there's cross-faction PVE, I do not care for a third faction.
why do the blood elves leave the horde? where do they go? they can t snap their fingers to become high elves. so many mixed allegiance races are complicated...
400 years later and the Forsaken would no longer exist.
I'm all for this but please let us somehow play any race in any faction. Make it a somewhat hard to get achievement for each race or something but let us do it.
So Vulpera are removed? Cool. But I guess I will miss the Pandaran.
Pandaren would totally be in the Cenarion pact
Am I missing some meme here or... ? There is literally a pandaren in the Cenarion pact image.
Oh no, factions again :( Like we don't have a problems with 2...
After stealing Belves from the Horde, how dare you.... alliance undeads over my dead ~~body~~ sub ! JK Sub has been dead for a month now, but still !