Hey guys, is it only me or does the map really feels little in World of Warcraft ?

Heck, Alterac is in ruins but it's like half of a map and not a single village, while stromgarde is little in size in comparison with Stormwind and Kul'Tiras. It would be great if every kingdom would be as big as Kul'Tiras at least.

Also there are so many places around the lore that are missing in WoW like Blackwood town, the town of birth of Othmar Garithos or Sunnyglade in Elwynn Forest.

Well yeah it sucks, everyone would like a bigger and more detailed Azeroth. But that's just not how it was designed and we need to deal with it. There is no lore reason for it (though some writers confuse lore scale and game scale), just developer limitations. That said I think WoW was by far the largest MMO world when it launched, so consider that and give some credit to Blizz.

And you can't just make, say Stromguarde bigger without making the zones next to it bigger too and enlarging and totally redesigning the old world like that would take several expansion's worth of work at current Blizzard pace.

I do like the more "zoomed in" design of the last two expansions but I worry Blizzard, ever gameplay focused, will just canonize gamescale into lore scale and the Broken Isles, Zandalar and Kul Tiras will graduate from islands to continents.

Also, Blizzard already canonized in-game Theramore.

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What really gets to me isn't the gamescale itself, but how the actual in-game map is completely misrepresenting the sizes of the continents and crowding up the ocean.

This right here is the awful map we have. And this is the map from Chronicle, the closest thing we have to a proper scale map, which they could easily use as a template. Which would result in something like this. Wouldn't that be a treat?

They've already referred to Zandalar and Kul Tiras as continents in in-game dialogue (though in other places they've called them islands, and on the official site once called Zandalar a 'sub-continent.')

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But...

That's not how subcontinents work!

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My Worldbuilding:
http://bloodinkworlds.tumblr.com/

They've also called Kul Tiras a sub-continent. I think we can add that to the list of words Blizzard doesn't know the meaning of, right after "Peninsula".

*High Fives* Yyyyep

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My Worldbuilding:
http://bloodinkworlds.tumblr.com/

The map is as little as it is because for a larger scale, they'd either need to use procedural generation (an idea they were toying with at one point) or focus on a smaller area*, as with the resources they had, this was the maximum they could have done. The development nearly broke the company already, attempting to go even beyond that would have probably sealed the deal.

There's also an issue of server and engine stability. They already had quite large problems making everything seemless as it was (MMORPGs at that point usually utilized zoning), it's possible that a larger scale would not have been possible even from a technical standpoint.

* I've always been of the opinion that Blizzard attempted to cover way too much with the original game, and that they should have focused on a smaller area. Either the continents of Lordaeron and Quel'thalas, or Azeroth and Khaz Modan, or Kalimdor (with the size as originally envisioned, ie approx. the same as that of Lordaeron and Quel'thalas, as with a larger scale, there would have been no reason to increase its size and inadvertently destroy the dynamic of the four continents in the East).

The could have zoomed in even more than that. Revolved the game around a frontier town in The Barrens.

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That'd certainly work for a single-player RPG, but I am not so sure about an MMORPG.

Perhaps Lordaeron and Quel'Thalas, with the same two factions:

Alliance: Humans of Stromgarde, Dwarves of Aerie Peak and Blood Elves of Quel'Danas;

Horde: Orcs of Snowden (a cool name for Frostwolf Hold), Trolls of Zul'Aman and Forsaken of the Undercity.

Or maybe three factions, with Forsaken and Blood Elves together; or no factions at all.

Then an Azeroth/Khaz Modan expansion featuring gnomes, Bronzebeard dwarves, Dark Iron dwarves, goblins and jungle trolls

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Daelin was right.

To be frank, I've always felt that Lordaeron and Quel'thalas works the least of the three possible options (Kalimdor, Lordaeron and Quel'thalas, Azeroth and Khaz Modan), at least if the hypothetical setting happens after the Third War.

It sort of depends on what you would want from a game.

Kalimdor was obviously being set up as Azeroth's new frontier, with humans and orcs both having made landfall and settled societies. There wouldn't be any Horde or Alliance, but other political factions made up of the races present, and the game would be about exploring a new land (or in the case of Tauren/Night Elves, adapting to newcomers).

Azeroth/Khaz Modan is a lot more classic fantasy, with human and dwarven kingdoms, mountains with dragons, burning badlands with evil orcs. It's surely a concept that's been proven to work, but I feel it could've come across as generic. And on the other hand, with a more Azeroth-centric focus, they could've pulled off the whole Defias/Nobles/Dragon-storyline a lot better than they did.

Lordaeron/Quel'thalas would be very apocalyptic and dark, what with the Scourge having destroyed everything and turned it undead. Small enclaves of humans and elves (and undead variants thereof) could be playable races, struggling to survive and rebuild. Or maybe they could've even added an evil undead/demon faction to the mix.

I don't really know which one I think would work the least, but I know I'd probably enjoy the Kalimdor-focused one the most.

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That's why I feel Lordaeron and Quel'thalas would have worked the least as the starting setting, it simply seems more suited for patch/expansion content.

However, I need to elaborate upon something. When I said with Kalimdor as originally presented (ie about as large as either Lordaeron&Quel'thalas or Azeroth), I did not mean just the size, but also the entire original concept that accompanied it.

As inferred from various concepts and confirmed by John Staats and his diary, Kalimdor was originally far more modelled after Africa while Azeroth after the Americas, something that had its origin in Metzen's idea for the dynamic of the world (Kalimdor was the "old, origin" continent, just like Africa, Lordaeron and co. were modelled after Europe in its role, and Azeroth was like the Americas, with the kingdom of Azeroth the youngest of human nations formed of a colony and much of the continent still untamed). To provide more concrete examples, Mulgore was originally more similar to the rest of the Barrens, just greener, the Barrens themselves were even more based on Sub-Saharan Africa (even the tauren, while still having many Native American elements, also had many African elements, notably having their young enslaved and brought east for hard labor), Tanaris on Saharan Africa, and so on. At the same time, Azeroth had many elements that were later moved to Kalimdor, Stranglethorn was much more larger (larger than Khaz Modan even) and featured many troll and goblin kingdoms, even Zandalar lay right off its coast, the Badlands were heavily influenced by the Badlands and other areas of Northern America (and very early on, even dwarven settlements there were inspired by the cliff dwellings of Northern America). Most of this was later either completely abandoned or moved west to Kalimdor because they lacked resources for a proper execution or required wanted things more symmetrical (that's ultimately why Kalimdor ended enlarged).

Now, to put this in relation to my own proposition, I simply believe that with a larger scale and therefore more resources and time to properly develop various concepts, there would have been no need to remove or reshuffle certain ideas from Azeroth and Khaz Modan, and therefore, it would not have been as traditional/generic/even shallow as it ended, instead ending a proper alternative to Kalimdor with regards to potential interest.

Yeah probably, they'd just have to make the area really big and dynamic.

There can be a few different areas like this too, all separated by a loading screen so a land mass is not condensed into what is essentially a small play area. If I remember correctly this is something Age of Conan did, where each zone was more of a dot on the map. There was one zone that was just a valley in the north. The world would feel a lot bigger if the game was presented in this manner. The game can show that Blizzard wants to show, and leave lots of room to implement future areas. Not all dots on the map have to be equal too, one can be a big stretch of unsettled frontier, while the other a small iconic location.

It can also allow sub zones for players to build in while remaining lore friendly. So instead of 2 million people all building the same base in Frostfire/Shadowmoon, we get 2 million people all building their own stuff spread out in the middle of nowhere.

Each area can also have a different play style. The Barrens can focus on building/expanding a frontier, Ashenvale can be about exploring old ruins and treasures, and Lordaeron can focus on zombie survival.

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Oh man, I thought I was the only one who felt like this. Kalimdor really should have been the only continent in original WoW, because it was clearly set up as the new world of Horde/Alliance. Then the older regions could have been set up in big patches like LOTRO. They abandoned Jaina’s desperate band of Lordaeron refugees for generic castles and knights in Stormwind.

How cool, for instance, would a ‘Return to Azeroth’ sort of deal been? Jaina could try bringing together the corrupt houses that manipulate the young king in Stormwind, which would be the haggard post-war shithole it should have been, while Thrall could have reconnected with the remnants of the old Horde in Blackrock and Swamp of Sorrows, all culminating in a fel-orc invasion from the portal as a nice throwback.

Blame it on Vanilla being based on Everquest.

Yeah, just imagine how cool it would have been if generic castles and knights are forced to adapt to African Safari. The knights would probably have to ditch heavy armor for something more utilitarian, mages would have to ditch long flowing robes for something that allows for easier traversal.

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Well, they never really abandoned Jaina for Stormwind, though. Stormwind had been planned and developed as the capital of humanity way before the story of Warcraft III was even solified (and Jaina had been planned to die until Beta as well).The issue was less that and more, as I alluded above, that they ditched certain concepts and did not develop others properly. It also does not help the storyline for the kingdom of Azeroth and other human nations they had formerly planned for Warcraft III got cut in favor of completely focusing on Arthas.

This is a good reason for me to post the stupidest rendering of a warcraft image. This shit infuriates me. So lazy.

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Now imagine a music, dear readers, heavy with cellos at a rapid staccato. Cellos held between thighs in a dark room. The little room of Harry's chest as he walks with his teammates to the opening gate of his first Test of Cribbage. They are a rag-tag group of champions, this bunch, and with Harry, the near-perfect new god, they know they will dominate the day. Harry is a world laced with rivers of wizardly blood. He is ready.

In that town building a tombstone is considered a major infrastructure project and a monumental step forward for the "city."

Whaaaaat I had no idea! Do you have any sources/links I could read?

I suggest reading though this thread and this Wowpedia page. Most of the things I know are covered there and sourced.

https://www.scrollsoflore.com/forums...=217244&page=4

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Warcraft_III_evolution_guide