The second Paw change, I hated. The one with the elementals? Yuk.

The Nektulos Forest change with the Depths of Darkhollow was universally reviled, so they swapped it back to the old zone layout with new graphics.

As for WoW — if they changed the zones, I might play again. I just can’t do the same newbie grind even one more time. Been there, done that x 6. I agree that WoW should look into zone revamps. Anything to make leveling a character fun again.

In essence, this involves more random-generated invasions. It’s perfect for games like Tabula Rasa, where the whole thing is a battlefield.

Perhaps the 10 rats you killed were children of the rat King, and he sends his army of ratlings to attack the newbie starting zone? Make an invasion generator, and have a dev write a quick background story for each generation.

There you go, you make an impact on the world, and the world constantly changes (and you feel all warm and fuzzy for making some of those changes).

Although they could at least add new quests, etc. for all levels in all the towns and zones which would give a reason for players to revisit them if only to accept and complete the new quests.

There were so many squandered opportunities to have cool content in WoW and they just blew it.

The gnomish airport above Ironforge? Instead of altering the terrain code so characters couldn’t stand on slopes, why not let us go there? It’s not like there was some game-breaking features up there. For that matter, why not actually *use* it? The gnomes could fly you to a destination faster than the griffons, for a higher fee of course, and given that it’s a gnomish device could run a random chance of crashing somewhere. There’s some risk:reward for ya. Of course if it crashed, it would only crash into a level-appropriate zone, we don’t wanna get too carried away with harshness.

The racetrack in Shimmering Flats. How boring. Why couldn’t we gradually build up our own racers as part of a quest/faction line? Racing is a non-violent form of PvP and they could have given new racing gear, titles, and other rewards as well as new tracks in other locations and leaderboards to rank in.

Ironforge and other places had siege engines lying about as decoration. Why weren’t these ever used, even in one-time events? The Alliance could have trade caravans running between Ironforge and Stormwind. Horde players could pick up quests to assault the caravan and weaken Alliance defenses by taking the merchandise. Alliance players and NPC’s could rush to the caravan’s defenses and if the battle gets too close to one of the cities, the dwarven NPC’s break out their siege engines and fire into the Horde.

Almost every time I found a new zone in WoW I was always struck with so many “oh what a shame” moments of lost opportunities for content. And that, in itself, is a shame…

I understand that there needs to be incentive for players to head off into new zones, but that does not mean over time the old zones can’t be reworked to match the new zones. WoW and The Burning Crusade expansion are a perfect example of how well done new zones will empty popular old zones in a heartbeat.

It really aggravates me to see all of Azeorth (old world in WoW) literally turned into a ghost town. It would not have taken that much effort on the part of Blizzard to give reasons for now level 70 characters to go back. But no, they just made a garbage dump that level 70’s now are stuck in, aka, Outlands. It could of been a far better area had it been built as a “theme park” where players show up, level 60-70 with a lot of great solo-small group content, and then return home.

WotLK is going to be the exact same and as much as I love WoW’s gameplay, I don’t think another 10 levels will hook me.

I see no problem with revamping zones. Especially problem child zones such as STV. Better yet, have cyclic content. Since MMO bosses are never truly killed (they’re rather like soap opera characters) perhaps the Horde could have provided Captain VanKleef with the means to attack Stormwind and while the Alliance is busy defending from the Defias attacks the Horde mount a massive assault on the undefended front. Stormwind is razed. Over the next few months, once the hardcore PvP crowd beat back the Horde, the NPC’s can slowly start rebuilding the city to its former glory. Perhaps the players get to help in its rebuilding with a better, more thought-out version of the War Effort quests. Perhaps the new Stormwind is changed slightly, perhaps not. Either way Blizz still has the original assets, it’s just a patch away from seeing each stage of rebuilding and in the meantime there could be new quests for low, mid, and high level characters that are only available during construction. Afterwards, they’re gone and the old quests reappear.

Molten Core is… well, let’s be honest: boring. It was Blizz’s first raid, we all have memories of our first trip to MC, the first time our group downed Rags, etc. But MC is goddamn boring. Would it kill them to go back and revamp the whole thing? Don’t nerf down the difficulty, no one’s looking for EZ-Raid, but we are looking for Entertaining Raid.

Most of the old content could be revisited, and revamped where appropriate and it would drastically improve the game in my opinion.

Same with the even more drastic revamps, like the new Dark Elf newbie forest (drawing a blank on the name). Sure, it looks better… but it’s not the same zone anymore. Fond memories of days past, R.I.P. It’s a little sad.

Would the Barrens still be the Barrens with a major overhaul to locations and quests? I’m more inclined to have them add new areas instead of redoing old ones (other than with loot tables, maybe), because the old areas are already good, and it’s fun to go replay stuff you look back on fondly.