There are many places that lie empty within Azeroth, those interesting nooks and crannies that get our imaginations going. While exploring Stormwind I came across Cut-throat Alley, a little cul-de-sac hidden away in the Canal District. This is exactly the sort of place that makes me curious. I can see in my mind's eye a thoroughfare bustling with shady dealers and rogues, tucked away and out of site from the rest of the city, their dealings too dark to go on under the public eye. One of my favorite empty spaces is now filled: I used to camp all my characters out in what is now the Stormwind Auction House, since I enjoyed pretending it was my own private home within the city.

Or the courthouse in the Dwarven District. Here the great magistrates of Stormwind might have sat, dealing out justice to those who break the realm's laws. There are all sorts of stories that we can build out of these empty spaces. I once found an empty cave in Azshara without mob or mining node, the sort of place you might expect a hermit to hang out in, or a mountain troll, hungering for the flesh of wayward travelers.

Perhaps these are the places that originally had content but somehow it changed over the course of the development cycle. In the case of Cut-throat Alley, it looks to me like it was the original home for the rogues of Stormwind, but somehow seemed too difficult to find. Now, being that I play mostly Alliance characters, I don't know the empty spaces that might be found in Orgrimmar or Undercity. But these places get me wondering.

Are there any empty spaces in the game that you wonder about?

Tags: Auction House, AuctionHouse, Azshara, cut-throat alley, Cut-throatAlley, empty space, empty spaces, EmptySpace, EmptySpaces, Orgrimmar, Stormwind, Stormwind City, StormwindCity, Undercity

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends