Revisiting old Azeroth
by Elizabeth Harper 
Jul 19th 2007 at 6:35PM
- Streamlined quests means that when you're first sent to a zone, you've got a good assortment of quests you can work on. You're rarely sent all over the world to complete a quest. (Flying all over the world isn't really fun -- though it's a good time to go AFK and grab a soda.) And when you're finishing up the quests in a zone, you're conveniently directed to the next appropriate zone.
- Every zone has an inn and a flightpath for convenient travel -- and most of them have multiples of both.
- Almost all quests have rewards you want! Looking at Outland quest rewards, even if you don't have a reward that works for you, you can see how it would be useful for certain classes or builds. There are quest rewards in Azeroth that it's hard to tell who might ever want to use them.
Many players have posted ideas and suggestions for ways to revamp Azeroth after the release of the Burning Crusade. But many of those ideas and suggestions posted by some players have been radically different than ideas and suggestions from other players, so at times it can be quite hard to get a good overview of which things in Azeroth people would like to see changed or improved more than other things...
He goes on to ask what change you would make if you could make one change to Azeroth. Now, I sort of think Azeroth needs more than just one change, but if you play on the EU side of things and want to give them your two cents, this thread is the place. Otherwise, you're welcome to let us know what you think in our comments!
[via Judgement of Wisdom and Altitis]
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Leveling, Alts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
CVJ Jul 19th 2007 6:52PM
I would love it if there was a boost to the XP gained rate not a ton but 10 percent would not hurt.
Also and this would be my biggest wish, give buffs to the rewards from quests money gained and to the gear you get.
Much of the stuff I got in outlands on my toons I did not raid with I was able to use for a level or so until I got an upgrade in an instance.
Problem is now most people only run SM and uldaman and skip most of the instances all together which is a pity.
Tiforix Jul 19th 2007 7:21PM
I'd take the majority of boss drops from 5-mans and make them quest rewards instead. That is, instead of killing a boss and hoping he drops the item you want, you get a quest to kill him, and then go receive a quest reward of your choice. That way, a lot of people would run each of the 5-mans at least once, as opposed to not at all.
Mats Jul 19th 2007 8:06PM
I'd like wow-insider to start commenting that there post from forums, and such all are from the US forums, or stop noting that these are from the EU forums.
Perhaps Elizabeth Harper should be known as a "Female blogger", while Mike Schramm, should be known as a "Blogger". After all, most people who read this site are male, so it would be nice to point out that all of posts made by Elizabeth are in fact from a female point of view, and not just a person. Just like it's always pointed out that this is from a "European site" "European player" or "Over the Pond".
Duart Jul 19th 2007 8:39PM
I was wondering (speaking of old content) why the handsome "airport" behind Ironforge (and the Ironforge under that it is linked to) has never been made a part of the active game and included in the local quests. Yes it looks great when your bird swoops over it, But it is fully populated with NPCs( I spotted a pet trainer the last over-flight) and a huge amount of work went into it. So does anyone know why it has never been used?
Duart-Exodar
Bobby Hansen Jul 19th 2007 8:21PM
the quests need to be tighter. Quests that send you to the other continent to kill monsters, or do a dungeon, then expect you to come back for Silver or un-desirable items simply are not worth it.
KaonNemesis Jul 19th 2007 8:44PM
I've said it before and I'll say it again...
They need to add new mid-level content and/or allow increased XP gains for new characters once you already have a character at the level cap (compounded by each character you have at the level cap on the server), making levelling up additional characters much less "painful". For example, say you have one level 70 character, the next character you rolled on the server would gain all XP at a rate of 150%. If you had two level 70's then the rate for your next character would increase to 200%, then 250% for the next character, then 300% for the next, and so on. The Bonus XP should also be compunded by Rested XP. However, the Bonus XP should stop at level 60 so you still have to fully "enjoy" the BC content with each character.
Make Flying Mounts work in Azeroth.
Finish old content (such as Dalaran, Uldum, Grim Batol, Dustwallow Marsh, etc).
Add Heroic Versions of ALL existing instances and raids (pre-level cap), brought up to the challenge level of the current level cap. They don't have to be re-itemized (in fact many would probably prefer the old raids were not), instead offer tons of gold from heroic bosses or rare crafting mats or a trade-in type system (like the Badges of Justice). Just imagine, every instance would still be viable to run at the level cap! Heroic Deadmines ftw!
Yeah yeah, I know... I don't know how to count to one. Deal with it ;)
Nate Jul 19th 2007 9:14PM
One word: Pandaren!
More seriously, there should be more festivals and special events (Brewfest is a step in the right direction). Also, I know it's been said many times before, but the game is crying out for a woodworking profession.
A few more areas in old Azeroth that should be completed are Gilneas and Kul Tiras (and Pandaria...)
spinninnzen Jul 19th 2007 10:01PM
Couple of things Ive enjoyed about Outlands and wish they would implement in Azeroth are:
1 Flying mounts
2 better quest rewards
3 no more dungeon grinding just to get a cloak that will be good for maybe one more level since it took you 3 levels to finally have it drop.
4 dungeons need to be revamped. they did it with pvp time to do it to pve. make it worthy to do MC, AQ, Naxx and all the other dungeons again. Drop the raid sizes for them back to 10. Increase drop rate for gear and/or make the system smarter. doesnt make sense for shammy gear to drop if there is no shammy in your group!
5 revamp rep status for certain factions. grinding for weeks to get a +15 agility enchant is not worth it anymore so why have it continue to be so difficult??
A couple of other things i wouldnt mind would be tweaks to monetary rewards (making them akin to outlands) as well as increase to bonus xp time. maybe cap it at two levels or 3 instead of 1.5
Carlsberg Jul 19th 2007 10:46PM
only way to fix this is to have a massive XP gain for people with level 70's on their alts (thinking 200% or even more). Maybe a quest reward trinket that has to be sent you your alt so this is possible. Make it long chain quest killing a few level 70 elites for the trinket. Stops working at level 60. Therefore in order to get another "alt leveling trinket" the new level 60 must work up to it in Outlands again. Hope you understand what im trying to say.
As for Heroic versions of the old instances, id say there is more likely to be a Caverns of Time Deadmines before a Heroic version.
Kosar Jul 19th 2007 10:56PM
well flying mounts in Azeroth just isn't going to happen, as they stated when BC came out, its just not feasible since they'd have to re-do every graphic so it could be seen from that point of view. and the place is mind-boggling huge in what they'd have to cover.
Tim Jul 19th 2007 11:02PM
Just speed up transportation for all levels. What about horse-pulled wagons? I think there should be more transportation points, staffed by NPCs, that would take you around at a much faster clip. That would make all the annoyance at leveling another alt go away, to be honest.
RogueJedi86 Jul 19th 2007 11:58PM
Don't give increased XP gain for people with other 70's. Think of how that affects new players. You have the knowledge of 2 or 3 characters running through zones, so you already know which quests to do in certain areas to get the best xp. Giving you extra xp for having multiple characters would be unfair to the new players. In addition to not knowing where to quest, and having no high level friends to help with harder quests, they're also suffering from lack of an xp bonus. They just need to "Outlandize" Azeroth, add quest hubs, and better money rewards for quests that send you across the entire world.
christopher.coke Jul 20th 2007 12:00AM
I’d suggest putting in more mid-level content for this reason – people spend a lot of time in Azeroth. Be it leveling up a main or working on an alt. This is more important for those people working on alts because as others have put it – it can be “painful”.
Which brings me to my next point (and forgive the length here): having a max’d out alt on a server shouldn’t entitle you to perks with a different character. Having a level 70 is supposed to be time consuming. It’s an achievement. To allow players to zoom right up there will not only lead to people being bored quicker but it will also lead to higher degrees of separation between bigger and smaller guilds. It would give an unfair advantage of sorts and exclude raiding guilds from bringing in new players.
On top of that, do things really need to be THAT easy-moded? Let’s take the most conservative example of someone who has one max level character’s at the aforementioned %150 xp boost. Let’s also assume that it takes 9.7 days of playtime to make max level (double Joanna’s 4days 20hours). That would mean it would take a grand total 154.7 hours to beat Azeroth. That’s not a challenge. A company out to make money wouldn’t allow their customers to blow through content like that.
Let’s say people played non-stop and that half of all players had a max level char. At $.02 and hour the company would make $4.64 on having you level to 60 normally. With the extra percentage worked in it would make them $3.09. In total that would mean a loss of $658,750,000 minimum in potential income. Would you do it and what do you suppose that loss would cost the players? I’m not attacking people who support this idea. You deserve something – but on the character you do it with.
Sirg Jul 20th 2007 3:29AM
I like Azeroth much more than Outlands. You can feel that Outlands is expansion material. Azeroth has so many interesting and unique things, even though the quest rewards are poor.
I would like to see the old content finished and maybe town portal runes or scrolls to be added in the game, so people could travel faster between zones (which is a very important issue, leveling gets boring because of so much running)
Of course, heroic mode for all instances will be great, improved loot and the motives to go to a lower level instance if you have skiped it many levels before.
Some of the Azeroth instances are really great, having long and consistent quest lines to them. It's a shame that level 60 instances get neglected. You can't compare Hellfire Citadel (which I find boring) with any level 50+ instance from Azeroth.
Rich Jul 20th 2007 3:31AM
They need to jack the experience gains from killing mobs and completed quests by 50%. That is about the experience difference between level 58-60 mobs in Azeroth and the Outlands. Then they need to add some more quest hubs. Things need to be more progressive. One of the worst things about the Barrens quests is you have same level quests on opposite ends of the zone.
Personally, I'd like to see them drop the price of the first riding skill to about 40g and make it available at level 25 instead of 40. Alot of the low and mid level areas are HUGE. More time is wasted just going from point A to point B.
While I am on the topic of travel, they need to just come to accept they need to add trans-location orbs or portals linking major cities. Each side has 2 cities fairly close together on one continent, then the other 2 are on the other continent pretty much cut off from everything. Being able to go from Silvermoon to TB in less than 2 min would make me giddy.
Ladorius Jul 20th 2007 7:14AM
I tried to create an ALT (specifically a Blood Elf) once I left ghostlands and landed in Azeroth....I couldn't stand to play with that alt anymore. All the quests in ghostlands are incredible (as i believe all TBC quests are) but I can't stand the thought of having to do quests in Azeroth again. Loot, XP ,quest items just not worth it. For me to play again I would need those 3 things changed. 1-Quest rewards, XP gains from quests, Raise the amount of gold given per quest)
Brad Jul 20th 2007 8:58AM
I am currently laboring through the leveling process of an alt shaman as my raid group desparately needs one and they seem to be in short supply.
Old Azeroth certainly has a nostalgia factor that I would not like to see ruined, but the Experience gain is ridiculously bad. My Shammy cruised through Bloodmyst isle, between those 2 starting zones I think I gained 22 levels. I stayed as long as I could.
By comparison, I am now level 28. I have been to Ashenvale, Redridge, Wetlands, and Duskwood. I have also had to run Deadmines, SFK, and Stockades several times for gear, quests, and XP. I feel like my pace is at least 50% of what it was on Bloodmyst, maybe even less.
If I could make one change it would to increase the XP gain by 100%. People level to get to outland or they level to be a twink. The twink is going to stay at whichever level the player wants it. Everyone else just wants to get to 58. I so hope Blizzard will do something to make getting to Outland a lot easier.
FireStar Jul 20th 2007 9:12AM
Somewhere new to level in those Horrible STV levels (mostly upper 30s to lower 40s blech!)
Pandemona Jul 20th 2007 10:01AM
The biggest issue I've had is gear based. While the ideas about XP gains and re-working zones (ahem Azshara) I find one of the reasons why no one runs the old raids is simply based on the fact that all the top gear from Azeroth that had the ols lvl 60 cap needs to have their ilevels increased to match/beat that of a level 60+ items in Outland.
I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but a lot of guilds (mine included) enjoy running ZG, MC, Ony, etc for fun on off-raid nights. It would be fantastic if some of the gear was actually useful. The fact is that at lvl 60 people are banging through HFP quests for better greens than most old epics. Definitely needs a re-work.
Perhaps make all old items drops from dungeons BOE...it would get the economy steamrolling and would allow Blizz to gold-sink us more in AH fees :)
navalpha Jul 20th 2007 11:36AM
My suggestions:
-Increase the amount of XP you get in azeroth, per mob and per quests
-Increase the number of flight paths (Namely northern STV for alliance, southern Desolace, etc)
-Finish up some really interesting quest lines (The missing diplomat, the shady rest Inn, hell, dustwallow marsh could be a really nice place to level in if we had more to do in there)
-Less running around for some quest lines (Linken's quest, the quest for sunken temple)
-Offer quicker ways to get to some instances (Shadowfang keep is way off the map for us, so is scarlet monastery, yet the horde have a teleporter to for gnomeregan???)