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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Unfinished business
by James Koon 
May 16th 2010 at 8:00AM
What I found surprised me. In The Park alone, there are many unused buildings: an inn, an archery shop, another shop with scrolls on the counters, and yet another shop filled with wine barrels. All lack NPCs and purpose. In fact, out of all of the shops, there is only one NPC in any of the buildings: a night elf herbalism trainer, whose name you cannot see because it clips into the shelves above.
So I decided to actually pay attention to the rest of Stormwind. The buildings leading into Cut-Throat Alley are empty. There's a large hall in the Dwarven District that is also missing signs of life. These are just a few quick examples of unfinished areas in Azeroth. Other examples might include the unfinished dwarven farming area on the southern border of Wetlands, Old Ironforge or the upper ring of Undercity.
Our beloved Azeroth, in all of its awesomeness, at times seems utterly barren and unfinished. With Cataclysm on the horizon, I for one hope many of these lifeless areas are revisited by the development team and given purpose. What is your favorite unused area, and what do you think the Blizzard developers should do with it?
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Reader Comments (Page 2 of 6)
joe May 16th 2010 12:06PM
theres actually a few empty buildings.....most are on the long strectch out of the city near the mage and priest trainers....but there are less empty spaces than most cities on horde side....with the exception of maybe silvermoon.
cygnus May 16th 2010 1:21PM
Not even the NPC's like Silvermoon
Stryky May 16th 2010 8:11AM
I always thought that those empty buildings were sites that could be used for RP. Empty shops could be used by traders to sell their wares. Empty pubs for guild meetups (and possibly an RP bartender too) etc.
I have never used any of them for RP though (i dont use RP servers) But i just figured blizz left 'em barren on purpose.
Erzfiend May 16th 2010 8:12AM
This post reminded me of how in FFXII in the bazaar areas of the main city (can't remember the name) there were lots of folks standing around and doing business. You couldn't talk to all of them, but it made the city feel more alive and it drew me in a bit more. It would be neat if they could do something like this in WoW.
Fizzl May 16th 2010 8:23AM
They did, it's called Dalaran. If you wander around you will see NPC's going about there business.. I know there are a few who regularly visit the engineer trainer for new skills, some wander between the pub and the bank, others come in and out of the landing zone.
I'm sure cataclysm will extend this to other areas.
CaryEverett May 16th 2010 8:41AM
While I'm not a huge fan of Dalaran, I am a huge fan of the random NPCs there.
It makes all the difference in the world when you log in at like, 4AM or something, and there are no players in the city. But you still see NPCs walking around going about their business.
Makes it not feel like a ghost town like Shattrah.
Rai May 16th 2010 11:35AM
If that male gnome on Krasus' Landing tells me I'm a fine piece of man one more time, I'm filing a restraining order.
Aradow May 16th 2010 8:20AM
I know various people use some of the houses in Ironforge as houses on my RP server. Its very handy to have empty places like this for RP. And I had a friend that use to use the empty house that was behind the AH in Stormwind as a home, before it was converted into a barbershop. So the empty spaces can be place holders for possible future shops that are added.
Tabasa May 16th 2010 8:21AM
I really hope those buildings do remain empty (in fact, I'd like to see -more- such buildings), because they're fantastic for roleplaying.
Stormwind and Ironforge are both really good cities to RP in, because there are so many unused buildings that can be used for character homes and businesses, without having to explain away random NPCs occupying them. A large portion of the first RP guild I was in had characters living in Ironforge simply because there were physical places that characters could go that they could call "home".
Whether it was intentionally done or not, I really hope that Blizz refrains from filling up those buildings just for the sake of having them full.
Crustywaffle May 16th 2010 8:26AM
Unfortunately, I believe that a majority of the forgotten gems in this game are few and far between. I remember when I first played WoW, the entire experience of a whole brand new world being readily available to me, zones that seemed to take ages to cross always had little nooks and crannies which you could readily explore, each area although maybe empty, had something interesting about it. I remember one particular moment when I was wondering around in Feralas, and discovering a camp with a lit camp fire, but no NPC around. For what ever reason I became extremely enthralled by this, and decided to explore even further, traveling across the world of Azeroth.
Than the exploration video came out, the holy grail of people like me who were so immersed in this serene giant world. As soon as I watched the video I instantly began my own exploration expeditions into these uncharted, or forgotten areas. Going into the Caverns of Time when it was nothing more than an invisible floor and endless space, where you could drop at any moment and fall to your demise. Or traveling around Hyjal, the vast emptyness of it giving an eerie feeling, and even going above the Eastern Plague Lands, home to what is now the Blood Elf area, with untextured ground and holes in the middle of it.
Even though these areas were "off-limits", and could lead to a potential ban, there was something about it that kept beckoning for me to come back, and I found my self on the coat-tails of entering areas which were once off limits, but now due to a glitch allowed you to get in, or even discovering new things my self that no one knew about.
Unfortunately, I feel that with the implementations of things such as flying mounts, the vastly lowered cost of buying mounts, and additionally giving them at lower levels has really made the world of Azeroth much smaller. Additionally it only enforces the idea of simply traveling from point A to B, and not going off the beaten trail to explore. To me, this is the real down fall of WoW, because the final selling point for me was when I talked to a friend who played during Beta "If I see a mountain in the distance, can I go and climb that mountain?" his answer was "Yes", and I bought it on release.
Pheras May 16th 2010 9:36AM
But the thing you forget about is that people still have those places. People still have the places that they feel are *theirs* since no one else uses them in the same way. For example, there's a floating necropolis with nothing in it in Zul'Drak. Want to have a meeting of death knights? Yeah, that's the perfect venue. Similarly, I know lots of people who think of the tower north of Eastern Plaguelands (before BC) as theirs since no one else goes there.
All without going into areas that are "bannable".
Gothia May 16th 2010 8:28AM
"One day, while waiting for the dungeon finder to pop me into yet another run of Blackrock Depths, I decided to explore around my trainer."
I did the same thing on my Paladin and as a matter of a fact I hardly left a major city since he was old enough to tank in Lfd. That is a great way to level especially if you are like me and dreading doing the old quest lines, can't wait till Cataclysm, once again. Lfd as a tank reminds me of the commercial of the kid that asks the wise owl how many licks does it take to get to the center tootsieroll of a tootsie pop.
Wise Owl: "Umm a one, a two, a "CRUNCH", a three, thats it a three for my next Lfd."
Here's looking forward to a New - Old World. (and my warrior worgen)(long standing member of Alts-Anonymous)
ElrithCC May 16th 2010 8:34AM
As others pointed out, those areas are for roleplayers. And not just by happenstance either. Many times the developers addressing the RP community have pointed out that they did that exactly for the role playing community.
Still, I am hoping for a lot more NPC life to come to the citites. Not to say they should populate all those empty rooms, but they should add NPCs like in Dalaran all over the place.
Warhammer ONline had some great NPC activity, imagine walking the alleys of Stormwind and having a random encounter with a theif or drunken bully. You get attacked in your own city in the less than savory areas.
Dragonrose May 16th 2010 9:53AM
This!
Paul May 16th 2010 11:19AM
Agreed, but it's also real-estate for future plans. Some are more apparent that others, such as the portal between the trade district and Old Town in Stormwind or Karazhan (pre BC). Closed off areas that had R&D and minor development, which either never hit fruition or eventually got used.
Some of these empty spots were to be quest hubs, but ergonomics (is that a valid term for a game-world layout?) dictated that they were bad ideas, but were left in regardless. This is an assumption, and I can only think of one place which backs up my theory and that the Shrine of Aesinna in Ashenvale. There were a handful of quests there once upon a time, but due to where these quests sent you, and how long it took just travelling between your quest objective and the Shrine, the quests got relocated.
Heh, one quest even continued to tell people to return to Aessina event though the NPC had moved to Forest Song, which oddly enough is an example of an area which 'almost' served no purpose until Blizzard found a way to give it purpose.
Finally, in addition to being there for RP and real-estate, some are just there as flavour, just to make the world feel lived in as you use a flight path. Places such as the farms within the mountains in the Wetlands are an example of this. Never intended for use by players directly. They're there to make you realise that there is more to this world than what you can tred on, and to inspire fantics.
ElrithCC May 16th 2010 8:35AM
I said citities. I was not talking about mammary glands. Sorry.
pancakes May 16th 2010 9:17AM
You had me all *tit*ilated there for a moment.
*rimshot*
Deathknighty May 16th 2010 8:36AM
THE CLIMACTIC BATTLE AGAINST DEATHWING MUST BE ON IRONFORGE AIRPORT! IT IS THE ONLY WAY!!!11!
Warlockami May 16th 2010 9:34AM
Deathknighty wins, forever
thegatherer May 16th 2010 10:25AM
like, kamekazi dwarfs?