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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: What about Gilneas?
by Matt Clerico 
Oct 14th 2011 at 8:00AM
I love Gilneas. I love the look of the zone, the ambiance, the music. I've leveled a number of Worgen alts (that I never plan on playing again) through the zone just to experience the storyline again. I've even run an Undead alt through early levels just to see the other side of the ending events.
What bothers me (and many others, I'm sure) is the fact that this fantastic zone is now phased out and empty. Presumably, the story of the zone isn't finished and may even see some closure by the time the current expansion's life cycle is over ... but what then? The most apparent answer is to make Gilneas City another Alliance capital city, but does the game really need a new dead urban center like Darnassus? Throughout the lifespan of World of Warcraft, players have asked for the ability to buy housing for their characters. Could an empty zone like Gilneas be good starting location for this kind of feature? Instead of a creating new world PVP location like Wintergrasp or Baradin Hold in the next expansion, could the ongoing struggle for the walled peninsula become the new focus of the war between factions (with all the associated rewards and daily quests)?
Now that Cataclysm has been out for a while, what can be done to make this zone a viable place to visit?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 4)
ravyncat Oct 14th 2011 9:20AM
XD!!
I had never seen that before. Thank you for linking it.
The original is one of my favorite songs and it is a well done parody of it. ^^
Transit Oct 14th 2011 10:05AM
I think this whole topic is just a flame bait subject but here goes;
@MattKrotzer
Yes. I have seen how the worgen side plays out. I have a lvl 85 Worgen druid alt. The worgen side ends kindy murky and abrupt. A better explained resolution is needed but a "Worgen Wins" resolution is NOT needed. They do not NEED to get back their city in a story perspective any more then the Draneii NEED to get back their home planet. The central conflict of their respective races would be gone.
Worgen are not moving back to Gilneas. The Draneii are not moving back to their home planet. The Dark Spears are not moving back to Stranglethorn. And the Orcs are not moving back to outland. Their story lines work best with them not being in their home space.
@wow
Why would the gobins WANT to go back to Kezan? They are a disposable economy based race. There is no sentimentality to them as a race. Except for the Kajamite mines there, and any left over treasure, they really have no need for Kezan.
Also Gilneas is a horrible location for a Cap city in a design perspective. It is right next to 10-20 lvling zone for the horde AND the horde's only sole lvl 20+ zone for leveling. You might as well build the new horde cap city in Karazhan. The horde can duel in darkshire, while hunting for lowbies in Redridge. It would be a nightmare.
Neither side, Horde or alliance, need another cap city. In fact, each side can do with less of them. (And I love Silvermoon, but that would be the first to go Horde side.)
Noyou Oct 14th 2011 12:05PM
The goblins don't need one as much as the gnomes. The gnomes NEED their own city back. And I think it would be a very wonderful city indeed. I play on a lower population server and I cannot imagine SW being any fuller than it is. We certainly need the capital cities we have. The vast majority need something to get them there, because they can't seem to get the hint on their own. One way would be to have profession dailies. Split them up between all the capital cities.
Den Oct 14th 2011 2:32PM
Blizzard pulls a lot of lore practically out of thin air. As someone who's actually pvped in the city (about 10v10 in an arranged world pvp event), I think it has a lot of potential for a world pvp objective, especially if you limit flight. Great terrain, good atmosphere. Make it base capping and, if you need to add dailies for a reward (-_-), they can be based on the buildings your faction currently holds. No ultimate winners like in WG, but more like when we capped towers in EPL (I miss that wpvp objective).
Animaneth Oct 14th 2011 3:47PM
@wow
The story is left with a cliffhanger in-game, but the events in Wolfheart by Knaak continue it.
@Transit
As I said to @wow, the novel Wolfhear explains how worgens become part of the alliance, I dont think Varian would just kicked them out, he opposed to them first but then opens himself.
Blayze Oct 14th 2011 8:18AM
You think we're going to get finished non-raid content? Someone hasn't been paying attention since this game went live.
Xsinthis Oct 14th 2011 8:19AM
Turn it into a daily quest hub or something, or turn it into a functioning city, at least local players levelling could make use of it.
MattKrotzer Oct 14th 2011 8:31AM
Since there's apparently a resistance movement still there (based on what I saw when playing my Horde alt) why not at least give the Alliance a small camp nearby with a Flight Path?
wow Oct 14th 2011 8:44AM
@Matt
That would be cool, then through phased questing, the player can help slowly take over areas of Gilneas. Then through content patches, players can slowly take over more ground, until eventually, they regain control of the zone. With Sylvannas just outside the gate, the Worgen would still need the Alliance, so they would never leave.
Shinanji
Noyou Oct 14th 2011 12:13PM
That would be nice or as the OP suggested a world PvP zone for the next expac. Having it empty right now is just wrong. But if anything blizzard has proven, it is they discard old content very easily.
MattKrotzer Oct 14th 2011 8:19AM
Gilneas has such amazing ambiance, and Greymane's house is incredible for RP... but if you're Alliance, it takes forever to get to, since Southshore's gone. It's a shame to have such an awesome environment like that just sitting there unused and largely useless.
I'd love to see them further develop Gnomeregan, then give both Gilneas and Gnomeregan full capital city treatment, as well as Darkspear Isle and "Oh-hey-it-wasn't-destroyed-after-all" Kezan.
Building on what Revnah said, at the very least, giving each capital city a portal to the other capital cities would be a huge benefit. Moreso if they each got their own portal area to all of the capital zones.
I love Stormwind, but now that I've finished all the fishing and cooking dailies in Darnassus, I'm back to having zero reason to go there, and only one fishing daily left to push me to Ironforge.
chaosdefined Oct 14th 2011 8:44AM
I'd love to see the Undermine finally after all the talk about it from Goblins. As cool as a Troll bridge city would be, it wouldn't work where it is because then you'd have two Horde Cities in the same zone.
Perhaps if it were to be moved to Stranglethorn instead, as currently in the Eastern Kingdoms both Horde cities are at the very top of the continent, and that's a long flight for learning any new skills if you're questing down the bottom.
wow Oct 14th 2011 8:48AM
@Chaos
It's the same for the Alliance on Kalimdor. Their capitals are on the Northern Edge of the Continent. I agree though, those are long flights. hehe
Shinanji
MattKrotzer Oct 14th 2011 8:49AM
If they advanced the story with Vol'jin and the new troll Empire a bit, they could DEFINITELY give them a troll city in Stranglethorn. That'd be incredible!
Of course the issue you present about 2 cities in the same zone is also one that you'd face with Gnomeregan, but I'm not sure that it's really that big of a deal, overall. If they put portals in each capital city, it wouldn't really matter WHAT zone they were in, and it'd give people the options to occupy (not Occupy... that's another matter) whatever city they most preferred.
After all, the Alliance has only one capital city on Kalimdor, and I don't think anyone's really begging for Theramore to become a second human capital city...
Flaminturkey Oct 14th 2011 9:04AM
Between teleports for the Dungeon Finder, RAID teleports with the guild perk, and the portals in Stormwind/Orgrimmar, I'm really baffled as to why Blizz even bothered eliminating the portals in Dalaran. The idea was to get people out and about in the old world. Not only has that not happened, they made it worse because now we only see our own faction 99% of the time.
The portals are convenient, sure, but I barely recall the last time my main saw anything outside of Stormwind or an instance for more than about two minutes. Portals should have remained in the hands of Mages, only. Once a new toon leaves the starting zone, are they going to encounter any players outside of cities? Very unlikely. This does not exactly create a sense of "massively multiplayer" to me.
/rant
Sidone Oct 14th 2011 8:23AM
here is hoping halloween will bring back some more gilnean-forsaken action..
MusedMoose Oct 14th 2011 8:24AM
I've done the worgen starting zone at least three times, and I absolutely love it. Kezan gets all the attention, but Gilneas has an amazing feel to it that's rare in WoW, and I think it's a damn shame that we had to leave so soon.
The thing is, though, as much as I love the place, I'm kind of glad Gilneas remains a worgen-only kind of thing. I try to picture the city, with its unique kind of ambience, filled with people showing off their mounts and dancing on mailboxes, and it kind of ruins the feel of the place. It's such a great environment, I'd rather remember it as the home one of my alts left behind than think of it as just another capital city.
Nina Katarina Oct 14th 2011 8:25AM
It'd be fun to make it a world pvp zone, sort of Tol Barad or Wintergrasp style.
Sleutel Oct 14th 2011 8:31AM
My WAG is that they got burned pretty hard by the Exodar and Silvermoon experiment. They added two beautiful new cities, only to have them turn into complete ghost towns, visited only by low-level players of their respective races. Why would they want to get their hopes up again?
poggg Oct 14th 2011 8:33AM
Silvermoon is a massive RP hub on applicable servers (though Silvermoon RP tends to be hilariously bad, but that is neither here nor there) so it isn't a complete failure in that respect.
The Exodar is a bit depressing, though.