Blizzcon 2013: Part 8 - New Zones

New Zones

Draenor is a completely new continent built from scratch by Blizzard. Players may recognize some zone names from Outland, but Blizzard stressed that they are completely reworked.

·         Frostfire Ridge: Starting demo area for the Horde, who works with the Frostwolf Clan. Snow-covered plains and volcanoes.

·         Shadowmoon Valley: Starting demo area for the Alliance, who work with Prophet Velen to fight off the Iron Horde. This zone looks very different than the current version, with lush greenery and beautiful draenei architecture.

·         Gorgrond: The Blackrock clan is building a massive siege weapon here that poses a significant threat to Draenor.

·         Talador: The Auchenai Soupriests try to protect Auchindoun from demonic threats. Players may remember Auchindoun as a dungeon hub in Terokkar Forest.

·         Spires of Arak: The arrakoa fight against the Shattered Hand orcs. In Outland, the arrakoa are found in Sethekk Halls and Terokkar Forest; the Shattered Hand orcs can be seen in The Shattered Halls.

·         Nagrand: The Warsong clan occupies this zone which occupies an important place in Outland lore.

·         Tanaan Jungle: The Bleeding Hollow clan are building a Dark Portal and the Iron Horde makes its base here with plans to conquer Azeroth.

·         Ashran: New World PvP zone with many objectives, in the style of old Alterac Valley.

I am very excited to see the new zones.  I think that they all look very nice and the biggest selling point is the mystery.  I've already kind of been here before, but last time it was all exploded.  You will be able to walk down some roads that already existed.  You will see sites and things that were there before, but were changed by the events that happened before.  What an enormous mindfuck!

One of the cooler things is that they said they will be adding Netherstorm at a later date.  This seems kind of strange.  I'm not entirely clear on the backstory or lore behind Netherstorm.  I remember those painful instances and the raid that were out there.  However, based on the lore elements of this expansion.... none of that ever happened.  There are no high elves to starve the magic out of to build those.  The entire purpose of it seems like it would be completely nullified.  Why are they adding it?  What is it?  Why does it exist now?

Going up to see the birdmen is going to be incredibly annoying.  I can already tell.  I fucking hate those guys and I'm sad that I'll have to deal with them again.  Seeing Hellfire as a jungle is really going to be different, too.  Seeing Shadowmoon not covered in darkness and green won't be all that hard to take in.  I've always wanted to see the temple in all it's REAL glory and I've actually got the chance now.  It is like having the fondness for Vanilla and seeing it smashed to bits in Cata, only in reverse.  The fondness of TBC, but it put back together and cleaned up.

There are going to be differences in the zones and there are going to be problems, I'm sure.  So far the zones look very nice from a graphical perspective and you can tell that they've put a lot of work into the shading, lightmapping and other small tweaks that can be done to the engine to add more depth and appeal to the game.  From the description that was given at Blizzcon, they have been working on this very hard.  I can't wait to see it.  I can't wait to run through these places and take in some of what these zones offer.  I sincerely hope that they do a better job of spreading out the things inside of the zone.  I hope that we get to pay more attention and get to revisit it for a legitimate reason.  I hate seeing zones just become useless and empty because they would rather make a magical island I have to teleport to.