Unused landmass on Azeroth
Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2026 4:52 am
I really liked when Turtle WoW created some zones in the unused areas of the map, but even they didn't fully use them.
Places like Northwind, Hawk's Vigil, Grim Reaches, etc. They were nice, but they still left a lot of unused areas between them.
What I always wished to see for Vanilla WoW's world is for all this area, without any exception to be turned into traversable playable areas and nothing to be left "undeveloped" and "hidden from the players".
Another thing that I like in some Vanilla zones is how Durotar and The Barrens, as well as Elwynn Forest, Westfall and Duskwood are separated by a river and you can enter each zone from wherever you want, there is no limit.
Whereas a lot of other zones, maybe 90% of them are surrounded by mountains and have a small choke point in one place where you can enter them. I think more zones need to allow players to freely travel to them from multiple directions. Because those mountain borders create a very artificial feeling world.
A lot of zones, like Blasted Lands, Eastern and Western Plaguelands, Stonetalon Mountains, Dun Morogh, Loch Modan, Arathi Highlands don't have a coast, but are surrounded by mountains instead. It would look very nice if they had a more coastal, open areas.
I think those changes will be small in the grand scale of things, but it will create a more open and expansive world that players will be able to enjoy more. It can be the biggest Azeroth transformation to date, close to probably only what CATA did.
And if the Octo team can focus on such a content for the game, it will be really the most iconic and the server will be really different and people will no longer refer it as "just a Turtle WoW clone". This is about creating new content for the game without really creating that much content, just changing some terrain here and there, but inadvertently changing all of of Azeroth for a more true to lore representation of the world.
I think the way Azeroth is right now is due to the technical limitations the developers were facing around 2003 when they were still developing the game, but those limitations don't exist 20+ years later and should be stripped down.
Places like Northwind, Hawk's Vigil, Grim Reaches, etc. They were nice, but they still left a lot of unused areas between them.
What I always wished to see for Vanilla WoW's world is for all this area, without any exception to be turned into traversable playable areas and nothing to be left "undeveloped" and "hidden from the players".
Another thing that I like in some Vanilla zones is how Durotar and The Barrens, as well as Elwynn Forest, Westfall and Duskwood are separated by a river and you can enter each zone from wherever you want, there is no limit.
Whereas a lot of other zones, maybe 90% of them are surrounded by mountains and have a small choke point in one place where you can enter them. I think more zones need to allow players to freely travel to them from multiple directions. Because those mountain borders create a very artificial feeling world.
A lot of zones, like Blasted Lands, Eastern and Western Plaguelands, Stonetalon Mountains, Dun Morogh, Loch Modan, Arathi Highlands don't have a coast, but are surrounded by mountains instead. It would look very nice if they had a more coastal, open areas.
I think those changes will be small in the grand scale of things, but it will create a more open and expansive world that players will be able to enjoy more. It can be the biggest Azeroth transformation to date, close to probably only what CATA did.
And if the Octo team can focus on such a content for the game, it will be really the most iconic and the server will be really different and people will no longer refer it as "just a Turtle WoW clone". This is about creating new content for the game without really creating that much content, just changing some terrain here and there, but inadvertently changing all of of Azeroth for a more true to lore representation of the world.
I think the way Azeroth is right now is due to the technical limitations the developers were facing around 2003 when they were still developing the game, but those limitations don't exist 20+ years later and should be stripped down.