Rez said:
That being said, as this is my first WOW character, there is a lot of cool implied or imagined narrative moments for me. At the moment it's like I'm actually exploring some vast, more brutal uncharted bit of land relative to the all the stuff in Azeroth (I don't actually know why the Outlands are the Outlands, I assume it's another planet or a bit of planet teleported away or something, I don't really care because it's much cooler to just make it up as I explore the environment) and the less hand-holdy quest design is kind of enhancing that feeling.
For what it's worth, Outland is the home world of the Orcs and Spacegoats. The Dark Portal was opened by Mediveh (see the Black Morass instance), allowing the Horde to invade Azeroth during Warcraft I. Due to the events of Warcraft II, Ner'zhul tried to open more portals to other worlds for which the Horde to escape the Alliance expedition. All of the energy from the portals basically shattered Outland, which is why it's so fragmentary.
Rez said:
But in the end it is a shame. I'd much rather be exploring these fantastically detailed zones (seriously, the looks of Zangermarsh, T Forest, Nagrand and even Hellfire are stunning) with the 2010-style heavily-directed quest design. It almost feels like these zones are being given a disservice in their current state. I don't see how Blizzard could justify a total rework of them, though. I wish they would, it would make alt leveling much more pleasant. I'd be fine replaying the 1-60 stuff again, but I have little to no desire to ever experience what I've completed in The Outlands more than once.
My biggest complaint with Outland is that it feels so much more "Theme Park"-ish than the Old World (which itself has wildly contrasted borders between climates and terrain). Crossing from Hellfire into Zangarmarsh into Nagrand is like changing television channels. There's no real borderland between the zones and everything feels really disconnected.
I suppose "Outland was torn apart, different zone types pressed against each other makes sense, lol" is as good an excuse as any.
As for reworking Outland, there's no where else to go on Azeroth (unless they retcon some huge landmass hidden by magic, but Blizzard would never do tha- Oh,
hello Uldum) except the sea. There's been talk of an underwater expansion before, and if you'll excuse the pun, I think Vash'jir is Blizzard testing the waters, so to speak.
That said...
"One of the things we're most excited about," says Metzen, "is the chance to create environments unlike anything you've seen in previous games. We really want to ramp it up for the players now. We're saying, 'Hey, you've graduated, you're over level 60 now, so let's get crazy with some really alien worlds and creatures."
Even better, this is something that's infinitely expandable for us in updates and expansions down the line. There can always be more portal worlds." (
source)
If you wander around Outland, you'll find a few portals similar to the Dark Portal that don't really lead anywhere (I know there's one in west Zangar and one in West Nagrand).
This is pure speculation, but it's not implausible that Blizzard might redo Outland for a new hero class (which, if they follow the same logic as Death Knights, would be introduced in the next expansion and start at a level just before Outland) and for high level players to use as a "Hub World"; each portal could essentially lead to either a new planet or an isolated region of the same planet. Either way, I don't think anyone wants to start opening giant dimensional portals on an already-fragile Azeroth, so it makes sense (at least to me) for any continued portal-opening to take place from Outland.
Revamping the quests for the new class and characters, adding some new high level content in the appropriate places (i.e. around the portals), and upgrading a few things would work out nicely. Outland is already pretty decent for questing (compared to Vanilla), so the work wouldn't be as massive of a project as Cataclysm.
Considering how fast TBC leveling is, it might even make sense to just completely revamp some zones for high levels. Even when it was
new content most players could reach 70 without going to certain zones (I skipped Blade's Edge, Netherstorm and large parts of Shadowmoon Valley, for instance).
Take a few of the zones and revamp them for 83+, for whatever reason, and then you have some transitional zones leading into the new portal worlds.
It's prety easy they have next to now health.
