Many players would argue that Azeroth has started to look cluttered on the interactive map inWorld of Warcraft, and a fan made a rather funny observation as to the real reason behind it. Back in 2004, whenWorld of Warcraftinitially launched to critical and popular acclaim, theold version of Azerothonly had two playable continents to offer: Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. Northrend being omitted from the initial slate came as a disappointment to manyWarcraft 3fans at the time, which made its eventual reintroduction inWrath of the Lich Kingsuch a delight.
With Pandaria filling out the southern corner of the world, the community believed that the major landmasses in Azeroth had been covered, and that Blizzard Entertainment would either move the narrative to new worlds in an overarching crusade against the Burning Legion, or keep the scope smaller by fleshing out unseen archipelagos and lands such as Zandalar, the Broken Isles, Kul Tiras, and the Dragon Isles. As the years went by, the players eventually got introduced to all these locations across severalWorld of Warcraftexpansions, but the world map has suffered greatly for it.
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The Maelstrom, which is canonically placed in the middle of the known world, has been pushed aside to make space for all the aforementioned continents added afterMists of Pandaria. A proud Horde player named Blind_Fire couldn’t help but accuse the latest string of expansions as an Alliance ploy to push the Maelstrom into Orgrimmar, sharing their humorous take on the officialWorld of Warcraftsubreddit. As absurd as it may be, past the initial joke, the thread kicked off a healthy discussion about the current state of the world map, as well as ideas on how to fix it. For the full link,click here.
The major gripe thatWorld of Warcraftplayers seem to have with the world map is that it’s simply too cluttered. The inclusion of the Dragon Isles, in particular, has further exacerbated a growing problem whenBattle for Azerothadded Zandalar and Kul Tiras to the mix. The large,sprawling zones of the Dragon Islesnecessitated a large presence on the world map, given that it tracks the current location of the player in real time, but many fans seem eager to make the argument that it doesn’t have to be so exaggerated.
A feature present inother MMOs such asFinal Fantasy 14is the ability to gradually zoom in and out of the world map, and implementing such a feature inWorld of Warcraftwould effectively allow the developers to depict Azeroth with more accuracy while still keeping the gameplay benefits of real time player tracking intact. While no one yet knows what expansion pack will followDragonflightoutside Blizzard, it’s becoming readily apparent that the current world map isn’t equipped to handle the growing list of landmasses dotting the seas and oceans of Azeroth.
World of Warcraftis available now for PC.
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