One thing I loved about game worlds, whether in MMOs or RPGs or even tabletop games, is that it's a world to inhabit. There are (or ought to be) spaces where people can be free to just do whatever. Some people roleplay, some people goof around, and others just hang around waiting for a queue to pop* while soaking up the scenery or the chat that's flowing across their screen.
For example, about eight or nine months ago my Questing Buddy, her middle kid, and I played hide and seek in Stormwind. I thought I knew Stormwind in Classic Era, but my Questing Buddy had discovered places that people never go to so she could hide in.
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| Such as this place. |
To get to Cut-Throat Alley (above), you have to go through another building and out the back, and from there you can go into another building or two that are completely empty. I'd imagine that some people roleplay in these spaces away from the crowd, but this particular time there was nobody there except for the three of us.
I was curious just how many of those places remained in Retail WoW, so I hopped onto Livona and took a look around.
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| Well, whaddya know... |
Yes, Cut-Throat Alley is still there, although with flying being allowed in the Old World now it's not quite so isolated as it was before. No, I didn't see anybody else there, but anybody flying by can find the place from above quite easily.
It's quite remarkable that this remained intact in a post-Cataclysm revamp when so much throughout Azeroth was rebuilt (just look at Hillsbrad Foothills, for example). In fact, the only change to the entire area was that while in Vanilla Classic the building you go through to get to the Alley is empty, in the Retail version the building is actually inhabited with NPCs.
Filling in some of the gaps like this is something that I've occasionally advocated for in the past, to make these old areas feel lived in a bit more. Just go to Silvermoon City and realize just how empty the place is, and you wish that there were maybe three times as many NPCs wandering around than what there are. And yes, I did check months ago when I went to go try to see if I could get XP merely by fishing, and the NPCs are the same as always. There's something comforting about it, but still there could be more Sindorei around the sole remaining major Elven city.**
While I was clowning around with Livona, I took her via tram to Ironforge to see if some of the Dwarven housing is still there. You know, the empty "houses" carved into the insides of Ironforge, typically more well known today as the place where Horde raids hide out in when they invade Ironforge.
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Cardwyn and Azshandra have died many times
assaulting the Horde in this exact place. |
Again, these areas remaining intact is quite comforting. By comparison, some areas changed quite drastically:
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| Where'd it go? |
What you don't see above is the side area of the Cathedral of Light where the Paladins would hang out. You'd find the trainers there, opposite the First Aid trainer area to my right (and off screen). In a post-Cataclysm world, the now non-functional Paladin class trainers*** are lumped in with the First Aid trainers (now called something else, the name escapes me) in a single side area. Obviously this was done for ease of use, but changing the formerly well-used Cathedral to make interactions quicker made the space feel somewhat less impressive than it used to be.
Of course, you could say that Stormwind in general kind of got the short shrift as far as dramatic changes go because Orgrimmar's visuals are significantly different:
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| Vanilla Classic... |
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...and post-Cataclysm. I borrowed the
original Quintalan, still in his Tier 9 armor set with
Quel'Delar strapped to his back, for that screencap. |
Despite the changes, it's those little things that go to make up a world, make it feel lived in, and less of a game than a place. Wander into Blackrock Depths, poke around the city of the Dark Iron Dwarves, and you'll see what I mean. When I still ran instances with Valhalla back in Vanilla Classic, a group of us were in Blackrock Depths when someone piped up that Blizzard would never made an instance like this again. "It has that grandeur of a real city and you can lose yourself inside for hours," he said. I can't speak to a post-Mists Retail, but I agree with the sentiment that Blackrock Depths and Maraudon are two huge living places that take a long time to navigate. They bear a closer resemblance to an old D&D module such as the Slave Lords or the Giants modules than a modern MMO dungeon.
*Think of it as a glorified lobby for a multiplayer game such as Call of Duty.
**I think it's the sole remaining Elven city, given that Darnassus is kind of crispy.
***I discovered that the class trainers were non-functional when I visited the Rogue Class Trainer, Syurna, in Darnassus. Because I'm a glutton for punishment.
