I liked the idea that someone in this thread brought up of having this zone serve as a transition zone, until it is complete. It is pretty jolting, and disappointing when you hit that zone line from Thanalan to The Black Shroud for the first time. The problem isn't like Ala Mhigo, where it's a zone that's off to the side, and there is a lore reason for it being inaccessible, it's that it's a zone that should be connecting two current zones, and it isn't there. I understand the reason for it currently existing as a wormhole, but imo that's just the lazy way out.

Having a logical transition zone, or "high road" as someone put it, would be interesting and it would make the world feel a little more whole and believable. The zone temporarily serving as a scenery transition would serve the same purpose as the bridges in Coerthas. You're just passing through a piece of the map that has no enemies, or NPCs, but exists solely as a piece of memorable scenery (and those bridges are some of the most memorable parts of that zone, imo). That is until they're finally ready to add content to the zone, at which point they'd open up a branching path.

I think that all of the zones could actually use "high roads", where the main path serves as a sort of shortcut through the zone if you're just passing through, and the rest of the map is populated by fields/mobs, with villages or hamlets at the end of side roads. I don't remember any of the zone names in WoW, but I do remember some of the zones being like this back in vanilla WoW, and it was a lot more player friendly than every main road passing through a gigantic zone.