Every so often I put a month back on WoW just to poke around and get it out of my system, and every time I do I always find myself marveling at how different the worlds feel. After Stormblood I had this lingering feeling that I just preferred the A Realm Reborn zones, but I wasn't able to quite put my finger on why other than the new zones being less "interactive." It's with the help of some of those WoW zones that I think I can better describe it though.

The Heavensward and Stormblood zones feel artificial. They don't feel like they're alive, they do genuinely just feel like large hubs. So, I'll try to qualify that statement. If I'm going through some random zone in WoW everything has a place. If you're near a river, you'll find a small ecosystem of hostile and nonhostile enemies that make sense, like crocodiles and insects and fish. You go a little further away into the woods and you find inland creatures, like deer and wolves. The world between is sprinkled with little signs of life, like birds and rabbits and whatever else. The birds fly away when you get near, the rabbits are being chased by wildlife, there are packs of wolves with little cubs, dens of slumbering bears, and so forth. Some NPCs patrol around large areas instead of walking back and forth in their designated spot like others. Zones are sprinkled with small settlements, ruins of ancient civilizations, abandoned buildings, and all kinds of little nooks and crannies that have strong visual storytelling to help bring the player into the moment and make them feel like they're a part of a larger world.

A Realm Reborn never exactly did this to an extreme, but it did have a healthy mix of hostile and non-aggressive enemies instead of a world that felt like it just always wanted you dead no matter where you were (which is particularly annoying for gathering imo). Also, because the zones were smaller, it was a lot easier for them to cluster enemies in groups that felt more natural as well, compared to these sprawling zones from Heavensward and Stormblood that look very pretty but feel like a dropper tool was used to place enemies in an area before moving to another to do the same. One example I like to use is the random Jellyfish behind Onokoro hanging out near some pine trees. What's their deal? I'm sure some of it is to try to emphasize that these areas are harsh and war-torn and all that's been able to thrive in such an environment are the most aggressive species, but if that's the case then maybe it's time to diversify the kinds of zone stories we're trying to tell in order to diversify the experience we're able to give players as they quest and level and go through their daily rituals.

A Realm Reborn was also fairly good at giving you a healthy amount of exploration within settlements compared to its successors. If anyone remembers one of the MSQ quests where you had to go into the jail in Whitebrim, and despite it being such a small building on the outside it goes down like 2-3 stories underground. Sure, it's mostly barren stone walls in there, but it's still a neat touch. I've mentioned the Mun-Tuy Cellars before on this forum as well, I think. The connection between South Shroud and East Shroud could have easily been a generic rock tunnel but instead it's this lovely brewery with like 3-4 little siderooms and NPCs doing their jobs, and you can just give it a little look around. It fills in the world more, helps bring it to life.

That's not to say Heavensward and Stormblood are entirely devoid of these kinds of things. I think the Xaela camps in The Azim Steppe are good about this, with all the yurts you can go into and NPCs to talk to. There are small areas in Heavensward I enjoyed as well, like the kitchen in Falcon's Nest or the buildings and stables in Tailfeather, but the inclusion of these kinds of world-building areas has diminished significantly across all zones in a way that I think is kind of unfortunate. The zones truly are becoming more and more beautiful to look at now, I'd just also love to see some of that money and development go into making them feel more alive. As it stands, they've got a case of "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle" syndrome.