Deadmines Map Reconstructed + Secret Outlands Explained | WoW Classic Exploration

[@720zone]

My 14 yo: "The 'before I tell you at the end of the video' is so cringe."

[@mysickfix]

3 times was the cringe, once would have been fine

[@thejaydizzle]

That's the reason I won't watch it

[@720zone]

@@thejaydizzle Hate to say it but I don't blame you.

[@scarablordhughheffner]

@@720zone It is cringe, it's what Tiktokers do, just repeating the same clip 3 times in a 30second video

[@garrymullins]

That's very interesting. The Outland objects were in there just as a sandbox dev preview basically and forgot about. Makes sense.

[@DaSTA]

I believe Moonbrook used to be (earlier in development) on the South-Eastern side of Westfall's Dagger Hills. If you take the Deadmines-B model and rotate it 180 degrees (like you did), then the boat would correctly be facing South towards the door (which you showed) but also notice the Deadmines entrance (Deadmines-A model) would now be on the East side too. There are many artifacts throughout the game world (and map) that indicate drastic change, many of which devs attempted to cover up. For example, a road was changed into a river, likely because 'sinking' it was a simple effective solution vs re-terraforming the terrain. Or a camp / town was relocated and mountains were raised over the area, again a simple effective solution vs hiding the terrain divits where buildings once stood. There are many other examples with clear evidence of this all across Azeroth if you know what you're looking for. Question is, why did so many things change so drastically throughout development? I believe it largely comes down to two major turning points: A. The decision to add Horde as a playable faction (originally Alliance only), and B. The order for the art team to 'wonkify' everything (originally more 'realistic') Sorry for wall of text! Your videos are awesome and hit me right in the nerd every time!

[@720zone]

Please don't apologize for the long comment. I read every word, and really appreciate your taking the time to share it all. I thought quite a bit about how the door and boat ended up backward. I never knew about Moonbrook potentially being in a different spot. I thought about different reasons why this could have happened, but always came back to simply having the Deadmines map having been rotated at some point. I'd love to ask these designers someday, if they eve remember. I think the larger development issues you point out are simply due to the dynamic nature of the early development. They weren't sure how things were going to work when putting these things together. The earliest dungeons were build before NPC pathing was designed, hence all of the evade spots we have in early dungeons, but none in later. We also know that zones were made by different designers based loosely on how they'd fit into the continent, which is why there are so many odd, unfinished terrain/texture sets between them. This stuff is a big part of what makes the game interesting for me.

[@DaSTA]

@@720zone Thank you so much for reading my comment! It brings me much joy to know that you appreciated the tidbits I added, the same way I appreciate the deep, detailed, comprehensive articulation you provide in your videos! I love discussing the possibilities of what was or what 'could've been' in WoW. All such great points! I fully agree with you regarding the dynamic nature of early development which absolutely aligns with the 'artifacts' I was referring to. Blizzard was pushing boundaries with what devs could accomplish back then, so naturally it was a learning process for them too. And yes - an opportunity to pick the devs' brains about these things would be incredible! I have considered writing them, but there's just SO many things to ask about I'm afraid it would quickly turn into a novel or they'd get exhausted. I tried asking BabaShareShow (Shawn Carnes) when he used to stream on Twitch about some things, in the most bite-sized way I could. Unfortunately he joined the team in the latter half of development and was unable to provide satisfying answers for most of my questions. Thanks again! Looking forward to more awesome videos!

[@Rage_WinterchiIl]

interesting, can you give names to these areas you'd describe? id like to go check them out myself

[@Flothyy90]

Your videos are great. Loved that you put in the interview. Very nice and deep research, would love to see more of these videos with that kind of in depth information.

[@720zone]

Thanks man! That interview is great. Big props to SoupaSoka for making it. kzbin.info/www/bejne/a5LbdaSQiqaIhLM

[@Whupsw0w]

Great stuff! Love how in depth you go with your videos. Looking forward to the next one!

[@720zone]

Thank you so much!

[@Merenek]

Oh I love these videos! The secrets, the tempo... it is simply great! :)

[@ksilebo]

So now we know why WoW is 120 GB.. they just leave things in :D

[@bbb4228]

120 is nothing for what we get. Every single Madden is 150 gigs for a bad football sim.

[@Jackpkmn]

The reason why wow is so big is for hard drive optimization reasons. To optimize access times for hard drives you need to minimize the amount of seeking the head has to do so you put data that's used together near each other on the disk. You may have noticed if you look closely at objects in the game that the same exact objects are used all over the place especially in vanilla tbc and wrath. What they did was included an extra copy of that object with each map that used that object so while loading the map that object would be pulled in from nearby on the disk instead of seeking somewhere else for a small file. This leads to VASTLY improved loading time on slow spinning rust drives but also vastly increased gamefile sizes on disk. Wow hasn't grown that much since legion because they stopped doing these which is why they now list an SSD as the minimum spec for the game. It hasn't shrank because they would need to go back and redo all the object references for these old zones to reference a generic object instead of the specific objects they do reference. And it would be a very manual and labor intensive process.

[@EnhancedNightmare]

These mysteries gave the game so much flavour!

[@Digital-Scriptorium]

Great stuff as per usual! :)

[@720zone]

Thank you for helping make it possible.

[@Digital-Scriptorium]

@720zone :)

[@Blackveiled]

I remember seeing this secret area back in 2005 or 2006, you were able to get inside with a mage by blinking into the instance portal (from the inside of the dungeon obviously), and using the unstuck feature to get clipped through the other side of the wall to see all this stuff.

[@Sparklebeard9000]

Very cool! I really enjoy seeing how the different maps would intersect

[@General12th]

Hi Zone! The editing in this video is phenomenal, so huge props for that. Also, do we know why the terrain map doesn't include the secret Outlands area?

[@720zone]

Thank you so much for the kind comment man; appreciate it. My guess is that they took a snapshot of the terrain to create the map, then did the outand experimentation afterward.

[@jonathonphillips4056]

I love how the older beta/alpha version builds are just left in these instances actually really cool!

[@fsgjafgja]

I love this stuff! Vanilla player here!

[@HansiHinterseer-j6j]

thank you very much for this respond :) very interesting to see this top of the deadmines hill

[@teejmorrison]

Great explanation and a very inquisitive look. Easy sub for me and looking forward to checking out more!

[@720zone]

Really appreciate it man; thank you.

[@pojuh645]

I've been there in vanilla with my mage after watching a video on YT about it. Awesome to finally see the story behind.

[@720zone]

Awesome! Love hearing about other explorers.

[@Crabpeople66]

Keep up the videos! Watched SFK while I died this AM on the rower :D

[@720zone]

Sweet - and good for you getting in that workout man!

[@capatej]

Wow i never noticed about that exit being on wrong side :D nice job with that map matching. As @DaSTA said, maybe Moonbrook was planned to be in south-east part of westfall. Could it be on place where rebel camp is now? Or it’s too far? Also i noticed on one of your first videos with maps that there is some “finished” zone south of zul’gurub, where bengal tiger would be. It was on 1.12.1 map but is it on some older maps too? Are you able to actually play those old maps in wow client and see if there are some mobs, so you can solve bengal mystery? :D or you can only view them in browser?

[@DrPluton]

I've never gone looking for the door to the ship cavern on any version of WoW. This is the first time I've seen it.

[@KevinArcade87]

Exciting!

[@ianb.6582]

I assume you've read John Staats book/diary? The WoW Diary. Neat stuff! Neat videos! Love this kind of content.

[@720zone]

Twice. Absolutely love it. Really appreciate the comment!

[@AngelM1013]

Great video thank you

[@ErikvsLenny]

i Love those Videos while Farming :)

[@nikomo]

The exit. You enter the boat room from the left side of the boat, and the dungeon exit is on the other side, which is entirely in the wrong direction.

[@720zone]

Winner.

[@Seraphim262]

This video was:"hey, there is a huge door for the ship in the map?" and went to much much more. Thank you for the vid.

[@720zone]

hahah..thanks!

[@fritzschnitzmueller3768]

great vid man

[@elzarik4881]

Great video, could you do Sunken Temple exploration please?

[@suchness18]

deadmines exit is on opposite sides?

[@720zone]

Win. Nice

[@overdev1993]

Would be cool if you would use a gamepad for these fly through scenes ingame to make it much more smooth :)

[@720zone]

YES! I really appreciate the gamepad suggestion. I've been experimenting with keyboard controls instead of the mouse to smooth it out, and other things. Most people making vids use Machinima tools I think for their scenes, but I'm just in game moving around. Thanks a lot for the comment.

[@arondorf1160]

But now I'm wondering how the dungeon would line up if you starting from the exit, where would the entrance wind up?

[@720zone]

I totally should have shown the exit models on both maps. They are backward also.

[@Jimmykreedz]

Why does nobody talk about the minimap of Deadmines? It looks like there's an entire city mapped out. It's not Westfall, unless it's a very VERY old version of it that they shifted about the buildings and such... I checked with both maps overlaying. The big white area (I assume are mountains) also doesn't look like anything on the westfall map, and it's mirroring the entire map on the other side of it except when it abruptly stops. 720 zone, any idea? I mean at like 6:59 for example in the video, just to avoid confusion.

[@Jimmykreedz]

Thanks mate. Appreciate your thoughts.

[@720zone]

Sorry Jimmy - I'm not following your question? The map I show at 6:59 is the in-game map, which I'm adding the outlands stuff to. The built out area on that map is a top-down view of Van Cleef's big ship from the dungeon. These are the basis for the minimap, but not exactly the same. The big white areas are actual white terrain in the instance, which of course was never meant to be seen. You can see some of this in the video too.

[@AdamGrayson]

Fascinating.

[@bobmalibaliyahmarley1551]

Clicking on this video... I first thought it was going to be ''the old'' version of it, like... Not inside the cave, but the one where the ship was under the sky and stuff.

[@720zone]

I wish man. I don't think that every made it into any build. Even the earliest alphas it was already in the cave. I think that was just the concept drawings.

[@KallTorak]

You playing on the new HC realm Jeff?

[@720zone]

Nope. I'll level on softcore to progress through phases and TBC, but will stay on Defias Pillager for hc.

[@Eyevou]

The "outland test area" didn't make its way into the map until 1.7.0, before then it was just a white space.

[@720zone]

Interesting! Always appreciate the extra context you add. Thanks!

[@Azulicious]

Locking in my comment before I scroll back up to watch-I think the Defias ship and doors are the wrong way around!

[@720zone]

Winner.

[@benjaminhutz2405]

Before Watching: I think the mistake they made is the exit of the dungeon... in on the wrong side. It should be east of the ship in westfall, not on the western coast. Also the giant door should be facing north, not south

[@layla_mc]

w video

[@SalariaStudios]

Yea wow is full of bloat used models and stuff that I guess if they removed would cause compiler errors.

[@Ryno2094]

"see if you can guess what it is before the end of the video" I can't stand "content" creators like you.

[@720zone]

Dude I was cringing watching it back. I shouldn't have said it three f'ing times for sure.

[@KazNDS]

I thought it was funny ironic humor lmao

[@ElusiveTy]

Cringeworthy, a bit bothersome, and typical of someone trying a bit too hard but that's common and understandable when starting out. Regardless, your comment really wasn't necessary and I think the content creator definitely took it on the chin like a champ.

[@Toiarc]

Hi. Do you have other social media platforms in use to follow and get larger audience from? Like twitter/x, threads, twitch and tictok? You could put them to description and youtube about section?