The War Within Zone Transitions

[@milesrout]

Fleshtotem is such a nerd honestly.

[@StandingTALL4now]

Can I see your fleshtotem?

[@boxoid5230]

Pin of shame 💀

[@momogal04]

Calling it now, there's gonna be hundreds of skeletons at the bottom of that first dive from druids who fail to pop flight form in time. I will be one of them.

[@charlesc4511]

this is extremely satisfying to watch

[@TyrannosavageRekt]

The verticality of these zones is amazing. If they were to redesign Azeroth with this technology in mind I can only imagine how cool some of the micro-dungeons and underground zones could be. Raids and normal dungeons too.

[@dr.dejnairb7022]

This existed long long time ago and pretty much existent in WotLK. If you did Stormy Peaks with Engine of the makers. Azshara raid also make use of carvernous tech and verticals.

[@oshi4125]

@@dr.dejnairb7022 hmm not sure about that. as far as i knew someone who worked at blizzard and they said this tech was new since abberus.

[@99Pierogies]

​@@dr.dejnairb7022nothing on this scale. They developed the tech for it recently, and zalarak caverns was the testing ground

[@morganfreeman5260]

@@dr.dejnairb7022yeah, but they won’t know that. these people still handing blizzard money bevause they finally figured out how to make a zone change colors ! actually sad for the people who still sit there and play this

[@saiyaman9000]

I love that there is a boss fight where you have to mount up to dodge a mechanic

[@Drojah]

Seeing the giant crystal thingy slowly go from beacon of light to corrupted by void energy is such a cool little detail

[@Lucsueus]

Isn't that the tip of Sargeras' sword?

[@Gamespud94]

@@Lucsueus nope just a big crystal called Beledar.

[@krzysztofczajka6752]

​@@LucsueusNo and it's confirmed by Blizzard

[@Drojah]

@Lucsueus nah, it is called the Beledar. It has been around for way longer than Sarg's sword. it is more-likely a naaru spaceship like Oshu'gun/Genedar.

[@Gamespud94]

@@Drojah I thought I saw somewhere blizz said it's not a ship either.. though tbh Beledar does have the same naming convention as Genedar / Exodar so maybe it is.

[@RealisticMgmt]

You might have just single-handedly convinced me to come back to WoW. Unlike previous expansions, this looks like a totally unique and exciting new area to explore and get lost in. Cheers mate.

[@shroomer3867]

For the good of my sleep and life I can’t come back

[@blinzi69]

the scale is insane

[@Bl4CKDevil5]

500GB to download 🫠

[@atilathenun]

Im so happy they tried something new with the zones for this one. I was getting really tired of landmass with 4 zones. Im really excited to see if they have any ideas for interesting zone layouts for Mightnight and Last Titan

[@shakeitoff1000]

Now it’s…underground caverns x4 wow

[@ChrisLayfield]

​@@shakeitoff1000 It's just one expansion, it's fine to be on theme.

[@BornFlunky]

@@shakeitoff1000 Times 3, you mean. The first zone is above-ground. Layering them on top of each other like this is kinda neat, honestly. Verticality is good.

[@Redwood_Elder]

I really like the direction they took. These are the most longitudinal maps we've ever had, it's fucking awesome.

[@mr.grumps3544]

Midnight I hear they are redoing Quel'thalas and Silvermoon and Last Titan I hear they are redoing Northrend

[@CaithlynTube]

Imagine Walking all of that 😂

[@fallefel8132]

Riders of the apocalypse unite!

[@Silly_Illidan]

@@CaithlynTube some classic lovers will do just that. Those masochist freaks

[@Tazemi.]

An intrusive thought just entered my mind.

[@MrHajdkoj]

with that RP walk

[@viniciusmenezes9538]

@@Silly_Illidan Not only I'll walk, I will also camp in this wilds

[@umomo1947]

that "definitely not a naa'ru" crystal is always so cool to look at in the distance.

[@GenomicDNA]

World of Warcraft: Mines of Moria

[@xavieno]

These zones are massive

[@zxbc1]

What? They feel tiny. He spent 5 minutes and visited all the zones. In classic wow you couldn't even get across one zone in 5 minutes. And people wonder why nobody plays WoW anymore.

[@kenthin]

@@zxbc1 You know Skyriding is like over 500% mount speed right? He's going insanely fast of course he'll cover it quickly. Also, didn't WoW sub numbers get leaked last year and it was at 7.2 million?

[@RougeRemixMusic]

@@zxbc1 you're so old lol

[@zxbc1]

@@RougeRemixMusic So is WoW, but I got wiser, WoW didn't.

[@zxbc1]

@@kenthin Of course I know it's 500% speed. But that doesn't matter, it means it takes less time to get to places and the world feels smaller. That's my point. In Classic WoW, even with mount it takes a long time to run across a zone, and even in TBC and Wrath a lot of zones still feel massive. Here it just feels small and claustrophobic.

[@peterfabell154]

I'm sold! The technology used for these transitions is just breathtaking...

[@roobii.]

Can’t wait to park in the cavern and smoke a fluorescent doobie with the Dwraven homie

[@Flogl94]

Wow! Amazing work, Blizzard. Thank you for the showcase

[@Silly_Illidan]

Deathwing causes the cataclysm. Every new area after cataclysm expansion: i felt nothing

[@anywaylose3999]

Actually a good point. I never thought about it. Like what about all these BFA locations, why they are not affected by cataclysm.

[@turquoiseuselessowl]

​@@anywaylose3999I don’t know about Kul Tiras, but the Zandalari Empire was seriously affected by the Cataclysm.

[@nakenmil]

@@turquoiseuselessowl And Pandaria, the only reason why the mists around it dissolved was because of it.

[@BornFlunky]

@@nakenmil Not entirely sure if that's the case. The source of the mist was Emperor Shaohao's failure to conquer his Pride. Anduin's fleet, and the Horde fleet in pursuit of them, crashed into Pandaria while it was still enshrouded by mist, no? I'm aware of what they said in that BlizzCon 2011 panel, but it was a really brief aside that's never been codified in Warcraft itself, neither in-game or in-book.

[@dreamermagister8561]

Due to the limitations of time and technology they had visually little shown compared to today's standarts but there were a lot of mentions and whole questlines talking about the effects of the Cataclysm. And in BfA mentions of Cataclysm and its after effects were there. Obviously Zandalar being sunk a little was the most obvious and visually available. (edit: typoes)

[@degnerouZ]

It’s crazy how much work was put into this.

lol ok blizzard bot

[@mr.grumps3544]

Every expansion takes a lot of work. Not sure why this seems more impressive to you

[@degnerouZ]

@@mr.grumps3544 it is impressive to me because I built maps in CS and know it takes time.

[@badas4333]

So cringe omg

[@2thezaza]

Bro can’t let people enjoy things 💀 how sad are you

[@crescentcompe8289]

Great video. I love TWW's map design

my pc gonna explode bro

[@nuclearbuzz4707]

If your pc is running DF then you ll run this one too...

@@nuclearbuzz4707 I mean this one has much more things together to render fast while sky flying unlike dragon flight that it was more per sector

[@themagicman8183]

I feel like it runs better than df zones, there way less particle effects

[@flouserschird]

I haven’t played World of Warcraft since Cataclysm but these zones look incredible

[@TheBotzo]

I'm not calling this boring by any means but between the ambience and soft wind sounds i could just loop this as sleep music along with the room lights that changed based off the screen and I'd be so happy to doze off to this on repeat. Its so soothing. Blizzard the last few expasions has really knocked it out of the park with its art and music direction. (The rest being up for debate)

[@libercode9886]

Blizzard art and music direction were always top notch. Too sad that every other department is garbage.

[@Johni_martini]

Holy, the verticality of these Zones is bonkers

[@cx3622]

It's too bright. It's literally underground in caves. There should be some darkness or at least dimmer.

[@yorickvlt1021]

I haven't played in a long time and not seriously in a longer time, and I'm not planning to come back, but I'll say this for what it's worth: these zones look really cool visually, I just hope they'll be able to tie them to a cool story to make them memorable. I see a lot of people yearning for pre-cata zones in the comments, but expansions like Legions had zones that were super memorable despite being new and following the same artstyle.

[@SerGlushko]

I wonder who looked at Zaralek and said, for the next expansion, let's do this, but 10 times bigger and in multiple layers

[@AT-yu2op]

Not a fan either. Will be a major negative factor for this expansion for sure.

[@djurius]

@@AT-yu2op Negative factor for you yes but for me it's cool

[@thithihao5473]

I think its pretty cool n unique

[@tintopstudios3820]

Well, it's better than legion/bfa/SL compacted small theme park zones. I would rather get lost in a massive multilayered map than feeling confined an lost in a mini one. Also I know not many people like underground zones. But as a person with the heart of a dwarf this feels like home.

[@Ultrazord]

And full of spiders... They had to be spiders...

[@Galistia]

It looks cool and the scale is crazy, but they all have this samey feeling to them, which is something some of the original WoW devs had concerns about when they would approach some project ideas. They had to make sure the zones felt completely different. This does not tick that box, and it will get stale quicker.

[@gaybuzzlightyear1294]

That's exactly what I was thinking. Any of these zones would be cool on their own, but they're too similar to each other. So much blue and grey.

[@fajken7342]

Holy fuk seeing the new capital made me get lotr dwarf feelings. It was like seeing erebor. And going down the tunnel was like a journey XD. cant wait to play tww

[@PaulStevens-se9lc]

visually the zones look fantastic. Doesnt in any way make me ever want to return to playing WoW again, but credit where its due on the visuals.

[@peterfabell154]

Yeah, I'm a little worried I may decide to go back just because of this video. I don't want to be disappointed again.

[@Kelevra444]

Les zones sont super bien travaillé, magnifique

[@holzmann8443]

You can turn off flight effects under accessibility settings so people can actually see the terrain.

[@Fleshtotem]

I had this response from a few other people as well. If I do something like this in the future I will make sure to disable them

[@oransjball]

Are you blind?

[@holzmann8443]

@@oransjball Partly, yes! And you will be too when you get older.

[@TheFireman6]

Very amped for this xpac!

[@frankie2086]

it'll be the same as all the other ones, just new skins slapped onto the same ol' gameplay that people will get tired of after 2 ~months in.

[@TheFireman6]

@@frankie2086 how often do you play?

[@frankie2086]

@@TheFireman6 usually around 2-4 months once every 2 years. I played a decent amount of Legion and Dragonflight.

[@brandonaguirre9188]

​Bro barley plays the game and is shitting on people who actually enjoy it​, i also cant wait for this expac@TheFireman6

[@sonniepronounceds-au-ni9287]

If it wasn't for the first phases of Seasons of Discovery, I would have stopped playing wow for months during Dragonflight. I barely know what the plot was nor do I care anymore. The last expansion I played regularly on retail was BFA.

[@Sergey_Timchenko]

Never felt more claustrophobic in my life 😂 beautiful design though. I love it!

[@milliamp]

This is me too. This appeals to some people but for me there is no way I could spend a whole expansion inside of a cave. Here and there or one zone I could handle but the whole time? I can't.

[@bulrug7060]

ain't no way bro came back⚡

[@skullcrusher3757]

What's interesting is that they are doing exactly what the developers for Super Mario 64 are doing. In "Dire, Dire Docks" you swim through a tunnel and the level unloads behind you and loads in front of you seamlessly.

[@stevehall364]

Zaralek cavern did this too

[@TheMartianBotanist]

The "airlock" maneuver

[@Shmanceypants]

What? That has been a mechanic in games for like 10 years now. It's not new.

[@stevehall364]

@@Shmanceypants it's been used in a ton of games for many many years now, but it's something that's very rarely used in MMOs

[@stuartfury3390]

New to video games, OP?

[@ToddLear-pw5ei]

Place is freaking enormous.

[@AgelessStones]

Thanks so much now i dont need to buy the expansion

[@Fleshtotem]

@AgelessStones I got you fam 🙏

[@lawrence9713]

That map looks insane. This cave is massiv. Just for that I want to play this game

[@alim-xf7wz]

It's impressive how wow changed over the years.

[@TonivomBananenboot]

I played WoW since 2007 but still got lost in every cave now they expect me to play a whole expansion in a humongous cave?

[@ghostdoge5275]

Don't worry, this is retail. You will have like 15 icons on your map telling you were to go

[@Cravos060290]

So I haven't played or looked into it at all, does the biggest part of this expansion... play in caves?

[@john_g_henderson]

Being able to fly so fast kind of ruins what would otherwise be an incredibly impressive scale, but the zones do look really really cool.

[@liamh3710]

I WILL NOT WAIT UNTIL RELEASE GIB! NAOW!!

[@samazoid]

sorry i haven't played WoW since burning crusade, do the flying mounts just go this fast now..? what if u hit a wall.....

[@tomjaap2933]

then you die irl

[@PhelornaTorqen]

This looks amazing ❤😊

[@deepSilent0]

This is amazing, 11/10! Already looks way more interesting than Dragonflight. One minor criticism is that, in my opinion, flying should be unlocked a bit later, maybe at max level? Otherwise, I think the sense of awe at the sheer size of these zones gets diminished by just having access to flying from the get go.

[@Lgd4033fourty]

im going to miss the sky

[@milliamp]

So many people are thrilled but there is no way I could spend a whole expansion inside a drab cave system.

[@SnipshotMedia]

Remember when you had to walk all that, now its just spraypaint on walls to fly past its so dull.

[@zeira_wolf2627]

I see this and my only urge is to summon a ground mount and go down those giant stairs the old fashioned way

[@McP1xel]

Beautiful

[@r4kung]

this looks amazing, i can't wait to not pay blizzard a single dime for it and just play it for free on a private server with my friends

[@Rattlik]

Impressive, but feeling a little big claustophobic as the ceiling is almost always present. It kinda look like a one big cave, there's not really a noticable amount of diversity among the zones, maybe Hallowfall excluded. Will definitely be my favourite zone I can tell it right know.

[@wossapable]

Feels like they took inspiration from elden ring multilayered map design and exploration

[@vampRaziel]

Seems like less objects, just bigger.

[@ScrimaGames1]

theres going to be a KZbin video of someone walking all of that

[@Kject]

These devs have really been playing gw2 a lot lol. Interesting seeing a lot of similarities and the bliz take on it. I play both games. Both games have borrowed from each other from time to time. But these 2 wow expansions have really been intergrading some of gw2s best parts.

[@proxymai6974]

now make something like mesmer (mage melee spec) and we happy

[@VexLooter]

Forgot to add that they're making them much better.

[@Hitmaster8]

@@proxymai6974 Game has enough melee specs imo

[@Logan-ef8hq]

Decided not to play beta. Cant wait to go there soon!

[@Grumbledookvid]

imagine if this entire thing was the wailing caverns dungeon

[@AlvinEarthworm]

The art team carrying this game, like they have always done.

[@dairymark]

When you are curious of what going on but don’t want to get in.

[@ShadoWoW10]

How did u get that Glided Prowler Mount? I did not get it.

[@samflood5631]

It’s hard to believe that there are civilizations underneath Azeroth. How the Arathi Half Elves, Earthren Dwarves, Under Trolls and Spider People were able to survive within the subterranean zones for so long, even before Sargares drove his sword into Azeroth during the Final Legion Invasion?

[@allenstarculture4971]

How many murlocs would a player have to loot to afford this upgrade?

[@moon-and-star]

As someone who hasn't played in years, has the dance studio be finally introduced?

[@Fleshtotem]

they confirmed its coming 6 expansions from now, they will soon have the tech 😂

[@paulstaker8861]

The environmental design of WoW is top notch - it's just a crying shame that the engine really can't show of it much better than as is. These same environments brought into modern lighting engines like Unreal or even Unity would be mind-blowing.

[@JackieHazlett-o7z]

Giant zones: 😐 Delves: 😐 No loading screens: 😐 Verticality: 🕺

[@alexandrodiova8386]

I recently started and I am level 15, would i be able to experience this with everyone? or am I to late for that?

[@HansPeter-bh3nu]

You will make it

[@DavisSystems]

"They call it a mine. A mine!"

[@moritz272]

Honestly these zones look great the way you show them. My hot take is that dragon riding is just too fast, you don't get immersed into the world at all. Also, its a shame that we have this world, and we still have to go back to necrotic wake or Tirna Scithe.

[@pb542]

You can switch off the dragon riding and explore though. No one is forcing you to use the faster flight. Immersion is fun when you’re levelling for the first time but most players level up several characters and they don’t want to spend lots of time on flying every time. As for the video, it’d be too long otherwise + you can still see the transitions, which was the main purpose of this vid

[@hoozentroger]

I dont play retail (for like 8 years) but these zones look ❤️‍🔥

[@DaRougaroux1]

Bruh, this place is huge.

[@LeeroyPaladin]

They need to revamp the old world. Like every single thing in the old world leave nothing untouched. Imagine 2024 barrens or seeing booty bay again… you go to these old zones and you just feel alone nobody is exploring it anymore…

[@Fleshtotem]

especially since you can go to any expansion once you hit level 10, the quest flow and rewards are generally far superior

[@lukeluckynblue1873]

That is actually impressive how deep and big is this :D But i'm getting Hollow earth vibes from this

[@bsoda69]

I have a silly question, I want to try this game but I am worried my PC cannot handle it, it's just i3 12100f, rx6600, ram 32gb can it run the game smoothly even in a dungeon or raid or fully crowded PVP with many spells animations happening plus recording and streaming in the same time?

[@Fleshtotem]

@bsoda69 I think you can play for free up to level 20 so give it a shot!

[@shetookthekids484]

if you search on google "can my pc run wow" theres a bunch of sites that let you input your hardware and it will tell you if it will run smoothly or not. i3 cpu is likely going to struggle in 2024 im ngl.

[@i_boole6639]

go and see what that light crystal thing is, please

[@rileymcentire2926]

Very cool.

[@conerseph]

If only they would sequel off this game, it's so hard to immerse myself into this environment with so much bloat from 20+ years. Imagine Classic WoW, remade with this technology, with more raids and dungeons as beautiful as this. Expanded horizontally, ending at 60 forever, each update enriching the current world, rather than throwing it in the garbage for mindless leveling. Meaningful, tiered progression, rather than making all your work pointless every two years. The entire world being worth visiting up till lvl 60, rather than secluding all the endgame content to a distant island while all the levellers are alone. And like... no more of the femboy stuff lol 💀

[@andrassalfay5869]

The problem with these "big and realistic" scale maps is that they entirely take away the fantasy that was so unique to WoW. Other MMORPGs did the same over time, and they felt the same cause of this. Wow had a distinc feeling with mostly logical and perfect map compositions, like a story... they had a beginning, and an end, or in this case: a zone boundary. It was either physical (mountains, gaping cravices of emptiness, walls made by ancient civilizations) or magical (portals) but they were mostly full of life, monsters -related to quests, lore or both- and PLAYERS....players being a double-edged blade, being an annoyance and a big part of the vibe too. But it was not empty. All zones had a distinct feels to them, like a small island with many wonders. Now...they are all the same. Even if they manage to create something beutiful, like a scenery with unique lighting, or crazy background effects or architecture, cause of the SCALE, it just feels empty and boring after 1-2 minutes. It's also 2024, and people are throught with exploring and playing jumping-around games with their friends in a game that repeatedly told us: "farm 1 hour, then log into next character, then farm 1 hour, then log into next game". So in conclusion, I don't really get the map designers, and I don't think I'll ever fly through every inch of these landscapes. Cool 3D design, probably 80-90% of it is auto generated template and a the rest (plants, ground clutter ETC) was inserted by AI....but yeah....cool design. :D

[@luckduvell]

This isnt really true. They still make all this by hand. Wow makes no use of procedural generators. Besides that dragonflight maps didnt feel empty at all did we play the same game?

@@luckduvell ur just wrong

[@borek92]

I don’t know. They all look and feel kind of samey to me

[@erayyy5686]

I’m playing the game since 2011 but still don‘t know how to turn off the hud can someone explain??

[@Fleshtotem]

@@erayyy5686 I think the default keybind is alt-z

[@hakanakdag9491]

This is a great game w/o a question but why dont they improve graphics? Not talking about style but textures etc like low resolution. For instance, I liked new worlds graphics or baldurs gate 3. Why wow cant have this level of graphics?

[@Fleshtotem]

@@hakanakdag9491 I think they would have to implement an entire new graphics engine. Takes aloooooot of work, money, and time and then may invalidate those with lesser rigs

[@ThomasMeurisse1337]

This look amazing

[@Silly_Illidan]

Gotta wonder, are the crews of skyfire, hellscream's fist, Zeppelin express, pandaren balloon crew and shen zin su... Are they all blind? That they never saw the broken Isles, dragon isles, dun algaz, zandalar, kul tiras etc?

[@deanrazor9023]

They definitely always knew about Kul’Tiras, it’s even on the map in the original WoW manual, they’re a playable faction (color scheme ) in Warcraft 2 and show up in Warcraft 3

[@petrsebik]

Nice video showing the new maps. I would just suggest to disable the skyriding wind effects in settings, when you are making a video.

[@Fleshtotem]

You're right, I always just kept them on because I like the feeling and immersiveness of it but it definitely looks a bit annoying.

[@Ben-zc5yf]

Miss when things were more compact, the scale of this is just too much lol

[@JoshSweetvale]

This reminds me of ARK Aberration.

[@julesjmj5682]

Zoneception…looks like we just have to go, deeper!

[@李学权]

Beautiful show me one More like this video. Thank you

[@zinkist]

Saw your reddit post. Nice video! I've been too busy testing the end-game Content to mess with leveling yet, but those Zones are looking pretty great. What OBS settings are you using? Especially what bitrate and video format? It's been a challenge getting 4K VODs to look good without being massive 20gig+ Uploads. Does KZbin make you wait an eternity to finish processing to 4K too? If I Upload a long VOD like from Raid Testing it can take like 12+ hours to process even after the Upload finishes. I don't know how normal that is. 18,000 bitrate as mp4 got me the best results so far, but my settings could still use tweaking.

[@Fleshtotem]

I think this was 8k bitrate with mp4. Native 4k resolution, all game settings fully maxed including ray tracing. Took a long time to process the 4k. Pretty sure this was a large file as well. Not at my computer atm so can't check.

[@Akeche]

Man it sure does look... samey.

[@milliamp]

I am surprised how positive most people are. The entire expansion is basically Zaralek cavern. I could go into there sure but...for years? No

[@FelipeAkira42]

This video might have convinced me to go back to wow lmao

[@Fillster]

This looks awesome but I imagine it will be annoying to traverse upwards 😅

[@Flamengo91]

What mount is that?

[@Silas3]

how do you fly upwards from the ringing deeps to the Isle of Dorn. Isnt that super unfun with dragonriding ? since it only goes up, and you have to spend a lot of vigor to get up there?

[@Fleshtotem]

@Silas3 there are little whisps of air that give you speed boosts. There are also multiple elevators in the ringing deeps that can take you to isle of down and back. There is also a portal to and from the main city to azj-kahet and back.

[@lamfi3906]

I think you can go to opposite side of the world

[@AnonymousOtters]

Wow, haven't played since Cataclysm. Really felt uninspired by the new content and direction, but this looks amazing. Hats off to the designers

[@Wealth_Gaming]

Hey @Fleshtotem. I was wondering if I can use this footage in my upcoming video release? I will include a link to the video and a shoutout on screen during the segment.

[@Fleshtotem]

Go for it! Looking forward to seeing the vid

[@Wealth_Gaming]

Thanks a ton!

[@logic9436]

Why is it so insanely large? I don't get the point at all...

[@Nattlord]

Pretty impressive!

[@rbscamp]

Fantastic!

[@zilvoxidgod]

this is cool, the kind of 3d design I love and rarely get in games, but... but it feels really sparse. The scale is massive btu not a lot between points of interest.

[@Fleshtotem]

Yeah all the content and stuff to do is on the ground, not in the transitionary spaces while flying