MassivelyOP wrote a top 10 list for tropical zones, Booty Bay in the list which is a sub-zone of Stranglethorn Vale, a zone i love so much and i don’t go there often, only when leveling a character i go there, but i stopped leveling characters until Shadowlands pre-patch released.
This is a problem with many MMOs, when you are done with a zone there is no reason to go back to it, the developers are busy with making new zones which will have the same problem in the future, and i think this is a waste of resources, a whole world full of beautiful empty places.
I try to think about what could be done to old zones and i understand that no matter how much content the developer put, they can’t make enough to keep the players going to old zones, so repeatable content is a solution.
In GW2 you’ll see players roaming old zones to finish dailies and get rewards, the game give them a good reason to do that, and If a low level players are leveling in the zone they can join the high level players in doing dailies and getting rewards and experience.
WoW have something like that, i still go back to Legion zones to farm what i didn’t get in the expansions, i still need few mounts and that Khadgar floating head, the difference between GW2 and WoW is that GW2 cover all old zones, if you play it daily you’ll see yourself playing in most old and new zones.
Blizzard use some old zones for new content, both Uldum and Vale of Eternal Blossoms used for N’zoth Assaults, Ice Crown will be used for Shadowlands pre-patch and starting quests, that’s another way to use old zones.
I still want more reasons to visit old zones in WoW, other than dungeons and raids to farm transmog, Archeology could play a role here but i’ll leave that for another post, but say i want to go back to Feralas, what’s there to do other than quests? pet battle? Dire Maul? here is a zone rich with history but reduced to quests, a dungeon and battle pets, if you are done with them there is no reason to go back.
In another post i’ll talk about Archeology since Blizzard is not doing anything with it in Shadowlands, that’s a chance to talk about how it needs a new system.