Is the world too small?

Well I think all expansions were fitting just fine since they were part of the WoW universe, however Mists of Pandaria didn't fit at all. The new expansion is returning us back in time and we will be revisiting Outland with a different look which I think is brilliant. Generally I don't think it's a good idea to create new continents that don't already exist in the WoW universe. Outland was part of that, Northrend was as well. It's definitely better to use already existing continents and just have us "return in time" instead. What's more the Outland story isn't really completely told. There are many bosses that haven't made an appearance yet.

 

Actually Pandarens were already a part of the Warcraft lore, even though it played a background role more than a primary one. They were first introduced in Warcraft III: The Reign of Chaos. We should assume that in the WoW universe, there are more races that haven't been focused on yet due to the progression of the lore.

Personally, I thought that the Pandaren expansion was a nice touch to the gloomy Demons VS The World theme WoW had been based on for such a long time. The fact the Pandarens came to light because their floating island shrouded in mist came into contact by an Alliance prison ship, was a great introduction to the expansion.

I think the main reason why so many people hated the Pandaren expansion was because WoW was already a cartoony game and with Pandaren, it was the cherry on top that spilled everything over. For myself, I thought the expansion was very well done with a myriad of new types of quest mechanics, a beautiful lush new continent with new types of mobs and bosses and of course, more places to explore.

As for answering the OP whether WoW is too small, I don't think so. The problem is that people play and level too quickly, as if it's a race to end-game. For myself, I don't even have a level 90 yet and I've had the expansion since near its release. Reason is that I love to explore, take on the scenery, try different classes and see where they all head to.

I believe things are 'just right'. Indeed, it would be nice if Blizzard created extra content every now and then, like what they did with the Isle of Q back during the TBC era.

 

Pandarens were introduced in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. There was only 1 champion(The Pandaren Brewmaster). I don't mean to say that Pandarens aren't part of the lore, I mean that Pandaria wasn't. It has never been mentioned before. I have been playing Warcraft games since Warcraft II. In Warcraft III ROC/TFT I was participating in a lot of tournaments and was training partner for the 3 times world champion SK Insomnia(we played from the same club). I have been following the lore quite closely and people didn't like Pandaria mostly because it literally appeared from thin air. There hasn't been any hint before that, whether in books or games.
Still even though the story in Mists of Pandaria wasn't the greatest I definitely liked quite a few of the encounters it had to offer. Even now my guild is on Paragons HC and I have to say that I'm loving the fight. A lot of people were complaining that Thok, Blackfuse, Paragons and Garrosh were too overwhelming as fights, but I think that this is the level for heroics Blizzard should aim.

 

Blizzard is smart enough to create new places and terrain. A great example is Pandaria, Vashjir and for example the whole new Warlords of Draenor expansion is a great example!

 

I don't think so. I think there still are regions where I have never been. I have never played as horde so this is perfectly normal.

 

I think the world feels smaller since the implementation of flying mounts, it make is so that a giant mountain in the middle of the map is no obstacle, you just fly above it. I think that's why it used to feel bigger, since in my example you would have to go all the way around it.

 

yes, I think the idea of going back into the past has already been done (FFXI) and it's really not going to be all that different.

 

I think that the world COULD be much, much bigger. That would help with WoW's selling point even more. People visit the same places over and over and over again to grind and it just gets plain boring.

 

I think that's a problem with every MMO, no matter how big the game is, once you can explore a world for 24 hours a day, then it gets boring after you've seen everything.

 

I think a bigger issue is that wow has become a game where you don't need to leave Stormwind or Org at any time. Raids, Pvp, leveling can all be qued up for. I hope there's some adjustment to this in WoD, as there's just not reason to go explore different areas anymore.

 

The idea is that since they often have to stuff 12k+ people on one server (and how crammed does it feel when for example half the server pop is in Vashjir questing?), the world can be imagined as representing a much larger Azeroth.

 

Good point, you just need to do the questing when a new expansion comes out and then maybe do the dailies until you max the faction rep, then just park your caboose in Stormwind and go watch a movie while waiting for the queue pop...

 

No not if you get expansion packs.

 

Well even expansion packs have a limited size, sure it looks big once you are going through the content, but once you look back then you see that it wasn't *that* big.

 

As a returned yet new player, to me the worlds seems vast and limitless. However, when I look at the map and see just how little terrain there actually is compared to most other games that are free, this gets me to wondering. Maybe Blizzard has an expansion or two coming out that are really big? I've also heard somewhere that the game's world had actually been scaled down from a bigger size.

 

Yes, the original game's world was a bit too small by today's standards, but it was really huge for that time. If you combine the worlds of all the expansions released so far, you'll find that it's a huge game.

 

I think that even today, at least for me, the world feels vast and ever-living, as opposed to games that have huge worlds that feel empty.

Blizzard has built Azeroth really well, and the fact that they are slowly but surely adding more land to it through expansion packs shows that they know what they're doing.

 

There are ways to expand the universe to be larger and larger without making things seem convoluted or out of place. However, I'm fine with the size of the world as it is right now.