Dramatized has a simple but intriguing question on the forums:
"Is Azeroth flat or round?" It's got to be round, right? You can
prove that the world is round a number of different ways, but do they actually work? I don't ever remember seeing ships disappearing beyond the horizon (in fact, Tydeus confirms that ships don't drop below the horizon, so either Azeroth is flat or just really, really big), and in most places on Azeroth, the horizon is actually a mountain range. And I've never seen an eclipse on Azeroth, so we have no idea what shape the world really is. The ingame map between Azeroth and Outland hints that it may be a globe, but really it's just the map overlaid into a circle -- no hints there.
Neth hints in the thread that maybe even the Explorers' League doesn't really know if the world is round or not. But whether it's round or flat, it's a pretty good guess that there's a lot to this world we haven't yet seen -- if it is flat, neither the Horde or Alliance have reached the edge yet, and if it's round, you'd wonder why someone hasn't sailed from Darnassus across to Azshara (and if Northrend is what's north of the two main continents, what's south?). Remember this the next time someone asks just what else Blizzard can visit in future expansions -- there's a whole world out there we haven't been able to see yet.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
2-21-2008 @ 3:00PM
Daniel Whitcomb said...
I don't know, I always thought the world was square!
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2-21-2008 @ 10:11PM
ScorchHellfire said...
um... are u people serious? of course the game world is flat and square... its the freaking game... did u thinkt he devs would go through the trouble of trying to make it realistically round... the facto fthe matter is if azeroth in its current state was a real planet it would be very small considering u can run through most areas in a matter of minutes... and the villages are usually just a couple buildings clumped together...
compared to how many buildings u could fit into the landscape of the strategy game maps theres barely any buildings in the world...
yes the game world is flat but in the lore im sure its a normal planet and it started off with a supercontinent like ours... it has two moons and if it is really to scale as it is in wow then its like the size of pluto or something...
but whatever it may just have a lot of ocean not shown in the game.. who knows... but to answer whats south of the two continents its undermine... it was orignally in the game as a rather larger circular island a good ways south of the maelstrom...
who knows how big azeroth really is... i mean pandaria has to be somewhere... but i dont think theres really a lot more than is shown in the game... and the game world is flat so that the flatness illusion known on earth is simulated...
2-22-2008 @ 5:02AM
jrb said...
woah, freaky! I was thinking about this just the other day, as i was taking a boat from auberdine to menethil. Surely it would be quicker to go the other way and wrap round. Unless the world is flat!
doh, i should post my musings to wow insider instead.
2-21-2008 @ 3:09PM
Omacron said...
The illidan fight proves that Azeroth is at least a 3-D shape (either spherical or elliptical) since you can clearly see it in the sky.
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2-21-2008 @ 3:20PM
Matthew said...
There are also other planets visible in the sky above Hellfire, indicating that gravity works as normal in most places, at least when those planets were formed. Certainly Azeroth couldn't be perfectly flat unless there was some crazy magical force working on it or if it was made in some special way. Given the attention that it's garnered from the Old Gods and the Titans and whatnot, I suppose it's possible that it was constructed differently than every other planet in the universe.
2-21-2008 @ 3:09PM
Ed said...
Seeing as there only seems to be one timezone in all of Azeroth - it's day in Silvermoon and Orgrimmar at the same time, despite being seperated by half the world, I'd say that Azeroth is flat.
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2-21-2008 @ 3:14PM
JPN said...
Same time zones wouldn't imply flatness; a flat area would still have different time zones. The movement would change the day/night. I guess seasons would be more related to roundness.
This is an interesting question....I guess.
2-21-2008 @ 3:24PM
Ed said...
Ack, you're right, back to square one for me!
2-21-2008 @ 3:13PM
Ryan said...
Good question. Can you turn it inside out without creasing?
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2-22-2008 @ 10:57AM
Shantos said...
You can do that whether it's flat or round.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6626464599825291409
2-21-2008 @ 3:15PM
Irshalthra said...
It is flat. I fell off the edge in Hellfire. I never hit bottom. Worse yet, when I was trying to find my body - my ghost fell off - again no bottom.
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2-21-2008 @ 3:20PM
Omacron said...
Hellfire is in outland, a different body which is basically PART of another planet.
2-21-2008 @ 3:20PM
Meira said...
It is a known fact that, by nerdy calculations someone bothered to do, the known Azeroth is a little bigger than the isle of Singapore, ence the fact every region in Azeroth is at the same timezone (this if the Azeroth as planet is as big as the Earth, what would make our Azerothian humanoids really, really small). Thinking this way, Azeroth is just a small part of a big planet unconvered...
If the known Azeroth is as big as the planet, then yes, is flat. What would bring a bigger question: how a flat planet works? Nerdy questions, indeed :P
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2-21-2008 @ 3:21PM
Meira said...
That is Outland, ancient Draenor torn appart by fel magics... that's why you fall there... and are still to find world edges in Azeroth.
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2-21-2008 @ 3:22PM
Jowbulla said...
I think it's round, with a bad case of "it's not important to gameplay" coming in where things like time zones are concerned. The same sort of reason why you can't even learn to ride a horse until you're 40, and why you can't fly in Azeroth except on zip-lines shaped like manticores.
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2-21-2008 @ 3:32PM
ThorinII said...
And how one can run the entire planet in the matter of hours an never even get tired!
2-21-2008 @ 3:22PM
Meira said...
That was for Ilshalthra :S
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2-21-2008 @ 3:24PM
Tumnus said...
Now what about all those little globes you see in various buildings around Azeroth? Hmmm....
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2-21-2008 @ 3:25PM
Jacii said...
I'd like to point out that I've never
Ever
Ever...
Seen a planet that was NOT round.
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2-21-2008 @ 3:29PM
Omacron said...
Discworld?