Future of Dalaran?

[Elynis]

Yes, clearly to fix things the Alliance needs to loose ANOTHER major city.

Technically, Dalaran has only been declared an Alliance hub, but isn't actually in the game. The one in Northrend will forever be in its own little time bubble, therefore shooting down the other version wouldn't really harm anyone save for helping the ever present need to entertain gamers destruction fixes

Which leaves shooting it down a completely viable option (smiley inserts really need devilish face)

[Faroth]

It wasn't just that, the Alliance infiltrated and actively sabotaged the Blood Elves after the 3rd War under the guise of peace emissaries. Sylvanas went there with a genuine offer of aid and then brought them into the Horde.

The Blood Elves were willing to look past that stuff and rejoin the Alliance before Jaina went apeshit.

The Alliance did that in TBC intro area for BEs because Blizzard decided to add reasons for Horde/Alliance friction there. Prior to TBC there's nothing to indicate hatred between Alliance and Silvermoon and Garithos was just a jerk.

Jaina's actions were justified as much as they were wrong. That's kind of the point with that sort of scenario in WoW, you can see the rationale and the complete error at the same time. I kind of agree with the post above, though. Seems kind of errant that Varian's having discussions with the blood elves to bring them back into the Alliance but he doesn't bother to clue Jaina in (nor does Anduin have any clue this is going on) considering Dalaran is the biggest hot pot of Alliance/Horde intermingling at that point. If Jaina was aware of that, things may have been quite different.

Honestly, though, playing through the starting area of the blood elves, the whole "Alliance sabotage and invasion" didn't really make sense to me....from Alliance perspective. Of all the places to randomly have night elves setting up camp, it seemed odd for them to suddenly take an interest in them when the last interaction between NE and BE was one of cooperation (barring crazy Maiev in Outland, but neither side probably knew that whole situation at the time).

But to be honest, there's a lot of factions and races that are opposed via Horde/Alliance that I don't quite get.

[Florena]

And does that make them the most powerful mortal magi on the planet? No it does not, there are still so many dragon magi out there, they could tear Dalaran apart if they wanted to. Having Kalecgos there doesn't change that, not to mention he is back to his regular self, who was beaten up by a high elf and a dreadlord.

I don't know. If Dalaran withstood the Nexus War I'm not so sure that any remaining blue dragons would get the deed done. Especially with no more aspect of magic and the blue flight disbanded.

[Elynis]

The Alliance did that in TBC intro area for BEs because Blizzard decided to add reasons for Horde/Alliance friction there. Prior to TBC there's nothing to indicate hatred between Alliance and Silvermoon and Garithos was just a jerk.

Jaina's actions were justified as much as they were wrong. That's kind of the point with that sort of scenario in WoW, you can see the rationale and the complete error at the same time. I kind of agree with the post above, though. Seems kind of errant that Varian's having discussions with the blood elves to bring them back into the Alliance but he doesn't bother to clue Jaina in (nor does Anduin have any clue this is going on) considering Dalaran is the biggest hot pot of Alliance/Horde intermingling at that point. If Jaina was aware of that, things may have been quite different.

Honestly, though, playing through the starting area of the blood elves, the whole "Alliance sabotage and invasion" didn't really make sense to me....from Alliance perspective. Of all the places to randomly have night elves setting up camp, it seemed odd for them to suddenly take an interest in them when the last interaction between NE and BE was one of cooperation (barring crazy Maiev in Outland, but neither side probably knew that whole situation at the time).

All of dis ^

[Faroth]

They should remake it into an Alliance Mage city. And let the Blood Elves make their own Horde Dalaran with the help of that limitless fount of energy thats being hilariously underutilised.

Then the two mage cities should battle in a floating city version of bumper cars!

[Combatbutler]

I don't know. If Dalaran withstood the Nexus War I'm not so sure that any remaining blue dragons would get the deed done. Especially with no more aspect of magic and the blue flight disbanded.

The problem with that is Dalaran did not fight alone during the nexus war, every Dragonflight was fighting the blues, including Dalaran and some elements of horde and Alliance, so I really don't see Dalran at the top concerning most powerful spellcasters, even though the blues are all but gone there are other flights out there, we don't know what the naga have been brewing up, many former Kirin Tor are still members of the scourge etc. to proclaim Dalaran the most powerful of all is quite unrealistic, considering the competition.

[Aquamonkey]

Then the two mage cities should battle in a floating city version of bumper cars!

I'm surprised there's no rips of the pre-release leaked footage.

[Florena]

The problem with that is Dalaran did not fight alone during the nexus war, every Dragonflight was fighting the blues, including Dalaran and some elements of horde and Alliance, so I really don't see Dalran at the top concerning most powerful spellcasters, even though the blues are all but gone there are other flights out there, we don't know what the naga have been brewing up, many former Kirin Tor are still members of the scourge etc. to proclaim Dalaran the most powerful of all is quite unrealistic, considering the competition.

Never said I thought they were the most powerful, but I don't expect the city to easily fall to an invading force either. The poster I quoted specifically mentioned dragon magi, which tried and failed to take down Dalaran in the Nexus War. The blacks are nigh extinct, blues defunct and scattered with no aspect, Krasus is dead, who else is a notable dragon mage? I'm not saying Dalaran is impenetrable, but the blues did attempt to take it down while they were still a united flight with an aspect and failed, so taking it down would be no trivial task either.

[Frozenbeef]

The Horde is currently developing sand castle magic to use against Dalaran, in a few months it will be a pile of rubble on the ground.

[Northem]

You realize that Dalaran existed for almost 2000 years before the Alliance? That whole time, they were allied with Quel'Thalas which is now part of the Horde. Dalaran should be a Horde city.

Precisely Dalaran is the result of the first alliance between elves and humans of history, something known as the Pacts of Arathor.

Since then, the independent Kingdom of Dalaran is the living proof of the union between the Humans of the Seven Kingdoms and the High Elves of Quel'Thalas.

However, those who live currently in Quel'Thalas and are members of the Horde are not the High Elves of the Pacts of Arathor ... are Blood Elves! traitors, corrupt and dirty members of the Horde!

Dalaran owes allegiance to both humans and high elves, ie to the Alliance, not to the Blood Elves and their Horde.

[Combatbutler]

Never said I thought they were the most powerful, but I don't expect the city to easily fall to an invading force either. The poster I quoted specifically mentioned dragon magi, which tried and failed to take down Dalaran in the Nexus War. The blacks are nigh extinct, blues defunct and scattered with no aspect, Krasus is dead, who else is a notable dragon mage? I'm not saying Dalaran is impenetrable, but the blues did attempt to take it down while they were still a united flight with an aspect and failed, so taking it down would be no trivial task either.

Well Jessicka argued Dalaran was powered by the most powerful magi on Azeroth, which simply isn't true. There are just too many other factions out there that have lethal arcane users. The blues failed to take down Dalaran indeed,but Dalaran was not on it's own, they had the other dragonflights behind them and later on the Horde and Alliance. Not to mention you don't need notable dragon magi, since the average dragon magi is enough to wipe the floor with most spellcasters lorewise.

Dalran is very powerful indeed, but in no way can their members be considered the most powerful magi on the planet.

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Precisely Dalaran is the result of the first alliance between elves and humans of history, something known as the Pacts of Arator.

Since then, the independent Kingdom of Dalaran is the living proof of the union between the Humans of the Seven Kingdoms and the High Elves of Quel'Thalas.

However, those who live currently in Quel'Thalas and are members of the Horde are not the High Elves of the Pacts of Arator ... are Blood Elves! traitors, corrupt and dirty members of the Horde!

Dalaran owes allegiance to both humans and high elves, ie to the Alliance, not to the Blood Elves and their Horde.

The debt was repaid during the second war and the elves chose to return to their isolation, ironic the one who would create the blood elves stood at the side of humanity longer than most.


You speak of a union between the seven kingdoms and Quel'thals? Such a thing never existed, the only human nation Quel'thalas seriously considered an ally was Dalaran and Dalaran alone.

[Florena]

It seems unlikely because

a: The council appears to have agreed
b: The entire action has been presented to the Alliance and Kirin Tor as putting down an armed insurrection and invasion by the BElfs and Horde forces. Alliance players are told those still above ground are those who refused to go peacefully and who struck back and raised weapon and wand against the city.



What reason? That he's an idiot for making the threat? That he's a craven coward for backing down?

He's saying he can last weeks against the kor'kron. That's about how long the Alliance needs him to last. They don't need him to live. They don't want him to live.

And that's assuming the Alliance decide to press ahead.

The issue here is that the Alliance story, such as it was, has been effectively dropped. Blizzard isn't going to show a world war. They aren't going to allow an invasion. The Alliance end up working with Vol'jin and throwing off a few pithy oneliners to underscore "We aren't allies even though we act like it....look - I'm insulting them!!! How can we be allies if I insult them?"

The Alliance has reason to USE Vol'jin.

It has no reason to ally with him. It has no reason to work with him. It has no reason to take orders form him or accept his insults or threats. Indeed, it has no reason to actually proceed with the invasion. It has every reason to want to see Vol'jin and his Darkspears dead alongside Garrosh and Sylvanas.

The Alliance are supposedly using Vol'jin. But end up giving him supplies that could be used to support the invasion forces directly. The Alliance are't allied with him - but the players end up taking orders/quests from him, using a Horde village as a base and visiting a Horde quartermaster for gear. The Alliance DON'T need Vol'jin - you keep missing this core central fact; he's helpful to have but not necessary - but are still expected to put up with his idiocy and threats and insults.

Alliance players get to see the Barrens and Durotar phased to see the impact of Horde events, but don't get to see it phased to showcase an Alliance invasion. The ONE chance in the entire XPac we have to actually see the Alliance do something - and its effectively dropped.

EJL

I think the Alliance has plenty of reason to work with Vol'jin here.

If the Alliance doesn't give Vol'jin these supplies, then they lose his support. Now maybe you're right and the Alliance doesn't absolutely NEED Vol'jin. But the siege becomes a LOT easier if the do, and saves a lot of Alliance lives.

If we don't help Vol'jin, the Alliance armies will have to march through the Barrens or Azshara, both horde controlled lands, and that went oh so well for the Alliance in Cataclysm. The Alliance is able to land its fleet right on Garrosh's doorstep in 5.4 because they're coordinating with Vol'jin. Otherwise they'd either have to go by land, taking much more time and resources to get through horde controlled land to actually reach Orgrimmar, or they'd have to risk a naval invasion on their own. And that went so well in Tides of War didn't it, even when they duped Garrosh into thinking the fleet was heading elsewhere?

That wasted time going by land would also buy Garrosh more time to build defneses. Time to crush the underequip rebellion and re-consolidate his hold on Durotar. Time to master the power of the Heart of Y'shaarj and potentially sha empower an army like the Thunder King in ages past. And by attacking with the rebellion, we ensure that more horde lives and less alliance lives are lost. Is saving alliance lives itself not worth swallowing your pride and lending Vol'jin a hand? It's not like the Alliance is getting nothing from this. We get a diversion on the shores of Durotar to land our fleets and we get to split the casualties with the horde, leaving the Alliance stronger in the aftermath than it would have been storming alone. The Alliance quests in Durotar clearly establish that Orgrimmar's defenses are being upgraded and that the SI 7 agents are finding no exploitable flaws in the defenses to make invading easier. That's why you're sent to Vol'jin in the first place, so that his rebellion can continue to harass Garrosh until the Alliance fleet is there, and minimize Alliance casualties by splitting them with the horde, leaving the Alliance coming out of this stronger and the horde factions weaker.

The quests also strongly imply that without your aid the rebellion would outright fail. Keep in mind that in 5.3 it is ONLY the Darkspear and a couple of Vol'jin's buddies. The Forsaken and Blood elves don't show up until the Alliance does, the Tauren not until shortly before. This is not a case of the rebels standing against Garrosh, it's just the Darkspear right now and his tribe cannot do this without support. We help him to buy the time he needs, and if we don't then attacking Org is going to be a lot harder.

As for the supply thing, the Alliance doesn't NEED the supplies like Vol'jin does, there's no indication the Alliance is short on the things that Vol'jin asks for, but it's very clear his fledgeling rebellion is. The Alliance has plenty, and so by giving him a few crates of supplies we help his rebellion to survive and gain exponentially from the supplies we're giving to him.

Vol'jin also ONLY insults you when you choose a douchy OPTIONAL dialogue option. When you actually turn in the quests, he's grateful for your aid and admits how much he needs it. I understand you wanted the Alliance to be doing it's own thing. I understand that. That would have been great. But that doesn't mean this temporary pact with Vol'jin doesn't make sense. Maybe Vol'jin was an idiot to make that bluff when pushed, but what would you do, throw away this golden opportunity because Vol'jin hurt your feelings? If so I'm glad you're not in charge of the Alliance or this war would be a lot bloodier. You're really overblowing how much he 'insults' us. It's one optional dialogue option that you can skip, and when you finish the quests he's grateful, not insulting.

In short, maybe the Alliance doesn't 'need' Vol'jin in the sense that they CANNOT do this without supporting the rebellion. But this small act of cooperation saves Alliance lives, and I think that's worth it.

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Dalran is very powerful indeed, but in no way can their members be considered the most powerful magi on the planet.

Agreed. /10char

[blackblade]

Day or so ago I wrote my own ideas for Warcraft in wordpad ( WiP still ) but figured out this as something for Dalaran and the two elven factions. 0: This is how I would love to see it to go, but I am not so sure of the PvP part.

-snip-

Im thinking of making a edited map of Crystalsong Forest aswell for this.

One tiny thing: How does the horde get into "The Violet Hold" 5-man?

[lawow74]

It's pretty much implied that the Alliance controls Gilneas via the Silverpine story line, and that the Forsaken are still attacking despite the ceasefire. The Battle for Gilneas battleground represents the Forsaken trying to re-open the coastal front after the entire Forsaken Fleet blockading Gilneas got sunk by a single submarine. The border is drawn at the Greymane Wall.

The 7th Legion hasn't been completely wiped out, either, since Halford Wyrmbane was shown on board the Submarine, and the Alliance had retreated from Silverpine over getting destroyed.

Sylvanas will go super villain eventually, probably after we kill the last Old God/defeat the Legion/etc.

And Stromgarde's story is in limbo, too. Danath needs to come back and bury his family.

Super-villain, no. She wants to control all the territory that was considered Lordaeron's. Hence the destruction of Southshore and Hillsbrad, human/Alliance incursions on what she considers her kingdom, and the march on Stromgarde. She still has Strahnbrad and the rest of Alterac to clean up, as well as the Plaguelands, though that's problematic considering the Cenarion druids and the Crusade taking up residence there as well. The Hinterlands will probably remain an experiment, considering the presence of the Revantusk and the bad blood that could create if she goes stepping on their toes.

Because of that and the way it rubs on the Alliance's borders and threatens their amembers(I'm sure the Wildhammer of Aerie Peak don't relish the thought of having zombies on all sides of them), I don't think there'll ever be a cessation with Gilneas, the Alliance will want to keep that fight going to siphon off as much of her forces as they can.

[Jessicka]

It was not a unanimous decision to defend Theramore. You are making up a lot of fanon.
“You are a very persuasive woman, Lady,” said Rhonin. “While the Kirin Tor feels very strongly that we should remain impartial, your plea moved us to action. Even Aethas Sunreaver voted in favor of rendering aid. It seems that to not assist you against such tremendous opposition would be to tacitly support the Horde. At least, that’s the logic he used.”
--Tides of War

“It was my lord Aethas who cast the deciding vote.” --Songweaver, Tides of War

Aethas supported Jaina to become the new leader of the Kirin Tor.
“Not just on this. You’ve always been strong, my lady. In your power, and in your character,” said Aethas Sunreaver unexpectedly. “Even when tested and tried. And when you faced both an unimaginable horror and an inconceivable temptation—and were perhaps yourself tainted by the effects of the mana bomb—you still chose a path that was fair and just, rather than vengeful and dark. It is, you must admit, unlikely that anything else will ever tempt you so again. And I do not think there stands among us anyone who, were he or she in your place, could have done better. Indeed… we might not have done even half so well.”
--Tides of War

Aethas during 5.1 questline: "Silvermoon has been allies with Dalaran for over 2000 years. It is not a friendship we should toss idly aside at the whim of our "esteemed" Warchief Garrosh."
Under Sha influence, revealing his true feelings: "The sin'dorei must be free from the yoke of the Horde!"

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Because smuggling goods through a neutral port is totally the same as sending military aid...

What someone says and what they do aren't necessarily the same thing. Especially when being diplomatic.

[Combatbutler]

What someone says and what they do aren't necessarily the same thing. Especially when being diplomatic.

So yelling his deepest feelings into Rommath's face was diplomatic? Aethas did not like the Horde at all, though that might change in time.

[Zenny]

Precisely Dalaran is the result of the first alliance between elves and humans of history, something known as the Pacts of Arator.

Since then, the independent Kingdom of Dalaran is the living proof of the union between the Humans of the Seven Kingdoms and the High Elves of Quel'Thalas.

However, those who live currently in Quel'Thalas and are members of the Horde are not the High Elves of the Pacts of Arator ... are Blood Elves! traitors, corrupt and dirty members of the Horde!

Dalaran owes allegiance to both humans and high elves, ie to the Alliance, not to the Blood Elves and their Horde.

How on earth can 90% of a race be "traitors"? The High Elves would be the traitors in this case. They are the ones rebelling against the lawful leaders of Silvermoon.

[sylvira]

One tiny thing: How does the horde get into "The Violet Hold" 5-man?

I had a thought about that and would either say

A. Violet Hold gets teared apart from the city as it's moved due to the "heavy" magic stored within, making it a floating instace amidst the smaller islands.
B. It moves along with Dalaran into Dustwallow Marsh and remains to be accessed by both factions like the Stockades and Ragefire Chasm are through the LFD and instance entrace. ( Either as a level 30-40 or 74-77. )
C. It becomes obsolete.

[Zaelsino]

What happens to Dalaran? Me and my wyvern will fly up to it, 10 minutes later it will crash down in flames and sparkles.

My dragonhawk and I have this covered. You and your wyvern can come along later for mage meat.

Anyway, I'm curious as to what they'll do with the trapped Sunreavers. Most of them were terrified civilians who had no clue about what was happening.

[Aquamonkey]

Anyway, I'm curious as to what they'll do with the trapped Sunreavers. Most of them were terrified civilians who had no clue about what was happening.

Put them on a time-delayed mana detonation and drop them like bombs on Orgrimmar. That's what I would do.