Shal'adrassil, now that's Teldrassil done right

[ravenmoon]

What?

meant Kalimdor 2.0, what I really means, the way they did the night elves now, is how they should have been done from the start, it's really excellent, hence it feels like night elf version 2 or iteration 2. Enjoying in.

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I'm just glad Elves of any kind are relevant again. Feels like it's been Orcs, Humans, and especially Trolls since around Wrath/Cata.

I know what you mean man, I had given up on anything more coming from the night elves, so was surprised at this level of detail and excellence. It really captures a lot more of what I had originally expected of night elves in wow.

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Original desolace was great and cata version also very nice. You have to take desolace for what it was. A dead place a desert isolated from everything and dull. And yet I have some good memories there of quests and opening fish cages for the fishing pole and the naga island and the naga under water quest chain and if I remember correctly also some SM quests there.

Aszuna is closer to an Azshara before the storm but they are both awesome in their own merits. Either way those old places were GODLY 12 yrs ago and still feel relevant and nostalgic. Ofc every new expansion is massively better. Even WoD world was good.

you're right, they are different zones, and it's obviously good that it's different, I remember at the time I loved the original Kalimdor, I was just so pleased to see such an expansive world and the visualization of it as compared to WC3 detail, but Legion.. this is how you bring the lore books and manual narratives to life, so much more detail, visualizaton of the night, the moon, the rich night elven empire, the ruin and of the sundering, the representation of the society, the depiction of the lore they had written earlier.. The updated tech helps ofc, but it's so much better all round on every way, and for a nelf fan I'm much pleased. Also, the much better job done on night elf models and their adaptation both for Demon hunters and for nightborne - they really capture the hard focused training of the DH, and the high class sophistaction of the nightborne...

The depiction of the night elven culture that covers so many areas, the arcane civilization, nature, a city, forest, ruins, ghosts, wardens, DHs, priests etc - rather tahn 95% druids, 5% everything else, more monotone... etc - look at the detail of the dialogues, the characters, fromSuramar to Azsuana, to Azshara, Highmountain and Stormheim too, Legion is a much better product than classic was by far, that's what I'm basically saying.

Truly an A* effort, very impressed. Totally outstrips before

[frogger237]

Huh, I see it's sourced from the Chronicles book. If you speak with Lorewalker Cho and experience the "Song of the Yaungol" story, it shows them as starting out as taurens, and down the line through their fire worshipping became Yaungol. So basically a retcon, how lovely Blizzard. Gotta love it when the shit they outright tell you in-game gets retconned in a book.

They started out as Yaungol but the Yaungol we know today as Yaungol were modified by the Mogu, so it might just be a name thing. Also you gotta remember all the in game stuff is told from unreliable narrators where Chronicles is from an omniscient one.

[ravenmoon]

Why no Trolls? They are what the Night Elves mutated from. They predate the Titans so they are older than Vrykul

Trolls do not predate the titans, if that was ever said, it has been retconned away.

[Deleted]

They started out as Yaungol but the Yaungol we know today as Yaungol were modified by the Mogu, so it might just be a name thing. Also you gotta remember all the in game stuff is told from unreliable narrators where Chronicles is from an omniscient one.

Ok, here's the deal. Prior to the retcon, the Yaungol descended from Taurens. The nomad Taurens were stuck on Pandaria as it seperated itself from the rest of the world. They started worshipping the fire and adapted to the land of Pandaria, and were thus known as Yaungol. That is literally the original lore surrounding them. This is what the expansion MIST OF PANDARIA literally set in stone.

I however, have not read Chronicles, and as it appears, they literally retconned the origin of the Yaungol. There is nothing else to it. The in-game stuff isn't unreliable whatsoever, it is literally the original lore. Mist of Pandaria was made several years before Chronicles, it's that simple. However, Chronicles is the de facto lore of the game as of now. Aka, it has been retconned.

[frogger237]

Ok, here's the deal. Prior to the retcon, the Yaungol descended from Taurens. The nomad Taurens were stuck on Pandaria as it seperated itself from the rest of the world. They started worshipping the fire and adapted to the land of Pandaria, and were thus known as Yaungol. That is literally the original lore surrounding them. This is what the expansion MIST OF PANDARIA literally set in stone.

I however, have not read Chronicles, and as it appears, they literally retconned the origin of the Yaungol. There is nothing else to it. The in-game stuff isn't unreliable whatsoever, it is literally the original lore. Mist of Pandaria was made several years before Chronicles, it's that simple. However, Chronicles is the de facto lore of the game as of now. Aka, it has been retconned.

It is unreliable tho just like in real life history books it ends up being our best guesses, stories passed down tend to be embellished and can change over the years like the telephone game.

[Deleted]

It is unreliable tho just like in real life history books it ends up being our best guesses, stories passed down tend to be embellished and can change over the years like the telephone game.

I don't follow. The lore is literally word for word told to you through the game's characters. This isn't a folk tale that has been passed from person to person. The game establishes it's lore, and it's later retconned to fit their newer vision of the lore. This has happened many times before. Once upon a time the Draenei didn't even exist, and the eredar was the race that corrupted Sargeras, but guess what, it was retconned.

"Ten thousand years ago, a number of tauren tribes were stranded on the western slopes of the new Pandaren continent. Clever and hardy, forced to adapt to a harsh land, they were able to eke out a life in these dangerous environs. They became the yaungol. They counted the lands of the Townlong Steppes among their hunting grounds. There they roamed, in the dangerous wilds beyond the Pandaren wall.

Recent mantid attacks have led many yaungol warlords to the realization that the best hope for their people was to breach the wall and seek new homes in the safer environs of the Kun-Lai Summit. The Shado-Pan, outnumbered and already straining to fight off mantid assaults and a sha uprising, were unable to stop the incursion. The yaungol horde has arrived in Kun-Lai, bringing war with them. It now falls to the Alliance and the Horde to drive back the yaungol and aid the Shado-Pan in securing the breached wall."

Retconned.

[Zulkhan]

It feels like how ancient kalimdro should have been, with ancient races. Night Elves, Tauren and Vrykul (yay, no orcs and humans and blood elves, trolls or goblins or dwarves - just the ancient folk here.)

How Night Elves managed to make it in the "ancient races" category and not Trolls, when Night Elves mutated from Dark Trolls?

Can't decide if it's mere forgetting (unlikely) or another deliberate intention to ignore canon lore (both old and new, as Dark Trolls remain in every version the origin of Night Elves) which is quite impressive from someone who was used to come up with incredibly colorful theories to justify a "midstep" between Dark Trolls and Night Elves. Well, mysteries I guess. Like the mysterious guy who raped edited the Nightborne article.

I also wonder which is the criteria followed to create the thread here and not in the Lore section, as this is pretty much Lore-related material. Maybe is the conviction that here certain "liberties" in regards of canon lore are allowed? I'm genuinely curious.

OP tried so hard, still failed because he ignores the lore. GG

Fitting fix.

[JustRob]

Teldrassil is what it is because of technical limitations back then. I don't know if they retconned it so that it was always meant to be a stump, but I don't think that was the original idea.

[Irian]

I do have to say that Val'sharah and the general focus on night elves has reignited by love for the race. I grew to actually honestly find them terrible based on the lore they've given them since WoW's release, but many of the newer zones show them in a much more interesting and less petty and...really useless light.

Also, Blizzard please playable Nightborne. I don't care if they're Horde or Alliance, as long as they can be warlocks I will be the happiest WoW player ever.

[ravenmoon]

How Night Elves managed to make it in the "ancient races" category and not Trolls,
.

Trolls are ancient alright, I'm just happy they're not there. Naga are worse, and they were once elves, it would have been perfect free of them too.

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Teldrassil is what it is because of technical limitations back then. I don't know if they retconned it so that it was always meant to be a stump, but I don't think that was the original idea.

as far as I know, it's technical limitations, not lore for why it is a stump. But seeing Shaladrassil, if they were to fix Teldrassil, they'd have to redesign much of the island, probably like they've done that part of Val'sharah.. but you can now see how villages could along the tree, and how it could host a city.. it was so hard to imagine how a tree would hold a city until I saw the initial movie picture of it, and some alternatives. but in Shaladrassil you can see how city and forest area can bit as part of a zone.

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I do have to say that Val'sharah and the general focus on night elves has reignited by love for the race. I grew to actually honestly find them terrible based on the lore they've given them since WoW's release, but many of the newer zones show them in a much more interesting and less petty and...really useless light.

Also, Blizzard please playable Nightborne. I don't care if they're Horde or Alliance, as long as they can be warlocks I will be the happiest WoW player ever.

yeah, you and a lot of people, to me th ey'd become boring and monotone, I was still feeding on their lore and WC3 presentations which had a much wider and diverse society, with different facets.. but wow they became very monotone, and a bit crappy.

How excited i was when I swa they brought the arcane civilization back to the present, properly - always wanted an un-ruined night elf city from the EMpire time, and a proper civilziation of arcane wielding city night elves - how pleased I was to get the nightborne and that they gave them a different appearance to your normal night elf, which would open the door to them being playable either as a sub-race or a full race - which is exactly how I'd wanted it to go. I remember saying in many posts a few years ago, that they should give the highborne a different look to the normal night elves, and they should have fixed up Eldre'thalas or Darnassus like a proper night elf city to herald their return - but i was utterly disappointed by the minimal treatment they gave them, it was a far cry from the majestic descriptions they had given them in WC3 and WoTA texts - so obvoiusly this wasn't the real deal - as the story had them in ruins.

Finally this came, and boy was I happy I'm also liking the other aspects of night elf society shown, Court of Farondis, though tragic is nice, and the Moonguard too, but Suramar and the nightborne are the crown. It's good they didn't ignore the druid part too, but i'm very glad it did not dominate like it did in WC3, this was the time to showcase the other parts of the night elves, and a great time to bring the arcane civilization to the present timeline too.

hopefully nightborne will become playable.

[Deleted]

I love these zones. However seeing Suramar it makes me wonder why the nightelves even live the way they do now.

Suramar and Azsuna are beautiful places and have an amazing architecture, and Malf Tyrande and Illidan grew up there. The buildings do not appear to be held together by magic, so why didn’t the nightelves build proper buildings made of stone instead of half-finished wooden “huts” in the millennia they had time (Primarily talking about Kalimdor and not Teldrassil)? The architecture presented in both of these zones remind me of Silvermoon a lot more – which is somewhat odd.

Even Val’sharah had a lot better architecture and city layout than Kalimdor. It really presents that nightelven atmosphere a lot better than Darnassus and the like. I wish they would use these newer buildings in the old world (especially Nightelves and also Draenei).

[ravenmoon]

I love these zones. However seeing Suramar it makes me wonder why the nightelves even live the way they do now.

it really drives home the drama of their story, the severity of their loss. When you see Suramar, and you see exactly what they lost. How did they get through that ! To be so attuned to the arcane so good at it, and then have to give it up, to devote your life to making things beautiful, and lovely and to end up being the architect of the world's destruction no salvation.

The depth of despair, anguish, pain, sorrow - it makes it feel all the more real and powerful for the northern Kalimdor group. There was an excellent threat Mace posted a while ago from the beta forums, that really inspired and rekindled my like for what blizzard do here. Recently I responded in this well phrased topic, from a blood elf fan

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...s-lost-so-much

Suramar and Azsuna are beautiful places and have an amazing architecture, and Malf Tyrande and Illidan grew up there. The buildings do not appear to be held together by magic, so why didn’t the nightelves build proper buildings made of stone instead of half-finished wooden “huts” in the millennia they had time (Primarily talking about Kalimdor and not Teldrassil)? The architecture presented in both of these zones remind me of Silvermoon a lot more – which is somewhat odd.

Even Val’sharah had a lot better architecture and city layout than Kalimdor. It really presents that nightelven atmosphere a lot better than Darnassus and the like. I wish they would use these newer buildings in the old world (especially Nightelves and also Draenei).

They didn't rebuild anything during the Long vigil. now you've seen how much they lost, what could compare? Not able to use magic for spells, a lot of the building work would have been impossible - they built the ancient cities with a combination of arcane magic from the mages, mostly highborne and drudic magic from the Ancients who were very friendly with them - presumably this was before they got all super arrogant and let the Legion in, cos the cities were already all built by then and fully populated. But according to WotA, it was a combo of both.

During the long vigil they just focused on their task, they considered it too important, but you also get the feeling they intentionally let the ruins be - the pain over it would have been intense, but it would have served as good reminder against folly - but their new role did not require a return to civilization as before, especially when the wondrous gift of arcane magic could potentially pull the monstrous Legion that caused the devastation back. The Zin'Azshari highborne with them, disagreed eventually - as did Illidan, but Malfurion felt the risk was too great, especially to trust highborne who were obviously addicted, this led to the storm that if I remember correctly was meant to convince the night elven population that magic could be used well, and powerfully without the consequences they feared, but it went terribly wrong, leading to the exile.

See, the night elves did not know Suramar or Eldre'thalas survived, and they avoided ruins - in classic, you get the impression night elves hadn't ventured further south than stonetalon mountains in 10k years, they were literally in isolation, protecting the Well of Eternity and the World tree, hampering the use of arcane magic which they still believed came with the terrible price of the Legion and addiction.

As far as i know, the village of Nighthaven was the only thing they built, and it was small, they spent the rest of the time patrolling, makeshift camps etc, while the druids walked with nature, sleeping in Barrowdens etc - with no means to recapture what was lost, believing that any attempt to do so would bring back the Legion, they sacrificed their arcane legacy, rebuilding a civilization and considered it both their duty and burden to keep eternal vigil.

This is incredibly noble, a 10k year long self penance, but it shows you they really really felt it - the Legion coming was against everything every elf stood for - why do you think Illidan and the demon hunters rage and passion is so hot, it is susfficient enough to overcome the lure of fel from a group whose imbalance had made them become prone to an arcane addiction.... and it's not just the Hyjal night elves, same with the high elf group, even though they had their differences with the hyjal druid led survivors, they also did not ever want a repeat of the demons, it stands against everything elves lived for, they just didn't feel they needed to give up magic to achieve that. Nor did the night elves of Suramar who continued using even greater magic to preserve and uphold the city and solve their crisis such as food and clothing shortages, nor did the night elves of Eldre'thalas, who even capture a demon, but not to obey it or give in to it, but instead to power up their city, even they didn't use their magic to do anything more foolish than the very foolish act of using a demon

[Glorious Leader]

Val sharah and aszuna are easily the best two zones in the game. Highmountain and stormplace feel cheap by comparison. It feels like the developers purposely designed them as obtuse as possible to delay progress.

[Kalcheus]

I'm confused.

Shal'adrassil is tainted and lost per the NPCs in the zone.

When do we go up it?

[ravenmoon]

Val sharah and aszuna are easily the best two zones in the game. Highmountain and stormplace feel cheap by comparison. It feels like the developers purposely designed them as obtuse as possible to delay progress.

I like the mountanious feel to Highmountain, they've never been able to do that remotely this well in previous wow games, you really feel there are several mountiain paths up different peaks, i'm still learning them all.

[DarkTZeratul]

The zone, then the tree, with the civilziation along it, going up it.. if you can think of the nightmare removed and the tree whole, you can see the villages along the path as you go through Darkheart thicket, and then on to the proper boughs that could easily have held a city like Darnassus. I always found it hard to realistically imagine how a tree held like a full land mass at the top instead, but looking at Shaladraissil, it's amazing, you go through levels as you appear to ascend and the area at the top, does feel like it could nestle a city.

Uh, you never ascend Shaladrassil. Darkheart Thicket is all underneath the tree, and when you start going up the trunk in the Emerald Nightmare you pass out of Azeroth and into the Dream.

[ravenmoon]

I'm confused.

Shal'adrassil is tainted and lost per the NPCs in the zone.

When do we go up it?

Darkheart thicket and Emerald Nightmare are on the way up. Don't forget the tree also exists in the dream, which is where you fight most of hte encoutners. you access the dream or hte nightmare rather from the portals at the top of thetree. we'll get to fly up there too , soon

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Uh, you never ascend Shaladrassil. Drakheart Thicket is all underneath the tree, and when you start going up the trunk in the Emerald Nightmare you pass out of Azeroth and into the Dream.

yes, that's true, dark heart thicket is at the your climb into the base of the tree, but the Emerald nightmare raid is the one that is involved with the actual tree, but the tree exists both in the natural and in the dream, so it's still the tree you're on , even when you're in the dream - the portals take you to places in Azeroth in the nightmare, not in the waking, you're no longer in Shaladrassil when you fight the remainder of the bosses after the first boss.

[Tyrion Moonblade]

I do like the teldrasil and ashenvale much more than valshara... i dont know why i just like it. Maybe nostalgia?

Perhaps it has something to do with FLESH AND BONE TO EARTH AND STONE?

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I'm just glad Elves of any kind are relevant again. Feels like it's been Orcs, Humans, and especially Trolls since around Wrath/Cata.

After every single expansion having at least one large section of it dedicated to Trolls, and the last three being ORCS ORCS ORCS, it's nice to see the world-spanning civilization which is the crux of at least as much lore in this game as Trolls actually get some attention. Especially nice considering the fact since Blizz retconned elves into being evolved trolls (after Ulduar clearly identified both as separate species which existed when the Titans built the place....) they should have showed up a lot sooner. After all, they're Trolls too (kind of like how humans are apes).

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Teldrassil is what it is because of technical limitations back then. I don't know if they retconned it so that it was always meant to be a stump, but I don't think that was the original idea.

Less like a stump and more like a massive Baobab tree, maybe?

[ravenmoon]

I do like the teldrasil and ashenvale much more than valshara... i dont know why i just like it. Maybe nostalgia?

Could be the foliage, I like the colors of Teldrasil and Ashenvale - Val'sharah is more traditional vibrant green forest - it's still gorgeous though, it looks really wild and really ancient - the sort of thing you feel about a 10k year old forest that Ashenvale just doesn't seem to have - possibly because it has got so much devastation pockering it here and there, whereas Val'sharah flows from serenity into madness rather than being dotted with deforestation, burning mountains.. it's sad

flying over Elwyn/Darkshire human kingdom looks much more foresty than Darkshore and Ashenvale and much of north kalimdor that was meant to be this ancient restored forest - and while we do enter it after the 3rd war invasion, we haven't seen night elves in a truly foresty place till Val'sharah because of the devastation in the other places.

Not to mention old tech - look at the trees in Feralas and Moonglade - still the really old ones, that look awful, compare that to STV jungle that was reforested, that looks much better and at sharp contrast with Zul'Gurub in the east that has the old trees, looking cringeworthy again in comparison.