I agere it should be equivalent to stormwind.. night elves are a massive race.. they shoudl never have downplayed htem becasue they joined the alliance..
they shoudl be a major multi-zone spannign raec bigger htan humans, but just not involved that much in the allinace. Now nightborne are on the horde, they should start doing many more night elf separate story, involving hte two of them.
not sure what you mean by practical.. but it shudln't be dull, it shoudl show off the nihght elves.. this means it shoudl be very beautiful. beautiful buildigns and beautiful looking gardens and parks. that show the nature love, buildigns that shwo how incredible the kaldorei civilziaiton was wiith a specatcular Temple.
The Highborne quarter would be heavily guilded like you see in Suramar elite quarters, but have reduced amount of nature, whiles the Darnassian home sections have less ornmentation, and more nature, like the pictures I showed, Suramar city exemplifies them.. nature is all over the city, but it's much more in the commons section than in the elite section. This is how night elves do it. highborne section would be heavily gilded, the tradesmen and crafts man would look relaly good, the homes seciton of normal kaldorei overflwoing with nature, and the parks and gardens will be the evidenec of duridis, the temple as evidenec of Elune.
Yes, ut how you do them is importnat too. Snetinels will have their buildings, then you would have an army fortress buidlign too.. kShowing kaldorei establishing a military which the capital would have a garrison of. You would have mebassies for other alliance races - the they will all be kaldorei buildigns, but like any nation, iti s telling what type of building each race goes for Stormwind, Dalaran and Draenei embassies close tot he highborne quarter.. the last is also near the priest quarter, as is void elf embassy. Dwarven embassy is near craftsman section, while the trades section follows off fromt he portals and embassies.
Mage academy estbalishdedb y the shen'drlaar and new found Farondis highborne, while the Moonguard would have a trainign citadel in the city near the warrirors garrsion.
THere will also be the seat of Governmentmaybe at the central park. I imagine Malfurion and Tyrande's home would be something like this:
they would neither live in the Temple or the forest, but that is where they work. the druidic park that will serve as operations HQ for the druids concerning the night elf nation will have a druidic barrow den approaching Nordrassil while lots of trees.
That's a a paragraph telling me it shouldn't be amazing like Suramar. The scope of cities like Suramar and Dazar'alor reflects the night elf epire and torll empirre respectively but they have that level because they also are quest area, dungoens and raids. I thougohly believe a night elf capital shoudl match this, and i think it shoudl be used as a major quest zone, with instances and a raid that has the night elves finally secure their new home at the end. This is the only real reason for justifying them a great new city. Don't forget Suramar is a night elf city, and the nightborne a night elven subrace people. Highmountain is in the same style as Thudnerbluff.. where the Lightforged are similar but differnet to the Draeni... when the High elves build, they build very similar to the blood elves.
Unless it is Suramar, off course it won't be Suramar, but it would be of the similar styles you see. Night elf fans will not want an inferior looking city to their horde aligned sub-race on the horde. Trying to campaign for a race you are not a fan of not to look as incredible as one of their own racial cities.
So while I don't think blizzard would spend ages deisnging a new city, because the night elves won't be the focus of the expansion, but they will be like the Nightborne of 7.0/7.1 - in a world revamp, their city would piece together the buidlgins and structures they have already done for Suramar, Zin'Azshari, Nar'thalas..
they will then largely just organise them and touch them up, do the gardens, do the ornamentation, . probably focus on the minor details. It would be like Zin'Azshari and Suramar rolled in one, but it will look differnet htan Suramar becuase of the lighting, Surmar is cast to be dark, it actually can look very different with different lighting - for nighte lves they will bring out a moon pearl white, lighter purple and a bluer tinges during the night, and the day will shine white like Zin'Azshari does, even with purple/pink well of eternity lake.
They will be different, not sure polar opposites. The style of botht he night levs and the blood/high elves is already established.
Suramar and Zin'Azshari look very differnt from the images of Silvermoon we have though they have similarities. The colour scheme is different, and you have many buildings that are differnet, Silvermoon should have uildigns that look a bit similar to Suramar/Zin'aZshari Darnassus:
e.g.
Nothing is quite like the SIlvermoon towers in the back drop, it doesn't exist amongst the kaldorei, not in Suramar, nor Zin'Azshari.. but the gazeebo type hall in this concept art shot above is very similar to the night elf ones.. that style was carried over from what they did for Darnassus.. showing you the connection
yet they are are different enough, the colour scheme is different, the focus different. It's kinda like how Stormwind is different from Lordaeron or Boralus though they are all human, yet you get the distinct feel they are different. Night elf has a much broader range. but it should, it was given much larger scope than the high elves were you have night elven civilization and the priesthood of Elune, but also this very different forest druidic/rural style//
Biggest Motive to make a specatacular Night elf capital
Blizzard want the alliance to be more popular, and they know Warcraft fans love the night elves' civilization.. all the comments of Suramar and Zin'Azshari are the proof you need, yet they've not put that sort of things in the hands of night elves and talked them up.
If there is going to be an alliance resurgence without taking Suramar and Silvermoon, elven Night elf city and a void city are going to have to look very attractive.. Night elf is the main race and in many ways as big as and in other ways bigger than humans lore wise, they also have a substantial fan following - if you want the night elves to dominate the centre of the alliance elves, they need to be incredible.
otherwise, the high elf love will dominate, and the alliance fandom will push blizzard in the direction of more and more high elf /void elf development which while good, will come at the expense of the blood elves, because most of the alliance has always wanted high elves, especially since they were done on the horde - one of the reasons for that is how weak the night elves were shown.
if they had shown of night elf cities not in ruins like we see Suramar now and Zin'Azshari earlier.. done Night elf wardens like they did in legion, demon hunters much earlier, done druids like the dreamwardens, done Highborne like the Nightborne and Farondis in terms of power level, shown powerful Moonguard mages re-established and kicking ass.
People would have been much more excited for night elves. the evidence is clear, while nice, just the nature bits of the night elves have not been enough, we've had more of the druidic aspect than we have had the civilization and the priesthood or the demon hunters -- yet legion proves definitely how incredibly popular the night elf civilization and the demon hunters are, the Wardens and the priesthood when it is being as badass as the Night warrior.
The elements are there.
Nightborne and void elves are allied races.. it's good for them to have something amazing to them. every wow race should, but shouldn't the pinnacle of the horde elves and it's focus be primarily the blood elves and Silvermoon, while that of the alliance elves be The night elves?
it is these two the developers should ensure their new versions also look very worthy of their position as leaders. Silvermoon might need a redesign, the new night elf capital can be a larger and just as detailed version of Suramar and Zin'Azshari..
the void elves can have whatever new place they do for a void invasion expansion, but they should make time for that, or if they are creative merge them, let the night elves and void elves be the new city reflecting both the kaldorei civilization and a void version of the Thalassian one, I mean they're all purple right.
hte other options will be sharing the new Silvermoon and sharing Suramar or outright taking them over.
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