The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Nymrohd]

It could be a new "homeland" for the elves that is disconnected from their Kalimdor settlements. The reasoning could be it's to protect the tree from outside influence, or it's simply connected to Kalimdor through the Dream.

Again, protect something by placing it in the dream? Are we in a different Azeroth where the dream doesn't get infected by the Nightmare every day ending in "y"?

[Gurahk]

I kinda like that the tree is in the Dragon Isles idk? I love the idea of dragonriding from it and towards it. Plus, from the leak, it's looking gorgeous. I hope we get a bit of an Arcan'dor type deal where we see it develop over time.

But I'm certainly very annoyed at how vicious and over the top some self proclaimed night elf fans respond to anything related to them. The amount of toxicity and insults towards the devs are unacceptable.

Yup, I'm a little biased as I play an orc, but I've been vocal about Blizz's poor handling of orc and orc culture in recent years, but it pales in comparison to the shitstorm whenever Night Elves get involved.
I get that Night Elves haven't had the best of luck recently, but to be honest that applies to a bunch of races and cultures from the game. Nearly every race has been gutted or standardized from their WC3 form, so to claim that Nelves are the only/biggest victims is just silly. Again, not a big fan of the writing but Blizz has been pretty insistent especially with Dragonflight releasing that they don't really want to repeat of BfA. Let's just see how this plays out before bringing out the pitchforks.

[Luck4]

Incase somebody still somehow had any doubts the tree would be grown on Dragon Isles.

[Cheezits]

Again, protect something by placing it in the dream? Are we in a different Azeroth where the dream doesn't get infected by the Nightmare every day ending in "y"?

The Nightmare is supposed to be dead with Xavius and outside of a single void flower, it has continued to be dead. If the Nightmare banner really did have to do with Diablo all along then I think they are going to come up with new threats that would fight for it.

But being in the Dream does keep it safe from 99% of mortal races on Azeroth. Having to fend off Drust (maybe Botani? I assume we will also have more enemies in the Lifelands moving forward) is a small price to pay for that safety.

[Reive]

This is basically how it's going down on WoW twitter. I have already seen posts about how if it's not on Kalimdor, the story is pro-colonization and pro-fascism because it means the "Horde won" and are kicking the Nelves out of Kalimdor.

Actual mental illness.

[AOL Instant Messenger]

I would be inclined to agree if not for the fact that the Forsaken have been touched by Anduin's golden aura and consequently have lost most of what made them enjoyable.

[Luck4]

The last straw of hope is Night Elves remaining in Kalimdor, and this tree means nothing since I really doubt Blizzard will make a new player hub in a patch anyway.

Regardless, it's the first huge disappointment of Dragonflight.

[Pheraz]

Jeeeeez. Good bye world revamp xpac

[Raetary]

They are THE Life race, and the Dragons are majority-rules also a Life species (Red and Green) on the closest thing to the Life Island. It does make some sense even if the lore isn't there outside of the connection between Greens and Nelves.

Ah yes, the closest to thing to "Life island".

As opposed to Northern Kalimdor, which contains the place Freya created the Dream to beginn with and bound her Wild Gods to, and had 2 whole World trees sprouting their roots into the continent.

Hell, even Val'sharah, a place which has the Dream superimposed onto Azeroth (a literal "Life island") is vastly more favorable, as a place with Nelf related history, than on the Dragon isles. (Which has no relations to the nelves beyond a theme overlap).

It's not like they're new to relocating anyway. Their ancestral lands are largely suboceanic in the present, and Tyrande's old home city is actually closer to the Dragon Isles than to Hyjal.

The nelves never left their ancestral lands.
Those lands are Hyjal and its surroundings, where they lived before they even became elves.

[Luck4]

Jeeeeez. Good bye world revamp xpac

True, time to join the WoW 2 crowd.

[Cheezits]

I don't think a Nelf city really decides whether or not a revamp is still in the cards, I think it's very feasible that they could not fit a giant tree city into any new version of Kalimdor just like they couldn't in the past.

Also this thing will 100% be called Valdrassil

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Ok not to be that guy, but is this really true? I mean, Kalimdor is their ancestral home but that name referred to a super continent back then. The Well of Eternity, Zin-Azshari etc were all in a completely different place. I'm aware they've since dwelled for a long time in what is today northern Kalimdor, but technically they have ties to the entire world.

Yes it’s true.

The well of eternity blew up ten thousand years before WC3, with said exploding the high Bourne that stood against the legion had a culture shift and stayed in the same area all of that time growing and developing there new culture with only a handful of times they left the areas to deal with threats.

The race predates the sundering by like 2000 but even then they lived in the same area and post sundering they never left it.

[Kiivar86]

That's one bold assumption.

I like to be optimistic when I can.

As for this whole "ancestral homeland" stuff, Teldrassil was basically grown on nothing, wasn't it? From what I reread on wowpedia to refresh myself, it looks like they basically just chose a spot in the veiled sea off the coast and grew it there. Given previous Night Elf/Kaldorei holdings relatively near (Broken Isles) you could say the Dragon Isles aren't that far off from their "ancestral homeland" even now.

[Nymrohd]

I like to be optimistic when I can.

As for this whole "ancestral homeland" stuff, Teldrassil was basically grown on nothing, wasn't it? From what I reread on wowpedia to refresh myself, it looks like they basically just chose a spot in the veiled sea off the coast and grew it there. Given previous Night Elf/Kaldorei holdings relatively near (Broken Isles) you could say the Dragon Isles aren't that far off from their "ancestral homeland" even now.

It's not about Teldrassil, it is about Northrend Kalimdor. Where all the Kaldorei questing zones are.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

But what I'm saying is that the Kaldorei Empire stretched across basically all of Azeroth (or well, what is currently known to have been the Azerothian super continent of Kalimdor). They definitely have deep ties to the forests around Mount Hyjal, no doubt about that. But if you look at the Dragons, they left the Dragon Isles 10K years ago and basically all they do is reminisce about the good ol' days in the isles.

The night elfs have lived in the area around Hyjal for longer then the pre sundering race existed and unlike the dragons have never left there lands to re settle else where and don’t want to go back to the “good old days” they exiled the elves who did and they became the high/blood elfs.

The two really aren’t comparable.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

They are comparable, because literally the only difference is this:

DRAGONS - Lived in the Dragon Isles.

KALDOREI - Lived in the Kaldorei Empire.

Same Story

Left their ancestral home >10K years ago, out of necessity. Formed bonds and habits elsewhere. Settled in various places, such as forests, mountains, and magical cities, which overtime became like home.

Has already happened to Dragons, may end up happening to Kaldorei

Returned to their ancestral home, out of necessity. Keep reminiscing about the good old days, as if they never left. Remembering old friends, family, lovers, enemies, places, etc.

Again the night elfs are in there ancestral home already, they lived there pre sundering and never left with only a handful of known night elfs coming from Suamar and they do not want to go back to the old days they exiled the elfs who did.

These are apples and oranges, they might both be over 10k old fruit but they are not the same or even similar.

[Hellspawn]

Ok not to be that guy, but is this really true? I mean, Kalimdor is their ancestral home but that name referred to a super continent back then. The Well of Eternity, Zin-Azshari etc were all in a completely different place. I'm aware they've since dwelled for a long time in what is today northern Kalimdor, but technically they have ties to the entire world.

The current Kalimdor, specifically Ashenvale and Hyjal have been the home of the Night Elf society we currently got for 10000 years.
The Night Elf Society as we know it today was build there.

[Murlocos]

I think the issue with this whole storyline that it's dragged out for so long in real time that expectations have grown more and more over it, and every step along the way has come with some sort of setback to the night elves. In the past year, we've gotten positively received and positively framed storylines for undead, orcs, and tauren, alongside an underwhelming human questline and ongoing night elf suffering porn: things have definitely skewed in the Horde's direction on top of the faction imbalance becoming dire enough to dictate more cross-faction systems. I can understand trepidation that the climax to this ~5 year plot is going to end with even more misery or the belief that the writing team doesn't care much for the Alliance outside of a certain MIA faction leader.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

That's not really true, is it.

Tyrande, Malfurion and Illidan all grew up in Suramar.

Do you not know what a handful means? That’s 3 elfs out of the tens if not hundreds of thousand and one of them has never actually been apart of the new society they built post sundering.

[Skildar]

I don't really get the issue with having the tree in the Dragon isles when the end of shadowlands already hints to this. They're looking for a place where it can grow safely hidden from danger and Merithra is the one to know the right place. We'll see if there are some interesting stories to be told for the tree after this cinematic but honestly that could be the end of the thread.