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

[Worldshaper]

Problem is that Night Elf history is better defined than Dragons were. Asspulling Zan-Izshare as the true ancestral Night Elf capital is way bigger stretch than expanding Dragon Isles as the Dragon homeland. Before DF we only had their name and the fact that it was ancient land for dragons.

But it's literally not an act of aspulling. It's right there in every lore text and every book concerning Night Elf history. Zin-Azshari was the capital city of the Kaldorei Empire. It's not a ret-con, it's not fan-fic, and it's not a stretch. It's where the majority of them lived and where much of their history played out.

They then relocated to Mount Hyjal, and because the destruction of the continent separated them from basically everything but modern Kalimdor, that's where they remained and further developed their culture into something more druidic.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

and your suggestion that I don't know my lore is highly ironic

It's also a fact.

Here is the dark trolls (night elfs) holding and how they were already in the area around hyjal before they were even elves.

it's there ancestral home and always has been and while there are other places they lived the core of there once empire is now filled with fish and and of the very few we know come form Suamar they don't want any thing to do with it.

[Catastrophy349]

Haven't seen this forum pop off like this since the announcement of Dragonflight.

[Hellspawn]

But it's literally not an act of aspulling. It's right there in every lore text and every book concerning Night Elf history. Zin-Azshari was the capital city of the Kaldorei Empire. It's not a ret-con, it's not fan-fic, and it's not a stretch. It's where the majority of them lived and where much of their history played out.

They then relocated to Mount Hyjal, and because the destruction of the continent separated them from basically everything but modern Kalimdor, that's where they remained and further developed their culture into something more druidic.

Night Elf had a strong connection to Hyjal before they turned into an empire, at that time even Cenarius had contact with them (but somehow never thought to taught then in his druid ways). The modern Night Elf reject the empire and their former queen and Hyjal and Ashenvale are their home it is the Zuldazar of the Night Elfs.

[Reive]

"Kalimdor" is already trending on twitter. i can only imagine what's going to happen when the patch is actually out lol

[Worldshaper]

It's also a fact.

Here is the dark trolls (night elfs) holding and how they were already in the area around hyjal before they were even elves.

it's there ancestral home and always has been and while there are other places they lived the core of there once empire is now filled with fish and and of the very few we know come form Suamar they don't want any thing to do with it.

The region where Dark Trolls lived isn't very important. It's where they became Night Elves that is important, which took place around the vicinity of the Well of Eternity. The Night Elves then built the seat of their culture around this region, before spreading into the west to occupy Mount Hyjal.

Night Elf had a strong connection to Hyjal before they turned into an empire, at that time even Cenarius had contact with them (but somehow never thought to taught then in his druid ways). The modern Night Elf reject the empire and their former queen and Hyjal and Ashenvale are their home it is the Zuldazar of the Night Elfs.

Nothing I've said suggests otherwise. I know Hyjal was and is important to them. Nor have I suggested that surviving Kaldorei didn't reject Queen Azshara's rule eventually, or that Ashenvale isn't to be considered their current home. Everybody knows this. Northern Kalimdor is their home. There's no discussion.

What I'm talking about is the fact that Zin-Azshari and Suramar are their ancestral homes. It's where their culture began, developed, and spread. It was the seat of their power. It's arguably still where most living Night Elves were born.

I'm not saying they should go live among those ruins, I'm not saying Mount Hyjal isn't their home today, and I'm not saying Mount Hyjal hasn't been important throughout their history. Let's clarify that once and for all, and stop suggesting I've claimed otherwise.

[Lahis]

But it's literally not an act of aspulling. It's right there in every lore text and every book concerning Night Elf history. Zin-Azshari was the capital city of the Kaldorei Empire. It's not a ret-con, it's not fan-fic, and it's not a stretch. It's where the majority of them lived and where much of their history played out.

They then relocated to Mount Hyjal, and because the destruction of the continent separated them from basically everything but modern Kalimdor, that's where they remained and further developed their culture into something more druidic.

Yes. Zin-Azshari was the capital of Kaldorei Empire. It was destroyed in The Sundering.

My hypothetical Zan-Izshare is complete asspull, with no precedent, and would require inventing up new landmass altohether since it is obviously absent on any known piece of Ancient Kalimdor.

[huth]

In that they're a poorly-conceived knockoff of the Titans?

Better explanation would be that most player races are Titan creations or related beings, so it would be a logical startoff.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

And though the Air Elemental place was just a dungeon I fel like we got the general gist of the place plenty.

Missed opportunity to have an Air Elemental Plane zone where you explore floating cities, ie a Suramar zone you can spend dozens to hundreds of hours in, not just a linear 15 minute dungeon.

People want the world to feel bigger but then bitch that the Dragon isles is actually made relevant outside of this expansion.

Baffling.

Outland hasn't been relevant after TBC. Northrend hasn't been relevant after Wrath. The Cata zones of Hyjal/Uldum/Vashjr/Twilight Highlands haven't been relevant after Cata. Pandaria hasn't been relevant after MoP. AU Draenor hasn't been relevant after WoD. The list goes on. The Dragon Isles won't be relevant after DF.

let's not suddenly expect it will be some big, new player hub. Especially when considering that faction division is still a thing (or maybe it will be a next step towards unification?).

Horde should never be allowed to walk around Night Elf territory. There is no way the populace at large could forgive them. Similarly, Horde should never be able to walk around Stormwind, the human kingdom they destroyed. But we've already crossed that bridge when Belves joined the very Horde that were slaughtering them during the Second War.

New race capital cities would only make sense if there is content in them or in reach around them so you have a reason to be there.

If all hubs shared the same services, then the playerbase would spread out and chill in their favorite hub of choice in between queues. Stormwind and Orgrimmar and Warspear and Stormshield were still populated during WoD even though people could have just sat in their garrisons. Thunder Bluff and Silvermoon didn't have transmog vendors so ofcourse people are going to avoid those places and chill in places that do.

GW2 has 19 player cities and smaller hubs and continues to add more. All of them are populated to the map limit. Server communities on retail died long ago so there is no reason why Blizzard can't just rewire their megaserver system to keep the smaller hubs populated.

Danuser did specifically reference retaking Gilneas as "something they would want players to do" so I think that cities are something they're thinking about, but only forwhen it's relevant (expansions that feature the main continents again).

The time to retake Gilneas from Sylvanas was during the war with Sylvanas expansion. That expansion is over. It has been five years since that war ended. We will never get to play through a questline retaking Gilneas.

Me too, but I think most people won't. Even on RP servers most capitals were usually pretty empty.

The game's population is a fraction of what it was 10 years ago. 10 years ago I could have walked into Thunder Bluff, Iron Forge, Darnassus, Undercity, or Silvermoon and have seen lots of players. The only way those places will be populated again is if they are given the same utilities as the current expansion's capital, and Blizzard utilizes cross realm phasing to keep those places sufficiently populated, like in GW2.

Too many people don't care about the lore for Nelves to be what the hardcore Nelf players want them to be. It's never going to happen and especially not after the fanbase reaction to BFA.

There were many, many fans who yearned for the Nelves to be badass again. It didn't happen because the only people at Blizzard who were in a position of authority over the story content were Horde fans.

I doubt the Nelves are really uncaring about the Green Dragons being neutral to what happened to Teldrassil.

The elephant in the room is that almost everyone on Azeroth should be against the Horde. Every time they're the ones launching unprovoked attacks and wiping whole cities and kingdoms off of the face of the Earth. They are the enemy of civilization. It's bizzare that the dragons overlook the Horde when only a few years prior their queen was enslaved by orcs and then raped and her children enslaved and then murdered when they were growing up and becoming too dangerous to control. The Horde desecrated the Pandaren's most sacred place, and when the Horde goes wiping out civilization again the Pandaren for some reason don't help the Alliance stop the barbarians. Except for Goblins, every race that joined the Horde after vanilla are insane as they had no reason to join the enemy of civilization. "Tyrande was unkind to me once" isn't a reason to align yourself with the loser barbarians against civilization.

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.

The Horde has been colonizing and kicking races out of Kalimdor since WC3. Ask the Quilboar.

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).

Val'sharah would be terrible. The Night Elves would be surrounded by two Horde factions, and given that Blizzard's narrative purports that being good = being passive and that being proactive = evil, the Alliance would not help the Night Elves subdue their enemies and make the Broken Isles a safe home for them.

Horde favoritism is still a thing even after all these years and all the dev team changes, and also despite the factions being blurred. It's hopeless...

The issue is that there are only two playable factions, and out of those two factions only one of them is unique. The Horde - a faction where you can play as the evil monstrous beastmen - is what is unique about WoW. It has all of the cool races. People who like Alliance aesthetics have an easy time transitioning to other games, decreasing Alliance's population. If you want to be a pretty, heroic human, then you have literally every other MMO out there ready and waiting for you. People who like Horde aesthetics don't have an alternative game to switch to and are more likely to stick with WoW. WoW has been in decline for a decade so over the years you just wind up having more reds than blues.

The people at Blizzard who made WC3 and remembered its unique factions of Night Elves and Scourge are long gone. The people working today at NuBlizzard have no memory of those cool factions. Their only experience is with WoW and its boring Alliance and cool Horde. It is only natural that given the choice, the people working on Warcraft are more excited to make Horde content than Alliance content.

I want to know where all this favoritism was during Legion, BfA or Shadowlands.

They get to regularly commit mass murder and get away with it scott free. Meanwhile, the Alliance is forced to pull their punches and watch their cities wiped off of the face of the earth one by one, and never definitively eliminate evil.

When did the "World of Warcraft" become "Turn the other Cheek?"

Since MoP apparently, when Taran-Zhu made a false moral equivalency between the Alliance and the barbarians they were defending themselves from. And that incredibly, incredibly stupid and insulting moralizing from the Tavern in the Mists panda about "how the Horde and Alliance are strong because of one another!" *spits*. According to Blizzard, trying to excise evil and dangerous actors from this world is wrong.

[Sondrelk]

Yes. Zin-Azshari was the capital of Kaldorei Empire. It was destroyed in The Sundering.

My hypothetical Zan-Izshare is complete asspull, with no precedent, and would require inventing up new landmass altohether since it is obviously absent on any known piece of Ancient Kalimdor.

To play the devil's advocate here for a bit. The Dragon Isles worked precisely because there was a stretch of time between the uplifting of dragons and the shattering. You could conceivably create some new lore on the pre-azsharan Nelves creating other cities other places. We do have lore on supposed dragonriding Nelves, so we know that some coexistence between them existed.

Now. I will say that i would dislike placing this hypothetical pre-azsharan druidic society more closely linked to modern Nelves on the Dragon Isles. But I do think it's possible as a bit of a stretch.
If they were going for something similar then the hypothetical Avaloren continent on the backside of Azeroth would work better as a refuge from those who consider Azshara to blaspheme against Elune.

[Worldshaper]

Yes. Zin-Azshari was the capital of Kaldorei Empire. It was destroyed in The Sundering.

My hypothetical Zan-Izshare is complete asspull, with no precedent, and would require inventing up new landmass altohether since it is obviously absent on any known piece of Ancient Kalimdor.

The exact same thing is true for the Dragon Isles. We had a rough dev playground and some RPG card IIRC, as well as a WC2 map, but nothing established that solidly linked the history of the Dragons to that place.

[Hugnomo]

Night elven tree aside, I do hope that all the nods to Decay and undeath (also the mentioning of Alex and Ysera's dead brother) leads to some Forsaken involvement in the story. As one of the 2 aggrieved parties from BfA (Night elves and Forsaken) it'd be really cool to see them take the spotlight now, learning about decay and maybe how that knwledge may impact their existence going forward. I mean, night elves have had an ongoing story since BfA, including Shadowlands and now Dragonflight. Forsaken were barely in shadowlands right at the end (the undead absent from the death realm expansion ... ) and have been absent thus far. It'd be cool to see what they've made of themselves since shadowlands.

[Khaza-R]

Nothing I've said suggests otherwise. I know Hyjal was and is important to them. Nor have I suggested that surviving Kaldorei didn't reject Queen Azshara's rule eventually, or that Ashenvale isn't to be considered their current home. Everybody knows this. Northern Kalimdor is their home. There's no discussion.

What I'm talking about is the fact that Zin-Azshari and Suramar are their ancestral homes. It's where their culture began, developed, and spread. It was the seat of their power. It's arguably still where most living Night Elves were born.

I'm not saying they should go live among those ruins, I'm not saying Mount Hyjal isn't their home today, and I'm not saying Mount Hyjal hasn't been important throughout their history. Let's clarify that once and for all, and stop suggesting I've claimed otherwise.

I am not sure this is true. Night Elves were first a druidic people who forged a bond with nature and the Wild Gods. Later on their empire rose which gave birth the Highborne culture you see in those cities. However this is not the culture of the playable Night Elves. When their society collapsed they went back to their origins but even more primitive and with zealotry against the arcane and magic.

Most Night Elves around in modern times are very likely from those cities you mentioned. But its obvious they don't hold those places in any sort of significance as they've never tried to retake or relocate to any of them. Its far more likely they hold Hyjal in higher regard as its basically a holy site.

[Shadowferal]

Missed opportunity to have an Air Elemental Plane zone where you explore floating cities, ie a Suramar zone you can spend dozens to hundreds of hours in, not just a linear 15 minute dungeon.

Just to add...

There were many, many fans who yearned for the Nelves to be badass again. It didn't happen because the only people at Blizzard who were in a position of authority over the story content were Horde fans.

I recognize the right side from the rpg, but not the... rather curious left side.
The spirit animal is something I've in mind for a shaman spec for my rewrite.

....need someone like Fandral Staghelm. But less crazy.

[Mecheon]

Jeeeeez. Good bye world revamp xpac

I mean, frankly after Cataclysm, I don't want to see Cata Mk 2. Sorry world revamp fans but I remember the first time and the mess that was

I want to know where all this favoritism was during Legion, BfA or Shadowlands.

Did we forget BfA's 'everything is horses' incident this quickly? Or the 'fanbase complained about NElves not getting anything so they had to push ahead the Darkshore battlefront from when it was originally planned'

I recognize the right side from the rpg, but not the... rather curious left side.
The spirit animal is something I've in mind for a shaman spec for my rewrite.

....need someone like Fandral Staghelm. But less crazy.

Right side was a really early development artwork from back when they were just called dark elves. Real early WC3 stuff

[ChairmanKaga]

They just aren't part of modern Kaldorei people anymore, so Kaldorei can't set up shop there either.

There really isn't any reason they couldn't do that.

[huth]

There really isn't any reason they couldn't do that.

Well, there is Tyrande being a total ass, though that leaves the question how much that is attributed to her personally vs. the Night Elves as a whole.

Though for what it's worth, both populations have in common that they are in large parts the same people. As in, they were already alive back when they got seperated and are still living today.

[Auxis]

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.

I'd argue that the Black also falls into the category of Life. Earth is the basis for things to grow.

[Hitei]

Please stop...

I wish people wouldn't reply to things they can't be bothered to actually read. But yes, thank you for quoting a wowpedia article restating what you just quoted me saying.

a place which itself was more of a tactical retreat from demons than a meaningful choice of location.

After the Sundering of the ancient Kalimdor, the night elven civilization was built in and around the forests of Ashenvale.

And again, since you didn't bother to read the post you responded to: Ashenvale is across a straight, a fifth of the way down the continent's coastline and on the other side of two sets of mountains from Teldrassil. Which is again, in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Gameplay-wise it shows favoritism towards the Horde as the Undead resettles in Tirisfal Glades, their former home, and lore-wise makes even less sense since the Night Elves took back Darkshore and are currently settled in Nordrassil (Mount Hyjal).

So it does matter a lot!

Gameplay-wise the Forsaken are settling back into a shitty rolling hills vanilla zone that was mildly spruced up with existing assets during Cata and then charred to hell in BfA. Parity is a retarded argument, and in this case getting a new tree (not even a settlement at this point, or potentially ever) in a brand new zone with brand new assets is the side that is doing better.

Lore wise, the Night Elves don't like being settled in Hyjal. It's a sacred place they have occupied en masse only in desperate times where they are effectively refugees without anywhere else to go. Darkshore, again, is a backwater place of almost zero importance. It's also still """next to""" the Horde/Orc capital city (in your own terms, because rather hilariously, Orgrimmar is closer to both Ashenvale and Hyjal than Teldrassil is). If the Night Elves were going to settle lorewise in a location of note to them for the sake of parity. The obvious choice would be for them to retake Dire Maul, you know, an actual notable city right next door to their army's main base instead of the place "close to" where a small town and some military outposts are.

[guro-tchai]

no, the concept of city itself is un-kaldorei. i remember reading somewhere that before Teldrassil they didn't have a civilization center, a permanent capital. the people was either on the plantations of the Emerald Dream in the barrows, or dispersed through the forests of northern Kalimdor with occasional small villages like Nendis. it's reflected even in their wc3 structures - it's movable treants or places of worship. k, hunter's hall, but that's it.

their language is called darnassian, or darnassae, which leads me to believe that the root of the word predates the creation of Darnassus. it could be speculated that darnass simply means common, and Darnassus is congregation, gathering or union. you could ofc say that it's an adopted exonym by the people who communicated with Darnassus first and categorized their language as darnassian second, but i'll continue nonetheless.
not only Teldrassil caused rifts in the kaldorei society - because it was a selfish attempt to regain immortality by Fandral - but Darnassus should've as well. night elves don't live in cities after the Sundering, and it was a sort of a societal revolution along with the disappearance of their gender roles, nocturnal lifestyle or intolerance of the arcane. needless to say, it, uhm, backfired. they put the eggs in one basket and got an omelette.

their capital can be seen as a centralization project, supported by the nostalgic old guard and xenophilic reformists. its fall isn't just a massive loss of life, it's a disaster for all those who hoped for a different way of life, but the political dynamics between them and traditionalists of the Long Vigil will remain unexplored. although, it seems that their classic guerilla warfare was kind of back, led by the Night Warrior's path of vengeance after the victory in Darkshore.

during the BfA development, Maiev was supposed to become the Night Warrior. from the aesthethical point of view, it's justified - Avatar of Vengeance is her OG ultimate, which, may i remind you, looks shadowy and returns the the dead as the unstoppable vengeful wraiths. they were probably right to give the role to Tyrande instead as she would've been completely pathetic and useless if she had nothing to do, and also because Maiev isn't the face of the night elves and wasn't as touched by the loss of Teldrassil. it is, however, a missed opportunity to connect those two further. Maiev was originally a priestess of Elune, and i don't think she lost the faith during her underground service. they could've reframed PotM and Warden as two sides of the same coin, the palm and the fist of the Goddess. it would be incredibly fitting to make Maiev show Tyrande how to become herself an avatar of vengeance on steroids, with an ability to call the souls to her aid, especially considering that we had a whole fn expansion revolving around the dead in the realm of the dead. alas, they didn't come up with it when it was necessary and it won't be mentioned again because vengeance is bad, so the whole concept is kinda buried.

the spirit thing may still return as we'll be reestablishing the kaldorei role after 10.2 - and which is more important than a new settlement with a bank and AH. i think they will become guardians of the cycle of life and death. it's a good moment to reintegrate the dark rangers and wardens into the NE military and to show us how wisps and spirits of vengeance work. maybe even return Malf to us - i just hope not as his recent Hearthstone art.

sadly, vengeance is not allowed and getting a W in Ashenvale is unlikely - even more so, considering that some illiterate shamans are pitying the night elves on the front. i could only dream about a different direction for the night elves - at least one of them should ask the question "why do we have to serve Nature for millenia if it abandons us in the hour of need?". Fandral was that guy, and look what they did to him. so NEs will serve, as always.

PS: it's really weird and annoying that they keep hinting at traditional concepts and do nothing with them - Tyrande basically switches classes to a Warden without the ult, and then to a DH when she fights Nathanos and Sylv, not even to mention how SL's covenants mirror wc3 races (humans, orcs+undead, night elves and blood elves) and in Eternity's End we get rid of a blue hunk with 5 total lines.