I kinda felt this was the natural direction of the new look Forsaken. If they're going to live, they'll do so without hiding what they are. I'd be curious to see this happen, whenever this would happen. We'll get some breadcrumbs of it in the Gilneas Reclaimation questline I'd hope.
So city below ground = we are bad? That's kinda ridiculous thing to say, especially months before underground expansion with "good" dwarfes and humans. xD
But to be serious, Undercity was just a hub, not evil mastermind lair and has same nostalgia attached like Darnassus or Gilneas. Of course, way cooler would be full rebuild like Nelf city or (hopefully in the MD) Silvermoon, but if we won't have that in near future I prefer just restoring old thing than nothing (especially since it's pretty cheap thing to do).
From a lore perspective I imagine it's more to do with not wanting to reclaim the part most associated with Sylvanas. And instead focus their efforts on establishing their presence across Lordaeron.
From a Meta perspective, not having to update Undercity to a better standard I nthe future, and instead make Capital City look amazing instead.
The world revamp dream will never die!
Amirdrassil/Belameth not being a tree city probably means that they aren't redoing Undercity 1:1. I had a feeling they wouldn't, as the Scourge aesthetics from Classic are too cartoony and don't really mesh well with the modern engine.
Given that the back entrance to the Undercity is caved in, we might as well assume that the actual undercity isn't going to be revamped and is destroyed beyond recognition. It isn't so much that the old city doesn't mesh with any new engines, but there are somethings that they probably can't revamp.. like the Apothecary Wing of the city, or the Magic Quarter being a giant necropolis, and several other things included.
I don't mind the idea of them using Old Lordaeron as a city, (based on the Forsaken heritage armor quest, they're already using the top side and the east wing as a city with vendors and innkeepers.)
People, especially Blizz, need to stop treating it as "Oh, we're doing it because we don't want to be associated with a genocidal psycho-banshee." but instead treat it like "We are returning to our roots, not as the Scourge or the Forsaken, but as the people of Lordaeron, the greatest bastion of human civilization. We won't let undeath deter us to strive for greatness."
The Undercity was a WoW asspull.
In WC3, the Undercity was not a thing. The Forsaken, the Scourge, the Legion, and the Human survivors (aka Garithos' army) all wanted to control the Ruins of Lordaeron.
The presence of the Undercity as the actual capital was yet another WoW asspull and nothing more.
By having their base of operations located in the Ruins of Lordaeron, the Forsaken are returning to their WC3 roots.
That said, I doubt they'll ever do this, but I wouldn't mind the idea of making the Ruins of Lordaeron the new major city but they turn the ruins of the Undercity into a dungeon.
Where the entire place is suffering from a Blight Radiation that makes it impossible to go down there without a protective hazmat suit, where the group has to fight their way down and face off against blighted monsters and any Undercity civilians that never made it out. All of which leads to the Apothecary Quarters where some of the more twisted creations survived and mutated. With either the back entrance of the Undercity or a broken down elevator from the main entrance serving as the entryway.
It isn't the first time they've turned a city into a dungeon/megadungeon before.
They really need to stop taking something that's been established as a certain way for 20 years and changing it though.
I'm never playing Forsaken again because it's not what I picked up when I started playing them. The charm and appeal of them is gone, and continually being forced to be something it wasn't.
People fell in love with a particular aesthetic.
You don't mess with that too much.
Not like they'll actually get rid of the Undercity in-game, and even then they still kept the same aesthetics for the Forsaken heritage armor set (which looks pretty similar to the stuff they had in the Darkshore sets for Horde). The only major difference is that Sylvanas isn't around so no broken elf mask on the banner. (Unless you went 100% loyalist back in BFA, which isn't hard to do currently.)
Like I doubt Calia is gonna say "Alright tear down these buildings and let's make BETTER PLEASANT ONES" if anything, I don't think she has that much power or sway compared to the rest of the Desolate Council.
We keep saying they're not going to do x or y, but then they do y and double down on it, for better or worse, but in this case, it's absolutely for the worse.
Like, so many people said that the Forsaken were not going to - and shouldn't - help the Gilneans reclaim their land, and yet we're here, and everybody's holding hands and the tensions and "negative elements" of these races are being written out.
Never say never with this stuff.
I don't think it's all that unlikely. I imagine the blight would've coalesced into decay/death elementals, and yeah I'm certain the apothecaries would've been working on blight-immune undead creations that would've now broken loose. The Scarlets have probably tunnelled their way in and are working on sanctifying the place. Enough time has passed that the layout and appearance of the Undercity could've completely changed, so it wouldn't necessarily feel too similar to the Battle for the Undercity.
I reckon we'll get the Eastweald and Lordaeron (if not the entire Lordaeron continent) as later zones in Midnight, and the Undercity could make a great megadungeon there.
That's what I feared also, but people told me the same thing happened with the Alliance helping the Forsaken remove the plague/blight in their city, but that it was done under a disguise to treat them like a member of the Horde. If it isn't available to see or test in PTR and will only show up when it's live, then we won't know what Blizz has planned.
So far, we don't have any evidence to back it up because it probably is heavily encrypted until launch.
There is a universe where I am totally fine with the Neutrality Storytelling but it would've required them to actually publish short stories, supplementary material surrounding the Neutrality and just all around been more active in setting up the fact that the 5 Year Time Skip lead to these Neutral situations where opposite factions work together for a common goal.
I am still not fully onboard with this being as bad as the Bel'ameth situation (Hi Orcs come party in our new home that was created because of your leadership deciding to both slaughter us, drive us from our home and ultimately burn our home)
Obviously I still hold out that this is a "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" circumstance rather than what it seems to be which is more of the direction of Bel'ameth.
Again, the justification for this writing is a Blue Post that was literally built on false premises and a short story for a wedding (which I mean it doesn't really have much to do with this. But, anyways lol.)
They had plenty of time to put short stories, supplementary storytelling in-universe rather than going full scorched earth. But, then again this is the same expansion where the Prequel book came out at the end of the expansion, so whatever lmao.
Don't get me wrong, I get the common retort is WC3, Icecrown Assault etc. etc.
Its just the last two situations here in Dragonflight are extremely nonsensically written within the context of the two factions (Races) story with eachother lol.
Last edited by Foreign Exchange Ztudent; 2024-01-13 at 04:36 PM.
I no longer reply to quotations beyond if you're asking a genuine question or have a non-confrontational stance.
Do you guys think there's going to be some sort of secret reward from the Gilneas quests in the upcoming patch?
Well, the mount can't be that impressive I guess, it'll just be a gilnean horse imo... (for example : the Swift Mountain Horse with a Gilneas themed saddle)