I have mixed feelings. The Kirin Tor was always playing at being neutral and had a rather obvious preference for the Alliance. Furthermore the Purge of Dalaran remains a complete mess that never led to any real resolution. Vereesa is complicit in overseeing the torture and murder of innocent civilians yet never paid for that. I suspect that's largely why the writers have gone in such a direction to avoid ever having to properly address it.
Lol, yeah. I'm sure it's that they are worried about Vereesa, a relatively minor character, having done moderately questionable shit (like dozens of other more important characters have)... and definitely not just that they realized a fourth version of Dalaran and second "Dalaran is being rebuilt" was repetitive and unnecessary as all hell.
I think we can very confidently say it was not a factor at all. Starting a massive war didn't stop them from putting Wrathion front and center of plot stuff in DF. Geya'rah being an outspoken pro-Syvlanas sycophant right up until she abandoned the Horde hasn't stopped them from continuing to do Mag'har stuff as major story beats with her in charge or stopped her new role as Thrall's "sister"--without even getting into the fact that a sizable number of the mag'har are clans who actively went along with the Iron Horde. Half the Forsaken command structure has been previously complicit or directly taken part in warcrimes and mass killings against civilians, yet they are still working at rebuilding territory. Illidan's entire retinue of civilian attackers were dismissed to make him a prophetic hero and the Illidari made champions. Maiev's casual murder of highborne civilians was passed over to keep her around and head of the Wardens when they were brought back to the forefront.
I promise you, the writers do not care about a handful of forum posters who, in their desperation to prove "both factions are the bad guys!", are unable to let go of an extremely minor event. They keep controversial figures and places in the limelight all the time, they have no problem bringing outright villainous characters to a neutral or even friendly level. The Purge is nothing. They're not bringing Dalaran back because it's already been brought back multiples times and it's time to move on rather than creating a whole new Exodar situation when they are still working their way out of the first one nearly 20 years later.
Last edited by Hitei; 2024-11-19 at 03:22 AM.
The torture and murder of civilians is not a 'minor event' and it given that the side story in question is about addressing the mistakes of the Kirin Tor it isn't unfair to consider it a missed opportunity not to touch upon such a divisive event more openly.
I don't particularly care for either the Alliance or the Horde, for that matter - as far as I'm concerned both the factions themselves and their most outspoken supporters have contributed to many playable races losing out by virtue of being tied deeply to their respective faction even when and where it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
On the Dalaran stuff
i think it is bad to not bring it back. It is one city less in the world, and thus makes the world smaller. To remind how many cities were lost over the years in Warcraft canon that were not rebuild: Darnassus, Theramore, Stratholme, Southshore, Andorhal, Grim Batol, Nethergarde Keep, Auberdine, Duskhaven, Taurajo and now also Dalaran
Destroying only for destroying's sake and shock value is not good storytelling in the long run. There is a good reason why people are mayorly pissed at Teldrassils destruction and are very much unhappy with Bel'amath as a replacement. A full fledged city, replaced with some huts. It's would be like, if after Siege of Orgrimmar the whole city would have been flattened and the new horde capital would be the Valley of Trials with two more tents.
Not rebuilding Dalaran or at least fixing the dalaran crater and making it a city would be such a disservice to the world these characters live in.
Or we one day end up with only Stormwind and Orgrimmar as the only cities left in the world.
I'm waiting to see how the story continues (and hoping the Kirin Tor actually stay in focus) to see if they a good storyline planned to make this worth it, but so far the in-universe justification is incredibly weak.
They treat it as the Kirin Tor learning from their past mistakes, but didn't really manage to make any of it actually seem like a mistake. Dalaran's interventions were critical for saving Azeroth several times over, and they have always seemed to do a great job as the world's guardians. We wouldn't have stood a chance in Legion or Wrath without them. So what exactly do they think they need to fix with this big change? This doesn't address anything to do with their actual mistakes, like falling for Xal'atath's trap, turning a blind eye to the Sunreavers' actions in MoP until it was too late, or letting the Silver Covenant go way too far in their retaliation. If anything they need to increase oversight, not abandon what organization they do have.
Last edited by Eldryth; 2024-11-19 at 08:08 AM.
TBH They would be homeless for the forseeable future anyways. I am sure their factions and race's would gladly provide a space for skilled mages.
While i am sad to see Dalaran gone, I think it is ultimately not a bad move. The city has become a powerhouse to a ridiculous extent. And it kinda makes sense, that you maybe do not want to rebuild a city which has been nuked to oblivion for the second time in like 20 years considering the insane amount of deaths it caused.
I'm interested in how a decentralized Kirin Tor would work out.
I wonder how dungeons and raids are going to be handled in TLT.
This isn't like Quel'thalas where it's only a couple of instances (Sunwell, Terrace, ZA)
Northrend has an entire expansion's worth of content. Much of it Scourge focused. Are we going to get radically altered and re-imagined dungeons, or a completely new crop?
Utgarde Keep/Pinnacle - Huge Scourge presence, would need massive overhaul
Nexus/Oculus - Blue dragons are on our side currently, irrelevant now?
Azjol-Nerub/Ahn'Kahet - Scourge/Old God presence, needs overhaul, maybe turned into an underground zone (the true Spider Kingdom at last?)
Drak'tharon Keep/Gundrak - Frost troll/Scourge presence, irrelevant now?
Halls of Stone/Lightning - Titan presence, but major relevance to the Yogg-Saron storyline, would need an overhaul
Violet Hold - Gone...
To say nothing of all the Icecrown dungeons, all the raids...
Just not feasible to update that stuff. We're gonna need a whole new slew of stuff. Where is it going to go?
I've been wondering this more and more..
Silvermoon and Quelthalas being updated to an expansion size zone makes sense in this regard, but Northrend is already massive. I don't see them cutting zones out so to speak, but I don't know how they are going to bring relevant storylines into the fold with all the area space we're aware of.
I don't see them doing an underground expansion again, but I do think its possible we could be going underneath Northrend instead. Azj'ol Nerub and lots of Manifold zones could be possible. There is a very small part of me that thinks the expansion intro alone will be in Northrend, and we lift a section of Ulduar into the air akin to Odin as a home city after the intro cinematic, in order to go somewhere else to find a possible "Last Titan" elsewhere in the world. However I do think that is very very unlikely. I doubt they'd drop returning to Northrend and then not truly return.
If Northrend get's updated, I think it's a given, that dungeons/raids would get that treatment as well. You have lots of spaces you could explore. Coldarra, Iridikron's old lair. Whatever Titan machinery/halls lie under Ulduar and the Storm Peaks. Vrykul and scourged Drakkari remnants, Scourge remnants, Nerubians. They don't have to align with the old dungeons of WotLK at all.
I think it's fairly certain that zones will be merged and of course reimagined. Northrend is big, but there is also a lot of empty space. I don't think zones would be cut but there will certainly be mergers to cut Northrend into about 4-5 zones, which shouldn't be too hard.I've been wondering this more and more..
Silvermoon and Quelthalas being updated to an expansion size zone makes sense in this regard, but Northrend is already massive. I don't see them cutting zones out so to speak, but I don't know how they are going to bring relevant storylines into the fold with all the area space we're aware of.
I don't see them doing an underground expansion again, but I do think its possible we could be going underneath Northrend instead. Azj'ol Nerub and lots of Manifold zones could be possible. There is a very small part of me that thinks the expansion intro alone will be in Northrend, and we lift a section of Ulduar into the air akin to Odin as a home city after the intro cinematic, in order to go somewhere else to find a possible "Last Titan" elsewhere in the world. However I do think that is very very unlikely. I doubt they'd drop returning to Northrend and then not truly return.
Last edited by Jaggler; 2024-11-19 at 08:35 AM.
I don't know, Northrend often has adjacent zones that just don't look similar and don't flow well into each other. What are you pairing Sholazar with? Is Grizzly Hills going with Zul'Drak or with Howling Fjord? (and if the latter, what would you ever pair the other zone with then?) What happens to Crystalsong? I think unlike Kalimdor and EK where I could very easily group zones in groups of 2-4 and make a megazone, Northrend (and Outland to be fair) has harsh thematic differences between zones
They may revamp one or two of the old dungeons, but i don't think they will touch upon all of them.
Of the old dungeons, i think Halls of Stone will be the most important, especially with its forge of wills. After that, perhaps one of the Troll Dungeons. The remaining six will likely be new ones.
We can also compare that to TBC and WoD which had only one dungeon in common, Auchindoun, and even than, they are very very different.
As for Quel'Thalas, all new dungeon. I don't think they will make Zul'aman a dungeon for the third time, Magisters Terrace could be fair game for a dungeon though. The rest would be all new. Deathholme could easily work as a dungeon too.
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i think people already made some maps how things could flow, i did it like this some time ago
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Why people talk about a Northrend 'update'? It isn't WoTLK remaster folks. We expect to see familiar places like Utgarde Keep or Ulduar, but builded from scratch, with different enemies, different functions - I suspect one of them could be Northrend city and for example I would love to see Utgarde Keep as full Vrykul raid.
As for zones, we probably will see some merging - Howling Fjord + Grizzly Hills are basically same zone, some could be reserved for patches (Storm Peaks? depends how Last Titan is builded, with Titans as enemies - last raid - or allies - Ulduar as capital city). Not to mention every zone will go through massive changes, 3.0 ones in many places are simply too empty. They could be filled by new places like Iridikron's lair.
And of course after Azj'Kahet many expect Azjol-Nerub to be big new underground zone.