Why Azshara?

[Deleted]

So, why did Blizzard decide to give Azshara to those green pests? All they did was ruin the zone and make an huge ugly goblin face onto a mountain. Why couldn't they start from Thousand Needles or some other place close to another Goblin settlement?
In my opinion, Azshara could've been an lvl 30 night elf zone. Seriously, the zone had great potential with quests, it's huge, and filled with lore and Blizzard decides to screw it and put Goblins in there to destroy everything?
(Also being the reason I kill any goblin I come across =P )

[Deleted]

Azshara was the most useless zone before Cataclysm. NOBODY(and by that I mean less than 0.1% of the playerbase) ever went there for anything other than the brief visits for Azuregos, Hydraxian Waterlords or class quests.

Might as well turn it into something useful. Since it was so close to Orgrimmar, it made sense to place the Goblins there instead of just throwing them straight into The Barrens.

EDIT: As for why they didn't get dumped in Thousand Needles... well, that'd be a little harsh on a level 10 Goblin, don't you think?

[Deleted]

Azshara was the most useless zone before Cataclysm. NOBODY(and by that I mean less than 0.1% of the playerbase) ever went there for anything other than the brief visits for Azuregos, Hydraxian Waterlords or class quests.

This being true, they could've just turned it into an night elf questing hub. Countless night elf ruins, and if I am not mistaken parts of WotA also happened here.

[Joshmaul]

Why Azshara? I answer that with another question: Why not?

[Deleted]

And who wouldn't want to start from 1k needles? Riverboats!

---------- Post added 2011-01-16 at 12:57 PM ----------

Why Azshara? I answer that with another question: Why not?

I answer that with the fact that as I said, the place is full of night elf lore and ruins, so why not make good use of it and make the new players know the history of a race they chose (If it were to be a lvl 30 nelf zone)

[Fierae]

I think you're right, it was a great zone before, now it's just been turned into an ugly mess.

They could have made it more accessible for the night elves as historically that's what it was.

[Deleted]

I think you're right, it was a great zone before, now it's just been turned into an ugly mess.

They could have made it more accessible for the night elves as historically that's what it was.

Yup. Since night elves got hit pretty hard. I didn't really enjoy seeing most of the npc's that gave my 1st character most of my quests in Darkshore die. Stonetalon's a warfront now, The horde is slaughtering dryads, took silverwing refuge, and attacking Astranaar in Ashenvale.

---------- Post added 2011-01-16 at 01:02 PM ----------

EDIT: As for why they didn't get dumped in Thousand Needles... well, that'd be a little harsh on a level 10 Goblin, don't you think?

They could've tuned it down to a level 10-20 zone and then move them on to Southern Barrens/Stonetalon via an quest to send them from the speedbarge. =)

[Mogrutana]

This being true, they could've just turned it into an night elf questing hub. Countless night elf ruins, and if I am not mistaken parts of WotA also happened here.

There arent as many night elf ruins as there are highborne ruins. There's a lot of naga influence in the zone still, anway, iirc. Besides, it's RIGHT next to Orgrimmar. Any other leveling zones right next to main cities of the opposite faction?

[Deleted]

There arent as many night elf ruins as there are highborne ruins. There's a lot of naga influence in the zone still, anway, iirc.

Uh, highborne = night elves. You did know this, right?
Edit : Highborne are the night elves who decided to take on arcane magic, also being Azshara's favored. After the sundering and the destruction of the well, arcane magic was banned in the night elven society and the remaining highborne moved to Eastern Kingdoms, forming Quel'thalas and becoming High elves, later on after the scourge invasion, renaming themselves into blood elves.

[Mogrutana]

Uh, highborne = night elves. You did know this, right?

Yup, and highborne = the naga that still occupy it. They did something with those ruins, ya know.

[Tenderoni]

I personally think that the zone as it stands is great and has a lot of fun quests and a nice story.
The zone is a direct back door to Org and Gallywix will build a leisure resort wherever he pleases.
Oh, and Bilgewater Harbor is part of our Twilight Highlands entry quest...

So yeah, it's a Horde zone - Probably why you don't like the developments.

[Fierae]

For the sake of simplicity, night elf = highborne = naga. So your argument of 'zonal influence' etc, doesn't quite stand, seeing as they all look the same!

It's a hundred times more integrated into night elf lore than it is any other faction.

[rayvio]

you forgot the long Blasted Lands demon chain, part of which took place in Azshara. but yeah, other than that Azshara was pretty much the place NPCs sent you to punish you for poking them with the mouse pointer all the time

"you know what would be more annoying than having to have several raid members do a tedious quest chain and rep grind before you can fight the last boss? we're gonna send you to an out of the way island at the arse end of an out of the way zone, enjoy your fifteen minute run from the flightpath and hope your hearthstone's not on cooldown!"

"welcome (class), bugger off to Azshara and grind low droprate items from slow-respawning mobs spread out over the whole zone so you have to spend hours running around. and if you think that's bad, when you get back I'm sending you to Sunken Bloody Temple!"

"seriously, you're not bored of this demon hunting quest chain yet? well damn, I'm sending you to Azshara then."

"go to Azbloodyshara, put paper on some pretty rocks and rub a crayon over them. then rather than heading to the nearby flightpath or just using your hearthstone I want you to take a ten minute run, jump off a cliff, take a ten minute swim to an island in the middle of nowhere and shoot a flare to summon a helicopter so you can send the quest items to me. what do you mean "will they fly me back here too?"? are you mad? you gotta swim and run all the way back to the flightpath or use your hearthstone, giving you a lift would just make too much sense"

yeah, Azshara was such a fun zone before the goblins...


as for the Night Elf argument, the zone is actually just as much connected to Blood Elf lore so you could argue for that. but then you may as well give Plaguelands, Undercity, etc to the humans since it's their lore, throw the Orcs through the Dark Portal, let the trolls have Stranglethorn and about 90% of the rest of the world map too... oh and since elves are descended from trolls they can have Azshara too...

[Deleted]

Yup, and highborne = the naga that still occupy it. They did something with those ruins, ya know.

Naga's are the ones who accepted the ''blessing'' of the Old Gods when they told they could help them when they we're drowning, and mutating them into the Naga. Since the current night elven mages are also highborne.

[Fierae]

I personally think that the zone as it stands is great and has a lot of fun quests and a nice story.
The zone is a direct back door to Org and Gallywix will build a leisure resort wherever he pleases.
Oh, and Bilgewater Harbor is part of our Twilight Highlands entry quest...

So yeah, it's a Horde zone - Probably why you don't like the developments.

Um, not quite, I wouldn't mind if it was still a horde zone but they didn't completely destroy one of the areas in which WotA occurred. It was nice and serene before, now it's just terribly mechanical.

---------- Post added 2011-01-16 at 11:12 AM ----------

yeah, Azshara was such a fun zone before the goblins...

Again, you COMPLETELY miss the point. The point from my side was not to keep it as it was, they could have changed the zone enough to not destroy what it stood for, one of the homes (and zone named after her) of Queen Azshara, it seemed strange they turn it into goblin. Could just have easily been made into night elf and kept some kind of consistency with the lore.

[Vongimi]

Well they fit that in there by putting some Blood elf lore in.

[Mogrutana]

Um, not quite, I wouldn't mind if it was still a horde zone but they didn't completely destroy one of the areas in which WotA occurred. It was nice and serene before, now it's just terribly mechanical.

They've destroyed basically all the zones that WotA occurred in. It's called Cataclysm for a reason.

Until Azshara is turned into the shape of a lion, it's For The Horde.

Naga's are the ones who accepted the ''blessing'' of the Old Gods when they told they could help them when they we're drowning, and mutating them into the Naga. Since the current night elven mages are also highborne.

That's exactly what I said. Highborne = Naga. And yeah, they have the connection to Blood Elves there, too, as the guy above me said.

[Eharenda]

I like the new Azshara. It was a boring zone before, and it's now interesting.

As for it not being a night elf zone... well NE ruins doesn't mean it should be a NE zone.

[Deleted]

Until Azshara is turned into the shape of a lion, it's For The Horde

Since the horde didn't slaughter amounts of night elves in Ashenvale, keep attacking Astranaar, and have a much bigger amount of quests in there than previously.

[Mogrutana]

So? That has nothing to do with Azshara. Look at it, the goblins turned it into the Horde symbol. Until it's turned into a lion, it's ours