Why Azshara?

[Wardley]

Technically business-wise, wasn't it something like Azshara was never 'completed' in the original game. There were a few zones in Kalimdor that were being worked on by a certain team in Blizzard - however they all quit during the initial development to set up their own games company and the zones they were working on (Azshara was one, Dustwallow Marsh was another) were just 'tidied up' to make them not be broken but not really developed as much as other zones. Dustwallow Marsh was later fixed with a patch during tbc (which is why there's not many changes to it with Cata) but Azshara was left until now.

Game wise - it's close to the Horde capital and it works very well with the new progression system where when you level up out of a zone, there should be a zone next door that's suitable to carry on levelling (so Lost Isles -> Orgrimmar -> Azshara -> Ashenvale).

[Deleted]

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.

They could've made it way more interesting, something like quests reliving parts of WotA, getting rid of the naga once and for all and turning the temple into an temple of the moon, endless possibilities!

[Mistral]

Wasn't the reason simple to make the number of faction spezific Lv10+ Zones equal?
So for Horde it's Northern Barrens, Azshara, Silverpine Forrest and Ghostlands and for Alliance Loch Modan, Westfall, Bloodmyst Isle and Darkshore?
At least I thought this was the reason.

[Mogrutana]

We do get rid of the naga. Reliving parts of WotA has no relevance to the Cataclysm, which is the focus of the expansion, ya know? They're doing a WotA raid, maybe you'll see Azshara in there. I ask again, how many leveling zones are RIGHT next to the capital city of the opposite faction? (Have fun being ganked by bored Horde sitting in Orgrimmar. There's a lot of em.)

[provocator]

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...

true story. i hate this zone since i've had to run there on my 5x lvl human warrior to get some q items back in the days. i'm glad that horde changed it although i'm not one of them. atleast something is happening there now.

[Deleted]

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

I ain't saying they should turn it now. I was just wondering that why didn't they make it an night elf zone for cataclysm.

[Mogrutana]

I ain't saying they should turn it now. I was just wondering that why didn't they make it an night elf zone for cataclysm.

I ask again, how many leveling zones are RIGHT next to the capital city of the opposite faction? (Have fun being ganked by bored Horde sitting in Orgrimmar. There's a lot of em.)

That's pretty much why.

[Deleted]

That's pretty much why.

PvE Server or a alliance zone to prevent ganking =)

[Mogrutana]

It'd be too close to Orgrimmar, still. They're not going to do that, as was clearly showed by the fact that it's not an Alliance zone.

[agamedes]

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 )

ok, then I want a reason why (insert_zone_name_here) isn't horde It would be cooler that way ;( there was so much cool lore that blizz could use for us ;( that's the reason why I'll kill any (random_race_name) I come across...

but seriously, what's the point of your QQing?

[Deleted]

ok, then I want a reason why (insert_zone_name_here) isn't horde It would be cooler that way ;( there was so much cool lore that blizz could use for us ;( that's the reason why I'll kill any (random_race_name) I come across...

but seriously, what's the point of your QQing?

The fact that Azshara is basicly full of Night elf lore, it has nothing to do with goblins. And well, nothing much than one of the most important events of night elven history and the history of Azeroth itself took partly place in there.
Also, I doubt there's any zones for the horde that has such an strong lore in it as Azshara does for the night elves.

[Skyve]

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

Actually the Highborne are what are nowadays called Highelves, and part of the Higborne turned into naga. So it's not actually night elf ruins, while at the same time it is. Besides, it doesn't really matter that there are ruins of nightelves there. I mean if you simply wanted to give everything that has ruins in it to its respective race, we'd have troll zones everywhere.

Besides, we all know that Nightelfs once were Trolls, so it would make even more sense for Azshara to be a troll area.

[Deleted]

i am maybe a horde. But i HATE Goblins!

their living style is to just throw all their waste out in the sea or waterl.

[Drexxil]

They could've made it way more interesting, something like quests reliving parts of WotA, getting rid of the naga once and for all and turning the temple into an temple of the moon, endless possibilities!

Um... You sort of do in one part. You get to travel to the spirit realm for a bit and relive a part where the Highborne were trying to stop the Sundering from completely destroying everything. There is a blood elf there arguing with the goblins that they are destroying the ruins, and that their is a lot of history in them still. There is a large amount of Night Elves, including treants, trying to stop the Goblins, and the Horde from destroying, and mining Azshara out. You walk right outside Orgrimmar there are night elves stabbing people.

It still has Night Elf crap in the zone, and there is Blood Elf crap too.

And making Goblins go to 1k Needles? Are you daft? You realize how long it will be for a level 10 to go there, and go back to Orgrimmar anytime they needed something. No other race has to travel halfway across the continent at level 10. You would see 0 people going to 1k needles at level 10. They would all go to the Barrens. Blizzard wanted to add another 10-20 zone for the Horde. It's only fair.

[Disgruntler]

Aszhara sucked. It was designed in a horseshoe, had quests going from one end of that horseshoe to the opposite end, had few ways of getting UP from the high plateau to plateau, and actually threw in fatigue zones in between to punish you for actually taking the quick way across. It had quests that gave you NOTHING. No XP, no reward, nothing at all.

It was truly a terrible zone. It was stupid to navigate, stupid to quest in, stupid to grind in, and it was in the middle of nowhere for no reason.

It needed to be redone. But why make it a night elf zone? The only two options that would entail would be to either make it alliance, or contested. Alliance means the progression would be Gilneas/Darnass -> Aszhara... which is awkward and wrong... or make it contested. Do you put it after Ashenvale? Felwood?

Not to mention, do all Trolls, Goblins, Tauren, AND Orcs go immediately to the Barrens? They needed to give the Horde a second option. Azshara sucked, no one really liked it (anyone who says they do clearly hasn't actually quested there in the past four years) and it needed a revamp... so why not give it to the goblins?

Goblins are little bastards anyways, Aszhara deserved them.

[Alucard666]

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.

ye,ye smartass we all know that...now move along...like others said above,the zone is right frikinn next to OG!!!!!....how would you like if horde had a base in elwyn forest cause ,ya know,ma fellow orcs kinda like to chop off trees???

..and pls stop with that frikinn "countless NE ruins and shit"...there's plenty of zones with 10k years old rocks in azeroth!

have a nice day,

[agamedes]

The fact that Azshara is basicly full of Night elf lore, it has nothing to do with goblins. And well, nothing much than one of the most important events of night elven history and the history of Azeroth itself took partly place in there.

so? there is SO much lore for the horde in pretty much all of Stormwind lands, should orcs get them? the horde's greatest victory was in Stormwind - It should be ours then... the all of former black morass was pretty much a staging area of the horde in the first war, As well as a place where orgrim doomhammer became the warchief - we should get that too, etc. etc.

you can get reasons for everything but they don't mean anything... so I'd advice to stop

[Deleted]

Actually the Highborne are what are nowadays called Highelves, and part of the Higborne turned into naga. So it's not actually night elf ruins, while at the same time it is. Besides, it doesn't really matter that there are ruins of nightelves there. I mean if you simply wanted to give everything that has ruins in it to its respective race, we'd have troll zones everywhere.

Besides, we all know that Nightelfs once were Trolls, so it would make even more sense for Azshara to be a troll area.

There's no proof to back that up. That's just what the trolls claim.

[Deleted]

Azshara is epic now

[Deleted]

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.

Because Goblins needed a zone that was relatively un-used already and Night Elves didn't?

And Thousand Needles is used already whereas Azshara was not.

If you think about it, is there actually another zone so under used pre-cataclysm than Azshara?

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

True, and as was seen recently with the mini lore injection of the Highborne return, they are not wanted by the NE masses. So in this case it is true that Highborne and NE are the same race, neither party would wish to be considered the same as the other. This would be the same as saying stormwinf should embrace Defias achievements or history on the basis that they are both human.....