Teldrassil was grown on an Island in the coast of Darkshore meaning it was still on Kalimdor.
Amirdrassil is being grown at the opposite side of the world.
We are given some contraindications.
We lost Teldrassil, Darkshore and Ashenvale because of the Horde, so Elves had no choice but to live as homeless refugees in Storwind. Because of that we had the new Tree grown so far away from Kalimdor.
We are also told we have all our lands back but not one single homeless refugee could go back to said lands and had to wait for the creation of a new Tree.
So, we either have no lands because they are destroyed or in the case of Ashenvale still with Horde presence so we needed to plant a tree basically on EK, or we do have our lands back but Blizzard chose to grow the Tree outside Kalimdor just to kick Night Elves one last time before shelving them till they need another punching bag in the future.
Some refugees returned to Kalimdor, some remained in Stormwind, is not a hard concept to grasp, and probably those in Kalimdor are more the Fighter and military type, while most Civillians would remain in stormwind after being used to the pacific life of Darnassus.
Now, you might say that I’m speculating, which i can certainly reply, yes, I am, but so are you when you say the Night elves are being driven out of Kalimdor or being shelved as punching bags, in fact i say my speculation makes more logical sense than yours, but we don’t need to argue this merit.
The actual canon information the game and other sources gives us are:
1 - Amirdrassil is the new home of the Kaldorei.
2 - They regained control of their Kalimdor lands during/after the war.
How population distribution, logistics, who lives where, how they manage that is all up to speculation, nothing states they’re leaving Kalimdor behind, nothing states they’re letting the horde control those zones, nothing states they’re afraid or running away from the horde either.
If so then the option we have left with is that Blizzard deliberately chose to build NE new Seat of Power in a foreign far away continent ignoring all the land they still have in Kalimdor thus making no sense at all.
I think it’s best to keep in mind that Amirdrassil was done in the context of the main dragonflight story. Taking the expansion out of the dragon isles for this patch would have been a bit weird.
Sure it’s far away, but when people are capable of making portals to across time and space to another planet distance isn’t that big of a deal. The night elves have a beautiful new home, and it’s in a pretty safe location. I think things could have been a lot worse than what we got.
Ive been pondering awhile and I have a couple things I sorta wish we’d see added that do not seem unreasonable.
Among the legion assets there is what is labeled the illustrious title “gazeboshrine01”. I believe it would fit perfectly on the center island under Amirdrassil.
I think it would function well as a center point and more formalized place of worship for Elune. Might swap out those statues though
I would also like to see Winter’s Landing converted from a base for the Nightfae into a small enclave for the Shendralar. The Nightfae’s job is done anyways, the world tree has bloomed now, so they can go home. you could comfortably tuck in one of the smaller legion era stone towers in there and perhaps one more small building from the same kit—pull from the vibes gone for Tel’anor.
I would also like to see the skybox be the same foggy one we have for the shady sanctuary. Its way too sunny.
Its on Dragon Isles so instantly forgotten and irrelevant next expac. Such a stupid place to put the tree, but then again Blizzard writers do seem to hate night elves.
I don’t think that would have been an issue, other expansions have moved away from their laucnh settings in patches.
-BC’s ending in Quel’Thalas instead of Outland
-MoP’s was in the barrens and Durotar instead of Pandaria
-BfA’s was in Uldum and Pandaria instead of Zandalar/Kul Tiras
So if they really wanted to they could have had this set in Kalimdor instead of the Dragon Isles.
That being said I really think this patch should have been more about the green dragons than the night elves. The greens really got the short end of the stick this expansion: their zone was more about centaur, now their patch story is more about night elves. They should emphasize more how Fyrakk and Ysera are cousins and he has a history of attacking the green dragons, according to the Scaleborn book.
If it were me I’d have given the night elves a questline on Hyjal like the Forsaken one from the end of Shadowlands, or the upcoming Gilneas one in 10.2.5. In general Blizzard does better with their smaller-scale sidestories than big MSQ stories anyway.
As I was going through the Amirdrassil questline, I kept having the thought of “this is a pretty good night elf heritage quest.
…
Oh, wait, right, it’s been made the main campaign.”
It shouldn’t be. The Green Dragons need their own content where they’re not just the night elves’ backup dancers. The night elves need the closure of their story, yes, but on Kalimdor, and they don’t need to be shoved in the entire playerbase’s faces any more than they have been.
I like Tyrande and like following her through the story. But Horde players really need their own Emerald-Dream-related characters to get some buildup, and this would have been a great time to do so. And, in doing so, the story could better establish why the Horde player should independently care about Amirdrassil, rather than the justification being 80% “this is the night elves’ new home and it’s in danger, save it” and only 20% “oh yeah, reality’s in danger and other such generic bland non-illustrated reasons”.
I feel MoP is a bad example as 5.4 returns us to Pandaria in terms of the Timeless Isle, the corrupted Vale and the first wing of SoO. Even 5.3 has the Dark Heart of Pandaria scenario.
Seems they are really trying to get the point across with the NPC selection. There are visitors and settlers. There are also portals to stormwind, Feralas (not expecting that!), Hyjal, and Darkshore.
Right now it goes to the Cataclysm era phase which is peculiar. Perhaps they plan to make a new additional one?
