Ok, but that doesn’t change what I have said in the slightest lol.
It’s definitely too late. They’re going to do this, but I agree that it’s pretty lazy writing. I wish they’d have gone in a different direction. But I guess this is the end-game of weaponizing a floating city: some spider is eventually going to take a shot at it.
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i just dont get why dalaran, could’ve been the earthen city, and along with the expansion we help them rebuild it
since its the second time they’ve destroyed dalaran, they can destroy something else instead lol
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This is what triggered me the most. The narrative lead herself said as much in an interview and apparently Ion confirmed it although he didn’t want to be recorded saying it (typical lawyer, I should know coz I am one too, lol).
RIGHT!? I mean come on, give me a break. Like I said before, is it Dalaran or the Death Star? How many times are they gonna blow it up just for the epic big boom scene. It’s been done already, enough is enough!
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I have no leg in the Dalaran thing (it is good incentive for one of my characters to actually get involved, since he, y’know. lived there, and it being unceremoniously slam-dunked kinda ruined his sunday) but re: the Khadgar thing (which I am sad about): his VA is 72, and is most likely looking to retire, despite how beloved his character is. It’s sad, but an out-of-game understandable reason to shelf Khadgar at this point ):
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Oh I didn’t know about that. But they could have recast, it’s not like they haven’t done it for other major characters before.
I agree, though recasting is always a gamble on if the new VA can match the previous one’s energy for whatever character is in-question. Sometimes they stick the landing, and other times people end up wishing the character had died instead 
When done properly it can add a lot to a story. When done poorly ahem (like wow does many times), it’s terrible.
I’m interested to see how it plays out. This is supposed to be the start of an overarching story for 3 expansions.
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No solid proof that he is dead, also chunks of Dalaran are missing so there is a chance it can be rebuilt better than ever. I mean my class hall is dying with the city so you’re not the only one losing stuff. Kinda glad we can visit older versions of Dalaran but there is still a chance we can rebuild the city, I mean the orcs demolished Stormwind in the past and it got rebuilt to be possibly grander than before. I doubt Alliance cities ever stay broken…
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Dalaran is my favorite city, I still spend a lot of time there. I’d love to have a house there. I understand the story needs to move, but I’m sad nevertheless. All I hope is we can rebuild it on the future.
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This makes destroying it meaningless, though. Whatever emotional investment players had becomes cheapened.
One would think Blizzard learned this from Shadowlands and how that cheapened the emotional investment of character death.
I mean, assuming Khadgar does actually die we’ll just be guessing what he’ll come back as when they need to whip him out again: a kyrian, a venthyr, etc…
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It is posts like these that make me feel even better about every time I’ve said that Metzen won’t save WoW.
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Meh, I can’t say it makes much difference to me. It’s been ages since they used Khadgar and Dalaran in any meaningful way and it’s clear they had no good ideas for them. At least this way they’re slowly clearing out the huge backlog of C-list background characters we have to worry about.
There will still be two versions of dalaran that you can go and visit and RP in.
This is world of warcraft not world of nothing-bad-ever-happens-to-things-i-like
This is like people being so sad that they can’t visit Teldrassil anymore…like…yes, you can. It’s still there, just not in lore.
Why not go live in Amirdrassil, it’s safe from fire now 
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I just want to say OP, you perfectly summarized how I feel. Super good post, thank you. I struggled to put this into words. It feels like chopping down an ancient tree just to build a fire for a week (and no, not a Teldrassil reference; I’m just tired and can’t think of a better analogy right now lol).
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That’s the thing about serious existential threats, they don’t care about your attachment to any person, place, or thing.
From a writing stand point if you want to establish a threat as serious, going after something that people have an attachment to and thought would be around forever is a very quick and very effective way to establish that threat. Furthermore it’s a great way to give your heroes the impetus to start their journey in a relatable way.
Sure it feels like a kick in the gut but one of the things that makes great stories great is their ability to stir a wide range of emotions.
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OP, I can definitely sympathize.
By the time Legion had come around, I had played druid as my main for every expac but MoP, and I felt the same way when they killed off Ysera. She was finally awake and helping retake Azeroth. She gave me a sense of pride having my class being tied to such a cool and powerful being…
And then Blizzard decided she had to die. Shadowlands didn’t really help much, since It was clear she was still absolutely dead and was bound to Ardenweald, and her brief return in DF to give her daughter a hug (and nothing else) just felt even more sad.
On the bright side, you will still have Legion Dalaran and Northrend Dalaran to return to. You can at least appreciate the fact that there will always be a Dalaran you can return to, even if it’s one from the past.
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I’m driving your home into the sea.
They wanna say Drae crash stuff? Ok then I’ll crash a damn city.
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The other side of this from a writing stand point, is following through, something Blizzard doesn’t like to do, and doesn’t pace well.
Case in point, the loss of Teldrassil. Players were furious, and demanded a follow through rather than the tree being burned on the pyre of cheap emotional investment. Blizzard thought it could get away with a Warfront and the Night Warrior, but it became clear the players were NOT letting them get off that easy. In the end Teldrassil’s resolution took over three expansions to conclude, which was far too much time, and led to Night Elf fatigue.
Either Blizzard needs to give Dalaran the same treatment (building a new city, showing the relevant affected characters working through the emotional trauma and baggage of the loss of their city and loved ones), or they go the route they went with the Forsaken (your civillians evacuated, and here’s your city back, sorta. Nothing really changed. Status Quo BAYBEE!).
Destroying Dalaran just to bring it back later is going to be lame, but nothing about War Within remotely suggests rebuilding Dalaran is going to be a narrative focus, much less that any lore characters associated with Dalaran will feature in the expansion at all.
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