It looks very nice. I especially like the tower where all the edgy elves live–dark rangers and demons hunters and stuff. RPers are often left kinda shrugging over the status of their “outcast” characters and adding some NPCs to indicate “yeah they’re sort of outcasts but they exist and live here” shows someone was thinking like us nerds. I wish we coulda planted this tree on Kalimdor or near Gilneas because it is called Dragon isle not Elf isle but it is still cool
There are also some new tabards and miscellaneous items
Well now! I have to say that with this news, it feels like a piece of me spirit has been restored. Granted it’ll never mean as much to me as it does to the Night Elves, but I’ve had more than a small hole in me heart for our woodland allies for what seems like forever. Looking forward to moving day!
I’d believe that (afaik no new Gilnean-themed assets have been datamined), but it does add to this feeling I keep having of “can we just skip to Midnight already??”
Hollow Azeroth expansion might be fun and all but the stuff announced to come after it is so much more interesting.
I’m hopeful that each expansion is going to be meaningful and cool in its own way, and we’re not just reading the prelude chapters now to the main part of the story we really want to sink our teeth into.
I’m actually kind of curious how Kaldorei RPers feel about this to be honest…
Full disclosure, I’m not a nelf RPer. I have a nelf druid but i haven’t touched him since Legion. So i don’t really have a dog in this race.
But I’ve got to ask… is this frustrating for night elf RPers?
The “forests of Ashenvale” (referring here to the forested zones of northern kalimdor in totality) have always been presented as really important to the Kaldorei. There’s this ancient legacy there, millenia spent patrolling and protecting this land. It frankly seems kind of off putting to take the Kaldorei from their vast forests and shove them arbitrarily onto an island way closer to the Eastern Kingdoms and Northrend than their ancestral home.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled they have a city again, very sincerely thrilled. The night elves have been stuffed around a lot of late. But this seems akin to building New Stormwind in Tanaris while the rest of the Kingdom still stands. Just a really odd choice.
Do the night elves abandon places like Ashenvale and Darkshore, the latter of which they spilled a lot of blood to reclaim in the Fourth War? Or do they continue to rule these areas with their capital city on the other side of the world?
I dunno. Doesn’t sit right with me. What do you guys think?
There was a kerfuffle over this in the Story Forums leading up to now, of night elf fans being worried/angry over that story beat.
But it seems that the ‘leaving Kalimdor for Amirdrassil’ is just the appearance, and not the underlying lore. In fact, the most recent Amirdrassil datamining has it full of portals to NE Kalimdor zones, and include pathing NPCs with “Feralas Visitor”/“Darkshore Visitor”-style names who seem to have been added solely to illustrate that the night elves have not left their Kalimdor holdings.
I suspect it won’t stop a whole lot of players from reaching the conclusion that the night elves Kalimdor, though. These minor details weighed against the theme of the whole Amirdrassil “this is our new home” campaign is not a fair fight. But eh, the NPC/portal inclusion shows Blizz is trying, and I’m happy for that at least.
(I still think that the best case would be for Amirdrassil to poof into reality somewhere in/around Kalimdor.)
It was called-