So with the coming expansion in the distant future ‘Midnight’ – As we know, we’re returning to Quel’Thalas.
So for the Horde, it’s pretty safe to say our major foothold for Quel’Thalas will be Silvermoon. Whether it’ll be such for the Alliance too, is a rather controversial subject — but one that’s been presented as a possibility nonetheless …
Now for discussion sake, merely as a ‘Fun’ or ‘What if’ thread — If Silvermoon, the Sunwell & Eversong Woods WASN’T to be a foothold or a neutral holding ground for the Alliance to be welcome - Where would you say the prime Alliance foothold would be?
Windrunner Spire & Village interlinked, restored & reinforced?
Deathholme restored to its once-begotten state, of having a seedling of the once Sunwell birthed oak tree blooming with a luminescent glow from its heart, with an established town surrounding it?
Stratholme, as a restored shining holy city – Now restored as safe haven for both elves & humans alike?
If it was required for one of the above to be claimed for the major foothold, what one would you desire for the chosen-location to be?
Stratholme would make sense, since it’s on the Argent Crusade / Earthen Ring batting order for cleaning up the Plaguelands. Although, if it were up to me, and we were wrapping this into an overall effort to “unify” the Eastern Kingdoms zones into a unified space not separated by loading screens, I’d make the reclamation of Deatholme be part of the campaign for the Midnight expansion, at which point it would become a forward operating base.
Then we finally get that Silvermoon remake everyone has been clamoring for. Might not be in the greatest shape, but a fresh coat of paint and some new curtains will fix it right up.
That’s true.
It’d be fantastic for RP purposes too.
Actually come to think of it, you could do two birds with one stone there – Since Deathholme is kind of situated right behind Stratholme – Have the advance press through the city and into Deepholme.
You could probably present the expansion with the areas already made:
Stratholme as a flourishing holy city
And Deathholme now an elvish town renamed, with a new shining Sunwell-blessed Oak-Tree standing proud in the middle – planted from a seedling carried forth by the bow Thas’Dorah (made from the original Sunwell birthed oak tree).
And then have a caverns of time or memory-reconcile dungeon towards how the city & town were established – such as: “The final push to reclaim what was lost! The conquest that washed away the darkness that attempted to come back to haunt us furthermore …”
You could give some good ole scourge vibes & new dark villains + shadowy factions through such content, especially if particular villains get away (eg. Decatriarch Wratheye from Brakenhide Hollow) or the leaders of said-organisations were never unveiled …
— LOTS of potential for Midnight, should they play their cards right.
You could probably make the Plaguelands relevant again, with quests that unveil a new order of necromancers & beings of undeath that broke free – and remained such after the helm of domination was broken.
Perhaps reveal an underground labyrinth of a large necropolis, and dark forces oddly uniting together to scour the humans, elves and any who dare oppose them.
… Not gonna lie, that sounds slightly more appealing than elf content
However it’d make for a good contrast content too, to give some variety.
I mean, the expansion could have more than just four zones.
Although that seems to be the base formula for the pass few expansions, they have done more in the past.
(9) Wrath of the Lich King: Nine Zones.
(5) Cataclysm: Although it had 5 major zones, it also did a re-do of just about every currently existing zone in ‘Azeroth’ throughout the game.
(7) Mists of Pandaria: Seven Zones (to begin with that is)
In terms of zone size, content, lore and quests – BFA could’ve been better, and Shadowlands came across quite lazy & droughtful to the point many compared it to Warlords of Draenor, just with more systems lol …
— However, hopefully they’ll continue to learn from a handful of mistakes & acknowledge what worked well.
That’d be neat.
Given how much people go on about player housing, it’d actually be quite interesting to see each nation set out an ‘Colonising Expedition’ — To set out to islands (similar to Island Expeditions in BFA) - and either set up a nation, or find one that was founded quite some time ago of similar architecture etc of whatever city set us on our course.
Example to already founded settlement: We saw an Island in the Island Expeditions ‘Havenswood’ which had Gilnean housing & village housing all around.
Whether the island & community of houses is bound by particular server proportions or guild-bound is another story, but it’d be a cool way to introduce it.
I’m not too bothered whether or not we have ‘Player Housing’ feature in WoW, but I’d find it a cool thing to see come forward - with quite the potential for rewards for players behind it.
Dalaran, parked off the coast of the Ghostlands, so Blizzard can add a phase of Quel’Thalas that removes it once the expansion is over, and Horde players can have a Quel’Thalas that’s exclusively Horde once more.
Northern Lordaeron/Quel’thalas area on the map.
Northern Lordaeron is an unofficial name used to refer to the unnamed closed zone wedged between the northwestern border of the Eastern Plaguelands, the northeastern border of the Western Plaguelands, and the southwestern border of the Ghostlands.
Port and ruins.
Currently, it is an inaccessible zone in-game that may have been part of the fallen Kingdom of Lordaeron, or of the Kingdom of Quel’Thalas. Moreover, this must be the place where the Thondroril River is born geographically. Most of the area is covered by an uninstanced and unfinished copy of Stratholme. This version of Stratholme is still considered to be part of the Quel’thalas zone by the game, and players in it will be listed as being in Quel’thalas when searched via “/who” or checking their guild roster. The second part of the area contains Night Elven ruins and towers. Also, the shore between Tirisfal and Quel’thalas is a no-fly zone.
The tower visible when swimming from Tirisfal.
The area has existed in the game since vanilla and unlike other closed or inaccessible zones, it wasn’t removed in Cataclysm when whole Old World was revamped. Instead, the developers put an invisible wall surrounding the area that prevents access. This is likely a leftover from before the current idea of Quel’thalas was conceived. It must have been scrapped very early in development when the devs decided that the game’s timeline will be placed after the events in Warcraft 3. In Warcraft 3 Quel’thalas was destroyed by Arthas and his Scourge during The Third War. As of patch 8.0.1, the invisible wall surrounding the area has now been removed. The zone is now accessible for all players who completed the Battle for Lordaeron scenario.
I saw a suggestion once where someone said a large handful of mages conducted a long duplication ritual to duplicate a city similar to that of Dalaran — Placed back into the crater from whence it came, a reflection of their culture renewed & named ‘Naralad’ (Dalaran backwards).
Which I always thought to be an intriguing idea, but having them do such with a different floating city (obviously not in the crater) — even if it’s planned to be destroyed through some cool story via chain-quest or future expansion content, would be pretty cool.
i wasn’t referring to the race.
