How canonical the story board missions are is pretty debatable. Warden Stillwater is inexplicably back despite being executed by the Forsaken for crimes against inhumanity. So, whoever was writing those clearly wasn’t paying too much attention.
There are some interesting ideas like the Forsaken rebuilding Alterac City that I’d like to see revisited in game. But generally I view all that stuff as poorly researched fluff I wouldn’t take too seriously one way or the other.
I am not sure I would say the era of world trees is ‘over’ as Nordrassil is doing just fine. Teldrassil was freaky huge even for a world tree, and on purely practical grounds I feel they would not make a new world tree of that sort.
Kaldorei do not really normally do cities like most races, as they are damaging to the environment. However I have a couple of possibilities that occur to me:
(Commentary): I always felt that making Telogrus Rift their home played into the idea of responsible study of the Void. In the Rift they can practice and study their art without concern for damaging the world or anyone else’s living space. What needs to happen is seeing them actually build a settlement in the Telogrus Rift.
(Speculative): I’ve seen the suggestion somewhere before on the forums and I like it. The idea was even just one single large building on that largest of islands, with a big plaza holding the simple services and NPCs. The barren land around it could then be filled with grass, trees, ponds, etc… all made by arcane magic, altered by the void to create a stable ecosystem, even if the only purpose of that ecosystem is for the sake of aesthetics, which it doesn’t have to be. I could easily see the fruit of these Void Trees having an assortment of uses for Void Elves, such as specialized potions or elixirs to fortify the mind against the whispers or augment their void powers. Honestly, just re-use assets from WoD’s Shadowmoon Valley; with the Rift’s skybox and light it should look amazing.
I honestly wish they would do such a thing, as Telogrus has so much potential. It be hugely economical for them just go ahead and make HD assets for such a settlement as void elf, high elf, AND blood elf architecture is basically the same with different paint jobs on the model. 3-for-1 deal seems good to me.
Amen brother sylvanus did nothing wrong lol
While i find the notion about the night elves attempting to modernize their armies a story that merits exploring further (like it may end with accepting change or not i dont care about the resolution just the journey), you cant use teldrassil as an example and expect people to take you seriously, the simple reason is that the burning was completely incompetent writing, there isnt even an excuse for the tree burning everything was against it, the range of the catapults, the means of starting the fire, living magical tree surrounded by ocean? it wasnt even handwaved properly! and they have the perfect excuse, i would have bought that azerite powered catapults wouldve ignited the damn thing however we got like… the fire was really hot, nevermind all the other factors, it breaks disbelief.
Plus the counterargument is that zul lit up stormwind somehow and its currently made of stone, if the writers want to burn something it will burn.
I don’t think the Nelves need to modernize so much as they need to accept that their “empire” has been a decaying one for years and that even going back to Hyjal in WC3 they haven’t been able to ride it alone so being overly hostile and isolationist is only going to cause them further headache and woe going forward.
Integrate a bit more into the alliance, and as frustrating as it’d be post-teldrassil don’t have a hardline stance against the Horde. Relations between the nelves and horde weren’t that bad from Wrath until Cata when the nelves just traded with the horde so the horde had no rationale for war. Once trading stopped was when the fighting started again.
As far as we know, the zones are status quo, minus Teldrassil and Tirisfal.
Edit: and Stromgarde is now an Alliance city instead of being held by a random assortment of factions.
To be fair to Blizzard’s writers, you only have to look at the fire that ravaged Notre Dame cathedral to see that buildings that appear to be almost entirely stone can be plenty flammable.
I actually find stormwind burning more believable than teldrassil, at least its not magic stone.
I agree. Lighting up a tree like that would take either a nuke or a LONG time.
I don’t see it ever happening, but the idea of a rebuilt Forsaken city on the surface with a 25 man raid into the Undercity to kill whatever plague monsters took over seems like it would be a ton of fun.
Forsaken Druid aquatic form will be an undead manatee.
There are only so few ways in which this would work positively which is why I am fervently against this idea. The playable Night Elves have lost much racial flavour to being Alliance-ized in their time in recent WoW; the last thing we need is Stormwind footmen around Hyjal. Or putting more Night Elves in SW plate.
I get where you’re coming from and certainly agree that that position is fairly logical at this point in WoW’s story. I guess I have very little faith in Blizzard.
Modernize? Maybe not so much. They DO however need to stop the isolation. Yes, they joined the Alliance but 95% of all night elves stayed in their areas in Kalimdor like ashen vale, hyjal, etc. They need to stop being so reclusive in a world that is brimming with people of all races all looking for somewhere to live.