From what I’ve seen in the endings it seems Raphael is poised to conquer the 9 Hells(by using the Crown in his possession to steal Godhood from Asmodeus who will die from having his power taken from him) and invade the Abyss(https://mimir.net/ has details of the Abyss’s first Layer if any wants to know what he is up against. Said first Layer has a Portal to Layer 570 the False Paradise Shendilavri).
My favorite instance of this is in a Good War.
In the story, they verify that the Horde’s siege weapons only have a range of a couple hundred yards.
Yet, in the very same story, those siege weapons are able to hit Teldrassil from the shore.
So either Teldrassil is canonical a couple football fields away from the mainland, or they just didn’t bother explaining how the Horde magically extended their firing range (and why they didn’t magically do so previously in the story where they had to move the siege weapons closer to the Ashenvale front)
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What is annoying is they could’ve just had azerite war machines blast from the shore. The tech was there.
What that boiled down to is someone on high saying but catapults are COOL! make it work.
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drags out the podium and the soap box
Well akshully!!! AKSHULLY!! The annoying thing?!?
Ahem.
Know what the annoying thing really is with BfA’s plot?
When writing the story, they already knew they were including old god stuff. They already had, right in their hands, a third belligerant in this unfolding war, and one lurking in the shadows. And they promised a more “shades of grey” story.
So the annoying thing is that they could have tied both the faction war and the old god stuff together by doing one simple thing.
Have the Burning be the fault of the Twilight’s Hammer. Who was based in Silithus pre-stabbification? Who would have first access to azerite? Who started acting up the last time the factions were at war, and who tried to provoke that very conflict into happening in the first place? You got void portals. You’ve even got night elf members of the TH. It’s all right there, an easy-peasy story.
And you can play everything out right up to the Burning without a change. Just when they’re all on the coast, have Sylvanas ominously say “and now for Teldrassil…” And then boom. Twilight’s Hammer azerite bombs blow up and burn the tree.
Sylvanas, still working for the Zo, denies Sourfang’s demands to communicate to Alliance leadership that the Burning wasn’t our fault, and when he discloses that after his capture, who’d believe him? I mean Anduin, but with just one orc’s word, that’s nothing. Sylvanas can still push the war, even telling the rest of the Horde that she did communicate what happened to the Alliance, but they’re gonna kill us anyway!! Fight on, sons and daughters of the Horde!!
And then you can have a side plot of BfA be the search for evidence that the Twilight’s Hammer was behind the Burning, so when we all work together like pals to fight off N’zoth’s forces, it even makes more sense. Have the evidence be found as part of the rebellion recruitment campaign, hand it in to Anduin, and all that.
You still have a Horde that did the major bad across Ashenvale and Darkshore, so Tyrande can still be big mad in Shadowlands.
You still have an evil Sylvanas who demanded all of that.
But by taking the genocide attempt of Teldrassil off the Horde, you can now actually build a road where redemption for the Horde is possible. And when the inevitable Good Girl Redeemed Sylvanas comes along, there’s a road for that too.
Ok, my off-topic rant about old past bad choices is over.
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I always imagined a scenario where it was goblin sappers who were meant to plant explosives in critical infrastructure to terrorize the people of Teldrassil into surrender… They SUPER underestimated how the stockpile of azurite on the tree would react to an explosive detonation.
Then some people claim it was intentional, and others say it was not.
And now we got Ashenvale 
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Meh. Not surprised, and it’s not exactly new, but I find it really off-putting to see even more undead being accepted back.
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They do all seem to be sort of contained to the misfit tower. So they are seemingly welcomed back with some subtext.
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One of those Welcome back, here’s your new prison sort of thing it feels to me. Like they’re welcome, just not really you know?
I suppose what matter is if they were asked to stay out there or if they are doing so themselves because they find the mistfit tower more homey for them.
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I think it’s somewhere in the middle, they don’t feel like they’re really welcomed. But at least there’s other misfits who feel the same, so they all decided to hang out in the same area
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That’s actually great news. Hopefully the Night Elves can gain another city like Moonglade or Hyjal. XD
Nice. She’s like the first questgiver you talk to in Astranaar during leveling in Ashenvale.
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Well, I have been able to swim to darkshore without dying of fatigue. 
I’m going to put it down to shamans being able to access ocean power they couldn’t do inland and let it go. Watching Star Trek has gotten me used to far greater inconsistencies.
I’m trying to phrase this very carefully because it’s an important point that treads close enough to sounding like I’m discounting the work being done, when that isn’t the case.
So…I think the responses and problems and complaints of the issues of abandoning Kalimdor existed long before the Emerald Dream patch. They’ve likely taken that into account all expansion, and this is just a reaction to that.
It’s a very sloppy reaction, lore wise, but it is a reaction. And by that I mean, the appropriate portal system would have been to use the Great Tree portals throughout the Emerald Dream, as Emerald Dream portals don’t really have the same limitations as mage portals. Armys and pass through them. It solves the logistics issue in a lore friendly and thematically appropriate way.
That being said, and I’ve expressed this elsewhere. My condition for Amir’drassil has always been a largescale portal system to make holding outside lands logistically possible. That does appear to be what Blizzard is inferring is the case, so I can appreciate the work in Amirdrassil. Even if I’m not overly happy with the idea of it thus far being a sanctuary city and the Horde being able to enter.
I do think it’s interesting that they’ve decided to place a World Tree with a Emerald Dream raid in the Dragon Isles, considering the World of Warcraft concept maps had… A world tree with a emerald dream raid in the Dragon Isles.
They added a portal to the Emerald Dreamway to Amirdrassil. In the Dreamway itself it uses the portal Druid players haven’t been able to interact with yet.
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Ah, see.
That’s wonderful. That should cover pretty much any logistical complaint, and it gives the Kaldorei a flexibility that’s pretty tops. It pretty much let’s them project anywhere they could really want on short notice, or at least get them a supply chain.
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I’m still going to complain that Druid Players can’t get to Bough Shadow through the Emerald Dreamway, though.
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It really should be, considering I think it hits every other Great Tree.
My only other real complaints is there aren’t the Darnassian Skyscraperes, and there’s no proper stone Temple of Elune.
But hey, can’t have everything.
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