Is Undercity just an upsidedown Necropolis?
It’s setup is very similar to Naxxramas, in the fact it has four wings and a steady supply of Blight, (not the flesh-eating kind, but the reanimating kind.)
Would it still be called Undercity if it actually “took off” from the ground?
No.
Lordaeron was a human city that fell once Arthas murdered his father and it was ravaged by the Scourge. The city was then reclaimed by it’s former (now Undead) denizens and they set up shop in it’s underbelly, hence it’s namesake ‘Undercity’. It’s nowhere near a necropolis logistically speaking.
Arthas had let the aboveground city lie in ruins and had the sewers expanded and remodeled. He might have taken architectural suggestions from the Lich King or the Nerubian crypt lords.
Before the Storm outright calls Undercity a Necropolis as does the Silverpine Intro Quest.
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Delivery_to_Silverpine_Forest
Necropolis; the name stems from the Ancient Greek νεκρόπολις nekropolis , literally meaning “city of the dead”.
According to wowpedia, the Undercity was originally named “Necropolis” by Blizzard when WoW was still in development.
I’m pretty sure that no one will confuse it with the one underneath Chicago.
I mean, if we’re talking semantics, then yes. It’s a necropolis by nomenclature, but in the floaty, cool undead WoW way, it doesn’t really have that going for it. (Just has the cool undead part sans floaty)
Maybe.
I guess its current state is not exactly known. It looks pretty wrecked from the cinematic - collapsed and flooded with blight. But the Forsaken want to reclaim the ruins, and they are pretty good at making a home out of the most ruinous landscapes.
At any rate - it is the Undercity because it is a city under the old Capital City. If it lifted straight up, the Undercity would still be underneath the ruins of Capital City.
Sort of like the underbelly of Dalaran. It is above the surface of the planet, but still “under” something.
Fun fact, ground mounts didn’t work in Undercity at first, because it was technically not outside.
It was a horrible as it sounds.
Even funner fact the first time I flew in Undercity it was with this character, going on the Alliance warpath.
Even worse, that green sludge could kill anybody unlucky enough to fall in.
Technically no. It’s the old catacomb / sewer system of Lordaeron city, but it got filled with some Scourge buildings when Arthas conquered it.