On the WoW Vanilla/Classic login screen, where is that location depicted inside the Dark Portal? That lush, green, landscape that is shown, where is that? Considering that the Blasted Lands is nothing like that and even the scrapped Vanilla Outlands did not look like that, has anyone ever figured out where that portal was suppose to be depicting?
I guess I never really thought about it until I logged in today and was looking at the portal and had the thought of “Wait, where is that?”
I’ve always wondered that too.
If I had to guess I’d say Elwnn or Loch Modan.
They don’t have a Dark Portal but they’re the only zones I can think of that fit the bill.
Swamp of sorrows with the redridge mountains in the background. It was suppose to be a nice place before the portal/orcs wrecked it.
Edit: I believe the blasted lands were also suppose to be part of this landscape. Now its “dead” land around the portal and the swamp turned dark. I think this is actually the lore, but I’m just remembering.
It’s what The Blasted Lands looked like before the orcs came through and corrupted it. That image is what the orcs saw as the portal opened and they prepared to invade in order to survive.
But World of Warcraft takes place so many years after Warcraft 1 and the destruction of the Black Morass which would become the Blasted Lands.
Why would the log in screen reference something that happened that long ago?
Did you play TBC? The black morass was the opening of the portal. It’s in a swamp much like swamp of sorrows. That is suppose to be the blasted lands pre portal. As to the why. Idk. Its a proactive image of what the orcs saw pre invasion. Maybe the original devs and artists saw it as a nice callback and a cool login screen.