Ofcourse it’s going to get tampered with, get Oculeth and do your jobs!
But in all seriousness, why should the Night Elves leave Ashenvale?
Blizzard should just oomph it up and exand it into a propper forest, complete with mountains and mist, and huuuuuge swathes of trees and make the Night Elves a nice tree town/ city again…oh something like where the Ewoks live in Endor in Starwars, except the Ewoks are non crazed Furbolgs that serve as Night Elf manservants.
Ashenvale as a night elf-only zone, only works in the setting of W3 and games like that.
Because it was such a vital quest-area for Night Elf, Draenei, Orc, Troll and Tauren players specifically, it would be very hard to drive out the Horde and make the zone of that size, be a questing experience just for one faction.
It could work, but then Blizzard should also make Southern Barrens a Horde-only questing location.
They shouldn’t - but the villages there do not seem quite enough.
The reasoning behind Eldre’Thalas as a choice is the following:
Why not though? Yeah, it would mean more work for Blizzard, I understand that, but you could expand Ashenvale, make it bigger, and by saying so I don’t mean make the '‘Ashenvale map’ itself bigger, I mean, add more area maps, like Darkshore, Felwood, etc. Make it bigger add more segments to Ashenvale.
You could still have Horde questing in Ashenvale, but the deeper into the forests you go, you come into Night Elf territory, and somewhere deep, or just nothern ways into the forest you have the Night Elves new ‘capital’, either a huge city or a hub connected to several smaller towns scattered and hidden in the deep forests.
Yeah, maybe even in a hidden valley through a cave system, or something.
Thinking about it, I do agree with the need and want for some old ruins, to complement the treehouses etc, I guess that would be very fitting to Night Elf thematics aswell.
But a whole city made of stone like Eldre’thalas, I just think that’s more Highborne, and not Druidic kaldorei, which would be a shame, in my opinion, because that, the later part, is actually what sets the Night Elves apart from all the other Elves we have in Warcraft these days.
I’m just saying, things could be expanded, remember that Teldrassil came out of nowhere about 4(?) years after the events of Warcraft 3?
The Night Elves thing is they don’t need to cut down healthy trees, they never did so, so why should they do so now?
And about the stone, are you sure? You saw the 'ruins atop of Teldrassil? Were they at the bottom of the sea and got lifted as the tree grew?(seems really weird, they wouldn’t naturaly be in the condition they are in then, if that was the case) Or did the Night Elves actually build them there or something? Strange, but would seem more likely, realisticly speaking, perhaps their druidic magic caused them to be overgrown, as even that part is a bit out of the ordinary, if you think about it.
Well, the Shen’dralar specifcally are not these “Zin-Azshari style-city supremist” people.
They are probably the most forest-dwelling Highborne around. Remember, Eldre’Thalas was built in the middle of the dense woodland of Feralas.
After they were exiled by the Horde, they spent years wandering those very forests, trying to ween themselves off the demonic taint.
Any restorations to their city will involve a lot of forest-themes, because the Druids of Feralas won’t allow the Highborne to start burning trees. The Highborne will just have to rebuild and restore around nature.
I don’t think Astranea is asking for “Zin-Azshari 2.0!” If we go into it - the artist of this has clearly done her research into the Shen’dralar specifically.
Bashal’Aran already started this.
It makes sense for Darkshore to be used in this instance.
Ashenvale has problems, such as that little Horde base near the Zoram Strand.
Thank you. I don’t. And yes. The artist who made those image seems to have thought very well about the Shen’dralar.
Elegant columns among trees: that’s a proper Night Elf look, as we have also very well seen in Darnassus where we had wooden buildings and a stone temple.
It should be a place of beautiful peaceful balance between nature and arcane.
As creatures shaped by the magical energies of the Well of Eternity, I really hope that in time the Night Elves can find a proper equilibrium between those two aspects of themselves. The Druidic Balance spec proves that Nature and the Arcane do not necessarily have to conflict with each other, so hopefully now that the Shen’dralar were accepted and even fought side by side with the Darnassians in Darkshore, the Night Elves finally ‘make peace’ with their own magical origins, and learn to master magic as a simple aspect of Nature without falling into temptation to abuse it.
But I really, seriously don’t care about a Zin-Aszhari 2.0. That’s long past, and the Night Elves should have learned better by now.
And that’s exactly why I think Eldre’Thalas would work better than Nordrassil as a new capital. My reasoning is that after what has happened with the Great Sundering, the druids would (should?) fiercely object to the urbanization of the Well and might rather want to keep Nordrassil for themselves as an Order in order to protect it from exploitation.
I do have a copy though checking it thoroughly, it doesn’t state that the Horde held onto Dire Maul. Rather, external info like Traveller instead suggest the ogres just suffered a regime change from their old god corrupted king to a new one.
The Horde does hold territory just outside but generally speaking, Feralas is more ogre land than anyone elses. The elves are pushed to the north and coastline while the Horde have tauren and allied ogre settlements inland.
Eldre’Thalas could possibly be reclaimed but it’s a considerable provocation to the other regional powers.
It becoming a Horde city would lorewise make more sense, hear me out.
Dire maul got cleaned out by adventurers right?
The night elves got mostly booted from kalimdor.
The Stonemaul clan (ogres) is allied/affiliated with the Horde (through rexxar) and has a foothold in Feralas.
The Stonemaul clan taking over the ruins would make more sense, since they’re part of the horde are already nearby and the ruins are cleared by other people.
Easy pickings.
But anything can be written in such a way to make “stuff happen”. This is for me, at the moment the most logical and “natural” way of going about it, without any special treatment by writters.
As a side note: I believe the Chronicles aren’t as reliable anymore, as they have stated pre-BFA. Don’t really know when it was said, if I can find the post on their media feeds I’ll link it.
Funny thing being, other people feel that having Eldre’thalas rebuilt as kaldorei city is pretty likely due to Sentinel Fortress on the coast of Feralas.
The argument is that the Alliance has more presence there than the Horde, since they hold an entire military stronghold vs a small tauren camp.
Also I was told that since the majority of the night elves’ veteran troops being sent down to Feralas to respond to the Silithus feint was a plot point in how the Horde was able to steamroll through Darkshore as hard as it did, Feralas can be still considered at least partly under Night Elf control.
You have a point about the Ogres, though. I am sure they wouldn’t like it. 
Not really, actually it now even more likely that there will be more night elf on the mainland of Kalimdor since Teldrassil is gone.
I would rather like to see Ogers in an area that is more like Highmaul to be honest.
I understood it with all the refugees in Stormwind that they were mostly brought there.
Feralas is quite a bad place to hold-out, it’s a stronghold not a city that’s located there, great for having a foothold and a defensive location, but not really a place to house refugees for a long time.
But maybe the island can be taken back rom the naga (as is supposed to be the case after cata) and be repurposed for temporary refugee camps.
I do get the ogre thing though, although it’s also quite interesting to see how an elven ruin would develop when it’s run by ogres with the aid of the Horde, maybe even blood elves or nigthborne helping out.
A weird combination of elven and ogre/orcish structures xD
They have already been driven out of Ashenvale in BfA, it’s a Horde zone now lore wise.
I actually fished out a discussion about that on the US forum:
https ://wow.gamepedia.com/Ashenvale#Battle_for_Azeroth
Doesn’t say anything about Ashenvale being under Horde control. All it states is that during the War, Alliance soldiers and sentinels were pouring into Ashenvale, attacking Horde outposts all across the forest.
But Elaria always says the Night Elves are extinct, so I just play on her words.
Why are Night Elves even getting extra features if they’re extinct? God…
I suppose that means Blood Elves are also extinct because of the Third War…?
…just lol.
More seriously, however, Since Veadsarias recently stated that the ingame system is the best way to make suggestions for WoW I have submitted a suggestion in-game about this and now I am going to try and push the idea as much as I can on Twitter (as I am trying to doing on mmo-champ), although that might not be of much use I am afraid, since I just recently opened the account. 
If you like the idea and you are a Twitter user, please help share the word!
Good luck to you 
I don’t do social media (the whole political “he said, she said, we said, they said” lark is so horrible), but I will support the idea fully.
I know some might say to me:
“Leia, your against Night Elf Mages getting a big city like Suramar!” That is akin to something I’ve said in the past.
No, what I’m against is the unrealistic - as in, Night Elves getting Suramar and kicking the Nightborne out or sharing the city with the Nightborne, whilst waging a war with the Horde (Nightborne’s allies), for Ashenvale and Darkshore. That doesn’t make sense.
Reclaiming Eldre’Thalas is realistic. Now some might say “but Blizzard will cut content with removing the dungeons…” To that, I say - well, who was really a fan of the Dire Maul dungeons anyway? We’ve got Classic, if your feeling nostalgic.
What can I say, I am usually not quite fond of social medias myself, but I was impressed at how some other suggestions I have been trying to support on this forum and mmo suddenly got near-viral because of a single Tweet by a wowhead editor a few weeks back. Got me wonder if that may catch Blizzard’s attention, and if it may be worth trying to push ideas I support over there as well.
But back to the main topic: I do not see the revamping of the area would cause any loss of old dungeons nowadays, since we have zone phasing! Going there could still work through LFG as well as just having a quick talk to Chromie.
Whereas leveling players going through the Cata-Vanilla experience will just default to the old area with Darnassus as a working Night Elf hub?
That’s what happens now anyway. I still have my low level elves parked there… 
Looks awesome to me. Would be cool to see a Classic area brought to splendor in such a way. Loved the lore of Dire Maul and would love to see the Night Elves back there.
Only if they find the" nuke orgrimar with the wrath of 5000 dying sun’s spell tome".
Otherwise what’s the point?
Both a pretty place for the nelf fans and a chance of game development in the future?
We could have a quest line where we gradually take control of the area and only the last phase unlocks the capital features for the hub.
Then there is dungeon/raid potential to reclaim the area and secure the “Forbidden Athenaeum” or whatever the place where Azshara’s scrolls were held is called.
Not to mention, some new big bad might logically try and acquire them at some point.