Rommath carrying the city on his back like Atlas.
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Mordent doing exactly the same, but not crying about it at every turn he gets. 
Instead, per the newest PTR, instead of crying about non-Elven magical schools like the Kirin Tor, this chad of an Archmage just starts up his own school of magic(I preffer it to be (Night) Elven-only, alas, I fear it will not be)
Perhaps Rommath could learn from Mordents can-do attitudd, instead of crying about what has been as if he’s just the ancient relics he considers his Kaldorei ancestors to be
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Which is why the Horde raid might also be a huge problem. The experts can now only teach from their memories because most of the books they had are either gone or left in the ruins of Eldre´Thalas.
In terms of experts knowing everything, I´m not so sure. The more a research field is developed, the harder it becomes to keep up. And while immortal elf probably solves that problem, he might suffer from another one, best described as: I know best.
Probably everyone has had an experience with older person who automatically dismissed you because “you´re young, you don´t know what you´re talking about”. Now imagine if that person hasn´t been 2 times as old as you, but 50. And, having studied archaeology at university, finding out that those old, respected archaeologists outright ignore last 20-30 years of progress in the field and interpretation of artifacts has been quite eye opening.
I agree, however at the end of the day, it becomes a question of math. When you (and I´m using random numbers here just to illustrate my point) reduce the society of 50 000 into 1 000, you´re going to have fewer people able to contribute towards its development than a society that kept growing.
I don´t think they lost way more. Blood elves lost 90% of their population. Shen´dralar killed off majority of their city´s inhabitants, so even 1200 years ago they might have been in worse state in terms of population percentage than blood elves now, and then they lost majority of the remainder to the Horde.
If anything, I´d compare them to current high elves, who are a minority of a minority. But, unlike high elves, Shen´dralar didn´t have that connection to other races that were doing better until they rejoined the world in Cataclysm. Nowadays, it´s unlikely they´re worse than other mages (unless they have severe case of afforementioned old guy syndrome) precisely because they no longer solely rely on their own research.
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Not that I’m not enjoying these conjectures, I just feel like speculating about population and relative strength of mages is pointless when in the end Blizzard will write what they find cool.
Lorewise population has never stopped them from depicting nations supposedly on the brink of extinction fielding massive armies, and spellcasters are exactly as strong or as weak as needed to support a particular story, common sense be damned.
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-Turns and stares at Void Elves-
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It’s also worth mentioning the high/blood elves have been shown to consistantly reverse engineer or adopt new things. Such as the magic the Amani used in the troll wars or the Anima golems.
There’s no real point in this. It’s like arguing who does it better; four blokes in tweed jackets in their shed in the cotswolds or a dedicated institute.
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I did the Institute ending in Fallout 4 and I know it definitely isn’t those idiots.
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I know, but Val’sharah is given Emerald dream vibes, that is day time, light - which is gorgeous, but I was loving the imagining of a forest of the night that the Arden weald showed.
fun fact, Val’sharha is classic ancient night elf forest, Suramar is classic ancient kaldorei wonder city.
Sad fact is many don’t see Suramar as kaldorei - which makes you think that they only consider places with ruins and partially devastated forests as kaldorei, but can’t imagine a pristine city or serene forest as kaldorei.
I’m sure, some people just like the hippie druid aspect of night elves, some only the female warrior sentinel side of them, and others still the dark elf wizard caster - that’s fine, most races have several fantasies to them, not just one - if you remember the human mage, the human warrior and the human priest and human paladin - there is also the blood elf wood elf Farstrider fantasy, the blood elf magister (high elf mage ) fantasy and the blood elf blood knight fantasy… it’s good.
I noticed many fans of the kaldorei arcane side went to the horde with the Nightborne, but the point is showing all the cool aspects of the night elves in -game and showing how cool they are in-game.
The books have great events and scenes when they are truly incredible, and the lore describes them as epic, but in-game when we quest with them whether it’s against the horde or doing something, they are rather under whelming.
The lore also describes their great forests and great cities too, highly civilised lot they are, and great mastery in both the arcane and nature, in fact , it’s legendary, it would be bad just to see druids only faffing around, never actually displaying true power, or their mages essentially never doing anything, never leading or solving impossible problems or really out magicking others… and off course never seeing the civilization side of the night elves.
to be frank the night elf main fantasy is a post apocalypse war, most of the earth’s cities are in ruins, and the survivors, the ones who won, but at great cost are hardened lot, hiding from the insidious legion enemy, in vast desolate lands of the ancient world full of ruins - you can imagine quests in ruins, and scenes stumbling across an ancient city in some long abandoned forest or ruin , vast and seemingly untouched for millennia… This is where the main kaldorei group preside, the female warrior sentinels and their leaders the sisterhood of Elune - a hunting pack - note this changes after wc3,
That’s the main land fantasy, but by no means the only one, there are 3 others, there is the serene forest community, in a tranquil beautiful forest, peaceful, magical and full of nature wonder, etc, like you entered a different age - this is where the druids cater.
Then there is the pristine advanced magical city, full of arcane magic, wonder, highly civilised, beyond anything around, sorta like the advanced race, hiding in plain sight - the draenei have this fantasy before the orcs attack, their cities were hidden with technology… however for the night elves it’s really only two pristine cities that survive the sundering, Eldre’thalas, magically disguised as ruin but who actually fell to ruin 9,000 years later to it’s current condition they are trying to rebuild and half of Suramar that didn’t sink into the ocean. This is the great contrast to the ruins, and the opposite to the forest, but it’s still night elven.
finally you have the driven , hell scape that the demon hunter Illidari occupy, always going into the hell parts of the world ferreting out demons, scarred by fel, doing deplorable things to gain the power they feel they must have to finally defeat this evil. It’s an arid wasteland - not ruins in long forgotten forest , or tranquil serene glades, or magical pristine cities, no these are arid lands, fel pocked, demons hunting people for raw energy and magic, seeking who they may devour, sometimes going into inhabited areas, and the demon hunters are always the first on the scene pushing back this evil… life is constant struggle, and they are powerful, always training, always fighting (think of those animes like bleach or DBZ, where they are always training and fighting)) that’s the fantasy here with a demon scape instead.
These 4 together are pretty much the night elf world. It’s not the world of the EK, with human kingdoms, lots of politicking, struggles and fights between trolls and high elves, orcs and humans, dwarves and troggs etc - no, it’s an ancient world, they have a whole different set of challenges and life, you have naga and satyr here, deep, powerful and ancient magic, you have hippogriffs, not Gryphons, greater powerful Sabercats with claws, not horses - they live in the Night, nocturnal, not during the day, here the main skin colour is purple , the purple of the arcnae, and silver of the light of the moon and stars, the arcane light - it’s deep magical an mysterious, foreign and alien to the more normal
this is the night elf world, and of everywhere in Azeroth, the Broken isles is the one that captured all of it. it captured the priesthood and the Temple and Cathedral to Elune, it had the great ruins and long deserted forested, but also had the tranquil forest glade and the pristine night elven city, then it also had the felpocked lands and areas where the demons were been fought.
you saw night elf lore legends like Suramar, Black Rook Hold, Warden Vaults and Moonguard Stronghold, the great Cathedral of Eternal night. Night elf world. Ancient world.
So when it comes to the kaldorei, and you do stuff or them, you kinda have to do and show that breath, currently Amirdrassil is a tree, but there is no power, their is no re-vitalisation, no temple, no night elf city, but all the characters are there, so maybe it’s a start.
Your reanimation of a discussion that ended twenty days ago aside, I can’t think of any reason why Amirdrassil should feature literally every single facet of the night elves throughout the history of the setting like you seem to want it to. It’s focused on the current incarnation of the night elves, who are more primal and in tune with nature than anything else.
Your complaint is sort of like claiming that Stormwind City fails as a human city because it doesn’t incorporate elements of Gilneas, Kul Tiras, Stromgarde, Dalaran and Lordaeron. The thing is, Stormwind City was never meant to represent the entirety of humanity throughout all of space and time, nor was Amirdrassil ever meant to represent the entirety of night elven culture throughout all of space and time. I’m not sure what the source of that expectation is.
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No, it´s because night elves as a society transformed after War of the Ancients, where the non-Highborne members of this society abandoned their Arcane roots, while the Highborne fought to keep them, resulting in dynamic where races such as high/blood elves and Nightborne are spiritual heirs of Kaldorei Empire, while the night elves are something different.
Not a thing for night elves until Cata, when the last remnants of the last Highborne group that still looked like ordinary night elves was allowed back into the society. But, at large, they are not some Arcane wizard society and haven´t been for the last 10 000 years.
I have yet to see anyone portray the vast wilderness that are night elven territories as some post-apocalyptic hellscape.
“If you want great magical cities in style of old kaldorei empire, the Horde is there waiting for you.”
The evil has been defeated in Legion. Also, Illidari are outcasts and also thematically split between night and blood elves anyway.
No, it´s the world you´re imagining. But, fortunately, in this case Blizzard follows the theme they´ve set up for night elves in the lore and makes the Shen´dralar as only small part of night elf society, settled in predominantly nature and Elune-focused city, while the Illidari, DKs and Dark Rangers are on the outskirts, in place filled with those who are still night elves, but stand on the edges of their society.
I really love how my claim about night elf stans only being appeased by epic allmighty Zin-Azshari 2.0 just keeps being proven true.
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Giving nelf players the mage class was a mistake and should never have been done.
On PTR stuff, do you know if the town can be reached with a character that have not done the raid/patch now?
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“Your character is an independent adventurer who learned the relevant skills from another culture” is an explanation that works for almost any unusual race-class combination. What shouldn’t have been done is writing silly and inconsistent story justifications for these combinations.
Yes. There is a portal in Stormwind that can be entered even by low-level characters.
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In an ideal world, some class/race combos wouldn’t be available at a character creation screen and people would have to discover how to take on some in-game quest detailing how one becomes just that if it’s a low requirement class in the lore such as Monks. Some should never be available due to racial or cultural differences, like how you’re born with the talent for Shamanism but you can’t learn it no matter how hard you try. Others like DK could send you on a long campaign with any character/class of your choice and have them fail at whatever last stand final quest and be revived then serve the LK as a DK thus class changing you.
I don’t know how hard or easy it would be to do this as presented… But they should have done it for peak immersion. It is what it is.
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I exagerate to be snappy, I’m sorry. In general I’m in favor of classes being available to everyone because you can tell good stories, it’s just a specific subset of Nelf players who goes “well the Kaldorei have the best druids, and the best hunters, and the best rogues, and the best whatever, and the best mages” that annoys me.
On the town stuff it’s great, thank you!
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That actually seems sensible!
Suppose classes had the equivalent of allied race recruitment questlines. When creating an account, you would start with only the culturally approved race/class combinations unlocked. To unlock, say, mages for races that don’t normally have them, you would need to complete a questline capturing the essence of what it means to be a mage.
Maybe you would have to do it on an existing character who’s that class, who could then appear in the warband UI and be shown training your other characters of that class.
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The bad side of the idea is that this sort of questline would inevitably mean using something else as an example, which wouldn’t always be too good. Nearly all the new class unlocks wouldn’t, in fact. The warlock questline showed only fel and demons, but no Shadow or soul manipulations aside from soulstones, and the same can be applied to everyone. What kind of paladins will we take an example from, Silver Hand, Blood Knights or someone else? Which racial tradition would be a base for a future generic shaman? This looks too much like Legion order halls, and it’s anything but the best idea.
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Unlocking DK was originally going to require completing a questline on an existing character.
They changed it before Wrath release to just be a level gate requirement to make a new one.
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Very fair!
Monk should have been and still should be pandaren only.
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I disagree with that. I don’t mind the concept of a character of a race being able to choose classes that don’t fit the core fantasy of that race, especially if those classes are taught by another culture or learned from another culture.
That’s what makes how Legion paladins were handled bad, while how monks are handled is good.
All monks have very strong pandaren aesthetics because all monks are taught the pandaren way - that makes sense to me. It’s just logical that the class order hall and class campaign of the monks in Legion would be pandaren-focused, because that’s the foundation that the entire class is built on.
Despite the fact that there are several different cultures that have their own versions of paladins, all of the paladins in Legion were forced into a very human-centric class hall and class story - that doesn’t make sense to me.
There is one argument against non-pandaren monks which I can think of, which is:
If you want to play such a pandaren-focused class, why not play a pandaren in the first place?
And my answer to that is that there can be something appealing about playing a character that explores concepts that exist outside of their racial culture, that breaks free of their racial stereotype to become something else.
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