By switching to past Darkshore via Zidormi you can also access Teldrassil (and Darnassus). Same as you do with Tirisfall Glades and Undercity.
If you want to do old quests or group with someone doing the old quests the option is there for many zones who have new phases - it started in MoP I think so the Blasted lands has two phases, you speak to a bronze flight member to catch the old version. Adly it’s not intelligent, but it gives you the ability to choose the new zone.
I would love the night elf new home to be actually at the top of a tree like this
Massive beautiful forest at the base.
But look at the top, a huge lake of power… and a city all around the edges of the lake,
I would add a grove in an island in the middle of the magical lake (like the transferred or duplicate Well of Eternity, or a new one, call it a Star well)
The city would be pure marble like Zin’Azshari here and Suramar combined
But note, amidst the beautiful buildings… look how much nature there is!. You show the druidic nature love of the night elves, not by wooden buildings, you show it by
- It being atop of an actual tree
- It having gardens, and parks amidst the gorgeous buildings, some roof tops have gardens atop them, some buildnigs have vines flowing down
- You have a grove in the middle of an island… possibly a great temple on another, and then the main city on another massive central island, with city all around the edges of the lake.
Look at these images.
I love this one here, a mini forest on top of this building - it is SO night elven, and it’s gorgeous.
Blizzard has already correctly imagined a night elf civilization and city. Look at it. You see it in Suramar too if you watch the gardens and city videos I linked above…
and
It’s all there - it has the both the city concepet that fits the night elves, and it is a night elven city, it’s got nature in it, like no other race has - you don’t need rural buildings to show nature.
And it’s got more, lots of crescent symbols, Moon gems, star effects both in the air and on the walls you even have constellation like markings in addition to crescent moons glowing with power.
Lots more trees than Silvermoon ever had.
they’ve already done the concept, and already built a city, they just need to duplicate it correctly for the playable original kaldorei.
1 Like
the style is unmistakable, and it consistent. Check Surmar, check Cathedral of Eternal Night, then check the ruins, all the new models, whether in Azsuna, Val’Sharah, Suramar or Naz’jatar, and the ones that we redone in Darkshore for 8.1 - consistent.
If you do a night elf city, this is what they have designed for the night elves. What I don’t understand is those who want to say a cool night elven city, shouldn’t be what night elves get!
Are you kididng me? you mean the design for night elves is this good, an this cool, and you don’t want night elves to have it - I guess only the horde should get the nice things, especially the ones from the alliance races. 
1 Like
i agree they should get a new city with compliments from the alliance a giant smoking hole 
1 Like
Jokes aside, I don’t think a horde city has ever been destroyed. I know the horde assaulted their cities a couple of time, and the alliance supported… but 8.1 Dazar’alor was the first time in wow the alliance did it by themselves, but they didn’t win.
Alliance has had Stormwind fall totally (rebuilt years later)
Dalaran also fall (rebuilt years later too - but no longer allinace)
Gnomeragan partially destroyed (they still reclaiming it)
Lordaeron also destroyed
Exodar is a crashed ship - not a city
Gilneas - partially destroyed and occupied
Theramore - totally destroyed
Darnassus - totally destroyed
in fairness part of Lordaeron stayed open - but horde
Suramar was built, a second night elf city - but it and it’s night elf sub race went horde
Could use at least
- A Draenei city - after the WoD work that should be easy
- A night elf city - after the Suramar, Nar’thalas and Zin’Azsahri work - should be easy
- A void elf city would be nice - because it would look awesome.
- Gilneas reclaimed
Whatever made them think night elf fans would want Lordaeron to replace Teldrassil - hey let’s take more from other alliance race and build up humans more. NExt thing you know, the horde would get Draenei and Dwarf cities, and dwarves would move into either Stormwind, Stromgarde or Lordaeron - because you know no other alliance race but humans exist and we just don’t seem to care about anything else
2 Likes
There are other options:
We should also consider them just giving the Night elves Suramar and building the nightborne a new city
Or, Give Night elves and void elves Suramar to live in, and Nightborne and Blood elves get updated Silvermoon
Have Night elves and Nightborne share Suramar - seriously, it’s good enough
Have Blood/High elves and Void elves share Silvermoon - a new updated model. There is a blue half of Silvermoon, the half that was in ruins, now restored, and there is a void zone Silvermoon, in the void realm, SIlvermoon has void colours and swaps the golden phoenix wings for void wings (obviously some lore will accomopany how all of this happens - it’s not had to see void elves guard thier homeland from void incursions by staying in the void zone of Silvermoon, htere they watch the sunwelll area against Ethereal attacks or something like that.
@ new elven cities is probably what players want the most + an updated Silvermoon, but it would be much easier and probably make for better drama if they share.
Lore for Sharing
There is so much to be creative here, I mean current circumstances are easy to write this.
Nightborne/Blood elf share - well they are already friends, and it’s just the nightborne pushed out of Suramar
Night elf/void elf share - use highborne link between Shen’dralar/Darnassian highborne and void elves, night warrior void interest with priestesses, druids needing help with void in Nightmare = very close relationship. Maybe void evles choose to reembmer Tyrande is the reason the Sunstrider’s survived Azshara’s palace and Tyrande again helping KAel’thas iin WC3 , TFt. Maybe Daranssian now proven wronga bout magic, apologise for the exile
Night elf/nightborne sharing - could be hostile or peace baed. Could actually be good freinds even though in opposite factions. Nightborne quests have them really like their kaldorei base, owing the Darnassians too for the 1st invasion - a group they are actually related to (same city), also night elves is why Nightborne survive - Arcan’dor, and the Moonguard and Val’sahrah priests and druids in the campaign. nothing to say that nightborne can’t be close to both blood elves and night elves - even if blood elves are more responsive on average than Night elves + makes for a lot of interesting stories.
Anyway, night elves and nightborrne shouldn’t bec aring more for faction hostilities than their commonalitiy and need for survival now they are all very muchnearer extinction. Maybe they instead choose to be closer despite faction lines and instead work togehter to to figure out how to steer both factions for things like global defense (making sure their hatreds don’t stop them or preventing global threat tyrants like Arthas/Garrosh/Sylvannas from arising - who knows. you can be very creative
BLood/high/void - well as mentioned earlier, void elves stay in the void zone where they guard t he area of QUelt’halas, so basically it’s a void version of Silvermoon and QUel’thalas = recouloing of the two zones… rather than just a purple sky like we have for the void zone of Mac’aree - even Silvermoon can be recoloured.
How they all get to be back in Silvermoon can be a creative story . You can go a war approach, - alliance being the aggressors, high elves/void elves leaving the charge, but in the midst of it, another huge void attack occurs, and now they all have to work together to repel the void from having a permanent breach in Azeroth and destroying the sunwell or inverting it. And so they figure out a way to guard… all the Thalassian major groups are involved. On the alliace the void evles and smaller high ellves, on the horde the blood elves (even San’layn help)
But there are many stories you can weave, the end result is they set up a council to work toogether to guard Azeroth, from Quel’thalas. Both factions are involved but the Thalassians insist that Thalassians will handle it on behalf of the factions. Void elves represnting the alliance, blood elves the horde - they need each other anyway. High elves ofc now back.
You can l iterally write anything
Blizzard taking the sharing option is probably the most practical solution.
If Silvermoon is ever going to be anywhere as well done as Suramar, it’s gonna need to be a Thalassian elf focused expansion : and it’ss goingt o involve void elves who desperately need more lore /building adn the alliance who also needs it - but at the same time the blood elves do need updates in a way the draenei don’t as they got updated models in WoD as did the night elves in Legion
Logic dictates that you solve these 3 birds in one stone.
You save resources of making anew void elf city, , night elf city and draenei cities (improving the alliance) and also updating Silvermoon by
- Just updating SIlvermoon - and using it as the centre for both void/high elves and blood elves.
You have the lore of the void realm - make so Silvermoon in the void realm dimension of Quelthalas is where the void elves stay, and you alter it a little, with a different colouring to the zone and the city… tha’ts it
Meanwhile you make Silvermoon serve as t the place for both high elves and blood elves - giving it s blue side (the current ruins bit restored) and it’s red half.
You then update off course the entire zone including Quel’danis and make it a end game zone for the Dragon isles with a void incursion story too that will explain why the void elves are there. Create lore to explain why
- Broken Isles, Suramar and those zones seriously have all the night elves neeed. They share that too - this obviously makes sense from the original campaignn and the lore of the city - it’s easy to see how… you just have to make sure your new lor makes it clear the night elves and nightborne priroitise saving their race and steering the horde/alliance away from hurting each other a greater priorrity than their faction oyalties - you can invent a story of how that happens.
You absically use lore and save yourself building a new city, that night elves will be happy about… just do it in a way that thea lliance fans would be really glad, and the horde fans actually pleased too - especially if their faction is shown as compassionate or not evil
I think emphasising the fact that most Nightboren almost unseated Thalyssra for staying with the horde, and showing moving moments of THalyssra convincing their people that thea ctions of Sylvanas were ceretianly not what they stood for, but leaving the horde would destablisise theh world more, it was better to try and help from within and hope that thier brothers the kaldorei would understand.
Meanwhile you can show a period where nightborne were actively and secretly helping kaldorei escpae, though they arrived very late - to aid corproation you could use one of the highborne visiting Suramar for hep during the war of thorns… and because of the tensions nightborne had been hiding or rather keeping secret making a haven for nighit elves.
This admittedly does make the horde look very good, eeven show some blood elves who despite hating the alliance, some actually are no where near as hate filled as Lorash, and supported, this nightborne led thing, though kept their support very secret, amidst their colleagues who would have their heads for it.
You can make the gnightelves look good and love it by maybe restoring the Farondis and having them aid in the Ashenvale batles agaisnt the orcs, showing them power up further with the welll oof eternity, Emearld dream and night warrior powers being commanded and kickassing in Kalimdor… but on the roken isels, you can see their increased presence causing haters to stir conflict, and them working wtih the nightborne to steer the factions awayway from conflict.
Both elven lands at the end of the story ar ein a state of, we are not fighting or hating each other (the majority), while you do have a noticeable minority in both Thalassians and night elves that can’t let hatreds die and seek to cause conflict and ruin… Then this is a struggle of those who are holding unity in spite of faction differences ,and those who oppose it.
Meanwhile looming threats like the void for the Tahlassians in Quel’thalas and the need to either work togehter to rebuild or become extinct for the night elves/ nightborne
It has all the nuance, the high moments of the elves working together, the rality of hatreds, the complexities and nuances - and enough to appeal to everyone, to those who want coproration adn those who want faction conflict. in the mean time you save resources designing a while ne 2 new cities.
ANd face it, can give a much lower quality of work for places like Eldre’thalas etc in the revamp.
A sharing story could actually be a more intersting a pproach too, and while the fans would definitely prefer 2 new alliance elven cities, if it’s good enough, this solution will do well overall allowing focus on other things to prevail. Why build 3 new elven cities if you can get away with one really good one,a nd a very engaging set of stories to show how they can share and work togehter desptie being in oppsoite factions in a way that fits the elves…who face it, shoudln’t be so into the faction hatreds in the first place… even with their differences ,t ehy have more in common and it shoudl be easy to find good reasons to work togehter as it is to have reasons not to, and having both exsits in a situation they ahve to share can be very intersting development
I dont think blood elf fans expect to have a Quel’thalas revamp and for it to be shared with Alliance races.
A quel’thalas revamp should be for the Horde, which likely includes Shal’dorei and Forsaken, as well as the Sin’dorei.
If Blood Elf fans have to expect Quel’Thalas to be shared (as well as Suramar), then that means the Draenei Isles, plus the Night Elf lands must be shared.
Draenei Isles are shared with Sin’dorei, Night Elves, Orcs, Eredar and maybe Void Elves
Night Elf lands are shared with Sin’dorei, Tauren, HM Tauren, Nightborne, Orcs, draenei, Void Elves and worgen
Why not?
Yeah, but we need new world tree and on top huge night elvish city.
well Teldrassil was and is great example. Just more night elf themed building in it.
2 Likes
- Story wise to show the night elf story, and to show the greatest improvements to the race since the really bad tragedies and losses throughout most of wow
- To show the civilization side of the night elves, which is amazing and breathtakingly beautiful - what you thought that night elves were only ruins and rural forests? - there is more, and you now get to see how much more.
- To get players excited and attract them to both the night elves and the alliance
- To give them 1 of hopefully many good stories that end in something positive, reversing 15 years of negative ones (others including regaining immortality, using the Emerald dream and well of eternity to empower their people to just look badass, using the Night warrior empowerment etc)
- To establish the night elves as a great race in the lore and in the game in the present time and fulfil their original design purpose as being the best of the dark elves and best of the forest elves (city contributes to the dark elf side)
Races off course need cities for all sorts of reasons
- Night elves need population centres to keep their forests as close to pure nature as possible (druidic objective)
- Night elves need cities for progress, development, academies, civil leadership, headquarters for organisations, operations to administer their vast zones and objectives of their classes - (mage /Highborne objective)
- Temple as a place of worship that can minister to large population centres, where others can receive a touch from Elune, wisdom from her oracles, worship, learn discipline .
- A centre for trade and national growth - cities are great for centres travellers, traders use to sell, acquire goods and services too, rather than running all over the place
- A place where the night elves can deal with foreigners, emissaries, visitors , establish communications with other races - especially if you don’t like irresponsible and trashy people roaming around your land, destroying it or invading it so
- Security and co-ordination in additional to international relationships
I mean you do realise why we have cities in our world to day and the functions and purposes they serve right?
A Culmination of Vast Experience and Knowledge
You also understand that the night elves when they were not on a 10,000 year long defense/watch and hunt for the legion mission, actually had a n incredible life where they sought knowledge, improved themselves, improved their world and allowed both elf and environment to prosper incredibly
You also realise how much of race and culture a city can show, and how you can make races interesting by showing their city life. their architecture that is different from other races (look at Zin’Azshari, Suramar etc for night elf architecture)
Their culture in that environment, customs with lots of people, especially the mysterious star culture we haven’t seen much of and how it actually plays into their lives, into city life
interaction between factions and orders, like the mage order, the priest order, even the druid order (that doesn’t typically reside in a city, but will have some leaders their to represent the order and to upkeep the parks and groves as well as gardens in the city), the military, the Wardens, etc - these all interact
You can show night elves as they are now, and it’s great we have nightborne on the horde so the horde can experience some of that, but you can also show how night elves, especially Highborne now are different from the ones we read in Azshara’s palace in the War of the Ancients - we’ve seen Farondis and how he behaves, now we can show what true and good Highborne who respect and love nature as well as venerate the goddess but are totally dedicated to the arcane
An Exploration of 15,000 years of Rising and Falling
We can explore what it was actually like for the night elves before Queen Azshara went mad, when druids, priests and mages all worked together to build the great cities and how harmony, balance and discipline worked well.
Queen Azshara’s incredible wonders (mostly produced by the Shen’dralar and often in secret) did attract many to give up other magical disciplines and strive most for the arcane, but 10,000 years later, seeing the damage addiction can cause and also seeing the wonders of nature magic which is far more advanced now, you can see how a night elf community with arcane wonders maintains it’s balance - where night elves, unlike nightborne end up sticking to their discipline ensuring that the unbalance at the end (note i say the END of Azshara’s reign) created
So basically we see them now do it right… in cities you have the wonder of civilization, in forests you have the wonder of nature, and in the temple you see the wonder of Elune and the effect the priests have on the people and what they bring.
An Excuse for more Incredible Artwork to Attract and Astound
Cities do have a lot to show about the night elves, show how creative blizzard is and how beautiful yet another race is, but now it’s fullnes, because before we only saw a portion of it, we didn’t see a night elf society operating at it’s peak in all areas, Darnassus was built without the Highborne and arcane magic. Now we can see what they can produce with everyone around and get to experience the fullness of their culture visually.
All this helps you grasp a lot more of the race. Classic only showed you a portion, choosing to largely focus on the druids, but showing no mages (who were to come later on in DIre Maul) and very little of the Moon Priestesses save their Temple, none of the Wardens (that eventually came in Legion), none of the demon hunters (which eventually come in TBC, but only properly on our side in legion).
All the elements are all over the place, most in ruin, you have no one central location or zone to collection of zones to serve as a go to example -
the broken Isles Suramar, Azsuna, Val’sharah and Broken Shore actually do show this - but this is in the context of ruin, destruction and invasion of the legion - and being an expansion it’s a facet everyone can skip now so you won’t really see it. Suramar was a good call, but it only focuses on the very specific group of night elves, called the nightborne - a night elf sub race and the circumstances of that city - it doesn’t reflect all of night elf culture, though it shows off night elf architecture well, only the arcane wing of the night elves is prominent here, no priest interactions at all, a little nature through the grove tenders and botanists, but it lacks the full breadth of the kaldorei reflected in it - it’s suitable for the shal’dorei culture it shows, so the kaldorei could use their own
either that or Suramar is updated to include the rest of the kaldorei - either works.
Conclusion - to See the Fullness
So for a night elf city, you want to see the fullness of Kaldorei civilization, at it’s very finest and most magnificent as kaldorei would live in it (not as Shal’dorei who are only a fraction of the night elf total) For a city you want something as spectacular and beautiful as Zin’Azshari - showing you the height of the night elves, but within it you want to show the night elven different orders and communities and how they operate at basically the best they’ve been - players need to see a model of the civilization that reached the highest point and what individuals who are 15,000 years old, and developed intensely in all their fields of magic (Highborne), nature (druids), and worship (priests) can do in the present. this is a testament and a massive advert call for the race.
It’s meant to be spectacular and part of what shows night elves off really well, it is designed to entice and attract warcraft players to the night race and the alliance faction it is on, so they would get involved in the fantasy and love the fantasy. You need things like cities, forests , temples (all the components of a race) you have written, being their best to draw and attract people to love them and immerse in their fantasy. night elves off course is one type of race that does cities like this, forests like this, and religion like this (already defined in lore)…but you don’t want it to be mostly in the lore pages, you want it alive for all the players to see and see how great that race i for what it is. [this is the same for every race, and what they bring]
1 Like
I remember reading a topic where a couple of people were against night elves getting anything like Suramar - thier argument was because it was Nightborne.
But then I’ve heard people ask who is Thrall so…
What was suprrising was that because Nightborne looked a little different, they couldn’t imagine Suramar was night elven. Yet you point to the ruins around, which are the exact same architecture but in ruined mode, and they had no trouble accepting that they were night elven.
Without a city, people continue to feel all night elves have are ruins and forest villages. All the more reason they need to give htem a cool city soon, or put them in Suramar alongside the nightborne. These guys had no idea Tyrande, Malfurion, illidan, Maiev, Jarod and most of the Darnassians, actually all come from that same city.
But then blizzard tells most of it’s story for night elves in books.
I’ve also heard it’s Highborne - and shake my head again, highborne are night elves, and those cities and architecture were built by their mages and druids (Ancients), and their priests also.
Who do you think built the Temples? Like the Cathedral of eternal night? it’s likely the heart of elven knowledge, and art comes from the priesthood, and the others got inspirtation from them.
The priesthood studies the well to find elune, magecraft developes from people using and applying those studies to practical things.
the priesthood out of love and admiration for Elune buiild hte most beautiful temples and Cathedrals, the others, inpsired by that also build beautiful buildings.
the arcane knoweldge and study comes from the priesthood, as does beautiful art… while magecraft develops after - people don’t realise how much the arcane, Elune adn the priesthood and nature and the forests are all intertwined, because they don’t know night elf lore.
- Suramar isa night elf city and architecture
- nigihtborne are a night elven sub-race and night elven based group
- People in Suramar are both Highborne and lowborne as well as other castes. The Priesthood is a caste in the old society (old if you’re a a Darnasisia, Kaldorei if youre Shen’dralar or Shal’dorei ) - there were many castes
- Night elven crachitecture is that grand greco-roman style you see in suramar and Zin’Azsarhari for cities, and it’s that Japanese style for rural villages and forest homes.
It is not uncommon in wow to have one style for villages and a completely different style for cities… compare Daalaran or Lordaeron to a human village like Darkshire or REdridge - see what i mean?
1 Like
The best city for Nightelfs,
I can come with two places and I bet blizzard would agree.
- The Stormwind Sewers.
- The Horde butcher house.
Oh, if I may add, technically, only the Nighthold and not all of Suramar is horde aligned
Tbh, it is not uncommon for great cities to be neutral or have multiple sections controlled by other factions.
Proposal Further Interesting Development of Suramar
- So the Nighthold and the most influential leadership of Suramar is horde aligned and blood elf friendly
- We should get the west side of the rest of the city Kaldorei aligned and friendly, where you will see druids like Farodin, and priests who came from Val’sahrah and other night elf citizens long displaced… “returning home”
- The East side would be the Quel’dorei section, and her eyou will see Highborne from the SHen’dralar/Darnassians, also High elves intermingle.
- The Kirin’tor would also be based in the city and have an embassy there, providing military support too as most of Suramar’s original defenders were destroyed in the war.
The Horde Ruling Party
The horde aligned Nightborne are the ruling party, (for now), but there are challenges from other factions. Some factions feel Thalsysra’s choice to drain the nightwell has left them severely weakened and reliant on outsdiers. However, she is supported by the kaldorei faction of the city.
The Kaldorei Philiacs
However the Nightborne of the kaldorei half are furious at Thalyssra for not committing troops and sending aid to their Kalimdor kin, many of whom have families in Suramar and were killed, denying reconciliation, they forced a vote to have the Nightborne completley withdraw from the horde and be an enemy state to it, but they lost the vote.
The Quel’dorei
The Highborne section is very keen on elven unity and restoration, the Shen’dralar spear head an inpsired and keen nobility to re-establish the glory and pride of the Elves, as a bastion of learning and advancement, - they want to restore the old cities, and show the world how to be civilised. They support both horde and alliance affliations, and have often been the hand manipulating things to that effect (they were responsible for the withdrawal vote failing), but they were also the ones that prevented the Shal’dorei from committing troops to Sylvanas’ insane kalimdor conquest - citing, that the shal’dorei cannot fight wars of hatred and domination and most lead the other s out.
They actually talked the Kirin’tor into staying in Suramar but for dual reasons, not just to help with the defense, but to aid in their elven unity and watch over the factions. The kinr’tor work with them on this.
They encourage Darnassians to stay in the alliance to help guide it and ensure it is ready to tackle world threats rather than cost valuable wars through horde fighting
Make sure the Nightborne remain influential and strong within the horde in order to guide it away from ignoring world threats for petty hatreds
They also use these elves in the factions to watch out for potential threats, future Sylvanas’
Thalyssra: “The People of Suramar owe these heroes a debt we can never fully repay. I will stand with them until the end.”
She may be horde out of blood elf love, but those words are reason enough Kirin’tor and night elves will be in the city
It also should make Thalyssra’s role in faction conflicts far more tenuous, while she aids the horde, she doesn’t directly commit the whole nightborne too their causes.
What happens is that in Suramar, citizens choose what they want to do, horde help cannot be criticised when there is a Kaldorei philiac quarter constnatly helping the kaldorei (and thus alliance) out. The diffeerence is that as leader, this allwos her to aid the horde more openly, which is what Dalaran tends to do with the alliance too,despite being a “neutral city”, the human mage leadership is alliance, same with Suramar, despite “neutral” the Nightborne leadership is horde.
But she does though.
She committed the Nightborne to be both soldiers and arcanists to the Honourbound and she and her Nightborne Archers were also involved with the Horde, as they attacked the Banshee Loyalists.
Disclaimer
Remember this is now in the realm of development, so it is looking into thinngs that might happened, based on what we know, but it is also taking the opportunity to fill in the blanks and making decisions on things we are not sure of currently to steer the situation to this outcome.
Bear in mind this is exploring a realistic and possible situation in that city. This is not saying that this is the situation now, as we only have the information we have currently which isn’t much. Currently, Thalyssra and the group of Nightborne in the Nighthold section are horde. That’s all that’s canon - how the rest of the city views it, whether she has support, rivals, different factions with political goals, others plotting or scheming for various allegiances and alliances etc… is not known. How you want to develop this is based on how interesting you want it to be and what the end result is to be. Whether it’s just to make Suramar and the Nightborne interesting or to make Suramar also a kaldorei capital
Saying that, this is my response:
That could be true, but it only stands as far as her power reaches. the nightborne really haven’t shown any loyalty to anyone, and we only have Thalyssra’s word, Thalyssra who also praises night elves, allows the Kirin’tor through, and let’s alliance races around. CAn you trust her word?
The thing is, in civilizations like that, your hold on power would be really tenuous unless you were very very p owerful and very very clever.
I would not be surprised that
- Not the entire city agrees with her
- She rules because her heorics during the war - but let’s face it, it’s the class hero, the kaldorei, the sin’dorei ad the Kirin’tor that liberated Suramar and the city would remember.
- It would remember it is kaldorei, and has friends there
- It would remember the Kirin’tor
- It would remember the sin’dorei too
- It would play it’s own politics too
So, if you were going to develop the situation in the city, you would want a more complex nuanced state,
And you thought it was happily ever after for Suramar after the Nighthold raid.
Ofc, the most likely event is that we would get zero development, the second most likely is that the Nightborne and blood elves live happily ever after, where everyone loves each other and respects everyone else, have zero recollection or memory of all the other complexities and reasons tehy are around and what that means.
But the truth is, we haven’t seen the horde in control of the city at all, the city politics may be far more complicated than it usually is for old style blizzard faction cities where everyone in the faction was completely united behind and happy with only people in their faction and hated everyone else. Suramar’s situation is unique
- They’re a night elven city saved twice by their own kin, but now would stand against in arms?
- Their city is basically international centre and they are people who want to show their superior ways to everyone - are they just satisfied purely on one side?
- Sides surely cannot mean that much to them both in the context of how Suramar is liberated, and the fact that hey are part of an ancient people whose ethos, goals and priority should far outstrip petty rivalries.
Also when people see a great city, their impression of the race will change. It actually makes you more interested funnily enough, and even though it’s a false sense of pride, as person who has picked the night elves, you feel much more proud of your race.
Also, those who haven’t been interested all of a sudden are a lot more interested.
Why do you think people have no trouble attributing the ruins in Nar’thalas or Suramar or Kalimdor to night elves, but a few have trouble with Suramar? Because Suramar is really nice and in spite of the lore don’t want a race associated with theenemy faction having any thing to do with it or replicate it, so it remains theirs… i know a bit silly right.
But when all we had to show for the night elven civilization, the Highborne, and the height of their empire was ruins like Dire Maul, Vash’jir, Bashal’aran Ordil’aran, Zoram , Sargeron etc etc etc, none of the other elf fans were interested in night elves or Highborne, in fact many kept dissociating their blood elf identity with the highborne.
When they saw Suramar, all of a sudden, they were very keen to embrace this identity. Even though in lore, Blood elves only care about their own highborne ancestors, not the caste, they have no love nor desire for night elven highborne, only the Sunstrider line, whom they are very proud of fought the Legion in places like Menaar and zin’Azshari.
Yet, i have seen Blood elf fans call themselves highborne even, which isn’t technically true. They are descendants of Highborne, and in lore they do not identify with the caste based on what they consider a failed kaldorei civilization.
But why the change? A city, blizzard showed how incredible the night elves, led by highborne were, and this meant claiming rights and proud rights for Suramar, and it changed how they felt, but also got them much more interested.
many hated the questing in Suramar mechanics wise because of having to dodge the guards, but loved the fantasy and art work of the night elven empire shown their.
This is how effective doing a great city for a race can be. The same thing happened with the Zandalari and trolls in BFA.
it pays.
I loved Suramar, it was so beautiful. It was a pleasure to quest in.
It is a shame that Blizzard are so terrible at giving races a new home after they destroy theirs.
OR continue the story in the city, and make more of them for more stories for races.
Race stories and campaigns that involve a lot of going out but also stuff in the city that shows more of the race, their culture but also their challenges as they grew, recover, evolve etc.
Even with the nightborne going horde, Suramar was/is interesting enough to play a role in not only both factions but the elven race as a whole. The very strong ties the Darnassiasn have to it, simply diminish the entire story by just ignoring or removing it in favour of “faction separation”. I would weave a story regardless… besides why should night elves be that concerned with factions and put human and orc hatreds above the very clear need they have of literally rebuilding their broken empire. ANd no, one city is not enough, nor are a bunch of ruins in just plain forest… both may have been okay for the periods of isolation, when thelegion was still a threat and needed to be prevented from returnin or stopped. but there is much now.
I would use it frankly and weave an incredible story of recovery for the night elven peoples and use the fact the Nightborne are in the horde to bring horde players into it, rather than to drive Darnassian (and thus alliance players away). Suramar is night elven and it’s storyline is built on both factions pitching in, and the night elves having an intitmate involvement.
With the Nightborne on the horde, the horde layers can be invested in teh kaldorei story too, and it can finally go back to it’s WC3, level of not being attached to either alliance or horde, or in this case both.
It owuld also be a nice change, as finally they will be behaving like 10,000 year old people, to which humans and orcs must appear like babies.
WEll if they ever did race campagins and story, that would the the perfect opprotunity to write a grand night elven story that shows and brings how the Night elves start working together despite being in different factions, and what this means for the factions and present a different way they can be viewed from a player position. Which hasn’t done before.
For crying out loud, here are two factions where it makes sense, and you can build all sorts of things from it, show corporations , tensions, , growth
Hopefully inspire situations where more can be done with races down the line beyond the
expansion they are introduced.